Transcripts For CNNW Anderson Cooper 360 20111013 : vimarsan

CNNW Anderson Cooper 360 October 13, 2011



we're talking about the occupy wall street movement, now in its sixth week in cities across the country. large crowds have taken to the streets in philadelphia and boston and elsewhere. they're protesting income inequality and the lack of jobs. last week, herman cain said those fired up over america's economic troubles had no one to blame but themselves. here's what he told "the wall street journal". >> don't blame wall street. don't blame the big banks. if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself! >> then this past weekend, cain fired another shot at the protesters on cbs' "face the nation." watch. >> my parents never said that we hope that the rich people lose something so we can get something. no! my dad's idea was, i want to work hard enough so i can buy a cadillac, not take somebody else's. >> but, listen. now cain is tweaking his message and saying the protesters should be blaming someone. the wohite house. here's what he said last night during the bloomberg/"washington post" gop debate. >> that response was directed at the people that are protesting on wall street, not that 14 million people who are out of work for no reason of their own, other than the economy's not growing. not the millions of people that are underemployed. basically targeted the wrong target. it should be against the failed policies of this administration, not wall street, is where they should be protesting. >> herman cain is not the only presidential hopeful changing his message. so is the former massachusetts governor, mitt romney. last week on the campaign trail in florida, romney said this about the occupy wall street movement. "i think it's dangerous, this class warfare." but monday, romney sounded much different when meeting with voters in new hampshire. >> i don't worry about the top 1%. i don't -- nice worrying about, gee, we need to help them. i don't worry about that. they're doing just fine by themselves. i worry about the 99% in america. i want america once again to be the best place in the world to be middle class. i want to have a strong and vibrant and prosperous middle class. and so, i like at what's happening on wall street, and my own view is, boy, i understand how those people feel. >> you got that? romney saying he now understands how the protesters feel. no more talk of class warfare. he even used a key phrase at the occupy wall street movement. they refer to themselves as the 99%. now to a key republic on capitol hill, eric cantor. here's what he said about the wall street protesters last week at the values voters summit. >> i, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying wall street and the other cities across the country. >> then yesterday in his weekly briefing with the media, cantor changed his message dramatically. gone was his reference to so-called mobs. he told reporters, "people are upset and they're justifiably frustrated. they're out of work. the economy is not moving. their sense of security for the future is not clear at all. people are afraid and i get it." then he added, "when we have elected leaders stirring the pot, if you will, that's not good." elected officials stirring the pot. that's not good. well, does that apply to himself and others? i talked about it just a short time ago with cnn contributor erick erickson, who's editor and chief of redstate.com, and jeffrey sachs, the author of "the price of civilization." so, erick, we're beginning to see a softening when it comes to the demonstrators. let's see if you want to re-do here. you've called them quote, whiners, hipsters, hippies, dirty urban hipsters, senior citizens who never grow up, and college trust funders. stand by all that? >> absolutely. >> absolutely. in a word. so why, then, if you stand by it absolutely, why are some leading republicans, you see it in the presidential candidates, you see it in the congressional leadership, softening in rhetoric, getting a bit more moderate, in some cases, even a bit more supportive? >> because, you know, part of it has to do with mitt romney. mitt romney is the wall street guy. and there are some guys, the ron paul supporters and others, who are out there with the guys on wall street, and so they're trying to pit themselves against mitt romney and say mitt romney can't tap into this populous movement that's going out there right now. if mitt romney weren't in the race, you probably wouldn't see them backing off it. >> why do you say absolutely? why a one-word answer. no second thoughts. they're citizens demonstrating their rights, no? >> well, yeah, they're citizens demonstrating their rights, but what are they demonstrating? there's not a whole lot of coherence, but what is coherent out there is that somehow greed and they're envious of the 1% and those people are bad and we should take tho them and give t others. this is 1960s communism in this year's college kids. >> you staunchly support these demonstrators. the rhetoric from the conservative side has been cooling a bit. you still hear criticism, though. what are they up to? this is divisive. they're hurting the economy. maybe it's misguided. how do you respond? >> i think when they say that "we are the 99%," they're speaking for a great many americans who feel that the system is unfair and that the system has been rigged. and when they look at what's happening on wall street, they see companies that have paid bonuses of tens of billions of dollars to senior management, and then drove the economy, both the u.s. and the world economy, absolutely into the ditch. and then they saw those bonuses that paid afterwards with u.s. taxpayer bailout money. and then they saw these firms pay huge fines for their financial misdeeds. our marquee firms, goldman sachs, jpmorgan, merrill lynch. and they're saying, what kind of system is this, where these firms break the rules, require massive taxpayer bailouts, and yet they pay themselves gargantuan, virtually, unbelievable, unimaginable sums for compensation. that's not america. and i think that they are finding a resonance all through this country. >> and one of the questions, erick, might there be a double standard applied from the right, since most of these demonstrators are liberals? you wrote on redstate.com about