Secret Service Hit with Another Scandal; Congress to Vote on Obamacare Amendment; Interview with Debbie Wasserman Schultz
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now base officials aren't saying much, but they do tell CNN that it happened while the marines were clearing an area where various bomb strikes were during training exercises. And a military spokesman said it could have involved artillery suddenly detonating. The incident comes eight months after a mortar blast killed seven marines during a training exercise in Nevada.</s>MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And new this morning, we want to show you amazing live pictures, a sinkhole swallowing up part of a home along Florida's gulf coast. Right now you're looking at an image of a boat that is literally teetering on the edge of that sinkhole. We're told first responders are on the scene. Local media reporting that homes in the immediate area have been evacuated. Utilities have also been shut down just in case. Thankfully no injuries have been reported. You might recall last year, earlier this year, a sinkhole opened up under a home about 30 miles away in Florida last February, that sinkhole opening below a man's bedroom and essentially swallowing him up.</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, another scandal rocking the Secret Service. Two officials charged with keeping the president safe now accused of misconduct. The allegations involve everything from sexually suggestive e-mails to a misplaced bullet. This comes as the agency is still trying to rebound from that prostitution scandal last year. Let's bring in Joe Johns live from Washington with more. Good morning, Joe.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. It certainly is a troubling new issue for the U.S. Secret Service at a time when they're trying to get past all of the issues serving Cartagena and questionable conduct there. This latest concern for the agency stems from an incident at Washington, D.C.'s exclusive Hay Adams hotel. And perhaps most troubling for the agency, it involves two of its supervisors. And these supervisors actually work in the presidential detail which protects the president. Sources confirm to CNN that two Secret Service agents are now under investigation. That investigation got started after an agent removed ammunition from his weapon and apparently left a bullet in the room of a guest he had been visiting there at the hotel. He apparently tried to get back into the room to retrieve the bullet, and at that time the hotel notified the White House. Investigators followed up by taking a peek at the agent's BlackBerry. At that time they discovered what appear to be sexually suggestive messages that were sent to another government employee. So those two supervisors now have been disciplined to some extent. They both have -- one has been reassigned, another, of course, has been removed from his position. Chris?</s>CUOMO: OK, so we're going to have to wait to see what the response is here. But let's look at the future as a function of the past. Whatever came out of that scandal in Colombia, Joe? Any sweeping changes in how the Secret Service operates or picks their men?</s>JOHNS: There's certainly a lot more sensitivity you can say at the agency. The agency named its first female director Julia Pierson, and that came just about seven months ago. There was also a lengthy inspector general's report that was put into play here. Still, I think you can say they're very good at investigating allegations of sexual misconduct involving their agents, but not clear just how much systemic change has come as a result of what happened in Cartagena, Chris.</s>CUOMO: All right, Joe, appreciate the reporting. We'll keep watching this one.</s>BOLDUAN: Thanks, Joe. Now it's the Democrats who seem to be getting fed up with the Obamacare fiasco right now. Tomorrow, the Republican-controlled House will be voting on a bill to allow millions of Americans who have been dropped by their insurance companies to keep their policies if they like them, a promise that came from the White House. This is leaving the White House scrambling to offer their own plan before Democrats choose to break ranks.</s>CUOMO: Joining us now is Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She's the chairwoman of the DNC. Great to have you with us this morning, congresswoman.</s>REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, (D) FLORIDA: Great to be with you both.</s>CUOMO: Let's deal with what is on the table, right? Where is the backbone among your party members? Why with these numbers that you should have expected with the rollout not going well, you should have expected because you talked about it, you should have expected all these problems, why all this talk of revolt/</s>SCHULTZ: Let me correct the record. One is that the vote tomorrow on the Upton bill in the House of Representatives would go much further than simply allowing people to keep their plan if they like it. What it would do is actually allow new policies to be sold that would allow insurance companies to drop people or deny them coverage for preexisting conditions, allow insurance companies to charge women double just for being women, allow the annual caps to be removed, to be re-added again, where the Obamacare legislation prohibits it. So it would set up two completely different tracks and further undermine the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Democrats will not revolt tomorrow.</s>BOLDUAN: That might be the case that that is what the bill does, but still Democrats are threatening in the House of Representatives that they're going to have to vote for the Republican plan because it's going to put them in a bad political position if Democrats don't offer something better. So what's the alternative that you, Democrats or the White House is going to offer up?</s>SCHULTZ: Kate, tomorrow when that legislation comes on the floor, I'm confident that Democrats are going to stand as we have in unity to continue to support fully implementing the Affordable Care Act. We do all believe that we should make sure that folks who like their plan can keep it. I know I'm confident that president Obama and his administration is working diligently to come up with a fix for that problem. But let's also recognize that the people who have faced losing their coverage that they like currently, most of them, the overwhelming majority will be able to go on that website, can now because of the improvements in the Web site, shop for coverage that's better in benefits and lower in cost. I'll give you a perfect example. There's a woman in my district, Carolyn Newman, who is a breast cancer survivor. She got a letter from her insurance carrier, Blue Cross, that said that the plan she had now, which is $1,270 a month was now, with the new coverage that would be made able would only be $604 a month, saving her $7,000 a year. That is really significant when it comes to someone who wasn't able to get insurance coverage as a breast cancer survivor in the first place.