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American Morning
Preparing for RNC Day One; Energy Drink Popularity; Paul Hamm Interview
Aired August 30, 2004 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. Ninety minuets away from the official kick-off here at Madison Square Garden. The Republicans are in New York City and our coverage continues now. Day One here in a moment.
Carlson and Carville of "CROSSFIRE" -- boy that's an alliteration, huh, Kelly? Kelly Wallace hanging out over here. We'll talk to Kelly in a moment here.
They're going to stop by in a few moments -- their perspective on the convention -- what you need to look forward to over the next four days.
Also in the next 30 minutes, we'll talk to U.S. Olympic gymnast Paul Hamm, dogged by that controversy after his performance in Athens.
He won the gold, then they came back and said, "Wait a minute, the scoring was wrong." He's keeping the gold.
Still, the questions persist. The South Koreans are not happy. So, we'll talk to him and find out what he plans to do now.
But for now, also, Heidi Collins outside of our studios over there on Sixth Avenue. Good morning, Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, good morning once again, Bill. It's actually going to be Collins, Carlson, and Carville. So, we'll try to spin all of that a little later on.
But first now to the stories now in the news. A new president for Chechnya. Preliminary results show the Kremlin-backed candidate, a police chief, has a strong lead in the poll results. The election took place less than a week after twin air crashes in Russia. Some officials blame the tragedies on Chechnyan rebels.
The African Union is urging Sudan's government to continue peace talks with rebels in the troubled Darfur region. This after United Nation's deadline aimed at improving the humanitarian crisis expired just hours ago without definite action.
The U.N. threatened possible economic and political measures if Sudanese authorities do not resolve the conflict, which drove more than a million people from their homes.
In just a couple of hours a Washington National Guard soldier accused of attempting to provide military information to al Qaeda goes before a U.S. military panel in Seattle.
Twenty-six-year-old Ryan Anderson, who is a Muslim convert, could face life in prison on charges he tried to provide al Qaeda with information about U.S. troop strength and tactics. Anderson has pleaded not guilty.
And Florida's highest court is expected to make a decision this week in the controversial case of Terri Schiavo. She's the severely brain damaged woman kept alive by a feeding tube. At question is Terri's Law, a bill Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed last year allowing Schiavo's parents to maintain her feeding tube. A lower law ruled the law violates Florida's right of privacy.
We'll have more on that a little bit later on. For now though, we'll send things back to Bill at the Garden.
HEMMER: All right Heidi, thanks for that.
One of the most intriguing political partnerships of this election is President Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain. They were both rivals -- heated rivals, too -- during the primary season of 2000, but tonight Senator McCain has one of the few highly coveted prime time speaking roles.
What can we expect? Our national correspondent Kelly Wallace here at Madison Square Garden with us now. Good morning to you.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill. We can expect a lot of praise for President Bush. He will say that the president has been tested after September 11 and has risen to the most important challenge of our time.
Then he goes on to stump with the president on Tuesday. He is on the "Letterman" show, "The Daily Show," talking to battleground states. So, the question is -- is all of this about re-electing President Bush? Insiders say probably not.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE (voice-over): Sealed with a hug and a kiss, a newfound friendship? Well, not exactly. This is politics, after all.
John Weaver is one of Senator John McCain's closest advisors.
Is one hugging the other a little more?
JOHN WEAVER, ADVISOR TO JOHN MCCAIN: Well, as I said before, neither one of them are hug victims.
WALLACE: Translation? The one-time rivals each get something out of putting 2000...
JOHN MCCAIN (R), FMR. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know how -- if you can understand this George, but that really hurts.
WALLACE: ...all the bitterness and differences behind them. The president, in a tight race, needs help with independents and winnable Democrats.
Enter the Arizona senator, who has a favorable/unfavorable split, 55 to 19 percent in CNN's latest poll, better than any other national politician.
GEORGE W. BUSH (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm honored to have him by my side.
WALLACE: The maverick Republican, who turned down overtures from Democratic Senator John Kerry for the number two slot on the ticket, gets something too.
SUSAN PAGE, "USA TODAY": Senator McCain has to mend some fences with establishment Republicans. This is one way to do this. This is the biggest sign I've seen so far that McCain is thinking about that 2008 presidential race.
WALLACE: It's not clear what impact McCain may actually have on the current race, but a sign of how both candidates think he wins votes. Both campaigns invoke his name regularly.
Just yesterday, former president Clinton tried to remind voters of the tough talk between the two Republicans only four years ago.
BILL CLINTON (D), FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We were told here by this party that's about to show us sweetness and light in Madison Square Garden that John McCain couldn't be trusted to defend the country.
WALLACE: How does all the attention from Kerry supporters and Kerry himself sit with McCain?
WEAVER: Well, they're friends, which is an alien subject in Washington that you can somehow be friends with somebody on the opposite side of the aisle, but again today he believes that President Bush has done a good job and would make a better president.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: What does the man really think? Well, that's to ask his mother.
"The New York Times" asked Senator McCain's mother, Roberta McCain, who is in her 90s, if he's doing all this for President Bush because he's thinking about 2008. She said that's foolishness -- she said, "Honey, nobody's going to buy my son off, or me."
HEMMER: Honey. Listening to John McCain -- he's been interviewed here in New York City, and he says 2000 is behind me, I'm over it, it's time for the rest of the country to get over it.