these protesters. "maybe instead of playing class warfare, you people should grow up and get a job." i was having conversations with you not all that long ago, you were one of the loudest voices saying, stop criticizing, deponent dismiss the fetea partyers and don't paint them with a broad brush. fair? >> i would say so. the tea party movement was largely about getting government out of their lives. what these people seem to be about is getting government more vested in our lives and getting government to punish people who they can they are unjust. there's a lot of talk about greed in this occupy wall street movement. but the people who are occupying, they want to trade one form of greed, that of money and the acquisition of wealth for another form of fwreed, power for themselves to the decide who should be the winners and losers instead of letting the free market do it. >> erick, how can you still even use these terms after trillions of dollars of cash going from the fed to wall street at zero interest rates to t.a.r.p. and the bailout, and you call this the free market. what are you talking about, actually? >> well, you know, jeffrey, i'll tell you. i think largely it is because the policies that folks are out there occupying wall street right now have advocated in the past more government intervention has caused these things. the government should never have gone in as far as they did. the government should have never gone in with things like sarbanes-oxley. the government should not have gone in -- the government should not gone with a lot of regulations. >> listen to what they're saying. they're saying that the system is rigged, that this has been gamed, that these banks were bailed out by actually both political parties. >> i opposed the bailouts as well. we should have let the banks fail, actually, and let new banks spring up from them. >> well, what they're saying is that this is a rigged system that has helped the people at the very top, not helped the rest of society. >> all right, gentleman, we'll end this here right now. erick, jeffrey, i'm going to call it a truce right here. gentleman, thanks both for coming in tonight. as we can see, some of the rhetoric's cooling. not all of it. thank you. and so let us know what you think. we're on facebook or follow me on twitter @johnkingcnn. up next, mitt romney's on a roll, but not the front-runner in a new poll. and this man is accused of killing saudi arabia's ambassador to the united states. iran is rejecting any ties to the suspected scheme. but iran is accused of another bizarre plot right here on u.s. soil, targeting a u.s. citizen. details ahead. first, let's check in with isha sesay. >> damaging testimony against dr. conrad murray, and medical experts for california's medical board lays out what he says are six examples of gross negligence by murray. that and more when "360" continues. dose. citracal slow release... continuously releases calcium plus d for the efficient absorption my body needs. citracal. i'm a wife, i'm a mom... and chantix worked for me. it's a medication i could take and still smoke, while it built up in my system. 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[ laughs ] [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. raw politics tonight. there's a possible new front-runner in the republican battle for the white house. a new nbc/"wall street journal" poll gives the edge now to herman cain, with 27% backing him. mitt romney follows close behind with 23%. texas governor rick perry third now with support from 16% of republican voters surveyed. the poll isn't all bad news for romney, though. nbc and "the wall street journal" also find romney remains the strongest candidate in a head-to-head matchup with president obama, trailing him by just two percentage points. well, tonight, president obama's re-election campaign is taking notice, trying to slow romney's momentum. the days of team obama praising the massachusetts governor for his health care reform are likely over. the tone is changing. today the obama campaign fired back at romney for this comment he made during last night's bloomberg/"washington post" debate. >> the right course for america is not to keep spending money on stimulus bills, but instead to make permanent changes to the tax code. look, when you give -- as the president's bill does, when you give a temporary change to the payroll tax and say we're going to extend this for a year or two, employers don't hire people for a year or two. >> the obama campaign claims romney keeps changing his message on taxes. they're labeling him a political flip-flopper. in a conference call today, david axelrod went on the attack. >> it is a pattern time and time and time again. and you heard it again last night. and it's consistent with a guy who ran for the -- who ran for the governorship of massachusetts and ran for the senate in massachusetts, as a pro-choice moderate who supported civil unions and who supported environment al protections and so on, to the guy you see today, who is hard after that tea party vote and has thrown all of his positions -- all of his positions over." >> david axelrod didn't stop there. listen to this. >> the question of trust is important, and particularly for the middle class, at a time when people are struggling and have been for some time. they want to know that where the president was yesterday is where he'll be today is where he'll be tomorrow, and that the commitments that he makes are ones that they can count on, and it's hardly the case when you're all over the lot, as governor romney was last night, has been through this campaign, has, in fact, been throughout his career. >> safe to say team obama on the offensive. joining me now, ari fleischer, cnn contributor and the former press secretary for president george w. bush. also bill burton, a democratic strategist who also has plenty of time working in the white house press room. he's former obama's former deputy press secretary. gentleman, good to see you. ari, let's start with these "wall street journal" poll numbers. how much of a surprise, do you view this as herman cain really taking off to the top of the pack? should romney be concerned? >> i think it continues to show how fluid and open the republican race is. i've been saying for months that nobody has a firm foundation