Passengers Navigate Ship In The Dark; Cruise Ship Captain Gets Day In Court; U.S. Markets Poised To Open Higher; Obama Jobs Panel Pushes Tax Reform, U.S. Drilling
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the morning to you. It's nice to have you here with us. It's EARLY START. I'm Ashleigh Banfield.</s>ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Zoraida Sambolin. We're bringing you the news from A to Z. It is 6 a.m. in the east. So let's get started here.</s>BANFIELD: We've been so busy collecting breaking news overnight. The captain of that ship that's listing and taking on water, passengers are missing still. Well, we are starting to hear some of the things that he was saying to the Port Authority over recorded conversations. You will not believe some of the things he actually mentioned to them and how they responded. The Italian Coast Guard has also recovered the first black box from that deadly shipwreck.</s>SAMBOLIN: Mitt Romney has the target on his back at the GOP debate in Myrtle Beach. The South Carolina primary is just four days away. It is a tight race between Gingrich and Romney.</s>BANFIELD: Are you feeling that pinch when you go to fill up your tank because if you aren't, you mustn't be looking at the numbers flying by on the pump. These are the highest gas prices in January that we've ever had. Could we see the $5 mark this summer? It's great possibility. We'll get into all of that throughout this program. First, though, the breaking news that we want to give you this hour. On several front, we've been getting a lot of information throughout our worldwide organization overnight. A closer look at that terrifying time that those passengers inside that stranded cruise liner on its side were trying to escape the rising waters on board when that vessel ran aground. All of this is new since last night. First, let's get you to the video from the Italian Coast Guard. Remarkable, flying over in the helicopter the infrared images show all of those passengers just clinging to the side of the vessel. You can see there are hundreds of them. They're either waiting to get off, waiting for word of what to do, looking for lifeboats or figuring out some way just to escape the rising and very cold waters. Take a look more closely as the video continues to move. You can see the gash in the side of the vessel.</s>SAMBOLIN: Also new this morning, the Italian Navy blasting a hole in the ship. This all actually allow the search teams to enter and exit the cruise liner more easily. Right now, they are looking for 29 people who remain unaccounted for including two Americans.</s>BANFIELD: We're starting to get the sights and sounds inside that cruise ship as well. Take a look at the images. Passengers recording this as the emergency lights come on and the power goes off. You can see the passengers yelling to one another. They're wearing their life vests. But obviously there doesn't seem to be that mad race at this point. Many passengers reporting they were confused and they weren't getting a lot of direction, but look at that, just walking calmly by. Remarkable.</s>SAMBOLIN: He was saying in Spanish checking to see if everything is OK. We're also getting new images of the rocks that tore a 164- gash into the side of the ship. Twenty nine people, as we said, are still missing. At least six people are dead. This morning, we're also getting a first glimpse into the very disturbing conversations that were happening between the captain and the port authority. This is from a respected Italian newspaper. Here is what it says. The Port Authority says, Concordia, we ask you if all is well there. Concordia responds, all is well. It is only a technical failure. Port Authority, how many people are on board? Shapino was the captain, 200 to 300.</s>BANFIELD: So the Port Authority continues a little surprised by that number. There were about 4,000 people on those vessels. How come so few people? Are you on board? The captain says, no, I'm not on board because the ship is keeling. We've abandoned it. Port Authority</s>DAN RIVERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he's in there right now. I think it's important to point out this is not a court appearance as you would understand it in the states. Here in Italy, though, there's an investigating prosecutor who coordinates all the information and decides how to proceed and what he's doing at the moment is effectively questioning the captain. He has not been formally charged yet. He's being questioned. And then charges may follow by the looks of things almost certainly will follow from the information you've run through there. So he's in with the prosecutor now this morning. We didn't get a shot of him going in. He went in a side door. And apparently, according to some reports, this transcript with the Port Authority is being deliberately leaked despite his lawyers hoping it wouldn't be. Obviously, it casts him in a pretty bad light. As you mentioned, giving the impression that he was completely -- didn't have a grip on the situation, basically, the Port Authority as you as you said, incredulous that he was apparently trying to abandon ship and ordering him to get back on board and take charge. It's a further sort of damning piece of evidence that's come out in a whole string of evidence over the past few days, including people here on the island talking about the ship going way too close. We can clearly see from one of the photos that we've got in a system, a huge chunk of rock in the ship show that it hit that rock. We've been out on the water to see where it was. It is very close to the land, indeed. It's frankly pretty staggering as to why he went so close. His own employers, cruise -- Costa Cruise seems to be laying the blame pretty much squarely with the captain saying there would have been alarms on the bridge of this ship telling him not to deviate from the proper course.