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American Morning

President Bush to Discuss Medicare Today; Williams Executed

Aired December 13, 2005 - 06:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The efforts to save Stanley Tookie Williams are over. He was executed this morning. We talk this morning to one reporter who was there and who witnessed this highly- controversial execution.
Also ahead this morning, race riots in normally serene Sydney, Australia. What sparked them? What can the police do now?

And take a look at this. It's not a fountain. It's a mystery. We're going to tell you where you can find some growing geysers in the American Heartland.

Those stories all ahead. Stay with us.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. We're glad you're with us this morning. We've got our holiday poinsettias here.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So many.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, they just sprouted up overnight. It's amazing what you can do with a little miracle grow. Boom! There they were.

Carol Costello is in. She's got a look at the headlines this morning for you.

Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I do indeed. And good morning to all of you.

Our top story this morning, of course, after much debate and last-minute appeals, Stanley Tookie Williams put to death. That happened about three hours ago. Williams was the co-founder of the Los Angeles Crips gang. He was executed for killing four people back in 1979. Hundreds of people, most of them against the death penalty, kept vigil outside of the prison. Some believe Williams deserved clemency because he advocated against gang violence while he was in prison.

Two major milestones in Iraq. Today marks the 1,000th day of the war and the second anniversary of Saddam Hussein's capture. Also, Iraqi expatriates have begun casting their ballots ahead of Thursday's parliamentary elections. More then one million Iraqis in the U.S. alone are expected to take part. On Monday, Iraqi soldiers were among the first to vote.

Hundreds of police officers are taking to the streets of Sydney, Australia. Yes. Take a look at that. It's happening again, another round of rioting. The riots erupted after a confrontation Sunday involving some 5,000 young people. Police say people believed to be of Middle Eastern descent are being targeted. State lawmakers are being called to an emergency session of parliament to grant the police authority to lock down parts of the city.

Firefighters in England are close to putting out the last of the flames of that oil depot near London. The massive fires have been burning for more than 48 hours, producing a thick smoke seen as far away as France. A series of explosions set off those fires.

And the miracle of science. Actually it sounds like a scientific experiment gone wrong. Mice growing human brain cells. This was done on purpose. Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego injected 100,000 embryonic stem cells into the brains of mice -- human cells into the brains of mice. The point of this experiment was to make realistic models of neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease. The work was published in the journal, "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

And this brings up all sorts of ethical questions, because can you imagine the mice start thinking like humans, and they scream when they see you instead of you screaming when you see them?

M. O'BRIEN: And they leave big traps for us with cheeseburgers on them.

COSTELLO: Exactly.

M. O'BRIEN: That would be bad.

S. O'BRIEN: We could go on and on.

COSTELLO: We could.

M. O'BRIEN: Don't eat the cheeseburger whatever you do.

S. O'BRIEN: Carol, thanks.

COSTELLO: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: President Bush takes a break from Iraq policy speeches today to focus on health care. A new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll finds that health care ranks just behind Iraq and terrorism in importance for Americans.

With more on the president's agenda, here is CNN's White House correspondent Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president today will go to Virginia to focus on a major domestic initiative, and that is a prescription drug benefit for Medicare that Mr. Bush is trying to educate seniors about, explain what it is and why he thinks it's important for them to enroll in the program.

Now, this is a detour from a week otherwise focused very much on Iraq, especially the elections upcoming this week, trying to seize on what he calls progress, even a turning point he insists, that will be recorded these elections for the future in the Middle East.

Now, in Philadelphia he gave a 38-minute speech on Iraqi democracy. And it took a highly-unusual twist. The president stayed to take questions from the audience.

One, demanding to know why he and his aides continue to use 9/11 as justification for the invasion of Iraq when there has been no evidence that that actually has happened.

Another asking about Iraqi deaths. There he gave what aides afterwards called an unofficial number. But he added unsolicited the U.S. casualty figure that he is often criticized for avoiding.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.

BASH: A senior administration official joked this performance was an attempt to burst the bubble the president is accused of living in. But his relaxed demeanor, even with tough questions, may help settle an internal debate whether these settings, face-to-face meetings with critics, even skeptics, of the war is too risky.

Dana Bash, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Let's check the forecast now. Bonnie Schneider at the weather center.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, the Fed may be looking to make some changes to interest rates. Good news, bad news? I don't know. Andy will tell us what it means to your wallet in "Minding Your Business."

