Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Tsunami: One Year Later; Bush Legacy For 2006; Shark Attack Survivor; Top Five In '05

Aired December 26, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. It's now Hanukkah and Ariel Sharon was telling -- you know, he had a little health scare there. He was telling people, you know, enjoy the potato pancakes but not too much.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: That's right.

O'BRIEN: Take it easy.

COSTELLO: That's right, because that was a big part of his problem, which would be being overweight. And he has another problem to deal with right now. Let's get right to the headlines.

Ariel Sharon is set to undergo surgery on his heart. This report is just coming in to us. Israeli radio reports doctors will try to repair a small hole in the prime minister's heart. It was discovered after his stroke last week. Sharon's doctors say the surgery could come within the next couple of weeks. Of course, we'll be following this story.

Also word out of Israeli that the country is planning to build more than 200 homes in the West Bank. According to Israeli newspapers, the new settlements would be just miles from Jerusalem. The expansion is an apparent conflict with the Mid East road map. The peace plan bans Israel from building on land occupied by Palestinians.

Police in Washington, D.C. are looking for a motive in an apparent murder/suicide. Officers found the bodies of five people on Christmas morning in an upscale neighborhood of the D.C. suburbs. The shooter also killed the family dogs. Police say they believe the shootings are connected and that one of the dead is responsible. In fact, one of the victims is believed to be the suspect's mother.

And if you didn't get enough of the pre-holiday shopping madness, hordes of shoppers will be descending on the malls once again to cash in on the after Christmas sales. This crowd rushing into a Target store in Aventura, Florida. This happened just minutes ago. If you're going out to return a gift, be warned. This year many retailers are putting tougher restrictions on returns.

Miles. O'BRIEN: It has been a year since the tsunami devastated Indonesia. But for those who survived it, it must seem like a lifetime. CNN's Alex Quade returned to Banda Aceh to see what had changed. And there she met a boy with a smile that hides the hurt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX QUADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): This is Hasmullah's (ph) secret way to catch fish.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, (through translator): I chase the fish by bashing the water. I beat the water so the fish will come out.

QUADE: And this is Hasmullah's secret fishing hole.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this location there were houses. After the tsunami, there is water here and no more houses. They were taken by the tsunami.

QUADE: The 13-year-old's relatives lived right here. They and their homes are gone.

What do you remember about the tsunami?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard people screaming, water, the water was rising. I wondered why. I ran. I saw my friends also running. Five of my close friends died.

QUADE: More than 169,000 people lost their lives in Aceh, more than anywhere else the wave hit. Hasmullah and his parents survived. His home, relatives and school mates did not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are many dead bodies everywhere after the tsunami. There are damaged houses and schools. It makes me feel unhappy and sad to think about it.

QUADE: Though he smiles, he says he hates this water. But he must fish to help support what's left of his family. Today is a good day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These two cost 5,000 rupees (ph).

QUADE: About 50 cents in U.S. dollars. Fishing for a living after the tsunami is hard. Muck and debris choke the ecosystem.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now there's no place to fish. The water has gone deeper. It's not good.

QUADE: All around Hasmullah, workers are rebuilding.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are no houses anymore. Many poor people. I feel sad. I still feel sad.

QUADE: The tsunami made 500,000 Acehnese homeless. Today, nearly 68,000 in this provincial capital alone still live in tents. Humanitarian shanty towns are going up, but rebuilding lives is harder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not the same now. I don't enjoy school anymore. I lost so many friends.

QUADE: As he fishes, Hasmullah dreams of becoming a Muslim cleric but worries he'll be stuck for the rest of his life beating the water that took his relatives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know why the tsunami happened.

QUADE: A year later, he's still afraid it will happen again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was scary. I'm still scared.

QUADE: Alex Quade, CNN, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And stay tuned to CNN tonight for a special edition of "PAULA ZAHN NOW," the stories of destruction and survival, "TSUNAMI: A YEAR LATER," 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 Pacific, right here on CNN.

