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Trump Proposals for V.A. are Choice, Not Privatization; N.Y. Steps Up Security for Time's Square Ball Drop; Did Broken Heart Syndrome Contribute to Debbie Reynolds' Death. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 29, 2016 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[13:30:00] DAN CALDWELL, VICE PRESIDENT OF POLICY, CONCERNED VETERANS FOR AMERICA: He's met with a veteran who is head of the Cleveland Clinic. He served on the V.A. Commission on Care. So, he's really studied these issues.

So, President-elect Trump is taking his time and getting perspectives himself from different individuals who have been involved in these issues, whether it's on the health care side or benefits side or has a veteran themselves.

And, Yes, the veterans group heads haven't met with the president- elect but the transition team has spent a lot of time meeting with them. So, their perspective is getting heard.

And I can guarantee you if it's Pete or Dr. Cosgrove or Jeff Miller, the veteran service organizations are going to be heard in this debate.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: One of the concerns people have about any money going from the V.A. system to private insurance companies or hospitals, whatever you want to call it, privatization or more choices, whatever you want to call it, is that, A, a lot of people, as you know, who are in the V.A. system are happy with the V.A. system.

CALDWELL: Yes.

TAPPER: Not everybody, but a great deal, according to the polling.

CALDWELL: The majority are, yes.

TAPPER: And also, that the doctors in the V.A. system know veteran issues much better than a private doctor. And all this research being done that would not be done in the private world if it weren't for the V.A. hospital research into post-traumatic stress, research into traumatic brain injury, amputations of limbs. Certainly, you recognize that.

CALDWELL: Yes, absolutely. But it's also important to note that the majority of care that the V.A. provides is not related to service- connected disabilities like the ones you describe. A lot of these injuries, amputations, TBI, other mental health issues, are also actually handled in the private sector. And the V.A. has been contracting with the private sector for years to help manage these issues. Here's the thing, is that, in the next 15 years, you're probably going

to have eight million fewer veterans in the United States because of World War II, Korean, and Vietnam era. That going to lead to a large number of veterans leaving the V.A. system, unfortunately, as a result of just natural life cycles. So, you are going to have a much smaller patient pool for the V.A. anyways. You have patients leaving the system.

So, what do you have to do? You have to reform the system and get it ready for the veteran population of future and with a much more dispersed and less dense veteran population, you're going to have to really change the current structure of the V.A., which is set up to serve a World War II population. We think this expanded choice, which the president-elect is proposing, should be part of that solution.

TAPPER: It's always great to have you here. Happy New Year.

CALDWELL: Thank you.

TAPPER: Thank you as always for your service.

CALDWELL: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: -- Dan Caldwell.

New York City's mayor, Bill de Blasio, had a message for those who will party it up in Time's Square this New Year's Eve.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL DE BLASIO, (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: The rule's real simple. If you think something's happening that makes you worried, go tell an officer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: When we come back, a live report on the extraordinary steps being taken to make Saturday night in the city safe. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:36:19] TAPPER: The countdown is on to New Year's Eve. While police in New York City say there's no credible threat of which they know, they're stepping up security for the iconic ball drop this weekend.

Joining us now from Time's Square is CNN's Brynn Gingras.

Brynn, New York police talk about enhanced security and sand trucks. Why sand trucks?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dozens of them, Jake, are going to be around this whole entire perimeter of Time's Square. And in addition to that, 100 of what they call blocker vehicles. And those are department vehicles that are just going to be parked in the street. Those are preventing any truck attacks, lessons learned from what authorities saw in Berlin and also in Nice. These are new additions to the security measures the NYPD is taking this year. But it is multilayers of security. I mean, it took an hour for police to go through exactly what they're doing. Of course, not even giving us all the information. But we've been talking about them and they said within just the last week they've been visiting parking garages. They've been securing manholes around this area. They've also been visiting truck rental places.

So, these are all, again, multilayers to keep more than two million people safe when they come here to have a good time in Time's Square -- Jake?

TAPPER: All right, Brynn Gingras, in New York City, thank you.

Just 22 days until Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. What does team Trump think of President Obama's sanctions slapped against Russia for its meddling in the U.S. election? We will ask Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary, after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:41:06] TAPPER: We could learn today what steps the Obama administration will take against Russia for its hacking during the U.S. presidential election. But President-elect Trump says it's time to move beyond the concerns about Russian hacking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think the computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole, you know, age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what's going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I'm not sure you have the kind of security that you need. But I have not spoken with the Senators. And I certainly will be over a period of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Ah, those computers.