Still though, how much and how powerful is John McCain as an ally in this convention with 60 some odd days to go?
WALLACE: So powerful that Karl Rove, the president's political advisor, got on the phone with John Weaver, the person we saw in our piece in the spring saying let's get together and let's have coffee, trying to woo John McCain to the White House.
Karl Rove always thought the president could win this election by reaching out to his base; he decided he needs swing voters, independent voters, and that's where John McCain comes in.
HEMMER: Enjoy your week, Kelly.
WALLACE: Will do.
HEMMER: We'll talk many times all right?
WALLACE: All right.
HEMMER: Tonight's speakers -- the featured speakers, include New York City Police Commissioner, the former -- however, Bernard Kerik, in fact. He is our guest here this morning on AMERICAN MORNING, as well. He was on duty during 9/11.
Also, Senator McCain will be there. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor here in New York.
Our coverage here in primetime starts at 7:00 Eastern time. We'll be here for all of it.
Back across the city now and Heidi with more.
COLLINS: All right, Bill thanks so much.
Political conventions have become a weeklong promotion for the party's candidate, it seems. And with that in mind, I'm joined by two co-hosts of "CROSSFIRE." You've seen them before -- Tucker Carlson and James Carville.
So nice to see you guys in person.
JAMES CARVILLE, CO-HOST "CROSSFIRE": Good morning.
COLLINS: Thanks for being here. We know you're going to be up late tonight, so we appreciate the early start.
Tucker, I want to ask you first off. You know there's about half of the relatives who died in the World Trade Center are saying you really shouldn't have chosen New York City at all for this convention.
Then about a quarter of them are also saying the reason this was chosen as a venue is so that the GOP can take advantage of what happened on September 11th. Your reaction to that?
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST "CROSSFIRE": Well, they're half right. I mean, of course, the reason New York was chosen is because September 11th primarily occurred here and then you know Bush is right when he says it was the defining event of his presidency and that his leadership after was considered by the vast majority of Americans to be solid and good and he wants to remind people of that.
I mean, there -- look -- it seems to me the only reason not to choose New York is if you somehow feel that the protests are going to get out of control and hurt you, but I think the political truth of it is -- maybe not the moral truth -- but the political truth is, you know, if there were some sort of horrible, violent protest to occur here it wouldn't hurt Bush so I think that's the calculation.
COLLINS: What's the political truth here of this city?
CARVILLE: Well, the political truth here is they better wave a lot of flags, because now the president has admitted that he incompetently pursued the Iraqi war after we see millions of people being thrown into poverty as a result of this administration's policies, after we have the first president to not create any -- any jobs since Herbert Hoover.
They obviously have nothing to do but get up there and wave a bunch of flags and play a lot of music. They have no accomplishments to talk about. And so, New York is a fine place to -- as fine a place to wave an American flag as any other city.
CARLSON: Well, wait a second. First of all there's nothing wrong with waving an American flag. Secondly...
CARVILLE: It's all they can do.
CARLSON: Secondly, millions of people have been thrown into poverty by this administration? That kind of hyperbole is so stupid and so over the top that I do think -- hold on -- that I do think in the end that it actually helps Bush. The one thing Bush has going for him is kind of the craziness of his opponents. The wild-eyedness makes people nervous.
CARVILLE: Carlson didn't read the Census Bureau report in 2003 we had a million and a half more people thrown into poverty. 1.4 million people that don't have health insurance and there's 800,000 children that are in poverty and that's a result of the policies of this administration that have been fiscally reckless.
We see the president himself say, you know, I've been incompetent in pursuing this war in Iraq, which is a huge admission to make. We see instability around the world. We see division in America. And we see America's respect around the world as low as it possibly could be.
CARLSON: See, I think what the GOP needs to do honestly rather than to have this endless parade of kind of moderate Republican figures up there is to give James Carville say 11 or 12 minutes in prime time. It would so thoroughly terrify America and the Republican Party. I think Bush would win by a landslide.
COLLINS: And yet you bring these concerns up and yet the numbers on terrorism are really quite good for Bush. So, let me ask you this. We just spoke with retired General Wesley Clark who said the reason why he's doing so well with the terrorism numbers is because the Bush campaign is doing a very good job at getting their message out.
Is Kerry getting his message out? CARVILLE: A, he's not -- I see him 53 percent say he's getting a favorable job rating on terrorism which is hardly a staggering number for a...
COLLINS: Well what about Kerry?
CARVILLE: Well, again, Kerry people want the president to succeed. It's not a very good number. And his numbers on what American people think of the way he's done on this economy is awful, the Iraqi war is going south every day. This president has made two huge decisions.
Number one is to pursue the war in Iraq, which has gone terribly. The reason for the war has turned out not to be justified and the other thing is he said I'm going to punch this country into debt but as a result of that we're going to grow jobs and people's incomes are going to go up, neither which has happened.
That's why this president cannot be reelected, that's why they can't get up there and talk about any accomplishments during this convention, so they're going to get up there and play a lot of music and wave a lot of lights.
COLLINS: Tucker, what's the key this week? Is it terrorism?
CARLSON: I think the key -- yes, of course it's terrorism. Absolutely. I mean, look, the election is about national security, Iraq, and terrorism.
But I do think as a political matter it's important for the president to convince Republicans to vote. I mean, typically these things, Democratic conventions of course was an effort to get undecideds, to get moderates to vote, not be scared by the Democrats -- that's why they pretended not to think what they really think.
