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NEW DAY

September Jobs Report; Weather Outlook; Grieving Dad Speaks Out; Interview with Karmel Alison

Aired October 22, 2013 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: A father's grief: just hours after learning his son committed suicide, he takes to social media to speak out against bullying. This morning, he is sharing his story with us.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Heartbreaking. We'll have that coming up.

Time now for the five things you need to know for your NEW DAY.

At number one, the FBI investigating whether a mystery girl discovered in Greece is actually a little American girl known as "Baby Lisa" who went missing back in 2011.

Police are looking for a motive this morning in a Nevada middle school shooting. A 13-year-old gunman killed a teacher and wounded two of its classmates before taking his own life.

Accused Al Qaida terrorist Abu Anas al-Libi will be back in court this morning in New York. Al-Libi has pleaded not guilty to charges related to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

The online hacking group Anonymous rallying today in support of Daisy Coleman. She's the Missouri teen who says she was sexually assaulted at 14 by a 17-year-old football player. The charges have been dropped, but now a special prosecutor has been assigned to the case.

And at number five, we are expecting Apple to announce updates to its line of iPads today, including an iPad Mini with a higher resolution display and a slimmed down fifth generation iPad. Now you can rush to the store and get your latest one, right?

We always update those five things to know. Be sure to go to newdaycnn.com for the very latest.

Kate, over to you.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much, Michaela.

Breaking news at this hour. The September jobs report just in to CNN. The report's been delayed by the government shutdown to this point. Let's get straight to chief business correspondent Christine Romans, who has the numbers.

So what's it looking like? CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And we saw the hiring slowed a little bit in September, 148,000 jobs created in the month. We'd expected more like 180,000 jobs. But the jobless rate, the unemployment rate, slipped just a tiny bit to 7.2 percent. That makes it the lowest unemployment rate since 2008.

A couple of takeaways from this report. I told you earlier how consumer confidence, Americans confidence in the economy, had really taken a nose dive. Now just 29 percent things - that things are good in the economy. What this tells you is that before the shutdown, you had a very slow healing in the labor market, a fragile labor market still, and then a government shutdown.

This will be the last report before the effects of the shutdown. The next report will be more difficult to parse to see what the impact was of a lack of leadership in Washington on hiring in this country and also the effect of the furloughs on hiring in this country. But 148,000 jobs created, 7.2 percent the unemployment rate. And, again, this is for September. This is that delayed report. Usually I bring it to you on a Friday. I'm bringing it to you on a Tuesday. Much delayed.

BOLDUAN: And one - one number that you always say we need to pay attention to is the labor force participation rate.

ROMANS: Yes, and that's a number that has been plummeting about -- the lowest levels in some 30 years, 1978 lows. We really want to watch that one closely because that is a number also that Ben Bernanke and the Fed watches very carefully. Why? They're going to be talking about pulling back on that stimulus into the economy. That stimulus over and over again each month, $85 billion. When will they feel that the economy, the labor market, is healthy enough to do that. Those numbers are going to be really important for the Federal Reserve.

It's all -- it's interesting that we had this shutdown. Interesting, I think, is the most optimistic word I've ever used about -

BOLDUAN: You're being very kind, yes.

ROMANS: Interesting because the Fed is parsing these numbers to decide how healthy the American economy is so it can take the training wheels off. Without these numbers, it's really been an unusual, unusual case for economists who have been trying to - trying to help the jobs market.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The Fed's not looking at that UE (ph) number, though. They're looking at the participation rate and really the under-employed as well, right, because that's where the -

ROMANS: Right.

CUOMO: That's - why don't we use that number? Tell us - talk about that number. We're not going to have it accurately calculated, but how much higher is the number of people who have had to take jobs that give them less pay and less time than, you know, they used to have?

ROMANS: It's been running almost double. I mean when you look at the underemployment rate, you're talking about double digit underemployment rate. And that's because people are taking part-time jobs when they want to work full-time.

People are not working, not up to their education level or their skills or they're simply discouraged and not able to get a job. That has been a real problem in this economy. And that's what's so maddening about the shutdown and the lack of real budget priorities in Washington because we need to be creating better jobs and have that be a singular focus and instead we're playing defense.

BOLDUAN: Yes, they've stopped talking about jobs altogether.

ROMANS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: That's one thing you hear over and over again, the focus on in-fighting, not on actually creating jobs.

ROMANS: That's right.

