Interview with Congressman Steve Israel of New York; Rick Santorum Surges in Recent Polls
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome, everybody. STARTING POINT this morning is looking at the numbers that the DNC can no longer ignore. In polls, Rick Santorum is up by double digits. This morning, I'm going to talk to Congressman Israel, one of the Democrats who is charge of crafting the party message. And fighting words. Newt Gingrich says President Obama is dangerous and that defeating him is a duty of national security. We'll talk about that this morning. And then the daughter of a Reagan aide who went to Hollywood came back to marry an ex-Clinton staffer. Ali Wentworth is going to join us. He's got a new book about her wild life. It's called "Ali in Wonderland." It's very funny. We're going to talk to her. STARTING POINT begins right now.</s>O'BRIEN: Katrina is hooking us up. Katrina Vanden Heuvel from "The Nation," editor and publisher is joining us this morning as part of our panel. Also, Steve Kornacki is with us, from Salon.com. And we also have Congressman Scott Garrett joining us, from the great state of New Jersey just across the river from us. Let's begin with our STARTING POINT this morning. One day until CNN's Republican presidential debate, Santorum's rising poll numbers not only making Mitt Romney's folks nervous, also catching the attention of the Obama re-election campaign. Democrats are now going on the attack against Romney and Santorum. They've been hitting Santorum on the economy, Romney on the auto industry bailout position. One release from the DNC about Santorum reads this, "Rather than focusing on jobs, the economy or any other issues that matter most to Americans, he's discussed man's dominion over earth." Democratic Congressman Steve Israel of New York from Galen (ph). He comes from Smithtown. He's in -- you're in West Bab, right? Am I right about that? Nice to see you, sir.</s>REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D), NEW YORK: Your hometown.</s>O'BRIEN: Yes, yes. Kind of. Nice to have you. Let's get right to it. Give me the strategy behind going after Rick Santorum right now. Is it because you think he is a viable threat in the general election or is it to raise his profile so that it can ultimately undermine Mitt Romney as they make their way through the primary process on the GOP side? Which is it?</s>ISRAEL: Well, the chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the strategy is none of the above. The strategy is simply to contrast our priorities with their priorities. Every time that Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and House Republicans favor subsidies for big oil companies instead of investments in the middle class, every time they favor tax breaks for the wealthy instead of -- and also at the same time favor cuts in Medicare, every time they favor the wrong priorities, we're going to get up and we're going to attack them on the priorities. We're not attacking them personally, we' talking the wrong priorities for America's middle class.</s>O'BRIEN: Before I open the panel, I'm going to ask you question about -- "The New York Times" reporting that the Obama campaign is going to be sending, they didn't say surrogates, they sort of said, I forget the word, but it's kind of surrogates to go into Michigan and hold press conferences about Mitt Romney's really position on the auto bailout of Detroit. So my question is who exactly are those surrogates? And what exactly are they going to say?</s>ISRAEL: Well, I expect that there's going to be plenty of people who will go to Michigan and around the country and tell the story of how Mitt Romney was four square opposed to the recovery of the auto industry. He opposed the critical efforts that had to be invested in making sure that American auto manufacturers did not close down, shut down against a huge competition around the world. You know, it's a --</s>O'BRIEN: But who's the who?</s>ISRAEL: -- classic of example of who are you for.</s>O'BRIEN: You answered what they're going to say, which wasn't exactly my question. My question was: who are you tapping to go into Michigan to deliver this message for the president?</s>ISRAEL: I -- you're going to see plenty of people. I mean, you know, the most eloquent spokespeople for the recovery of the auto industry led by President Obama and House Democrats are the people who work in the auto industry, the people who did not lose their jobs, who are working now building American cars and an economy that is built to last. Those would be the most eloquent surrogates for the president.</s>REP. SCOTT GARRETT (R), NEW JERSEY: Steve, Scott Garrett here. Good morning. You know, Steve, when --</s>ISRAEL: Hey, Scott. I disagree with your play list. I pick Iron Butterfly.</s>O'BRIEN: You can't fight over the playlist. It doesn't go like that. Go back to your question.</s>ISRAEL: Debate that. Sorry, Scott.</s>GARRETT: That's OK. So when President Obama was candidate Obama he said that he would have three years to get the economy back on track, otherwise the public would not accept him going into the next election. So, isn't the real reason that he's going after the Republican candidates right now is because he can't win this thing if he runs on his own track record?</s>ISRAEL: Listen, Scott, I hope he does run on his own track record because the track record that he inherited was months after month after month of consecutive job losses. Jobs hemorrhaging in this country. His policies have helped rebuild the middle class, have created jobs, have generated job growth as opposed to the Romney, Santorum, House Republican policies that got us into this mess. It's been tough to get out of this mess but we've been standing for the middle class while too many of your colleagues in Congress have been standing for oil company executives. We're the ones who had to bring you guys kicking and screaming over the finish line to extend the middle class tax cut. We'll compare our priorities for the middle class against House Republican priorities any day of the week and I say, we're going to win.</s>GARRETT: So, Steve, will you join with me then in sending a letter to Senator Reid to say, move some of these bills that have been sent over, some bipartisan bills over to the Senate that just sit there right now and ask Senator Reid to move a budget after 1,000 days? You know, President Obama has said part of the reason things are not getting done is because Congress isn't getting anything done. So, will you work with me to get Senator Reid to start doing something over in the Senate?</s>ISRAEL: Scott, I'll -- as long as if you want to be bipartisan, as long as the letter is going to the Republicans in the Senate who have filibustered and obstructed, that's fine.