In this convention, though, I think Bush needs to give conservatives the faithful of the party a good reason to vote for him.
COLLINS: To the two of you this morning we appreciate it. James Carville, Tucker Carlson. We will see you again, 4:30 Eastern from the CNN Diner. Catch all four of those guys.
Thanks again, nice to see you.
CARVILLE: Thank you.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: In a moment, how do you brand a presidential candidate? For example, which one is a Ford, which one is a BMW?
Andy is looking into that. We'll go back to the diner and check in, where he and Jack are on their second bacon egg and cheese already today.
Also health news in a moment, energy drinks promise to give you a boost but there could be some risks to go with that buzz. We'll page the good doctor. Sanjay is up after a break as well.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: We are "Paging Dr. Gupta" this morning about the growing popularity of energy drinks.
They've been pouring into the market in recent years, and Sanjay is at the CNN Center now to take us behind the boost.
Are we talking Red Bull here?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We are talking Red Bull -- all sorts of different energy drinks out there, Heidi.
Listen, it's a huge market. People spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this. If you look at the advertising campaigns they say they'll revitalize your body and they'll revitalize your mind.
A lot of people looking into the ingredients and what is it about energy drinks that possibly give you the energy? What they're finding that's really nothing more than plain old caffeine and sugar.
I have a bunch of the energy drinks here. Take a look at some of them. These are all sorts of some of the popular drinks you've seen. Red Bull, an energy drink. Rockstar -- this one is for you, Heidi -- Rockstar drink.
Listen, they have all sorts of different ingredients. Again, sugar, caffeine. They also have ginseng, taurine, and guarine (sic). Those are some of the supplements you'll see if you read the labels. Again, nothing more than just caffeine in those. The caffeine is the key here.
Look at the ingredients. Look at how much caffeine you're going to get in some of these drinks. Red Bull 80 milligrams. That's in just an 8.3 ounce can. SoBe, 79 milligrams. Rockstar, 66-75 milligrams.
Compare that to Starbucks Coffee, which is 160 milligrams. Even more importantly, compare it to just soda or pop. If you take a look at those, those are bigger cans, typically, with less caffeine. Mountain Dew, that's the one that everyone always thinks of as having the most caffeine -- 55 milligrams. Again, in 12 ounces compared to 80 milligrams in 8.3 ounces in some of the other drinks.
Caffeine is a stimulant. That's why it works. If you drink a lot of it, sometimes it can be problematic in the long term, so that's where people really get their energy from, Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes, what about those side effects, Sanjay? I mean I know that after you have a lot of caffeine you definitely come down off of it pretty hard, but in the long term as you say side effects are?
GUPTA: Yes, you know first of all, most people aren't going to have really dramatic side effects. If you do have some side effects in the short term, they're usually going to be things like muscle twitching. You may have a little upset stomach, rapid heartbeat, dizziness, elevated blood pressure, dehydration.
Luckily, most of those are going to be transient unless you start to drink them often in which case you may have withdrawal type symptoms. If you drink it and then you stop drinking it all of a sudden you may have headache, you may have lethargy or the crashing sort of symptoms that you were just talking about as well, Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Sanjay thanks so much for that.
And from energy drinks, we move on to the Olympic Games. And as you know, they are now over.
But the controversy surrounding the gold medal won by American gymnast Paul Hamm continues, with gymnastics officials calling on Hamm to return the medal. He's here now along with representative James Sensenbrenner from his home state of Wisconsin.
Gentlemen, good morning to you. Welcome to New York City. As always, a little noisy out there today, but -- I want to go ahead, Paul and first show a little bit of this letter that was sent to you by the International Gymnastics Federation asking you to give back that medal.
Let's show it on the screen there. In summary it said: "If you were to return your medal to the Korean, if the FIG requested it, then such an action would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of fair play by the whole world. The FIG and the IOC would highly appreciate the magnitude of this gesture.
What's your reaction to that?
PAUL HAMM, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: Well my reaction to that is, you know, they just talk about fair play in that statement there and to me fair play means playing by the rules.
And in the competition, the rules were followed. I was determined the winner by the rules, and I don't think that the rules should be changed at this time in order to have a different outcome of the competition.
COLLINS: So, quickly to underscore what happened here -- in case people don't follow gymnastics very closely -- there were two issues.
The start value of the South Koreans was too high for where he was supposed to have started, so that's an issue.
And secondly, his performance on the parallel bars -- a deduction there of .2 of a point, which was not taken for a mistake I should say he made.
Where would that have put him after all of that was said and done?
HAMM: Well if the judges would have caught that .2 deduction, he would actually have been in fourth place in the all-around and have been out of the medals completely.
COLLINS: So, what is it then -- Representative Sensenbrenner, you have been a big supporter. How do the two of you connect?
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR. (R), WISCONSIN: The two of us connected because I represent the district where the Hamm family lives and the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, which I chair, has got jurisdiction over the United States Olympic Committee and specifically its federal charter.
COLLINS: OK.
SENSENBRENNER: I was concerned reading the newspapers that Paul Hamm was left to his own devices in Athens for eight days without support from the U.S. Olympic Committee or the USA Gymnastics Federation, and one of the things that I want to do in Congress is to make sure that Paul Hamm gets all the representation he needs now that the Koreans have appealed this matter to court and to change the law to make sure that no athlete from the United States is ever put in the position that Paul Hamm has been put in ever again.