BOLDUAN: Christine, thank you so much.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

BOLDUAN: All right, coming up next on NEW DAY, bullying led his teenage son to commit suicide. And now this father is turning his grief into action. He is saying that bullying has to stop. And you will hear his message. He's going to be joining us live this morning.

CUOMO: Plus, see the woman standing right behind the president? You can barely see her there. He's talking about Obamacare. She saying, I'm going to faint. Case of nerves or an argument for Obamacare in the first place? She'll be with us live to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY. Let's head straight over to Indra Petersons for the latest on those chilly temperatures we've been talking about this morning in the Midwest and the Northeast.

Indra.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Oh, yes, we're actually seeing snow out there right now. We had something called an Alberta Clipper. A very fast-moving system that doesn't brings a lot of snow but really some cool temperatures with it.

However, you can start to see a little bit of snow now right around the quad cities, making its way over towards Chicago. And notice there's another system out there, also coming from New York, all the way down through Kentucky, even Tennessee right now, that's going to be bringing a little bit of light rain and also another round of cool temperatures.

Let's talk about these temperatures. That front that we just showed you showing you the rain, look at that difference of that spread right across that cold front. Charleston right now, 46 degrees behind it. Freezing air and even currently freeze warnings for Chicago, Indianapolis. Detroit right now, only 33 degrees. That same cold front with all of this cool air will spread east today into the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. So by tomorrow, you will feel that chill in the area.

Today, though, Chicago, you're only in the 30s right now. You're not expected to warm too much. Only looking for 41 degrees. That is your high today. That is a good 20 degrees below normal even for this time of year. So definitely cool air across the area.

What do we have? Well, the jet stream's dug really far down. Very easy to see where that cold pool of air is. And notice, these are today's highs. So check out Boston, 69. New York today about 66 degrees. By tomorrow, we're going to look at these temperatures drop down. Boston almost 20 degrees cooler. So 51 tomorrow will be your high. And again, we'll see that chill spread all the way down even into the southeast with about a good 10-degree temperature drop.

Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Indra, thank you very much.

Just this past Thursday, Brad Lewis learned that his 15-year-old son Jordan had killed himself. In a note Jordan left behind, he blamed bullying. So the grieving father took action. He posted on Facebook, pleading for justice for his son and other victims of bullying. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD LEWIS, FATHER OF BULLYING VICTIM: The suicide note he left stated that he was tired of life, I guess, basically, and that he's doing this because he was being bullied at school. This bullying has to stop. People have to stop treating other people the way they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Brad Lewis joins us now.

How is the family doing? How are you doing?

LEWIS: The family is really taking it hard. I understand his mom is really taking it hard. And she's not really up to wanting to do anything like this. But I just felt that it had to be talked about. It had to be - you know, I couldn't see no other kids going through, you know, this stuff. Because I know, as a grown-up, when I was a kid, I was bullied, living in Chicago, to the point being chased home, beat up and everything. But I never thought my son would have to go through this with the laws that were supposed to be in place and the way schools are supposed to be handling things. I thought, you know, that things were better.

But when my son came to me a month and a half ago and explained something - I mean he wasn't even wanting to come out and tell me. And I asked him and he says - I said, what's wrong? He says, "Kids are picking on me at school and bullying me." And I told him, I said, "You need to go to the principal. You need to go to the teachers or somebody and tell them about it." But I didn't know the extent of what was being done.

CUOMO: What have you learned?

LEWIS: Through kids though -- on the Facebook that's been befriending me and telling me about kids shoving him in to the locker room on the football team, kids, you know, just coming up behind him. One kid told me that last year a kid came up behind him and just punched him in the head out of nowhere on the football team. And --

CUOMO: So he quit playing football, right?

LEWIS: Yes. This year. I mean he was all ready for it during the summer, working out and everything. First day of football, he quit. And I had no idea why.

CUOMO: Did you ever talk to parents? Did you ever talk to the school about what was going on with him?

LEWIS: Never had any inclination that there was anything going on except for what he told me about a month and a half ago. And when I asked him, I said, "Take this to the principal. Take it to the, you know, the higher ups, because they should be able to do something about it." From that point on, he never even talked to me about things again.

And I even told him - I said - I cried about it when I told him. I said, you know, "I do understand. I do understand because I have been through it." And I said if, you know, "If you have to, you know, just tell me more." He never mentioned it. He reached out to a little girl that he really liked and that he was really close friends with named Carmine (ph) and she -- when she was told by him what he was going to do, her grandma did everything she could to contact the police and everything.

