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American Morning

'Gimme a Minute'; Oprah Power

Aired June 24, 2005 - 08:31   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A little past half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Coming up, Oprah Winfrey, we told you about that, turned away from Hermes in Paris. An honest mistake?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: They say. Or did that store just cross the most powerful woman in the world?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, what do you think, stupidity or racism, or both?

S. O'BRIEN: You know, the details are not out. And probably it is a little bit of a mixture of both. We'll have to wait to see on that. This morning we're going to take a look at Oprah's influence and the make-or-break power that her endorsement really has.

M. O'BRIEN: Do not mess with Oprah.

And do not mess with Carol Costello. She's got some serious news for us.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I certainly do. And thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

Now in the news, hundreds of firefighters are battling a wildfire near Phoenix for a second day. The blaze has grown to 46,000 acres, but is apparently now shifting away from populated areas and people have been returning to their homes.

In Southern California, all evacuations in the area have now been lifted. Crews expect to have a 3,000-acre wildfire contained by tomorrow.

An attack on U.S. Marines in Fallujah. The U.S. military confirming just this morning that a suicide car bomb went off last night. The military cites a number of casualties, but it's not clear how many at this time.

Aruba police are questioning a new suspect in connection the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. Paul Van Der Sloot, the father of a Dutch teen, already in custody, is now being held himself. The son in the meantime is apparently changing his story, and now claims he left Holloway alone on a beach. The revelations come as a teen from Texas joins the search. They will be using search dogs and high-tech sonar equipment. It looks like it was more about love than war in New York City last night. Actor Tom Cruise attending the premier of his new film, "War of the Worlds," with his fiancee.

S. O'BRIEN: Get a room!

COSTELLO: No, they'd rather do it in public. It's more exciting. Of course that's Katie Holmes.

S. O'BRIEN: Enough! We get it. You love him.

COSTELLO: Now allow me to finish the story before...

M. O'BRIEN: I think they're only doing it in public. That's my take.

COSTELLO: This is at (INAUDIBLE) Theater, and that gave a lot of people the opportunity to see them exchange...

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: I meant thoughts.

I wasn't going to say it, Soledad, but no!

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought he was giving her a dental exam.

M. O'BRIEN: Now, if you happen to miss any portion of that kiss, we have just the thing for you, right?

COSTELLO: Exactly, CNN.com. You can go on and see the video.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: "Gimme a Minute" time, fastest talking pundits in television. Get the fastest pundits in television. Get the last word on the week's big stories. In San Francisco, KNEW Radio host Jeff Katz. In Washington, Jennifer Palmeiri of the Center for American Progress. And in New York, Andy Borowitz of the Borowitzreport.com at another studio. Well, I'll ask about that later.

All right, we're going to talk about Karl Rove first, the president's number one political adviser, with some controversial statements. The political smackdown continues in Washington.

Let's listen first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE, DEP. WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and want to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding to our attackers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: The plot begins -- Jeff. There he is.

JEFF KATZ, KNEW RADIO: People are upset with what Karl Rove said. Karl Rove is clear on what he said. And the fact of the matter these are the same left-wingers who refused to pull the turban off of Dick Durbin, after he stood on the floor of the Senate and committed an act of sedition by comparing American troops to Nazis.

Karl Rove told the truth. The left in this country wants to coddle the terrorists. They want to find out what we as Americans did wrong. Nonsense, Karl Rove shouldn't apologize to anybody.

M. O'BRIEN: Jennifer?

JENNIFER PALMEIRI, CTR. FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: You know, every time the Bush administration gets into trouble, Karl Rove tries to turn everybody's attention to the war on terror, because they would much rather have us be having, talking about clearly false, ridiculous debate than talking about the fact that there is a mess in Iraq, that everybody in America hates Bush's Social Security plan, and that gas prices are at -- or oil is at $60 a barrel, and this is what they do. They cynically use 9/11 to try and divert attention to what's really going on, and they don't care that it's divisive and that all of America thinks that what they say is crazy.

M. O'BRIEN: Andy Borowitz, we're in the bonus period -- go!

ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Karl Rove is sometimes called Bush's brain, and I think proof of that is he mispronounced "savagery."

M. O'BRIEN: Next question. Yesterday, some heated congressional hearings. Senator Kennedy getting into it with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, saying maybe he should resign.

Jennifer, what do you think?