COLLINS: Paul, what is that position now as you move forward you have that gold medal in your possession? How do you get past what goes along with that medal?
HAMM: You know, I feel so proud of my performance and what I was able to accomplish and I've been getting such a great response from the people back in the U.S.
Everyone, you know, even when I got off the plane people are saying congratulations -- you represented us well even thank you. People have all said to me keep it; it's yours; don't give it back. So, everyone here in the U.S. has been just so supportive and I would just like to thank them.
COLLINS: All right.
SENSENBRENNER: And the important thing is is that Paul Hamm won the medal by following the rules. Now, the Koreans have gone to an international sports court to try to get the rules changed after the competition is over to take Paul's gold medal away and America's gold medal away.
COLLINS: All right, well either way...
SENSENBRENNER: And we in the United States should stand up behind our athlete that did such a tremendous job.
COLLINS: I think a lot of people are doing that. Just that. Congratulations to you Paul. Thanks for being here today.
HAMM: Thank you.
COLLINS: Still to come this morning now Jack tells us how you can show your political stripes with what you put on your hot dog. "The Cafferty File" from the CNN Diner just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Welcome back to Madison Square Garden. You know, the smallest of matters sometimes get a lot of attention right now.
The Fire Department from New York City now inside of Madison Square Garden about eight of them checking out what appears to be a little bit of smoke drifting off the top center of Madison Square Garden. This is where all the TV networks have gathered to have a main booth up there.
We're much closer -- lower to the floor. We don't think it's any big deal. But just want to show you that's what's happening right now. We expect the convention gavel to order in one hour. But for now, back outside to the diner and Jack Cafferty. Hey Jack, good morning.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: How you doing? Maybe that means the Republicans have a new pope, you suppose? The smoke coming up there?
Time for a preview of the markets now -- Andy Serwer is here "Minding Your Business" and we also have a little thing on presidential branding. Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Jack. A new study that we're looking at this morning, kind of amusing, in "The Wall Street Journal." Asking consumers how they would identify the presidential candidates by various products.
Let's run through this pretty quickly. These are undecided voters. In terms of coffee, undecided voters they'd say Bush they relate to Dunkin' Donuts. John Kerry to Starbucks. That's very, very vente.
Then we move on to computers and technology. We've got: Bush, IBM -- that's Big Blue. I always thought Republicans are red. Kerry, Apple -- "Think different." Then, we move on to cars, we've got: for Bush, Ford; Kerry, BMW.
I guess Ralph Nader would be a Pujo (ph).
CAFFERTY: Probably.
SERWER: Probably. OK, then we'll move on to big retailers: Bush would be K-Mart; Kerry would be Target. No one wants Wal-Mart there, Jack.
And then finally fast food. Bush is McDonald's, and Kerry is Subway -- where you get a Swift Boat sandwich.
CAFFERTY: And health food, right?
SERWER: Yes, that's real health food.
Markets looking a little bit weak to start and we'll be checking back with that. CAFFERTY: All right, good. Thanks, Andy.
A couple of notes from "The Cafferty File." They've got this chimp in China in the zoo, and it's had this boyfriend for like 30 years. And now the guy is just getting too old.
He can't do her any good anymore, and she's frustrated and she's mad all the time because she's not getting any loving.
So, she's picked up a couple of nasty habits. One of them from watching the visitors to the zoo as she smokes cigarettes. Continually if she can get them. And the other one is she spits at the visitors who come by to say hello every day.
We've got a barbecue time left; you don't want to put Heinz ketchup on your hamburger this -- during the week of the Republican National Convention. There are a couple of other options. They've got W's ketchup and I think Bush ketchup is the -- do we have those that we can put up on the screen?
And they're available as -- there's the W ketchup. The option is to something besides Heinz ketchup.
Now, on to the real reason we're here. I told you earlier that we're on Eight Avenue, which is also called the Minnesota Strip in New York City for reasons that I can't go into on a family program.
We're right across the street from a Triple-X rated porno theatre, so you pick up souvenirs when you come to the big town, right?
If you're passing by Video, Video, Video on 34th Street, you can get a special issue of "HX" magazine. They have titled the cover story "The Gay Old Party" -- it says "Welcome Republicans, Enjoy Your Grand Guide To Gotham."
Articles include "God Save New York"...
SERWER: Yes.
CAFFERTY: ... "Pink Protests." And "Killer Closets."
Video, Video, Video is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They have video sales rental, they have love toys, magazines, lingerie, video peep shows and if you want to call them to see if they have your particular title in stock, their number is 212-947-1590. Video, Video, Video.
Actually, earlier when I pointed that out, Mayor Bloomberg was standing right over there waiting to go on and he was not pleased.
SERWER: He looked so happy, Jack.
CAFFERTY: He was not happy.
SERWER: You are giving that store all kinds of props. CAFFERTY: Why don't we do the word? We're in the neighborhood. We should help out the local merchants.
SERWER: It's a big town.
CAFFERTY: Now back to Bill.
SERWER: Yes.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Andy. Talk to you a bit later.
About an hour from now, counting down to the official kick off of the RNC here in New York. A live preview here from one of today's speakers, the House Speaker, Dennis Hastert my guest in a moment.