</s>BANFIELD: Dan, if you can continue monitoring the developments for us and let us know what happens. We appreciate your time there.</s>SAMBOLIN: Makes you wonder if family members of the missing have come to the island wait for word as they do in so many aircraft disasters. You see family members come.</s>BANFIELD: I would think so.</s>SAMBOLIN: Hoping for words. Some kind of word if any, incredible. All right, let's switch gears here. Hard to do. It's 6:07 in the east. With four days to go before the South Carolina primary, the five remaining Republican candidates took to the stage last night for the first of two debates this week.</s>BANFIELD: That picture that just went by, that was pretty much how it went. They were all surrounding Romney. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry zeroing in on the frontrunner. Rick Perry actually saying right out there, where are your tax returns? How about releasing them so that we can take a look? Governor Romney, and after battering each other, Newt Gingrich decided to turn the focus on unemployment instead and president Obama.</s>NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We actually think work is good. We actually -- we actually think saying to somebody, I'll help you if you are willing to help yourself is good. And we think unconditional efforts by the vast food stamp president in American history to maximize dependency is terrible for the future of this country.</s>SAMBOLIN: Gingrich would tie unemployment benefits to mandatory job training. U.S. markets will open today after being closed for the holiday yesterday. U.S. stock futures are looking up after markets lost about half a percent across the board on Friday.</s>BANFIELD: And normally I'm always thrilled to have the lovely and talented Christine Romans standing beside me so I can ask a question, but she's hiding behind the --</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Crazy thing. Have you ever seen the tax code? This is the capital gains. This is the tax code in is a only small part of the tax code. This is the tax code. We have it here in 16 different books. This is the American tax code. Everything from your mortgage interest deduction to employee benefits to capital gains, all these sorts of things. And the president's competitiveness counsel, his jobs counsel today, we're expected to hear more about what they're hoping to do in terms of, you know, simplifying the tax code and lowering corporate taxes. This road map to renewal, a draft of this was obtained by Reuters. You know the things we've heard before reforming the tax code, cutting the corporate tax rate, but also expanding domestic drilling of oil. Also perhaps how to boost manufacturing, how to boost education and innovation, you know, these are all things, ladies, that I think all go together. If you have a good public school system in this country, that fosters innovation and a very vibrant higher education system, which then helps jobs and all different kinds of jobs and manufacturing and the likes so we'll see what they come up with.</s>BANFIELD: In heels, you're like 5'10. So now you know --</s>ROMANS: Only somebody like Ali Velshi and I would have tax code tucked underneath their desk.</s>SAMBOLIN: We are zeroing in on capital gains tax for a reason?</s>ROMANS: No, I randomly picked that book. It's been a big part of the Republican proposals on the campaign trail. Some of them want to have no capital gains taxes at all. They say that it's unfair, it punishes success. We'll see that.</s>BANFIELD: You tend to wonder though when there's that much material and Steve Forbes comes along, let's simplify it and have a flat tax.</s>ROMANS: We have a $14 trillion, $15 trillion economy, a big country that's complicated and different and dynamic. Obviously, we need a lot of different kinds of rules and guidelines. But what we're going to hear, I think, from this panel that the president has been talking to is it's too much. It's too much. Some of these work across purposes. Everyone wants to simplify the tax code. Everyone does. It's like saying you love your mother, but how do you do it? Red, white, and blue, American apple pie and the election, you had asked me this. I found something out about U.S. markets during election years.</s>BANFIELD: You always tell me people hate uncertainty.</s>ROMANS: Election years tend to be good for markets and the last part of an election year tend to be better than the rest. So we looked back in recent memory 178 years.</s>BANFIELD: Using your recent memory.