PALMEIRI: Well, clearly he should resign. He said that -- Senator Kennedy laid out some really thoughtful arguments why he should. And Secretary Rumsfeld said, well, the military leaders here wouldn't agree with you, and then they gave testimony that agreed with everything Kennedy said. And Rumsfeld has said that he has tried to resign twice, and I think he should keep trying.

KATZ: Listen, I don't necessarily agree with everything that Secretary Rumsfeld had to say. I'm much more interested what it is that the generals have to say. But I have absolutely no interest in anything that Ted Kennedy has to say, unless he is giving us the proper proportion of gin to tonic. The senator from Massachusetts should just be quiet.

M. O'BRIEN: Perhaps some expertise there -- Andy.

BOROWITZ: I think Ted Kennedy was way out of line. The time for Rumsfeld to resign was two years ago. M. O'BRIEN: All right, let's move on. Vice President Cheney, interview with Wolf Blitzer, said -- and we'll quote him now, talking about the defeat of the insurgency in Iraq, said it would be a enormous success story ultimately that would have a huge impact throughout the region. Jennifer -- we're going back to Jeff. Is that likely? Would you say that prediction will come true?

KATZ: I don't know when it will come true. I think we're certainly laying the groundwork. It's a very, very tough situation. We've brought a degree of democracy, and we have to see how these folks adapt to it.

M. O'BRIEN: Jennifer.

PALMEIRI: He needs to get out from under his undisclosed location and start listening to his military leaders. There is this incredible disconnect between the tales that Cheney and Rumsfeld spin and what their military leaders say on the ground, and what CNN reports is happening everyday on the ground. And I think it's a long time before we're going to see that type of success -- Andy.

BOROWITZ: You know, I saw that interview. Dick Cheney also said he had high hopes for that Russian cosmos rocket, so I don't know.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much for "Gimme a Minute." Thank you Jeff Katz of WNEW in San Francisco, Jennifer Palmeiri, Center for American Progress.

And Andy Borowitz of theborowitzreport.com.

We appreciate it -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: New reaction this morning from the Oprah Winfrey camp to her recent snub at an Hermes store in Paris. Oprah's best friend, Gail King, telling entertainment tonight that she was with Winfrey when the store turned them away, and she says describes Oprah describes it as, quote, "one of the most humiliating moments of her life."

Hermes has apologized and says it was closed for a public relations event. And now it looks like Oprah's going to go ahead and talk about the incident when her show is back from hiatus. And You got to imagine, it's not going to be a glowing review.

So what could the impact be? Linda Kaplan Thaler is the head of the head of the Kaplan Thaler group and an expert in branding.

Good morning. Nice to see you.

LINDA KAPLAN THALER, CEO, KAPLAN THALER GROUP: It's nice to be here.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's imagine, Oprah goes on her show when they come back from their break, and says Hermes insulted me, and goes on to describe a bad situation. What, at the end of day, is the cost to that company for that slight? THALER: Well, I think Gucci and Prada are going to be dancing in the street, because the fact is, it's a tremendous cost. Most of the people who are going to be watching are not going to be able to afford the merchandise in the store, but the ripple effect for her friends and celebrities, they may not want to be seen with those bags.

S. O'BRIEN: She went ahead and returned a dozen or so Birkin bags at what, $6,500 a pop, so right there, they lost money. But are you predicting sort of just bad PR? Or are you saying a real hit financially to the bottom line?

THALER: Yes, it's amazing the power of one. Look, it took one sales lady to cause this whole incident. It wasn't the company that did it. It wasn't Hermes. It was one person. And Oprah, she was just voted the most powerful important celebrity in the entire country by "Forbes" magazine. So, I mean, people look to her. They believe in her. They believe in her integrity. This is a woman who has an incredibly high not only intellectually I.Q., but emotional I.Q., She connects with people. And everybody can associate...

S. O'BRIEN: So back to that for a moment. If you really look at Oprah, here you have a woman, she's black. She grew up impoverished. She does not have children. She's not married. I would imagine that most of her audience are married, probably white women with kids.

THALER: Everybody can associate with coming down from nothing and building themselves up. And people have felt that she has been very open about where she's come from. Even her weight problem. You know, she's very open about it and people feel very empathetic towards her. They feel like they know her. And because of that, when something happens to her, it happens to all of us.

And we may not be associated with that particular incident, but we can relate back to somewhere, some point where we were -- you know, somebody was prejudice against us, somebody turned us away. And it creates a whole ripple effect. It's a big bang.

S. O'BRIEN: When she says "Anna Karenina" is the book you all should be reading, people who would not even crack it open in college when they were supposed to read it will run out and buy this...