He's gotten some criticism for remarks he made about some New York lawmakers on 9/11. We'll talk to him about that -- also talk about the theme and message today going forward. Back in a moment live at Madison Square Garden.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired August 30, 2004 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. Ninety minuets away from the official kick-off here at Madison Square Garden. The Republicans are in New York City and our coverage continues now. Day One here in a moment.
Carlson and Carville of "CROSSFIRE" -- boy that's an alliteration, huh, Kelly? Kelly Wallace hanging out over here. We'll talk to Kelly in a moment here.
They're going to stop by in a few moments -- their perspective on the convention -- what you need to look forward to over the next four days.
Also in the next 30 minutes, we'll talk to U.S. Olympic gymnast Paul Hamm, dogged by that controversy after his performance in Athens.
He won the gold, then they came back and said, "Wait a minute, the scoring was wrong." He's keeping the gold.
Still, the questions persist. The South Koreans are not happy. So, we'll talk to him and find out what he plans to do now.
But for now, also, Heidi Collins outside of our studios over there on Sixth Avenue. Good morning, Heidi.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, good morning once again, Bill. It's actually going to be Collins, Carlson, and Carville. So, we'll try to spin all of that a little later on.
But first now to the stories now in the news. A new president for Chechnya. Preliminary results show the Kremlin-backed candidate, a police chief, has a strong lead in the poll results. The election took place less than a week after twin air crashes in Russia. Some officials blame the tragedies on Chechnyan rebels.
The African Union is urging Sudan's government to continue peace talks with rebels in the troubled Darfur region. This after United Nation's deadline aimed at improving the humanitarian crisis expired just hours ago without definite action.
The U.N. threatened possible economic and political measures if Sudanese authorities do not resolve the conflict, which drove more than a million people from their homes.
In just a couple of hours a Washington National Guard soldier accused of attempting to provide military information to al Qaeda goes before a U.S. military panel in Seattle.
Twenty-six-year-old Ryan Anderson, who is a Muslim convert, could face life in prison on charges he tried to provide al Qaeda with information about U.S. troop strength and tactics. Anderson has pleaded not guilty.
And Florida's highest court is expected to make a decision this week in the controversial case of Terri Schiavo. She's the severely brain damaged woman kept alive by a feeding tube. At question is Terri's Law, a bill Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed last year allowing Schiavo's parents to maintain her feeding tube. A lower law ruled the law violates Florida's right of privacy.
We'll have more on that a little bit later on. For now though, we'll send things back to Bill at the Garden.
HEMMER: All right Heidi, thanks for that.
One of the most intriguing political partnerships of this election is President Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain. They were both rivals -- heated rivals, too -- during the primary season of 2000, but tonight Senator McCain has one of the few highly coveted prime time speaking roles.
What can we expect? Our national correspondent Kelly Wallace here at Madison Square Garden with us now. Good morning to you.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill. We can expect a lot of praise for President Bush. He will say that the president has been tested after September 11 and has risen to the most important challenge of our time.
Then he goes on to stump with the president on Tuesday. He is on the "Letterman" show, "The Daily Show," talking to battleground states. So, the question is -- is all of this about re-electing President Bush? Insiders say probably not.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE (voice-over): Sealed with a hug and a kiss, a newfound friendship? Well, not exactly. This is politics, after all.
John Weaver is one of Senator John McCain's closest advisors.
Is one hugging the other a little more?
JOHN WEAVER, ADVISOR TO JOHN MCCAIN: Well, as I said before, neither one of them are hug victims.
WALLACE: Translation? The one-time rivals each get something out of putting 2000...
JOHN MCCAIN (R), FMR. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know how -- if you can understand this George, but that really hurts.
WALLACE: ...all the bitterness and differences behind them. The president, in a tight race, needs help with independents and winnable Democrats.
Enter the Arizona senator, who has a favorable/unfavorable split, 55 to 19 percent in CNN's latest poll, better than any other national politician.
GEORGE W. BUSH (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm honored to have him by my side.
WALLACE: The maverick Republican, who turned down overtures from Democratic Senator John Kerry for the number two slot on the ticket, gets something too.
SUSAN PAGE, "USA TODAY": Senator McCain has to mend some fences with establishment Republicans. This is one way to do this. This is the biggest sign I've seen so far that McCain is thinking about that 2008 presidential race.
WALLACE: It's not clear what impact McCain may actually have on the current race, but a sign of how both candidates think he wins votes. Both campaigns invoke his name regularly.
Just yesterday, former president Clinton tried to remind voters of the tough talk between the two Republicans only four years ago.
BILL CLINTON (D), FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We were told here by this party that's about to show us sweetness and light in Madison Square Garden that John McCain couldn't be trusted to defend the country.
WALLACE: How does all the attention from Kerry supporters and Kerry himself sit with McCain?
WEAVER: Well, they're friends, which is an alien subject in Washington that you can somehow be friends with somebody on the opposite side of the aisle, but again today he believes that President Bush has done a good job and would make a better president.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: What does the man really think? Well, that's to ask his mother.
"The New York Times" asked Senator McCain's mother, Roberta McCain, who is in her 90s, if he's doing all this for President Bush because he's thinking about 2008. She said that's foolishness -- she said, "Honey, nobody's going to buy my son off, or me."
HEMMER: Honey. Listening to John McCain -- he's been interviewed here in New York City, and he says 2000 is behind me, I'm over it, it's time for the rest of the country to get over it.
Still though, how much and how powerful is John McCain as an ally in this convention with 60 some odd days to go?