S. O'BRIEN: Also ahead, much more on our top story this morning, the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. One of the people who was there tells us about atmosphere among the witnesses and outside the prison, too. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: After years and years of legal wrangling and 11th- hour pleas for clemency, Tookie Williams' pleas to avoid execution fell unheard. He was executed just after midnight California time. Many reporters attended. Let's get right to Kevin Fagan. He's a journalist with the "San Francisco Chronicle." He witnessed the execution. He joins us by phone.

Kevin, good morning. Thanks for talking with us.

KEVIN FAGAN, "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Hi, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Prison officials had emphasized just how clinical this execution would be for all its notoriety. Is that how it went?

FAGAN: It was a little less clinical than others. This is the sixth execution I've watched at San Quentin. And this one had more to it than any other lethal injection that I've witnessed or have heard about.

S. O'BRIEN: What do you mean?

FAGAN: It took a long time to insert the catheter into his left arm. They had quite a lot of trouble putting it in. It took about 15 to 20 minutes.

And as it was happening, Williams was saying to the effect of, don't you have this right? You know, do you guys know what you're doing? And it was very hard to hear what he was saying, because the glass is very thick in the chamber. It was built to be a gas chamber, not a lethal injection chamber.

But between us all, all of us witnesses, we picked up that he was really kind of almost heckling them.

S. O'BRIEN: So, his tone then when he was dealing with his executioners was one of almost heckling them as opposed to nervousness or deep concern as his final moment approaches?

FAGAN: I think it was -- heckling may go a little bit far. The warden said he was trying to assist them as they were putting the needles in, but saying things like, don't you know what you're doing, seemed to be somewhat critical of it.

And the most striking thing to me was that this was the first time I had seen an outburst in the execution chamber.

S. O'BRIEN: Describe that for me what happened.

FAGAN: At the end of the execution, Williams had three friends in there -- actually five supporters. And three of his friends led by Ms. Becknell (ph), who is a co-author with him on his books, yelled out as they left, "The State of California just killed an innocent man."

In the rules of witnessing an execution are that you were not supposed to yell out. You're not supposed to sob. You're not supposed to cry, you know, overtly. It's an extremely solemn and grim atmosphere you have in there, and these folks burst out as they were walking out the door. Also... S. O'BRIEN: What was the reaction -- forgive me for cutting you off there.

FAGAN: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: What was the reaction when they did that? I know, obviously, family members of the victims were witnessing the execution, too. Were they stoic? Did that upset them? What was their reaction?

FAGAN: Everyone was stoic except for Laura Owens, who is the stepmother of Mr. Owens, who was one of the victims. And Laura cried. She was absolutely stone-faced throughout the entire execution. And when these folks burst out, as I passed right behind her as I was walking out within a few seconds of that, and she was crying into a Kleenex.

S. O'BRIEN: It was very chaotic outside of the prison, as you well know. Did you get a sense of that, though, on the inside?

FAGAN: Oh, no. This place is you're far from the gate in terms of the prison grounds. And the place is sealed off. You're under tight control when you witness one of these things at San Quentin, and you have no opportunity to hear anything happening outside of those gates.

S. O'BRIEN: Any final word from Tookie Williams as he went to his death?

FAGAN: He did not leave any final words. I'm told that Barbara Becknell (ph) may have some final words for us that he gave her, but he refused to give any final words to the warden. He did not want to participate in the system in his execution. And that seemed to be indicated in this.

There was one other very notable thing in the execution. That's that the three people who were in there and did the outburst as they were leaving put up black power salutes, or what certainly looked to me like black power salutes. They held their fists high as they looked at him, and they said things like, they mouthed the words "I love you" to Tookie. And he raised himself up to see them. And he kept himself raised up until the very end.

S. O'BRIEN: Kevin Fagan of the "San Francisco Chronicle" joining us by phone. Kevin, thank you for some insight on this, our top story today.

A short break. We're back in just a moment with business news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Look at those plants. Isn't that great?

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes.

(CROSSTALK) S. O'BRIEN: It sure is the holidays.

M. O'BRIEN: Did you bring your pruning device?

SERWER: Are they going to keep growing up and over?

S. O'BRIEN: They're growing. They're moving, like, six inches every hour.

SERWER: It's scary.

