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American Morning

President Bush's Supreme Court Nomination; A Discussion With Founder and CEO of Operation Hope

Aired October 04, 2005 - 09:31   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Coming up, a closer look at the president's strategy to try to get support on the left and the right for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. He's going to speak to reporters in just about an hour, possibly delivering a message to conservatives as he answers some questions that are posed. We'll have a live report on that this morning.

First, though, let's say hi again to Rob Marciano. He's reporting for us from Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Hey, Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Soledad.

Beautiful day here in Lake Charles, different from 12 days ago when Hurricane Rita was coming on shore. Getting a progress report on how Lake Charles is recouping from this storm all day long. Coming up in just a few minutes. I tracked down one of the local television anchors here, and he has some interesting stories to tell both on the night of the storm and how they were able to get valuable information out to the public that needed it and, of course, he knows what's going on after the storm and has a good feel for what the community has been going through the last 12 days and what their plan is going forward. We'll talk with John Bridges in just a few minutes -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Rob.

Headlines now.

Carol Costello has a look at those. Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I do. Good morning, Soledad. Good morning to all of you.

Now in the news, Texas Representative Tom DeLay is laughing at the new indictment against him, calling it, quote, "an abomination of justice." A Texas grand jury indicted DeLay Monday on a money- laundering charge. He faces a conspiracy charge in a state campaign- finance probe. We are expecting the news conference in the next half hour out of Lake George New York about the boat tour tragedy. State officials have temporarily suspended the operating licenses for Shoreline Cruises. The company is now under investigation after one of the tour boats rolled over and sank, killing 20 people. Authorities say only one crew member was on board at the time of the accident. State regulations would have required at least two.

The U.S. Army coming up short on his recruitment goal by a pretty big margin. Army Secretary Francis Harvey says the number of recruits, adding during the fiscal year that ended last week was just over 73,000. The goal had been 80,000.

And some amazing pictures out of southeastern China to show you. The country was just hit by its 19th typhoon this year, 19 in one year already. Heavy winds and downpours causing major flooding. That's sad. There are reports of at least three deaths, but of course, that number could climb. Tens of thousand were apparently evacuated ahead of that storm, and that's a good thing.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: President Bush's Supreme Court nomination not garnering the enthusiasm of some Democrats, or even some conservative lawmakers for that matter. White House Counsel Harriet Miers' nomination to the high court is sure to come up in a news conference the president's holding in just about an hour.

Bob Franken live at the White House for us this morning.

Bob, good morning to you. What's the president been saying about his nominee?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's been saying that she is somebody who is true to the conservative spirit and to the standards that he's set for a Supreme Court justice, that is to say somebody who will not legislate from the bench and strictly interpret the constitution.

The problem he has with Harriet Miers is nobody really knows much about her.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know her heart. I know her character.

FRANKEN (voice-over): But little known of a track record. However, Harriet Miers is confirmed, she'll get one real fast. The new Supreme Court session with the new chief justice, John Roberts, will waste little time diving in to the controversial issues of our times.

Wednesday, the justices will hear arguments over whether Oregon's law allowing physician-assisted suicide is unconstitutional.

FRANKEN: And there will be, of course, new fights over abortion. So far, the main case involves New Hampshire's parental-notification requirements.

Questions about abortion in the Roe versus Wade rulings were among the issues the chief justice deflected during his confirmation hearings. Almost. SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), JUDICIARY CHAIRMAN: Do you believe today that the right to privacy does exist in the Constitution?

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE: Senator, I do. The right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways.

FRANKEN: And there could well be other abortion cases, late-term abortion for one. And a list of social issues crowds the docket -- free speech, church-state, the death penalty, terrorism and presidential power and the Pledge of Allegiance and the words "under God," again, that could be a late act. And, of course, Harriet Miers could be a late add, if she is.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: My guess is it would be very hard to finish this process by Thanksgiving.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: At the earliest, and of course, the really big if, if is whether Harriet Miers will be confirmed. The president is doing a bit of a selling job, or will try to at the news conference -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: It will be interesting, too, to see just how contentious the confirmation process ends up being in the end.

Bob Franken for us at White House. Bob, thanks.