WALLACE: So powerful that Karl Rove, the president's political advisor, got on the phone with John Weaver, the person we saw in our piece in the spring saying let's get together and let's have coffee, trying to woo John McCain to the White House.
Karl Rove always thought the president could win this election by reaching out to his base; he decided he needs swing voters, independent voters, and that's where John McCain comes in.
HEMMER: Enjoy your week, Kelly.
WALLACE: Will do.
HEMMER: We'll talk many times all right?
WALLACE: All right.
HEMMER: Tonight's speakers -- the featured speakers, include New York City Police Commissioner, the former -- however, Bernard Kerik, in fact. He is our guest here this morning on AMERICAN MORNING, as well. He was on duty during 9/11.
Also, Senator McCain will be there. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor here in New York.
Our coverage here in primetime starts at 7:00 Eastern time. We'll be here for all of it.
Back across the city now and Heidi with more.
COLLINS: All right, Bill thanks so much.
Political conventions have become a weeklong promotion for the party's candidate, it seems. And with that in mind, I'm joined by two co-hosts of "CROSSFIRE." You've seen them before -- Tucker Carlson and James Carville.
So nice to see you guys in person.
JAMES CARVILLE, CO-HOST "CROSSFIRE": Good morning.
COLLINS: Thanks for being here. We know you're going to be up late tonight, so we appreciate the early start.
Tucker, I want to ask you first off. You know there's about half of the relatives who died in the World Trade Center are saying you really shouldn't have chosen New York City at all for this convention.
Then about a quarter of them are also saying the reason this was chosen as a venue is so that the GOP can take advantage of what happened on September 11th. Your reaction to that?
TUCKER CARLSON, CO-HOST "CROSSFIRE": Well, they're half right. I mean, of course, the reason New York was chosen is because September 11th primarily occurred here and then you know Bush is right when he says it was the defining event of his presidency and that his leadership after was considered by the vast majority of Americans to be solid and good and he wants to remind people of that.
I mean, there -- look -- it seems to me the only reason not to choose New York is if you somehow feel that the protests are going to get out of control and hurt you, but I think the political truth of it is -- maybe not the moral truth -- but the political truth is, you know, if there were some sort of horrible, violent protest to occur here it wouldn't hurt Bush so I think that's the calculation.
COLLINS: What's the political truth here of this city?
CARVILLE: Well, the political truth here is they better wave a lot of flags, because now the president has admitted that he incompetently pursued the Iraqi war after we see millions of people being thrown into poverty as a result of this administration's policies, after we have the first president to not create any -- any jobs since Herbert Hoover.
They obviously have nothing to do but get up there and wave a bunch of flags and play a lot of music. They have no accomplishments to talk about. And so, New York is a fine place to -- as fine a place to wave an American flag as any other city.
CARLSON: Well, wait a second. First of all there's nothing wrong with waving an American flag. Secondly...
CARVILLE: It's all they can do.
CARLSON: Secondly, millions of people have been thrown into poverty by this administration? That kind of hyperbole is so stupid and so over the top that I do think -- hold on -- that I do think in the end that it actually helps Bush. The one thing Bush has going for him is kind of the craziness of his opponents. The wild-eyedness makes people nervous.
CARVILLE: Carlson didn't read the Census Bureau report in 2003 we had a million and a half more people thrown into poverty. 1.4 million people that don't have health insurance and there's 800,000 children that are in poverty and that's a result of the policies of this administration that have been fiscally reckless.
We see the president himself say, you know, I've been incompetent in pursuing this war in Iraq, which is a huge admission to make. We see instability around the world. We see division in America. And we see America's respect around the world as low as it possibly could be.
CARLSON: See, I think what the GOP needs to do honestly rather than to have this endless parade of kind of moderate Republican figures up there is to give James Carville say 11 or 12 minutes in prime time. It would so thoroughly terrify America and the Republican Party. I think Bush would win by a landslide.
COLLINS: And yet you bring these concerns up and yet the numbers on terrorism are really quite good for Bush. So, let me ask you this. We just spoke with retired General Wesley Clark who said the reason why he's doing so well with the terrorism numbers is because the Bush campaign is doing a very good job at getting their message out.
Is Kerry getting his message out? CARVILLE: A, he's not -- I see him 53 percent say he's getting a favorable job rating on terrorism which is hardly a staggering number for a...
COLLINS: Well what about Kerry?
CARVILLE: Well, again, Kerry people want the president to succeed. It's not a very good number. And his numbers on what American people think of the way he's done on this economy is awful, the Iraqi war is going south every day. This president has made two huge decisions.
Number one is to pursue the war in Iraq, which has gone terribly. The reason for the war has turned out not to be justified and the other thing is he said I'm going to punch this country into debt but as a result of that we're going to grow jobs and people's incomes are going to go up, neither which has happened.
That's why this president cannot be reelected, that's why they can't get up there and talk about any accomplishments during this convention, so they're going to get up there and play a lot of music and wave a lot of lights.
COLLINS: Tucker, what's the key this week? Is it terrorism?
CARLSON: I think the key -- yes, of course it's terrorism. Absolutely. I mean, look, the election is about national security, Iraq, and terrorism.
But I do think as a political matter it's important for the president to convince Republicans to vote. I mean, typically these things, Democratic conventions of course was an effort to get undecideds, to get moderates to vote, not be scared by the Democrats -- that's why they pretended not to think what they really think.