CUOMO: And they came out and talked to your son, right?

LEWIS: Yes. They did a wellness check and talked to him and talked to his mother. But by other standards, I was told at the funeral by somebody who works with crisis saying that the police should have called crisis intervention and -- that deals with children.

CUOMO: How did you find out what your son had done?

LEWIS: I was at work Thursday morning, on my post. I work for the Illinois Department of Corrections. And I got a call through outside line and it was his mother and she just hysterically cried out, "Jordan's dead." And I just kind of just didn't know how to take it. And I said, "What?" And she says, "Jordan's dead." And I said, "How? How did this happen?" And she said, "He shot himself."

And I'm just like -- and I just couldn't handle it. And I called immediately the supervisors to come down to relieve me. I had to explain to them. And I came down as soon as possible down to Marion area and I called the police, tried to talk to the detective in charge, asked him what was going on and he said he left a suicide note and he said in the suicide note he mentioned that he was being terribly bullied.

CUOMO: Now, when something like this happens, the family has to deal with it. The investigators will want to find out where he got the gun and why he did this. They're doing all of that, right?

LEWIS: Yes.

CUOMO: And what have you learn? What did you figure out about how he did this and why?

LEWIS: The gun was in the house. It was his mother's boyfriend's shotgun. And like I said, I don't know. I'm not pointing fingers or anything.

CUOMO: No, it's not about that. It's not about that. And I understand what your family's going through. And I think that everybody is going to feel the pain. And that's something that is important to you. You want to use this as an opportunity to let all the parents out there, all the kids who may be victims, all the kids who may be saying things that are wrong and doing things that are wrong and maybe they don't even know it, you want them to learn from this. What do you now know that you think people overlook and forget?

LEWIS: I think what parents don't realize is that they need to get -- look at the little things. You know, take everything that a kid is doing as an observation of what might be going on in their lives. But as well as I think that the schools need to quit turning a blind eye and trying to sit there and shove things underneath the rug, because I've had a lot of kids and a lot of parents on my Facebook say that this has happened and they have no result of getting it taken care of.

CUOMO: It's not just anybody, it's everybody that has to be involved?

LEWIS: It's everybody.

CUOMO: Brad, I'm so sorry to meet you this way. I feel for your family and what's going on. Please pass our regards to Jordan's mother as well, and let us know how we can help get the message out going forward.

LEWIS: I will. Thank you.

CUOMO: Thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, Chris, thank you so much.

Coming up next on NEW DAY, Obamacare is in the spotlight as we know but now so is Karmel Alison, she nearly fainted into the President's arms yesterday. She's doing well and she'll be joining us next to talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

You may have caught this moment yesterday. A woman nearly fainted at the White House right behind President Obama as he was giving a speech defending Obamacare. The President caught her and others right beside her caught her very quickly. And her name is Karmel Alison. And she is joining us now from Washington.

Karmel, I'm guessing probably not the reason you're guessing you would be in the spotlight ever, huh?

KARMEL ALISON, NEARLY FAINTED AT OBAMA'S SPEECH: Indeed. It was sort of an unexpected turn of events yesterday. I was, obviously, thrilled and honored to be on stage with the President, but was not looking forward to being the one who faints behind the President.

BOLDUAN: No kidding. How are you feeling this morning?

ALISON: Much better thank you. Much better.

BOLDUAN: Good what was -- what was going through your mind as you're standing there? And I -- we've all gotten faint at one point or another in our lives. What's going through your mind when you know you're standing right there and you see kind of -- this is coming?

ALISON: Well you know I was just so honored to be there. And I was there because I had written this blog post a few weeks ago about how I felt as a Type 1 diabetic and you know the Affordable Care Act suddenly becoming available and being able to see for the first time that you know I have other options, I'm not tied to the single health care plan I had before. And so standing up there and beginning to get faint I just had that moment of, like oh, no, don't let it be me. Please God not me.

BOLDUAN: Right, with nowhere to go of course.

ALISON: Right. And next thing I know, I'm you know the President is catching me and I've realized, oh, no, I was that person.

BOLDUAN: I was -- and you know we were talking about it this morning. And you're taking it all in such stride and of course. You know, it's good to hear that you're fine. But we were thinking about it this morning. You are not alone in this. We're looking back and this is not the first time this has happened. And we wanted to make sure that you felt better, that you're not alone in having maybe become faint at an event. Just take a look -- just take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It looks like we have somebody who may have fainted. Give them a little bit of room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 911. Somebody's down.