President Bush is going to hold a news conference in the next hour at the White House Rose Garden. CNN is going to carry it live. That begins at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

Well, for those of us who have not experienced it, you can only begin to imagine the problems that are facing so many of the hurricane victims -- displaced, living in shelters, scattered across the country, hardly enough money to get by.

John Bryant is the founder and CEO of Operation Hope, becoming known by a nickname, the "Financial Red Cross." He's joins us this morning to talk about that.

Nice to see you. Thanks for talking to us.

JOHN BRYANT, CEO, OPERATION HOPE: Nice to be here, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Why is it called the "Financial Red Cross." What does that mean exactly?

BRYANT: Well, after 9/11 there was a lot of talk about some of the victims and what they had to go through and all of that was, of course, appropriate, but there were thousands and thousands of janitors in that building who were living from paycheck to paycheck, and after you have an emotional disaster and a physical disaster, you also have an economic disaster. We are a democracy rooted in capitalism and a free-market system, and that issue had never been addressed. It has dawned on me that we need what I called an economic Red Cross in this country, to begin to help people deal with what I call the second-stage recovery.

O'BRIEN: You know, in some ways, you feel like people are victimized twice, first the disaster itself, and then the process of trying to figure out housing, children and schools and how they pay for things, bills that are going to come now, bills that are going to come in six months. What exactly do you do?

BRYANT: Well, I mean, the reality is, you just hit it right on the head. You've got a car loan, but no car. I mean, imagine your average viewer stuck in this tragedy, and on top of the emotional anguish and physical pain -- let's say you've got a car loan and no car. You've got a home loan and no home. You've got credit card bills and no job. You've got a small business loan and no going concern.

So what we've done is organized and, in partnership with FEMA, in partnership with some our nation's leaders in the private sector, organized a volunteer bankers, Hope Corps members, to go into disaster recovery centers, to help people with compassion counseling. We've got a call center, thanks to First American Corporation and others, that have been set up actually six or seven call centers in rotation, so that nobody gets dropped, to help them with emergency budget counseling, emergency financial counseling and ultimately, what we call economic triage. Very much like triaging a medical wound. You can't put a band-aid on an amputated leg. You really need to triage it.

And so we've got people who have been thrown into the deep end of this economic pool and they've been -- you know, they can swim in a pool, but maybe not in the ocean. And so what we do is help them restructure credit agreements, help them defer payments, contacting their creditors and helping to arrange a win-win solution for all involved.

O'BRIEN: We had the phone number up a moment ago. Maybe we can throw it back up again. And the Web site is operationhope.org. The phone number is 877-592-HOPE. I know you're looking for volunteers. You have some, but you need a lot more. How many do you have, how many do you need?

BRYANT: We have 1,000 volunteers since the FDIC and regulatory agencies in the private sector have helped us in that regard. We've got, thanks to Microsoft and some innovative desktop software they've helped us to create, online -- we've been able to do what is called virtual volunteering. So you could be in your desk in New York, you can be at your desk at a bank or credit union or wherever in Houston or in Los Angeles,and volunteer online, over the Internet, and be on the phone with the victim, help Mrs. Jones through her issue, update the online database, close it, go to your meeting. And another volunteer in Los Angeles can pick up right where you left off to help somebody in need.

We have about a thousand committed now. We need about 5,000. And to help -- we have a million three people, Soledad, that as of -- these numbers are old -- that were about ago, that were signed up for FEMA assistance just from Hurricane Katrina. A million three. And many of these people, unlike you and me, don't have an economic lifeline. They were in a disaster before Katrina hit. They were in an economic disaster. You have some people who had an economic disconnect, as you know. People asking them to wire money to somebody who doesn't have a bank account.

And so these are realities that we're having to do deal with and we're going to need -- if you're dealing with a million three people, I'd say that, you know, a few hundred thousand of them need assistance, this economic triage. We're going to need 5,000 to 8,000 volunteer and USA Freedom Corps has been helpful in that regard. USAfreedomcorps.gov. And of course they can go online to operationhope.org to sign up and volunteer. We need people for this second-stage recovery.

O'BRIEN: It definitely is a huge problem. A friend of mine from New Orleans just got her cable bill. She hasn't been -- her house gone, she's got a cable bill she's supposed to pay.

Tom Bryant, the founder and CEO of Operation Hope, thank you for talking with us.

