Facebook Prepares for IPO; Interview with Senator Mike Lee
O'BRIEN: I like it. I like it. I like it. People are shooting for it. That would be Republican senator from Utah Mike Lee's playlist. That's Jimmy Eat World, "The Middle." We like his music. Good, people should try a little harder than some of the music we've had on.</s>WILL CAIN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Tom Davis is a cooler guy than you thought.</s>O'BRIEN: He's going to join us in a few minutes not to talk about music but some other stuff as well. First we've got to get to some headlines. Christine Romans has those for us. good morning, again.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm going to go broke buying all of these songs on iTunes. I keep adding to my list. Thanks, Soledad. Another night of bloodshed in Syria. Government forces clashing with armed demonstrators in the city of Homs. At least 20 people were killed. Meanwhile, Russia is blocking a U.N. resolution calling for Syrian President Assad to step down. Earlier on STARTING POINT former assistant secretary of state Jamie Rubin explained why he thinks Moscow is siding with the Syrians.</s>JAMES RUBIN, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Syria is one of the last places that Russia can remember what it's like to be a great power, where it has an ally who has a naval base that it can use, who buys weapons from it, who has close personal relations between the two leaders. So that gives them that sense of we're a world player and we have to go along.</s>ROMANS: Pakistan is denying a leaked NATO report that says Pakistan is directly assisting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The BBC obtained the report, which it says is based on 27,000 interrogations with captured Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. Pfizer is recalling one million packets of birth control pills this morning. They've discovered a packaging error which could leave women with a less than adequate dose and increase their risk of accidental pregnancy. And President Obama following through on his promise to a Texas woman to help her husband find a job. On Monday Jennifer Wedel told the president her husband is an engineer who hasn't worked full time for three years. This morning on early start Jennifer told us she got a call yesterday from the White House.</s>JENNIFER WEDEL, PRESIDENT OBAMA HELPING HUSBAND FIND JOB: She said that the Obama personally that morning made it a point to get my husband's resume out to several DFW contacts. So we are very grateful for that.</s>ROMANS: Jennifer is a Republican but she says she's not impressed with the GOP field, hasn't ruled out voting for the president come November. Soledad?</s>O'BRIEN: She hasn't ruled in or out anybody. I thought that was an interesting thing she said. She said I'm underwhelmed on all fronts. I've found that has mirrored the country.</s>TOM DAVIS, (R) FORMER VIRGINIA CONGRESSMAN: I bet her if her husband gets a job --</s>O'BRIEN: She said even if your husband gets a job, we're not the only people out of work. It's going to depend on policy.</s>CAIN: In polling you ask which party can better revive the economy, about a quarter of Americans consistently have said neither.</s>O'BRIEN: But what you could do is go ahead and just buy all the Facebook stock.</s>CAIN: Good luck with that.</s>O'BRIEN: Then retire. IPO from Facebook. We're told literally it could be any day now. IPO stands for initial public offering. What's the valuation? What will this go for?</s>ROMANS: It looks like maybe $5 billion is what people are targeting. We don't know yet. That's why we're waiting for the filing and the process that will unfold over the next few months. But $5 billion would make it the biggest tech stock. This is the first real look under the hood of Facebook, an eight-year-old company that rules the world. It's the first look under the hood.</s>O'BRIEN: How realistic is it that somebody, say you or me, could get in and actually get in on an IPO for Facebook?</s>ROMANS: You know, I don't have multi-millions invested at Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley.</s>O'BRIEN: Is it expensive, or we don't have access?</s>ROMANS: We don't have access in the first place, and then you'll have to say -- you look at the big investors, they'll get the first shot at it. The pension funds, endowments, people who have accounts and ties with the big investment banks who will be on the road pushing, trying to sell this. They'll be on a road show trying to sell this initial public offering to these big investors. The way we get in on it is later on, even maybe the next day or two, I don't know, when you buy the stock in your account or if your mutual fund company has bought it and now has put it in some mutual funds in your 401(k).</s>O'BRIEN: In other words, I have to come to work tomorrow.</s>ROMANS: Yes, we both have to work tomorrow.</s>O'BRIEN: OK, thanks, appreciate it. Campaign heating up. Of course, president and political background in Washington D.C. getting hotter too. A committee hearing talking about president Obama's recent appointments. There was one senator who's been fighting back against those appointments. That senator would be our next guest. Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah joins us. Nice to have you, sir. We like your music. Already we're off to a good start on that front. We appreciate you joining us.</s>SEN. MIKE LEE, (R) UTAH: Thank you.</s>O'BRIEN: Let's not get to that first. Let's talk about the race first and the victory and look at some of the exit poll numbers. We will get to Obama's appointments in a minute. Tea Party, strongly support the Tea Party went for Newt Gingrich in the state of Florida. Mitt Romney came in only at 33 percent. I'm wondering if your take is, listen, this could be a problem for Mitt Romney, or is it down the road anybody versus President Obama is going to get the support of those strong Tea Partiers? Which is it?</s>LEE: I would go more toward the latter of the statements. Any Republican who gets the nomination is going to have the enthusiastic support of all Republicans, I believe most Americans, and the overwhelming majority of Tea Party supporters. It's interesting that two-thirds of those who voted in Florida's presidential primary identified themselves as those who support the Tea Party. And Mitt Romney still won by a margin of about 15 points. But, look, regardless, the Tea Party is all about limited government. It's all about the fact that the federal government's too big and too expensive. Mitt Romney supports those principles and the Tea Party will get behind him if and when he becomes the nominee, which is looking increasingly likely.