THALER: Absolutely.

S. O'BRIEN: Why is that?

THALER: She has incredible instincts in terms of -- you know, look at her magazine. I mean, where all magazines were starting to fall apart, she created something that was absolutely huge. Because she uses -- she goes on gut, she goes on her instinctive feelings about things and they are right. They're right on the pulse of America.

S. O'BRIEN: It seems like she will ask people to give money. And here, often I think very incredibly wealthy people can sometimes -- people don't want to give money. I mean, they'll say, why doesn't Oprah write a check for a million dollars? And instead, she can encourage a group, an audience, to give a million dollars, for example, to Lance Armstrong's cancer research.

THALER: Right. I think that's part of the fact that people believe in her honesty and they believe in her integrity and believe that she wouldn't be asking for something if it wasn't important. And the fact is, she's an incredibly generous person.

S. O'BRIEN: Any area where it doesn't work? Where the Oprah brand is not all power, where it's not the Midas touch?

THALER: Well, you know, I haven't seen it yet. I think that if she even went into politics, she would be successful.

S. O'BRIEN: President Oprah?

THALER: President Oprah. Doesn't sound so bad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, you know they'll be talking -- once they put it on the book club or when they start talking about it on the show...

THALER: Absolutely.

S. O'BRIEN: ... it will do really well, it will take off. Linda, Kaplan Thaler, nice to see you. Thanks for talking about -- you know, I'm looking to -- already, to the show where she talks about what happened...

THALER: Me, too.

S. O'BRIEN: ... at this store...

THALER: Me, too.

S. O'BRIEN: ... no matter what. Thanks -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Got to wait 'til September. Boy, talk about, as you said, D.T.s.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, eating well when you're expecting. Can you scarf down all that food you're craving and still be eating healthfully? We'll take a look at that.

M. O'BRIEN: And after the Supreme Court's ruling on eminent domain, should you really worry about losing your house to someone so they can build a strip mall? Andy is "Minding Your Business," ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: If you're pregnant, you're supposed to eat healthy foods to ensure a healthy baby. But what happens when the thought of eating absolutely anything makes you feel sick, or if you feel like you might hurt somebody if you don't get some pizza right now?

Well, Heidi Murkoff is the author of best-selling book "What to Expect When You're Expecting." Now she's got a new book out. It's called "Eating Well When You're Expecting." Heidi joins us. Nice to see you.

HEIDI MURKOFF, AUTHOR: Good to see you always.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, we talk about cravings a lot when you're pregnant.

MURKOFF: Yes, we do. And actually, around 3:00 a.m.

S. O'BRIEN: But you know what I found was weird? When I was pregnant, I didn't crave anything healthy ever.

MURKOFF: Funny about that.

S. O'BRIEN: And so you had the list -- you had this list of foods that are good for the baby, but you actually want is pizza and sugar and pretzels and, you know, everything bad for you. What do cravings mean?

MURKOFF: The hormones are talking and the hormones do a lot of talking when you're pregnant. But it's also an evolutionary throwback, I think, because long ago, before we departed so far from the food chain, aversions and cravings were nature's way of making sure that a baby was well-fed and that mom was protected from her eating environment. So for instance, when a pregnant cave woman craved something sweet, it was her body's way of saying, go out and get some Vitamin C, get some berries. And so she'd go forage for berries.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, but today...

MURKOFF: We don't forage for berries.

S. O'BRIEN: I crave Kozy Shack Rice Pudding.

MURKOFF: Exactly. And that's because we've departed so far from the food chain. We can't necessarily credit our bodies with sending us accurate signals. Or maybe we're not able to interpret those signals accurately anymore.

S. O'BRIEN: Is your advice, then, give in to the craving and have the Kozy Shack every day or...

MURKOFF: It kind of depends what the craving is. So if your body is sending you to the fridge for all you can eat grapefruit binge or, you know, you suddenly can't get enough grilled chicken and steamed broccoli and brown rice, then, you know...

S. O'BRIEN: That's fine.

MURKOFF: Go crazy with it. Go -- but, you know, realistically, you're more likely to crave the less healthy things. And it's OK to give in occasionally, but it's better to more often try to find a healthy substitute that actually satisfies your craving, which is important. I mean, let's face it. But also satisfies a nutritional requirement at the same time.

S. O'BRIEN: Healthy, but with sugar kind of thing.

MURKOFF: Well, say you're craving something cold and sweet. Well, why not have a fruit smoothie? It's cold and it's sweet, but it gives you calcium, it gives you protein. Or if you're craving salty and crunchy, then you could have, say, a bag of soy chips instead of potato chips. You will still get the salty and crunchy, you'll get protein, not so much fat.