</s>O'BRIEN: That's kind of a kumbaya moment right here.</s>ISRAEL: Looking at a bill that would end the $40 billion in oil company subsidies at a time of record breaking profits and instead put that into a fund for flex fuel vehicles so that the American consumer can get a break for once. You look at my idea and I'll look at yours.</s>STEVE KORNACKI, SALON.COM: Congressman --</s>GARRETT: I'll show you mine, you show me yours.</s>KORNACKI: It's Steve from "Salon." I'm just curious -- it seems to me that President Obama's standing in the polls has clearly improved a little bit in the last few months and his prospects for re-election have, too. It seems to me that that's tied pretty directly to the economy and, you know, five straight months of declining unemployment. What I wonder is it's such a fragile, tenuous recovery at this point. You know, if we go a few months down the line and the unemployment rate stalls and it starts spiking back up a little bit, does he have any chance of winning re-election?</s>ISRAEL: Well, look, I have one respectful disagreement with you, to an extent it is tied to improving economy. But it's also tied to the priorities that House Democrats and the president have embraced versus the wrong priorities of House Republicans and the Republican presidential candidates. I mean, these guys, at a time when we have to be focusing on investing in the middle class and fueling this economic recovery, these guys had a hearing on contraception where they denied any woman the right to testify. Those are the kinds of priorities that most people disagree with. We're the ones who supported a full extension of the middle class tax cut. This would have been the worst time to take that middle-class tax cut away from the middle class. They're the ones who fought it. It's those priorities. Every election is about who you're for. It's wrong priorities by the presidential candidates and House Republicans versus House Democratic priorities to invest in the middle class, protect Medicare, rebuild our economy that is defining the polls right now. Right now, in every single did he neck poll house Democrats are ahead.</s>O'BRIEN: So, I will also tell you that on the GOP side, they would say that that wasn't a conversation about contraception. They would say that was a conversation about religious liberty. We have a big debate about that last week. Congressman, if you don't mind, we're going ask you to stick around and continue our conversation in just moment.</s>ISRAEL: You bet.</s>O'BRIEN: We're going to get to some of the other headlines that are making news. Christine has got an update for us before we continue our conversation with the congressman. Good morning again, Christine.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Soledad, again. I want to begin this hour with some new information. The coalition in Afghanistan now admitting that the Muslim holy book, the Koran, was improperly burned as officials were disposing of religious materials. The new information coming to us from our very own Barbara Starr. Reports of that sparked angry protests at an airbase in Afghanistan. Officials say the disposal had been planned but the burning of the holy book was not proper. The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan quickly apologizes that he has launched an investigation into this. Also new this morning, Greece finally securing a second bailout and it's the largest sovereign debt bailout in the history of the European Union. Under the terms of the deal, Greece gets $172 billion in aid and agrees to millions more in spending cuts, that's on top of the strict austerity measures already passed by parliament in Athens. Leaders of the E.U. met late into the night last night hashing out the details of this, hoping to save Greece from default. Stock futures for the Dow, the NASDAQ, the S&P; 500, they're up right now. Going into today's session, the Dow is only 50 points away of the 13,000 mark. The last time the Dow was here, it was early 2008. It was another election year. Stocks are up but so are gas prices. AAA says the national average for a gallon of regular is $3.57. But gas in some states like Hawaii costs more than $4 a gallon. Analysts blame recent threats from Iran. Iran cut off oil sales to Britain and France. Some forecasters worry that this new threats from Iran could boost prices to maybe 5 bucks a gallon. Rick Santorum has expanded his lead to the double digits. And the fundraising math is working out as well. The Santorum campaign raised $4.5 million last month and spent just $3.3 million. Newt Gingrich raised $5.6 million and spent $5.9 million. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney raised $6.5 million last month. He spent nearly three times that amount, $18.7 million. The Donald hoping to trump Rick Santorum's gains in Michigan. Donald Trump called into a local radio show to tout his candidate, Mitt Romney, and to slam Santorum. Trump says a win for Santorum is a win for the president.</s>DONALD TRUMP, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: There is nothing, there is no gift, no Christmas gift that could be given better than Rick Santorum to the Democrats.</s>ROMANS: Michigan primary voters head to the polls on February 28th. Trump has left the door open for his own third-party run should Mitt Romney not get the GOP nomination. And just days before Hollywood's biggest night, an "L.A. Times" study reveals that Oscar voters may be an even more select group than we thought. The Academy's more than 5,700 members are 94 percent Caucasian and 77 percent male. Just 14 percent of the membership is under the age of 50. And as for its minority voters, 2 percent African-American and 2 percent Latino. And this is, of course, the group that decides the big winners on Oscar night.</s>O'BRIEN: Well, I'm not -- I'm not stunned by those numbers actually. I'm not shocked at all. All right. I appreciate that. Thanks, Christine.</s>ROMANS: You're welcome.</s>O'BRIEN: I want to talk to you about what you did during one of those stories. I don't know if we have time now, but maybe when we got a moment after this break, because when we were talking about Donald Trump, the congressman did one of these. So we want to discuss that on the other side. We got to take a short break. But still ahead on STARTING POINT, U.N. inspectors return to Iran. We're going to talk about what they're going to be allowed to see. Also, Stephen Colbert back on the air. I'll talk to you about his disappearance. As only he can. It's very sweet. And she was dumped for the "Soup Nazi," landed on her feet, married George Stephanopoulos. We're going to talk with Ali Wentworth this morning live. She's going to join our panel. And Katrina's playlist, let's play this off. Little Marvin Gaye. "What's Going On?"