BRYANT: Soledad, thanks for having me.

O'BRIEN: My pleasure. Let's get back to Rob in Lake Charles, Louisiana -- Rob.

MARCIANO: Hi, Soledad. We're just about to wrap up our coverage of the second day of our three-day tour here in Lake Charles, Louisiana. And here by the lake, you got dead fish, you got broken homes and broken docks. But now, a calm, serene lake. The stories go much beyond this lake and we're going to get an inside look at what happened the night of the storm, the 12 days since. Talk to a longtime newsman and my friend and colleague John Bridges. You don't want to miss that. AMERICAN MORNING will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: Live in Lake Charles, Louisiana, now a beautiful day, but boy, it was a rough night about 12 nights ago and we're trying to cover the stories as best on, you know, being a national news network. But there's only so much you can do. At the local level, it really tells the true story, both the night of the storm and what the community has gone after the storm.

I used to work here in Lake Charles and I managed to track down an old friend and colleague. This is John Bridges. Hi, John.

JOHN BRIDGES, KPLC ANCHOR: Good to see you, Rob.

MARCIANO: Longtime news anchor here and pretty much the voice, at least in the morning, of Lake Charles. Boy, you must have had crazy times the night of the storm.

BRIDGES: It was wild. And, you know, usually, whenever you're a local broadcaster and you're trying to get out just the basic information about weather and emergencies and kind of let people know who stayed behind, who didn't evacuate, what to do.

And we planned, at one point, to go off the air. I mean, it's just natural when you get winds of 100-plus miles per hour that you're going to be knocked off. But we were never off the air. We stayed on the entire time broadcasting from the hospital, which was right across the lake here, shooting a signal to our downtown transmitter.

MARCIANO: Well, walk with me here. So across the lake is the hospital. Actually, that's where Sanjay Gupta was also broadcasting.

BRIDGES: Right. He was in the same building.

MARCIANO: You guys shot across the lake to where your boarded-up studios were.

BRIDGES: Right.

MARCIANO: You still managed to get that signal.

BRIDGES: No one there.

MARCIANO: At some point, did the graphics go down? I mean, how do you visually tell people what's going on?

BRIDGES: It was raw. We called it caveman journalism. I think our engineer came up with that. Basically, as an FCC requirement, we have to do messages for the hearing impaired. We wrote on a white board, tornado warning for such and such parish. We had to hold that up underneath the screen. We had one microphone. We were talking with emergency officials on a cell phone, we would put it on speaker phone and hold it up to the mike. And that's basically what we had.

But I talked to a few people that were in churches and homes, hunkered down with battery-powered radios. We simulcast on a local radio station. They were able to listen to our coverage while they were underneath this mattress, getting ready for the high winds.

MARCIANO: This is, I think, and the first time you see it --- oh my God, there's so much dead fish here, it just really stinks. The birds and the ducks are having a hard time. What are -- how are people doing now? Tell me -- I mean, I'm sure they call the TV station. They can't watch, they try calling. What's the feeling of the community right now?

BRIDGES: The main thing is the lack of electricity. We've gone now for over a week. We're heading into our second week without power. And as you know, we have become spoiled to electricity. So we're trying to get by there. But the Cajun spirit is really alive. There's no complaining, there's very little complaining. They're getting by the best way they can.

And I think that what we're trying to do is get southwest Louisiana back going again. We're going to restore our coastline. Holly Beach, which you know was devastated; Cameron Parish is going rebuild. And we're going to be that great spot in southwest Louisiana once again, where people can come and enjoy nature. MARCIANO: All right, the people here people here are just amazing, aren't they?

BRIDGES: They really are. And I mean, I'm prejudiced. I've lived here all my life. But I'm really proud of our local officials and of our people. They've really pulled through.

MARCIANO: John, good to see you, man.

BRIDGES: Good to see you again, Rob.

MARCIANO: My love to Connie.

BRIDGES: OK, I sure will.

MARCIANO: You guys have done great work -- Soledad, back to you.

O'BRIEN: All right, Rob. It must be nice to catch up with an old friend and hear a great story, too, thanks.

CNN LIVE TODAY is coming up next and Tony Harris is in for Daryn. Hey, Tony, good morning to you. What are you working on?