Joining us now is Sean Spicer, senior communications adviser to the presidential transition team and chief strategist for the RNC, also the incoming White House press secretary.

Sean, first of all, congratulations on the new job. That looks very exciting for you.

SEAN SPICER, INCOMING WHITE HOUSE PRESSS SECRETARY: Thank you, Jake. I appreciate it. It's quite an honor.

TAPPER: So why is the president-elect so quick to dismiss concerns about Russian hacking? 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agree that this happened. These disagree as to what it unlikely was. They all agree it happened. Is the president-elect still not convinced that Russia was behind the attacks?

SPICER: Well, Jake, there's two aspects to this. One is the political nature of this. I think there's been an effort by some on the left in particular to undermine the legitimacy of his enormous win on election day. I think we've got to separate that out. He won, he won big. He carried 304 electoral votes. He won in states no one thought he had a chance carrying it. The folks on the left prior to the election questioned his commitment to results. It seems they've gone out of their way to question the legitimacy of the election. That's the political aspect of this.

The intelligence aspect of this is the following. The intelligence community, if we're going to make such broad-sweeping claims about the involvement of anybody and the legitimacy of the election, then I think we need to have the intelligence community come forward publicly and on the record and make it clear exactly how this happened and who is responsible for it. Right now, we continue to get unsourced media accounts for what the activity is. I think that's not -- that's not acceptable. If truly there is someone to blame, I think we should have Congress notified, go through the appropriate congressional hearings. Get the intelligence community, as they did in October, to come out publicly with the findings they have.

TAPPER: Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two Republicans, say that there is almost unanimous consensus among their Senate colleagues that Russia was behind the hacking. They plan to put together sanctions against Vladimir Putin. Will President Trump veto a measure put forward by the U.S. Senate calling for sanctions because of this hacking?

SPICER: Well, it's not a question of veto and I'm not going to presuppose what the president-elect may or may not do. Look, not to dredge up old things, but we've had issues in the past. We had the secretary of state, at that time, Hillary Clinton, come out and talk about a Benghazi video that was the cause of all the eruption in Benghazi, and that proved to be false. We need to get to the bottom of what the intelligence is.

And I think the intelligence community has, in the past, gone out and laid out the case for what's going on and who's behind certain activities. It's incumbent upon them for something as serious as this to do the same.

TAPPER: You're demanding it be public? Because, I mean, obviously, sources be s and methods for intelligence are one of the reasons why the intelligence community keeps so many things --

(CROSSTALK)

SPICER: I get it. Correct. Understood, Jake. But they've done nothing -- in October, they had no problem coming out and issuing a statement about what their beliefs were, vis-a-vis Russia. Right now, if they believe so strongly that they want the United States to act, I think, to some degree, without necessarily receiving all the sources and methods, that there is a degree of public on the record statement that the intelligence community should make. TAPPER: I guess I don't understand why it needs to be public.

President-elect Trump gets these intelligence briefings. Presumably, he's being told why the intelligence community feels the way it does.

[13:45:17] SPICER: But I guess the question I would have for you, Jake, is why do we take all these unnamed media sources and say that we must react in a certain way when the intelligence community has, in the past, come out very publicly and made it clear what the conclusions are. Why, in this case, when it's Donald Trump who's the person who should -- the presumption should be on him to conclude something that the intelligence community isn't willing to come out publicly and say? I think the burden of proof right now is on them to come out and state publicly.

This is a big deal. We're talk about the integrity of our election system. Something the government prior to the election briefed us at the RNC and the various campaigns was people vote in different ways throughout this country. There's over 200 ways to vote. And nobody can infiltrate the voting system. Now suddenly, we're talking about all of this --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Nobody's talking about -- nobody's talking about the election systems being hacked. They're talking about the DNC being hacked and all sorts of information about these private conversations being made public.

SPICER: At what point is it incumbent upon you guys in the media to ask the DNC what measures do they take to protect this? Because it seems to me there's a lot of talk about the DNC not doing what they should have done to protect their own network servers. I'm not saying in any way, shape or form -- to be clear, any attempt to hack or to do anything nefarious is wrong and illegal. At some point, the question hasn't even been asked of the DNC, did you take basic measures to protect the data that was on there? No one wrote those e-mails. No one put a private server on there. No one seems to have done the due diligence at the DNC to protect their own systems.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: I don't think there's any question that they did a horrible job.