</s>ROMANS: And found on average the Dow gains 5.8 percent in election year, 29 times it's gone up, 15 times it's gone down. Now interesting, a couple of recent memory has been complicated in stock market. In 2000, it was a rare year when the S&P; fell, because we didn't know who the winner was, remember? So that was uncertainty. So that was a problem for stocks. In 2008 was the worst election year in the history of the world, we can look at all of this broad history, 178 years.</s>BANFIELD: And toss it.</s>ROMANS: But recent history has been very complicated. So there you go. That's just a little trip back to 1833 for you this morning and with all the tax code.</s>BANFIELD: And you got up at what, 3:00 in the morning, fed the baby and came in?</s>SAMBOLIN: It's the way the mind works. Thank you very much, Christine. We appreciate it.</s>BANFIELD: Just remarkable. Thank you for that.</s>SAMBOLIN: All right, so recess is over. In just a few hours, the House of Representatives is actually back in session. We have live pictures at the capital. Members of the Senate return next week.</s>BANFIELD: They have their work cut out for them as well. Remember that whole payroll tax cut that we were talking about before the holidays? The stop gap thing is over and the deadline now is February 29th. They've got to come up with some kind of permanent solution. But what is all that mean for you? Is your paycheck going to change? If you make $25,000 a year, it's going to be an extra $42 a month at stake. If $50,000 a year and you're talking an extra $83 a month if you make $100,000 a year. If you make $100,000, well, good on you and your savings would be $166 a month. Our congressional correspondent, Kate Bolduan is live in Washington, D.C. All right, Kate, this was really ugly before the holidays and I don't suspect for a moment, my friend, it's going to get any better. But is this a more serious deadline we're looking at now than it was before the holidays or could we have another stop gap?</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They're both very serious deadlines. This is when this payroll tax cut -- extension of this payroll tax cut will basically run out, which many say is an effective tax increase. Which was really the center of that bitter battle we're talking about back in December and for many of our viewers who hung with me through that very partisan fight, they're going to probably be rolling their eyes a bit because the beginning of this next session is a little bit of here we go again as the House comes back in and the Senate will be coming back in. They're going to be starting this new session with a little bit of last year's business. Payroll tax cut extending it, whether or not to extend it and for how long, that is, of course, front and center and will be top of the to-do list. When congressional negotiators, they will be getting back in town, there are 20 congressional negotiators that have been picked to kind of spearhead these talks. They will be getting right down to it right away along with congressional leaders. But if last session is any evidence as well as just what a political football, this payroll tax cut issue has become, I would not be surprised at all if this went right up to this coming deadline, which is the end of February.</s>SAMBOLIN: Well, you know, they listen to the people, right? They would know that those $83 a month really mean something. I pulled some of the folks who actually chimed in on our website and $40 will cover my son's school lunch for the month. The $40 is a pack of diapers. That's nothing when you have two little ones. So are they listening that this is really effecting folks and they have to come up with a resolution?</s>BOLDUAN: Folks on Capitol Hill say they are listening. They, of course, then point the finger at the other party saying that's the reason why things are being held up. But if you take a look at the recent -- at the most recent CNN poll approval rating of Congress it's hit a new low. I don't know how much lower Congress' approval rating could go. So how -- I think there's kind of obviously a bit of a difference between are they listening and are they acting. And that's kind of part of the fight coming forward. So the House comes back this evening. The Senate comes back next week. A lot of issues to take up right away. And will -- of course, election year politics will be center stage and be part of all of these -- all of these efforts going forward.</s>BANFIELD: Will it ever. Kate Bolduan, you clever lady, thank you. Because obviously, that's what President Obama has been possibly thinking of doing, is centering that campaign against not the opponent but against Congress with an 11 percent approval rating, it might be a good policy. Coming up, we got lots more for you including all the highlights on the big debate and whether Mitt Romney can zero in on the Tea Party and win the Tea Party over. And, by the way, do the Tea Party even count as an entire bloc. We're going to talk to the National Coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots.</s>SAMBOLIN: We've been warning you, gas prices are on the rise. Brace yourself. We're hearing $5 a gallon by the summer. You're watching EARLY START.