In this convention, though, I think Bush needs to give conservatives the faithful of the party a good reason to vote for him.
COLLINS: To the two of you this morning we appreciate it. James Carville, Tucker Carlson. We will see you again, 4:30 Eastern from the CNN Diner. Catch all four of those guys.
Thanks again, nice to see you.
CARVILLE: Thank you.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: In a moment, how do you brand a presidential candidate? For example, which one is a Ford, which one is a BMW?
Andy is looking into that. We'll go back to the diner and check in, where he and Jack are on their second bacon egg and cheese already today.
Also health news in a moment, energy drinks promise to give you a boost but there could be some risks to go with that buzz. We'll page the good doctor. Sanjay is up after a break as well.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: We are "Paging Dr. Gupta" this morning about the growing popularity of energy drinks.
They've been pouring into the market in recent years, and Sanjay is at the CNN Center now to take us behind the boost.
Are we talking Red Bull here?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We are talking Red Bull -- all sorts of different energy drinks out there, Heidi.
Listen, it's a huge market. People spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this. If you look at the advertising campaigns they say they'll revitalize your body and they'll revitalize your mind.
A lot of people looking into the ingredients and what is it about energy drinks that possibly give you the energy? What they're finding that's really nothing more than plain old caffeine and sugar.
I have a bunch of the energy drinks here. Take a look at some of them. These are all sorts of some of the popular drinks you've seen. Red Bull, an energy drink. Rockstar -- this one is for you, Heidi -- Rockstar drink.
Listen, they have all sorts of different ingredients. Again, sugar, caffeine. They also have ginseng, taurine, and guarine (sic). Those are some of the supplements you'll see if you read the labels. Again, nothing more than just caffeine in those. The caffeine is the key here.
Look at the ingredients. Look at how much caffeine you're going to get in some of these drinks. Red Bull 80 milligrams. That's in just an 8.3 ounce can. SoBe, 79 milligrams. Rockstar, 66-75 milligrams.
Compare that to Starbucks Coffee, which is 160 milligrams. Even more importantly, compare it to just soda or pop. If you take a look at those, those are bigger cans, typically, with less caffeine. Mountain Dew, that's the one that everyone always thinks of as having the most caffeine -- 55 milligrams. Again, in 12 ounces compared to 80 milligrams in 8.3 ounces in some of the other drinks.
Caffeine is a stimulant. That's why it works. If you drink a lot of it, sometimes it can be problematic in the long term, so that's where people really get their energy from, Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes, what about those side effects, Sanjay? I mean I know that after you have a lot of caffeine you definitely come down off of it pretty hard, but in the long term as you say side effects are?
GUPTA: Yes, you know first of all, most people aren't going to have really dramatic side effects. If you do have some side effects in the short term, they're usually going to be things like muscle twitching. You may have a little upset stomach, rapid heartbeat, dizziness, elevated blood pressure, dehydration.
Luckily, most of those are going to be transient unless you start to drink them often in which case you may have withdrawal type symptoms. If you drink it and then you stop drinking it all of a sudden you may have headache, you may have lethargy or the crashing sort of symptoms that you were just talking about as well, Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Sanjay thanks so much for that.
And from energy drinks, we move on to the Olympic Games. And as you know, they are now over.
But the controversy surrounding the gold medal won by American gymnast Paul Hamm continues, with gymnastics officials calling on Hamm to return the medal. He's here now along with representative James Sensenbrenner from his home state of Wisconsin.
Gentlemen, good morning to you. Welcome to New York City. As always, a little noisy out there today, but -- I want to go ahead, Paul and first show a little bit of this letter that was sent to you by the International Gymnastics Federation asking you to give back that medal.
Let's show it on the screen there. In summary it said: "If you were to return your medal to the Korean, if the FIG requested it, then such an action would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of fair play by the whole world. The FIG and the IOC would highly appreciate the magnitude of this gesture.
What's your reaction to that?
PAUL HAMM, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: Well my reaction to that is, you know, they just talk about fair play in that statement there and to me fair play means playing by the rules.
And in the competition, the rules were followed. I was determined the winner by the rules, and I don't think that the rules should be changed at this time in order to have a different outcome of the competition.
COLLINS: So, quickly to underscore what happened here -- in case people don't follow gymnastics very closely -- there were two issues.
The start value of the South Koreans was too high for where he was supposed to have started, so that's an issue.
And secondly, his performance on the parallel bars -- a deduction there of .2 of a point, which was not taken for a mistake I should say he made.
Where would that have put him after all of that was said and done?
HAMM: Well if the judges would have caught that .2 deduction, he would actually have been in fourth place in the all-around and have been out of the medals completely.
COLLINS: So, what is it then -- Representative Sensenbrenner, you have been a big supporter. How do the two of you connect?
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR. (R), WISCONSIN: The two of us connected because I represent the district where the Hamm family lives and the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, which I chair, has got jurisdiction over the United States Olympic Committee and specifically its federal charter.
COLLINS: OK.
SENSENBRENNER: I was concerned reading the newspapers that Paul Hamm was left to his own devices in Athens for eight days without support from the U.S. Olympic Committee or the USA Gymnastics Federation, and one of the things that I want to do in Congress is to make sure that Paul Hamm gets all the representation he needs now that the Koreans have appealed this matter to court and to change the law to make sure that no athlete from the United States is ever put in the position that Paul Hamm has been put in ever again.