OBAMA: OK. We'll be all right. They'll be OK. Just give them a little space. Folks do this all the time in my meetings. The -- you always got to eat before you stand for a long time.

I think somebody may have fainted. You've got to get something to eat. You got to get some juice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: So as he said at the event with you, Karmel, this is what happens when the president talks too long. This, we can blame on the president. No, I'm just kidding.

ALISON: Well, it wasn't that long. But yes, just not having had that much to drink that morning, I think.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And congratulations is in order. We want to make sure that we say it.

ALISON: Thank you very much.

BOLDUAN: You are 20 months -- 20 weeks pregnant.

ALISON: 20 week.

BOLDUAN: Not 20 months pregnant. That would be a whole different story if we were talking about that -- definitely a story to tell the little one soon, huh?

ALISON: Right. You met the president.

BOLDUAN: Exactly even before you knew you were meeting him. That's wonderful. Well we're glad you're feeling much better and we're glad you were able to get your message out and why it was so important for you to be standing at that event. And it's great to meet you.

ALISON: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much.

ALISON: Thank you very much.

BOLDUAN: Of course.

All right we'll send it over to Michaela now.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right Kate. We want to show you your "Impact your World". Academy award winner Susan Sarandon recently honored for her commitment to ending world hunger. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA (voice over): It is a day of celebration at a village in Cambodia. Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon and her daughter have come to watch one of Heifer International's core programs in action.

SUSAN SARANDON, ACTRESS: Heifer International figured out a very efficient way to spend your money by having you sponsor an animal for a family that they then help for a year to make sure that they understand how to nurture that animal. And when that animal has offspring, they pass that on. The feeling of pride and satisfaction at being able to pass on something as valuable as that gift to another person is as important as filling their bellies.

PEREIRA: Heifer believes empowering women is the key to ending world hunger and poverty.

SARANDON: The families that I was fortunate enough to visit in Cambodia is certainly a testament to the power of women. They are the glue that bonds the community together. It showed me just how much we can accomplish when, as women, we recognize our ability, our voice and the fact that we can pull together to create some kind of change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Great story. Time for "The Good Stuff". Florida mother down on her luck, three hungry kids, no money. Made a bad choice she went into a grocery store, loaded up a cart and tried to walk out without paying. Nothing good about that. But then the police officer called in had to make a choice as well. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER VICKI THOMAS: I asked her, "Why -- why would you do that? What would make you do that? "

JESSICA ROBLES: She came out and asked, "Do you even have food at the house?" And I looked at her, you know, her face and told her, "No, I don't."

THOMAS: I made the decision to buy her some groceries, because arresting her wasn't going to solve the problem with her children being hungry.

ROBLES: All I want to tell her is thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so very much for doing this for us. And we're very thankful.

THOMAS: The only thing I asked of her is when she gets on her feet is that she helps someone else out and she said she would.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now look it's a reminder that there are families who are going hungry all over this country. And we should mention the mom doesn't get off scot-free. She got charged with a misdemeanor. She got a desk appearance ticket.

The officer involved is really the story here, it make it is the good stuff. Vicki Thomas, 20-year veteran, made the decision not to arrest her only after seeing that she had this clean record as well as the need. But what is the message in that about what you do with a job versus responsibility?

BOLDUAN: Cutting people a little slack and kind of walking in their shoes and understanding what they're going through.

PEREIRA: And showing tremendous compassion to the kids, too, to treat the parent with respect but also making her face the consequences.

CUOMO: She didn't just let her go.

PEREIRA: No, not at all.

CUOMO: She didn't just get -- I'm just going to give you a desk appearance ticket --

PEREIRA: Right.

CUOMO: She bought them groceries.

PEREIRA: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Paying it forward. That's good. Good stuff.

All right. That's it for us, which means it's time for Carol Costello. Good morning -- Carol.

PEREIRA: Hi there.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thanks so much. Have a great day. "NEWSROOM" starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for being with me.

We do begin with breaking news. We begin with a new measure of the economy and more proof that we are still bogged down in a sluggish recovery. Just minutes ago, the Feds released the September jobs report. Unemployment dipped slightly to 7.2 percent, about 148,000 jobs were created -- that's fewer jobs than expected and just another wrinkle in a disappointing snapshot.

Our chief business correspondent Christine Romans is in New York to tell us all what it all means. Good morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol. When you look at the average here, you've got about 185,000 jobs created on average each month before the shutdown.