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Soledad, good morning to you. Straight ahead, President Bush will speak to reporters from the White House. In about 40 minutes, he's due to hold a news conference in the Rose Garden. We will, of course, carry that live.

And on a very different note, how's your dog doing? There is a new flu affecting dogs and it can be deadly. Veterinarians say it's spreading nationwide. So how concerned should pet-owners be? Some answers, ahead on CNN LIVE TODAY at the top of the hour.

Soledad, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Dog flu?

HARRIS: Dog flu.

O'BRIEN: Really?

HARRIS: We're going to get answers for you, Soledad. That's my mission today.

O'BRIEN: Well, OK. Can it become people flu?

HARRIS: Well, that's one of the questions we will ask, and we will have that answer.

O'BRIEN: All right, then I'll look forward to that. Thanks, Tony.

HARRIS: Sure.

O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, Andy's "Minding Your Business." One airline is cutting flights because of the damage to oil refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, a look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: President Bush is holding a news conference in the Rose Garden today 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

CNN's going to carry that live when it happens.

Business news now. Another airline making cutbacks as they struggle to deal with high fuel costs. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning.

We told you about American Airlines yesterday. Today it's Delta Airlines turn to cut back on flights.

Let's check the markets, though, first of all, Soledad, this morning and see how things are faring on Wall Street. Looks like we're down four points on the Dow Jones Industrials, stocks sort of ticking all over the place in early trading this morning. Delta says it's going to be cutting a few dozen flights each day, and this is an interesting one, Soledad, because unlike American which specified which flights would be cutting back, Delta is doing this piecemeal, and notifying customers, they say, at least two days in advance.

O'BRIEN: So you could have a flight lined up a month in advance.

SERWER: That's true. And 48 hours before you take off, they could call up and just say, you're gone. And they're going to try to accommodate you. They say mostly it will be late flights on Tuesday, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

O'BRIEN: Half the week?

SERWER: Yes, that would be three out of the seven days, as you're pointing out.

O'BRIEN: OK.

SERWER: These are tough times. Delta, of course is in bankruptcy. More fallout from the hurricanes and the energy prices. Talking about here, oil companies, of course, have been reaping huge profits with higher prices, but they're also having to pay for tremendous amounts of damage. British Petroleum, BP coming out and saying it's seeing a $700 million bill in damages from this, and that doesn't even include $100 million that it will take to fix that Thunder Horse platform that was damaged earlier in the year.

And we've been talking a lot about higher gas prices, obviously. One thing that's kind of gone unnoticed here. Higher diesel fuel prices. It turns out that right now diesel fuel prices have just hit an all-time record $3.15 a gallon. That's up 35 cents in a week.

O'BRIEN: Really hits business hard, and it means you pay for it faster.

SERWER: Exactly, and look at those pictures. Those are trucks. Trucks use diesel fuel. Guess where the cost will be passed on to?

O'BRIEN: From us.

SERWER: That's right.

O'BRIEN: See, I'm getting good at this whole business thing, huh?

SERWER: You really are picking it up.

O'BRIEN: I can do the math. Always comes back to us paying for it. I get it.

SERWER: Yes, yes, check your wallet.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I get it.

Thanks, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

O'BRIEN: Coming up tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING you'll want to join as AMERICAN MORNING's Kelly Wallace travels exclusively with former President Bill Clinton, her firsthand look at the devastation along the Gulf Coast. That starts tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. Eastern.

We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: So, Soledad, almost two weeks since Hurricane Rita roared through Southwest Louisiana, and it's a slow go trying to get this place back on track, as it was yesterday when we were in Port Arthur.

Day three of our tour is going to take us somewhere east. We hope to get to Mississippi, but as you know, it could be a difficult spot to find a place to work and to stay. But I promise you, we'll be somewhere east of here tomorrow to continue our coverage of the aftermath and recovery efforts of both Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, we'll see how far you get. Thanks, Rob. We'll check in with you tomorrow.

And as you say, nice day and some really good attitudes we've been hearing over the last couple of days, people ready to rebuild.

Thanks, Rob.

That's it for us on AMERICAN MORNING. Tony Harris is at the CNN Center, going to take you through the next couple of hours on "CNN LIVE TODAY," filling in for Daryn. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com