COLLINS: Paul, what is that position now as you move forward you have that gold medal in your possession? How do you get past what goes along with that medal?
HAMM: You know, I feel so proud of my performance and what I was able to accomplish and I've been getting such a great response from the people back in the U.S.
Everyone, you know, even when I got off the plane people are saying congratulations -- you represented us well even thank you. People have all said to me keep it; it's yours; don't give it back. So, everyone here in the U.S. has been just so supportive and I would just like to thank them.
COLLINS: All right.
SENSENBRENNER: And the important thing is is that Paul Hamm won the medal by following the rules. Now, the Koreans have gone to an international sports court to try to get the rules changed after the competition is over to take Paul's gold medal away and America's gold medal away.
COLLINS: All right, well either way...
SENSENBRENNER: And we in the United States should stand up behind our athlete that did such a tremendous job.
COLLINS: I think a lot of people are doing that. Just that. Congratulations to you Paul. Thanks for being here today.
HAMM: Thank you.
COLLINS: Still to come this morning now Jack tells us how you can show your political stripes with what you put on your hot dog. "The Cafferty File" from the CNN Diner just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Welcome back to Madison Square Garden. You know, the smallest of matters sometimes get a lot of attention right now.
The Fire Department from New York City now inside of Madison Square Garden about eight of them checking out what appears to be a little bit of smoke drifting off the top center of Madison Square Garden. This is where all the TV networks have gathered to have a main booth up there.
We're much closer -- lower to the floor. We don't think it's any big deal. But just want to show you that's what's happening right now. We expect the convention gavel to order in one hour. But for now, back outside to the diner and Jack Cafferty. Hey Jack, good morning.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: How you doing? Maybe that means the Republicans have a new pope, you suppose? The smoke coming up there?
Time for a preview of the markets now -- Andy Serwer is here "Minding Your Business" and we also have a little thing on presidential branding. Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Jack. A new study that we're looking at this morning, kind of amusing, in "The Wall Street Journal." Asking consumers how they would identify the presidential candidates by various products.
Let's run through this pretty quickly. These are undecided voters. In terms of coffee, undecided voters they'd say Bush they relate to Dunkin' Donuts. John Kerry to Starbucks. That's very, very vente.
Then we move on to computers and technology. We've got: Bush, IBM -- that's Big Blue. I always thought Republicans are red. Kerry, Apple -- "Think different." Then, we move on to cars, we've got: for Bush, Ford; Kerry, BMW.
I guess Ralph Nader would be a Pujo (ph).
CAFFERTY: Probably.
SERWER: Probably. OK, then we'll move on to big retailers: Bush would be K-Mart; Kerry would be Target. No one wants Wal-Mart there, Jack.
And then finally fast food. Bush is McDonald's, and Kerry is Subway -- where you get a Swift Boat sandwich.
CAFFERTY: And health food, right?
SERWER: Yes, that's real health food.
Markets looking a little bit weak to start and we'll be checking back with that. CAFFERTY: All right, good. Thanks, Andy.
A couple of notes from "The Cafferty File." They've got this chimp in China in the zoo, and it's had this boyfriend for like 30 years. And now the guy is just getting too old.
He can't do her any good anymore, and she's frustrated and she's mad all the time because she's not getting any loving.
So, she's picked up a couple of nasty habits. One of them from watching the visitors to the zoo as she smokes cigarettes. Continually if she can get them. And the other one is she spits at the visitors who come by to say hello every day.
We've got a barbecue time left; you don't want to put Heinz ketchup on your hamburger this -- during the week of the Republican National Convention. There are a couple of other options. They've got W's ketchup and I think Bush ketchup is the -- do we have those that we can put up on the screen?
And they're available as -- there's the W ketchup. The option is to something besides Heinz ketchup.
Now, on to the real reason we're here. I told you earlier that we're on Eight Avenue, which is also called the Minnesota Strip in New York City for reasons that I can't go into on a family program.
We're right across the street from a Triple-X rated porno theatre, so you pick up souvenirs when you come to the big town, right?
If you're passing by Video, Video, Video on 34th Street, you can get a special issue of "HX" magazine. They have titled the cover story "The Gay Old Party" -- it says "Welcome Republicans, Enjoy Your Grand Guide To Gotham."
Articles include "God Save New York"...
SERWER: Yes.
CAFFERTY: ... "Pink Protests." And "Killer Closets."
Video, Video, Video is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They have video sales rental, they have love toys, magazines, lingerie, video peep shows and if you want to call them to see if they have your particular title in stock, their number is 212-947-1590. Video, Video, Video.
Actually, earlier when I pointed that out, Mayor Bloomberg was standing right over there waiting to go on and he was not pleased.
SERWER: He looked so happy, Jack.
CAFFERTY: He was not happy.
SERWER: You are giving that store all kinds of props. CAFFERTY: Why don't we do the word? We're in the neighborhood. We should help out the local merchants.
SERWER: It's a big town.
CAFFERTY: Now back to Bill.
SERWER: Yes.
HEMMER: Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Andy. Talk to you a bit later.
About an hour from now, counting down to the official kick off of the RNC here in New York. A live preview here from one of today's speakers, the House Speaker, Dennis Hastert my guest in a moment.
He's gotten some criticism for remarks he made about some New York lawmakers on 9/11. We'll talk to him about that -- also talk about the theme and message today going forward. Back in a moment live at Madison Square Garden.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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