SPICER: But have you ever asked that question of anyone at the DNC? Where's the responsibility of them to protect their systems? The outcome is not acceptable. I agree with that. Nobody is by any way suggesting that's acceptable behavior. But I don't believe once I've ever seen an interview where anyone at the DNC was asked the question whether they take any responsibility for what is clearly a lax effort to protect their own networks.

TAPPER: When they come out from under their desks, I'll be sure to ask them. I have not interviewed anybody from the DNC since the election. Sean, one last question before I let you go and enjoy the beautiful

vista behind you, it has been more than 150 days -- I think actually it was July 27th that President-elect Trump, then just Candidate Trump, had a full-fledged press conference. Is he planning on having one before the inauguration?

SPICER: Yes, absolutely. He stated that very clearly. Look, let's also not kid ourselves. He sat for an hour and a half at "The New York Times." he came out yesterday and spoke to the media several times. We have a daily press call every day at 10:30 that folks from CNN are on. Let's not act like we're hiding anything. The president has been engaged in building one of the most successful cabinets in history. He's gone out and talked to the media several times, twice yesterday, took numerous questions. I get the media wants to harp on how many times how many people have to be in a room and how questions he has to take.

To answer your question, yes, in mid-January, we will do a press conference. We look forward to having you there.

TAPPER: I know you're not inviting me to roll the clips of Donald Trump making fun of Hillary Clinton for not holding press conferences, so I won't do it.

Sean Spicer, happy New Year.

(CROSSTALK)

SPICER: No, no, the difference was, Jake, it wasn't just the title press conference, she was actually not talking to the press. As I said, yesterday, he sat twice and went out and engaged with the press on the issues of the day.

TAPPER: OK. I'm not sure I'd call that engaging.

But, Sean, always good to see you. Congratulations again.

SPICER: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: I want to bring in my panel to weigh in. With me, David Catanese, the senior politics writer for "U.S. News & World Report"; Molly Hemingway, senior editor for "The Federalist."

I mean, come on. He hasn't held a press conference. I don't know what this whole thing is about.

MOLLY HENINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, THE FEDERALIST: There has been a lack of press conferences. At the same time, the media need to focus on making sure they're getting information from the incoming administration. There are many ways you can get information. One of them is press conferences. The reason why press conferences are important is because reporters can work together to pursue a line of questioning that's different from the agenda that the politician wants to set. And currently, the Trump, incoming Trump administration is very good about deciding what they want to talk about and when they want to talk about. And of course, reporters want to find a way around that.

TAPPER: What do you think about this whole thing that the Trump team is arguing that the intelligence community needs to come forward and publicly, and make their case about the Russian hacking?

[13:49:51] DAVID CATANESE, SENIOR POLITICS WRITER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT: They're saying, prove it, put it out there, which people in the intelligence community would have problems doing, but the Trump administration, the officials think the media is hammering on this story, picking up on a Democratic line of attack to delegitimize Donald Trump's victory. They feel like they're all spending so much time on this hacking story and that it wasn't a hacking of the election, it was a hacking of a political party and information, giving voters more information and their argument is saying there's a lot of other reasons you can point to why Hillary Clinton lost this election. Michigan, not spending enough advertising, not spending enough time. They originally remember -- the original excuse was the Comey letter which we don't hear about as much anymore and originally Jen Palmieri said it was Trump incited a white nationalist movement. Not to defend the Trump campaign here but they feel like the media is trying to delegitimize his victory in the Electoral College and it's Clinton campaign aides and Democrats who are out there poking at this.

TAPPER: I don't -- I understand that point of view.

There are 500 reasons why Donald Trump is the president-elect and Hillary Clinton is not. The Russian hacking is one of them. But it's probably the one that is most important in terms of future national security.

HEMINGWAY: It's an important story. At the same time, the way the media have handled this story relative to the way they handled the FBI story, for instance, there's no comparison. In the FBI case, when they're investigating Hillary Clinton, they're being untoward, they shouldn't be so involved in the political process and what not.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Who said that?

HEMINGWAY: That has been an overarching theme --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: I've heard that from Democrats or liberal writers, but --

HEMINGWAY: And many people in the media as well.

(CROSSTALK)

HEMINGWAY: And now with the CIA, we're supposed to trust them unquestioningly. It would be nice for the American people to have more understanding of precisely the extent of what is being alleged here because it sounded at first like it was some massive operation. Later, it sounds like it's similarly John Podesta clicking on a link he should haven't clicked on -- TAPPER: Fishing. A fishing expedition.

HEMINGWAY: -- and other things, which is different.

TAPPER: Although the DNC thing was a hack, Podesta was a fish.