M. O'BRIEN: Feed me.

All right, let's check some headlines first before we get to Andy. Carol Costello with that.

Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Good morning to all you.

Prison officials say Stanley Tookie Williams was complacent, quiet and thoughtful as he was led into California's death chamber. Witnesses tell us officials had a tough time getting the IV into Williams' arm. In the end it took 20 minutes for him to die.

Williams did refuse a last meal, opting to drink milk instead. His death was witnessed by 50 people, including five chosen by Williams. Williams, the co-founder of the Crips street gang, was convicted of killing four people in 1979.

President Bush says there is still a lot work to be done in Iraq. He told a crowd in Philadelphia that democracy takes time, and there are many challenges in Iraq. The president was also asked about the deaths of Iraqis since the war began after his speech on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: A White House official says the president's estimate of Iraqi deaths was not an official figure.

In West Palm Beach, Florida, a case of win a little, lose a little for talk show host Rush Limbaugh. A judge says prosecutors can subpoena Limbaugh's doctor. They want to ask whether Limbaugh illegally bought painkillers. Still, the ruling protects confidential material in the talk show host's medical records.

And officials in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, have quite a mystery on their hands. They're having a hard time finding the source of a series of gas geysers that have started to erupt in the past few days. Look at that. People have been asked to leave their homes if they smell gas and, of course, to avoid drinking their water. A gas geyser, how strange is that?

S. O'BRIEN: I don't even know what a gas geyser is.

COSTELLO: I've never heard of one.

M. O'BRIEN: And they...

SERWER: Is that water coming up? It looks like a bubble in the water to me.

COSTELLO: It's water and has gas in it, and if you smell...

SERWER: Underneath it, OK.

COSTELLO: You can smell gas as these things come up from the ground.

SERWER: That's old faithful.

M. O'BRIEN: So, who owns that property?

SERWER: It's new faithful.

M. O'BRIEN: Who owns the property?

COSTELLO: I don't know. We're going to talk more about it later.

M. O'BRIEN: I mean, is it Jed Clampett? Is he moving to Beverly Hills now?

COSTELLO: It's Texas tea now. Yes, I bet those people wish it were.

(CROSSTALK)

S. O'BRIEN: Some great news. I don't know.

SERWER: It could be.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get right to business news. What do you think, Andy?

SERWER: Yes. Well, it could be. In fact, there's a giant natural gas deal in the works I'm going to tell you about in a second.

But the big news is that the Federal Reserve is going to be meeting today, and they will be, almost certainly, raising interest rates yet again. It would be the 13th straight time since June of '04. That does mean higher interest rates on car loans and mortgages ultimately.

This is the ultimate (ph) meeting for Alan Greenspan. So, he's got one more at the end of January before he retires. You can see the markets yesterday a mixed session.

And as far as the big oil and gas deal, ConocoPhillips is buying Burlington Resources for $35 billion, the second-biggest deal in the oil patch since Chevron bought Texaco four years ago.

Meanwhile, we told you about this the other day. Pepsi versus Coke, and now it's official. Pepsi is bigger than Coca-Cola in terms of stock market value. And that is because soda sales are flagging. And Pepsi has a lot of other beverages like Gatorade and Tropicana and also salty snacks, as they say in the business, like Frito-Lay.

S. O'BRIEN: So is Coca-Cola, the soda, still outselling Pepsi cola this morning?

SERWER: The soda is still outselling the other soda, but because of Tropicana and Lipton and Gatorade, all of these other...

S. O'BRIEN: Tipping the balance a little bit.

SERWER: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Not a growth market.

SERWER: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: It's kind of flat, if you know what I mean.

SERWER: Not effervescent.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, that too.

S. O'BRIEN: OK. Moving on.

SERWER: Sorry.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Andy "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Ahead, why are thousands of hurricane victims still waiting for housing months and months and months after Hurricane Katrina? Well, thousands of mobile homes are actually just sitting there empty. We'll take a closer look just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Be sure to check our Web site, CNN.com. (INAUDIBLE). Both of these, excellent.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, really. It really is.

M. O'BRIEN: CNN.com for the latest on the top stories. Of course, Tookie Williams. Not only is this a top news story, but the most popular, most viewed story this morning, for obvious reasons. And, of course, just a couple of hours ago he was executed after a debate, which went on for a long time and really crystallized the whole capital punishment debate in this country in a very public way.