S. O'BRIEN: You got to kind of break it down. If you're violently ill all the time, what do you eat?

MURKOFF: You eat whatever gets you through the day for the most part. Whenever possible, you get selective. So if you're craving crackers, well, have a whole-grain cracker. If you're craving grilled cheese sandwich.

S. O'BRIEN: Have a cracker?

MURKOFF: The only thing...

S. O'BRIEN: Because you know what, you don't want the grilled cheese.

MURKOFF: And then, you know, the funny thing about crackers is if you're really queasy all the time and you're only eating crackers, you're going to start to associate that nausea. So switch off. You don't have to eat crackers just because you have morning sickness. The other good thing to do is to eat small amounts of food throughout the day. So I call it the six meal solution. It really is the best solution for any pregnancy symptom that's getting you down, and especially for nausea, because, if your stomach is empty, the acids in your stomach...

S. O'BRIEN: Make it worse.

MURKOFF: ... have nothing to feed on but your stomach lining.

S. O'BRIEN: The book, again, is called "Eating Well When You're Expecting."

Still to come this morning, the high cost of using an ATM. Fees are on the rise. How much will you have to spend? We're "Minding Your Business" just ahead. Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: We're getting this word just into CNN. The word is that the president will be making an address to the nation. That's going to happen on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. It will be coming from Fort Bragg. That, of course, is a U.S. Army Base in North Carolina. Fort Bragg is also the home of the 82nd Airborne, and members of the 82nd Airborne are now serving in Iraq. CNN, of course, is going to carry those remarks live for you. That's 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, 8:00 p.m. Eastern time -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. The Supreme Court, closely divided. Well, it's as close as it gets, 5-4.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: Says, you know, we kind of like your house. Let's put a strip mall there. Kind of, right?

SERWER: Yes. Big box stores like Target and Wal-Mart and Home Depot, Miles, are very happy with the Supreme Court decision yesterday to expand the definition of eminent domain. I don't know if you've been following this. It happened with a case in New London, Connecticut.

The decision allows the town it expand into a neighborhood and do some economic development there. The Fort Trumbull of New London. Home owners there are outraged because they're not going to be building a highway or something like that there. They are simply going to be doing economic development and allowing stores to come in.

Justice Stevens saying this is a part of a government that has been a long tradition in this nation, is to spur economic development. Dissenting Justice O'Connor saying that if you start with this, well, any Motel 6 could be pulled down to build a Ritz Carlton.

And the reason I'm saying these big box stores are so delighted is because you probably know that Wal-Mart and others have run into problems with jurisdictions trying to get these stores built. A lot of opposition by local home owners. This would really probably clear the way and allow them to do it much easier.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, it seems like you could say not only will we bring money into the business, here is a pay-off for the area, the land itself. And then that would sort of spur the local business people to take over the land. I mean, you don't have to be a math genius to figure out that.

SERWER: Right. And in fact, some developers are saying outright that this is going to make their job a lot easier. And I think, obviously, there are going to be all sorts of test cases going forward. It's going to be very interesting to watch this.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think you're exactly right. All right, Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, "Late Show" host David Letterman was having a little fun with Tom Cruise last night. He was poking fun at the actor's speedy, short courtship with actress Katie Holmes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE SHOW": We have in our green room tonight from New York City, Judge Larry Block (ph). He has been a judge for 23 years, works for the appellate court of the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. And if need be, he will be happy to marry Tom Cruise tonight. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tom and Katie tonight?

LETTERMAN: There he is right there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is he is. Ready to go!

LETTERMAN: And I know it has...

TOM CRUISE ACTOR: I like the judge in the back room.

LETTERMAN: Yes.

CRUISE: That's very funny. We're ready to go. Ted? Ted. That is -- that's Letterman classic.

LETTERMAN: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: He didn't take him up on it.

M. O'BRIEN: Didn't do it. He should have. He should have just done it right then and there.

S. O'BRIEN: Saved a ton of money, if he had.

M. O'BRIEN: But then it wouldn't be the public spectacle and all the things...

S. O'BRIEN: No helicopters flying over.

M. O'BRIEN: And all the things that they want, right?

S. O'BRIEN: Yep.

Well, in a moment, today's top stories, including a live report from the firelines in Arizona. The blaze there still growing this morning. So how close are firefighters to getting it under control? We're going to find out just ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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