underneath them and i think that's what this poll is showing. my advice to republicans and any other political observers is read political polls the way you should look at the stock market. don't look at it every day, look at it about once a month, because it's way too volatile and open on the republican side still. but good for herman cain, he's really caught on. >> good for herman cain, he has caught on. and bill, ari makes a good point, it's early, and these are national polls. we'll get to iowa and new hampshire about 80 days from now. but when you look at this from the democratic perspective, do you like the volatility in the republican race? do you think it helps you? >> what's interesting for me is the lack of volatility there's been for mitt romney. you've seen other candidates promoted like mitch daniels or chris christie, you've seen those go up and down like rick perry. one thing that's constant is romney and him being the nominee. even though perry's rise has been up and down, that went to mitt romney. he's been running for president for five years. his support has flatlined, miss money is behind where he was around last time around. and in key states like iowa and nevada, he's actually behind where he was, at this point in the campaign, four years ago. >> and jed, ari fleischer, bill burton says there must be something for the romney people to worry about, but must also be something for the obama people to worry about. senior campaign adviser going negative on romney. what do you make about that strategy? a conference call solely dedicated to trying to rip apart mitt romney. >> traditionally presidents don't go after all the potential opponents in an upcoming primary, because they want to save their fire, and they're busy governing. i find it an interesting development in politics, that obama's allowed the staff -- they've gone after huntsman, after perry, after romney. it seems they really want to play a hand in this primary. and i suspect the reason he doesn't have a strong enough record to run, given unemployment, the deficit, and the economic troubles of our country. when you're a president and you can't run on what you've done, you attack anybody you can find. and i think they're trying to undermine whoever the eventual republican nominee is going to be. >> and bill, you say romney seems to have this ceiling and republicans are looking around, he can't get up higher, but by attacking him, looking at anybody but romney, aren't you possibly helping romney? white conservatives say, the obama people are after me, therefore they must view romney as the strongest guy? >> two things here. for starters, i think it's very hard for democrats to have too big of an impact on trm primary. republican voters aren't looking to president obama and to david axelrod and democrats to get a sense of who they ought to support. and mitt romney very well may end up the republican nominee, but it's not because he's like their greatest choice, it's because they've exhausted all of their options. and the second point here is the phenomenal thing that ari fleischer just had to say about how presidents who don't have a very good record to run on start to attack their opponents, because i actually recall not -- right about this time in 2003 when president bush was running for re-election, they telegraphed a strategy in which they would go after the democratic nominee. and i remember karen hughes and other bush surrogates going after the democratic candidates whenever they opened their mouths on things that had to do with iraq or the war against terrorists, all over the world. so, you know, let's consider history here before we start saying that we're breaking new ground on the democratic side. >> you're making the point, what goes around comes around. some of this is cyclical. ari, the polls do show consistently -- it's early, but romney has the best head-to-head numbers against obama. does that help republicans who are thinking, we're going to beat this guy? >> there are going to be two major factors. do republicans like the people who's going to be the nominee? do they ideologically agree with that person? but electability is also a slice of decision-making pie. and if a candidate cannot look like heir going to beat barack obama, i think that's going to be filtered into the judgment that a voter makes. let me go back to bill's earlier point. bill's right about the timing of that. everybody does make an issue of who their opponent is. that's the way politics works in this country, and there's nothing wrong that. but it's just the timing. i don't remember the bush people doing that in 2003. they waited later into 2004 when there was a known nominee. barack obama is entitled to this strategy. everybody can change how politics works. it's just a surprise to me that it looks like they'll go after as many as they can. one final point, if i were president obama, i would be very careful going after mitt romney on his flip-flops, indeed, he did change his rights on gay rights and abortion. but barack obama has so many more of those on his own. when he was a senator, he voted against raising the debt limit and then he wanted to raise the debt limit. he indicated george bush violated the constitution and now barack obama, of course, is keeping up with indefinite detention, warrantless wiretaps, secret renditions, keeping guantanamo open. so it's not a fruitful area i would go after if i were barack obama. it only opens himself up to similar attacks. >> i think ari's auditioning for the number two spot on the republican ticket there. >> he's got my vote. >> we'll have both of you guys back to fight this out as we go further. chris christie endorsed mitt romney yesterday and tonight another powerful republican came pretty close to doing the same thing. >> i continue to be impressed with mitt romney's performance in these debates. he's cool, calm, collected. he's quick, he's agile. i think he could do well going up against president obama in the fall. >> he's consistent, isn't he? >> he's very consistent. and very disciplined and all the things you would want in a candidate. other candidates have had moments where they've done extraordinarily well as well. i'm proud of the entire field. >> you can see the rest of that inte

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