Other stories which you may or may not have picked up on but clearly are popular based on the site, Governor Blanco, some e-mails in the midst of Katrina, immediately post-Katrina. These e-mails keep dribbing (ph) and drabbing out. In this case, 13 pages came out, released by a Republican staffer on the House committee that is looking into all of this. Bear in mind, Governor Blanco is a Democrat.

And this is sort of the parallel to the Mike Brown e-mails, where they said, roll up your sleeves. A couple of things, staffers saying -- suggesting that the governor put a few bags of ice into the hands of citizens who needed it and stopped doing too many first lady things. Governor Blanco might dress down a bit...

COSTELLO: What does that mean?

M. O'BRIEN: What does that mean, you know? Reading a book to children? I don't know.

Governor Blanco might dress down a bit and look like she has rolled up her sleeves. There you go with that rolled-up sleeves thing. I have some great Liz Claiborne sports clothes that...

S. O'BRIEN: These stories make my head hurt.

M. O'BRIEN: ... that look like Eddie Bauer but would bring her down to the level of getting to work.

S. O'BRIEN: Can you imagine? In the biggest natural disaster that we are having, they're worried about the fashion of the leaders as opposed to somebody getting help to these people.

M. O'BRIEN: Fitting, you might say.

COSTELLO: It didn't necessarily come from Governor Blanco, though, right?

S. O'BRIEN: No, but a staffer.

COSTELLO: But a staffer whose job it probably was to do such things.

M. O'BRIEN: Right. Well, and the Mike...

COSTELLO: I'm not standing up for her, but I'm just saying.

M. O'BRIEN: The Mike Brown memos were from staffers, suggesting to him as well just to put that all in context. But certainly a parallel set of memos.

S. O'BRIEN: So, you know, you would hope that in the middle of a natural disaster, in the middle of covering a breaking story, you'd hope that no one would be sending any e-mails about should you wear the Liz Claiborne?

COSTELLO: I'm with you.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, you would hope that actually the focus on the disaster would be so overwhelming that actually no one would care what you're wearing...

M. O'BRIEN: You would hope.

S. O'BRIEN: ... because you're hauling bags of ice to people who need it.

COSTELLO: I'm with you.

S. O'BRIEN: Or you're getting trucks to people who need it. No one would care what you're wearing. I'm off my soapbox now.

M. O'BRIEN: All right.

S. O'BRIEN: I'm sorry. I am done. But these things make me so...

M. O'BRIEN: What is that? So where do you keep that thing? All right.

S. O'BRIEN: My soapbox. Moving on.

M. O'BRIEN: What else are we talking about this morning?

S. O'BRIEN: Do you know the story of the 15-year-old boy who was wed to the 37-year-old woman? It took place in Georgia.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: It had legislators there re-examining the state laws. Lisa Clark actually is the bride. The kid is a minor. Well, she did an interview with a local station, where she basically said, I believe the quote is, well, you know, he pursued me.

COSTELLO: Well, hey!

M. O'BRIEN: He wooed her. He wooed her.

S. O'BRIEN: He wooed me. Don't blame me. He was hot for me. He was after me. I'm paraphrasing here.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, how teenagers are. I mean, come on! It's just ridiculous.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, my goodness.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, she said she prefers older men. But in this case, because, you know...

S. O'BRIEN: In this case...

M. O'BRIEN: ... of the courtship and all.

S. O'BRIEN: ... he was aggressive and it kind of won her over in the end. It was such an odd interview to be...

COSTELLO: I can't believe she even granted an interview. I mean, why not just shut up?

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, yes. Because prison is looming...

COSTELLO: Exactly.

S. O'BRIEN: ... and all.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, you would think. But we could offer that advice to a lot of people we cover on a day-to-day basis. And we'd be out of business if we did that. So...

S. O'BRIEN: Good point, Miles. Where would we be?

M. O'BRIEN: ... really talking is what I say.

COSTELLO: Oh, man!

M. O'BRIEN: I've got a family to feed. Keep talking.

S. O'BRIEN: That is a bizarre story. I read that, and I...

COSTELLO: Well, I can't wait to hear more.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. And I'm sure she won't -- she'll keep talking, and we'll get to know more.

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