HEMINGWAY: But people want to know the extent and how serious of a problem it is, to know how much we should be sanctioning Russia in response, and we don't have good information right now.

(CROSSTALK)

CATANESE: I think we should. I think Congress's job is to get to the bottom of this why Russia did it if they did it but I don't know if we know that Podesta's e-mails -- like we read them in D.C. -- like they're being read by voters in Wisconsin and Michigan. I think that was the reason. I think that is the central focus now of why this election came to be, and I think the Trump campaign is a little frustrated by that.

But when you have John McCain and Lindsey Graham and a lot of Republican Senators saying we need to investigate it, we should because they're afraid next time it could be Republicans.

TAPPER: Next time, it will.

Molly, David, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Coming up, two icons gone in two days. Debbie Reynolds dies one day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher. We'll talk about that, and what some call the Broken Heart Syndrome, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[13:56:00] ALBERT BROOKS, ACTOR: Look at the date. It's three years old.

DEBBIE REYNOLDS, ACTRESS: Well, it's been in the freezer.

BROOKS: But how cheap was it that you wanted to buy this much of it?

REYNOLDS: This is wonderful cheese. It comes from Switzerland. Very hard to get.

BROOKS: How could it be hard to get? It's all here.

(LAUGHTER0

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That was Albert Brooks and the now late Debbie Reynolds in the 1996 film, "Mother." Reynolds died just one day after her daughter, Actress Carrie Fisher, died from a cardiac event. Her son, Todd Fisher, told CNN that, quote, "She said she missed Carrie. She's with Carrie now."

It's a heartbreaking story, perhaps, literally, heartbreaking. And while we don't know the cause of death for the 84-year-old Hollywood star, this does raise the same question you've read about when you see in the paper about some elderly couple dying just hours apart, can the cause of death be in any way a broken heart?

Let's bring in Dr. Kevin Campbell to lay out some possible explanations. He's a cardiologist. And he joins us from North Carolina.

Dr. Campbell, thanks for joining us.

Let's cut to it. Can someone die from a broken heart? Is that possible?

DR. KEVIN CAMPBELL, CARDIOLOGIST: Believe it or not, there is something called Broken Heart Syndrome. It's called takotsubo cardiomyopathy. It's related to the stress of a life-changing event, like an earthquake or death of a relative. It can mimic the signs and symptoms of a heart attack and look like a real, live heart attack.

TAPPER: What happens physically to the body when this incredibly stressful event happens?

CAMPBELL: First of all, we know this seems to be related to the release of a lot of hormones in the body like adrenaline or epinephrine and cortisol. This can raise blood pressure, increase heart rate, make blood vessels stiffer and it can make everything for all the world look just like a real heart attack. In some cases, it can cause real biologic problems.

TAPPER: So when somebody reads about an elderly couple, he's 95, and passes away, and then his 94-year-old wife dies hours later, it's not just fiction, she might have died of a broken heart? It's possible?

CAMPBELL: Absolutely. Because when we release all of these stress hormones, they can have negative impacts on our body, especially if you have underlying heart disease, or you may have underlying brain disease, in the case of maybe a stroke in Miss Reynolds, that that could precipitate that event. This happens 90 percent of the time in women who are post-menopausal, in takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

TAPPER: So there is a cause of death that says -- in whatever language -- Broken Heart Syndrome?

CAMPBELL: Well, we don't necessarily list causes of death that way. We may say, you know, cardiac death or something of that sort, or cardiac arrest. But takotsubo cardiomyopathy is what we see. And when you image these hearts, they look like failing hearts in the midst of a heart attack. The difference is most are self-limited and get better in a matter of weeks to days.

TAPPER: How common is it?

CAMPBELL: You know, 90 percent of the time we see it in women. All populations all together, it's relatively uncommon. But it's common enough that it was described in 1990 and there's been lots of study about it. We don't understand the disease but we treat it like a real heart attack until proven otherwise.

TAPPER: Fascinating.

Dr. Kevin Campbell, thank you so much. Happy New Year to you, sir.

CAMPBELL: Happy New Year. Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: That's it for me. I'll be back at 4:00 eastern on "The Lead."

For our international viewers, NEWSROOM with Jonathan Mann is next.

And for our viewers in the United States, NEWSROOM with Fredricka Whitfield starts right now.

[12:00:00] FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield, in for Brooke Baldwin today.

The Obama administration is preparing for payback against Russia as soon as today for meddling in the U.S. elections. The U.S. is expected to retaliate with expanded sanctions, diplomatic --