</s>CUOMO: You're caught up in the optics though, right now. Reality is perception, and here you have the president, he says if you like your doctor, your plan, you can keep it.</s>SCHULTZ: The overwhelming majority of Americans are able to do it.</s>BOLDUAN: You're talking about 10 million people. That's not something to sneeze at.</s>SCHULTZ: We're not sneezes at it.</s>CUOMO: It seems like, congresswoman, you're losing the argument, the narrative at least on two levels. One, you said you can keep it, but you can't. There may be good reasons that you can't keep your plan that you're not making arguments for. You're not even defending your own bill. What's going on here?</s>SCHULTZ: I'm certainly here defending the implementation of the Affordable Care Act because let's look at what's happened since 2010. Since 2010 millions of young adults can stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26. Annual caps are now a thing of the past so that people don't face medical bankruptcy, and lifetime caps will be a thing of the past beginning on January 1st. Women can get access to life-saving preventative care, without a co- pay or deductible. And I'll tell you, Chris, as a breast cancer survivor, after I shared my own story publicly, I had so many women who were under insured come up to me and say, Debbie, I had breast cancer and I had to choose between the chemo and the radiation because I couldn't afford the co-pay or the deductible on both. That is the peace of mind that the Affordable Care Act has already brought and will bring to millions more. And with every passing month, we will see millions more people sign up for coverage. Look, let's not discount that 500,000 people have been able to sign up for coverage, and we've had a million more go on the website, register and are now shopping for coverage. We will have more improvements over time.</s>BOLDUAN: Quick question about the politics of it as a chairwoman of the</s>DNC. SCHULTZ: Sure.</s>BOLDUAN: You told Candy Crowley Democratic candidates in 2014 should be and will run on Obamacare, because that -- that will be a centerpiece of their campaigns and that they should run on Obamacare. Karl Rove wrote in "The Wall Street Journal" this morning, that "Republicans should pray every night that Democrats take her delusional advice and make Obamacare their centerpiece." I want you to respond to Karl Rove.</s>SCHULTZ: Let's look at the contrast. Just last week in Virginia you had a candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, for governor of Virginia, who essentially staked his campaign on Obamacare and said, you know, if you want Obamacare to be implemented vote for the other guy, Terry McAuliffe. If you don't, vote for me. Guess what, Terry McAuliffe will be inaugurated as governor of the state of Virginia in January. And when we have an opportunity with every passing month for people to fully feel the benefits as they already have been since 2010, and they're contrasting between Republicans who were willing to shut the government down over denying people access to quality, affordable health care, who were willing to jeopardize our economy in the name of throwing obstacles in the path of Americans simply being able to stay healthy, and Democrats who want to focus on creating jobs, getting this economy turned around, investing in education, and insuring that we never again can take the peace of mind away from people who simply want to get access to quality, affordable health care, you're darn right our candidates are going to run on the advantage that Obamacare will be going into the 2014 election, because the choice will be very clear.</s>BOLDUAN: What I hear you saying is bring it on, Karl Rove.</s>SCHULTZ: Darn right. Darn right. I'm ready. We'll be ready.</s>CUOMO: He's the least of your problems. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, thank you for joining us on</s>NEW DAY. SCHULTZ: Thank you, both.</s>BOLDUAN: Great to see you be you.</s>SCHULTZ: You, too.</s>CUOMO: That's the big issue for them is can they hold it together in the face of the political storm? She made the case well there, but she needs the rest of the party to do the same.</s>BOLDUAN: Very good point, Chris.</s>CUOMO: So let's get over to Indra Petersons watching the cold go by, not feeling good about it, sleeves this morning. How's it look?</s>INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's easy to run to the car in the morning when you actually have sleeves on. We're talking about temperatures cool in the morning for one more day. After that, things will rebound. Regardless, right now a lot of us below freezing, 20s and 30s are out there. Pittsburgh 27. Detroit right now 29 degrees. We want the change, and that includes the south. Look at their temperatures. We're talking about Jackson 26, Atlanta below freezing right now at 31. Even stretching back into Texas, we are currently seeing the 30s. So for that reason we do have freeze warnings from Texas all the way in through Georgia. This should be the last night you deal with this. Behind this of course we'll be talking about the warming trend. All thanks to the high pressure, moving off to the east. So with that, you start to pull the wind off of the Gulf where it's warmer, and all that warm air makes its way up into the northeast. So that's why temperatures will feel so much better. I mean a big jump in a short period of time, Pittsburgh, 12 degrees warmer, Nashville, 13 degrees warmer today. You get the trend, five to 15 degrees warmer for the entire eastern half of the country. What does it look like for you? D.C., 55 is your high. Boston is doing a lot better. Instead of feeling like the teens, today you're getting 50 and charlotte goes up to 58. The best news of all, as we go towards the weekend we'll continue this warming trend. So for once instead of talking about Debbie Downer for the weekend, we're talking about rain or snow, this time warming up and beautiful this weekend.</s>BOLDUAN: Thanks, Indra.</s>PETERSONS: Sure.</s>BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY, drug use, abusing his staff, and many more new bizarre allegations surrounding the embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, but are they enough to push the mayor out of office? Are they enough for him to go get help? It's unclear.</s>CUOMO: Under the topic of wild, how about the court battle between Alec Baldwin and his alleged stalker. She got tossed in jail, contempt of court. He compared her to a Hitchcock film. So what really went on between these two? We'll unpack it when we return.