</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Senator, good morning. Ron Brownstein. Republicans are concerned about the president's recess appointments, in particular Richard Cordray to run the consumer finance bureau. But the Republican position was that they would not confirm any appointee to that bureau unless the president agreed to substantive changes in the underlying law. Can you name a precedent in American history where the Senate took a position that they would not confirm someone for a legally created position unless the law itself was changed? Has that ever been done before?</s>LEE: You know, I'm not sure that I can name a precedent where that has happened. I also cannot name a precedent where the Senate has been asked to confirm someone to a position that wields this kind of power. The CFPB holds power that is unprecedented. This is someone that would act without any oversight by Congress or the president, doesn't serve subject to the pleasure of the president, and would have unprecedented power over our financial services industry. And so this is concerning to many Republicans and it's concerning to many Americans.</s>O'BRIEN: So here's what you said last week. I want to play a little chunk of that and we'll talk on the other side.</s>LEE: Given this president's blatant and egregious disregard for both constitutional procedures and for the Senate's unquestioned role in such appointments, I find myself duty bound to resist the consideration and approval of additional nominations until the president takes steps to remedy the situation.</s>O'BRIEN: OK, so am I wrong in hearing you say when you say "I find myself duty bound to resist the consideration, I will not do anything until this is fixed in a way that I'm satisfied"? Is that what you're saying?</s>LEE: No, I'm not saying I won't do anything, but what I said is I'm going to resist them. I didn't indicate exactly how I'll be doing that. Generally I don't show my cards in advance of exactly what play I'm going to make, but what I'm saying is I've cooperated with this administration up to this point. I've voted for scores of presidential nominees with whom I had some significant philosophical difference. Now the president has taken power that doesn't belong to him.</s>O'BRIEN: But some people read this as you saying I'm going to be an obstructionist. Here in Congress I'm going to be an obstructionist moving forward. I'll play a little chunk of what president Obama said and then we'll talk on the other side.</s>LEE: No, that's really not what I'm saying.</s>O'BRIEN: Hold on one second. I hear you.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And they deserve better than gridlock and games. One senator gumming up the whole works for the entire country is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned.</s>O'BRIEN: OK. So sorry to cut you off there but I wanted to play what the president's takeaway from what you said was. You said that's not what you meant. Explain that.</s>LEE: That's not what I said. The president was eager to make that characterization. That's not what I said. Look, my point is this, this discussion. This discussion about the Constitution. It's about the fact that ours is not a government of one. I've talked to people throughout my state and across the country who are concerned. They feel somewhat powerless because the president has taken power and exercised power that doesn't belong to him. It belongs to the people. And it's authorized to be exercised by people who are duly elected to the United States Senate. He's made recess appointment at a time when the Senate was not in recess for purposes relevant to the recess appointments clause, and that is a problem. Because we don't have a government of one, we have a Senate that makes sure that presidential nominations of a certain level have to be confirmed, and he didn't follow that process here. I'm going to hold him accountable for that.</s>O'BRIEN: Go ahead.</s>DAVIS: Senator, what about going to the courts on something? Recess appointments have been defined. You could adjourn one evening and he could appoint between the evening and the next day under this definition. What's the answer? How is the Senate going to react to this?</s>LEE: Thank you for raising that point. That's part of the concern here is that under the president's own logic, taken to its logical conclusion it could suggest he could do exactly that, that we could adjourn for the weekend or perhaps even for the evening and he could say, OK, I'm making a recess appointment.</s>O'BRIEN: OK, before I let you go, I hear you and I get what you're saying. But I want to ask you this final question, which is in a way he's making you, and you're becoming the poster child for a Congress that stands in the way of something getting done. Isn't that kind of the bigger problem? The people hear this and they say, god, again, Congress, 11 percent approval. Can you people not get to work and get something done please?</s>LEE: We are getting to work and we're doing our best to get something done. We are at the same time duty bound to that Constitution to which we've all taken an oath. And our job is to get something done and to do it within the procedures that have been outlined in our law of laws, the U.S. constitution. And we can't simply overlook that just because the president wants to have his way and he wants to have his way right now. The constitution isn't always efficient, but it is the law. We are duty bound to uphold it. The American people deserve better than to have that document overlooked.</s>O'BRIEN: Senator Mike Lee joining us. He's a Republican from the state of Utah. He was joining us from the Russell Rotunda, hard time seeing those pictures. We appreciate it.</s>LEE: Thank you.</s>O'BRIEN: Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT. The Senate is considering a blow that would ban insider trading for members of Congress. Really? Shouldn't that have been written in somewhere already? Coming up we're going to talk to a lawmaker who says they engage in that practice more than you might think. You're watching STARTING POINT. We've got to take a short break. We're back in just a moment.