COSTELLO: When 2005 started, President Bush was handling the U.S. response to the tsunami. Later, he had his own natural disasters to deal with, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. So what will be the defining issue of his presidency for 2006? CNN Political Analyst Ron Brownstein joins us live now.

Good morning.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Carol. Happy holidays.

COSTELLO: Happy holidays to you too, right back at you.

So what one issue will be at the forefront of the Bush presidency in 2006?

BROWNSTEIN: Oh, Iraq looms over everything else. I mean we've been reminded in the last few weeks, as the president has given this series of speeches justifying the war in Iraq and gotten this tailwind from the success election, or at least the high turnout in the election. American optimism in the war has gone up. And with it, his approval rating has followed recovering from its lowest point.

But we've seen these kinds of upticks before. The capture of Saddam, the election of the interim government last January and they've never lasted because the violence has continued. And I think, more than anything else, what's going to shape the electoral environment for 2006 and the president standing with the American people is whether the formation of this permanent Iraqi government leads to any improvement on the ground in Iraq.

COSTELLO: So you're pretty much saying that Iraq will overshadow everything else. I mean, remember his second term agenda? It was the most ambitious. He was going to rework Social Security, rewrite the tax code. Are all of those things out the window now because of Iraq?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think not only because of Iraq, I think the president in 2005 really ran into the limits of his governing strategy. I mean what we've seen with this president is a very consistent approach of getting things done. He has been willing to accept polarization in the country and in the Congress as the price of putting forward an aggressive agenda that consolidates and unifies the Republican Party as much as possible.

But we saw limits of that on both fronts this year. And Congress, the Republicans were unwilling to pass Social Security on a party line basis. It was very hard for the president to get Democrats to come across the line for him and the initiative collapsed.

And conversely, we saw with public opinion, we saw his approval ratings drop to the lowest levels of any re-elected president in the first year of their second term largely because almost half the country was alienated from him even when times were good. And when you got the bad news that you mentioned, Katrina, Iraq, scandals, he plummet to a very low level that weakened his political hand.

COSTELLO: Yes, but, Ron, you can't underestimate the power of personality. This is a charming man. He's able to win people over. Is that going to stand -- have him in good stead in the coming year?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, it's interesting. The president ran in 2000 as a uniter, not a divider and yet we have seen, really throughout his presidency, the widest gap in the way the public views him, voters of one party and the other, in the history of modern polling. His poll ratings among Republicans, 90 percent or above sometimes. Down at 10 or even single digits among Democrats.

That makes it very hard for Democrats on Capitol Hill to support him and it puts enormous pressure on them to criticize his initiatives whatever they think about him personally. And so we're going to see how that plays out this year very quickly on things like the confirmation of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court, how far this NSA investigation goes and whether he faces more pressure on Iraq.

COSTELLO: OK. So looking back into 2005 for just an instant, I mean, how did he define his presidency? What will we remember from 2005?

BROWNSTEIN: I think probably the two things that we will remember would be, one, stay the course in Iraq. The president, as protests picked up outside the political system, things like Cindy Sheehan and then more Democratic criticism, he held firm to the argument that America has to stay the course there and has to try to lead Iraq toward a functioning democracy. And then I think at home, what we remember above all is two things, the failure of Social Security, the sense that they may have overreached there, and the faltering response to Hurricane Katrina.

COSTELLO: OK. So what have we learned? What have Republicans and Democrats learned from this president? BROWNSTEIN: A really interesting question there, Carol. I mean, I think first of all, the president's tone has shifted quite a bit in the last few weeks on these speeches in Iraq. He's been more willing to admit error. He's also made more efforts to bring in Democrats to talk to them about what's going on in Iraq and his strategy there.

The question is whether the underlying strategy, political strategy, has shifted. It continue to assert, as we see in this NSA fight, a very broad vision of the inherent power of the presidency. And we saw last week, as Congress went out, three highly polarized, nail-biting, party line votes on the budget, drilling in the Arctic and The Patriot Act.

I'm not really sure they're going to change direction in 2006. They may lower their sights a little bit. It's hard to imagine they're going to try anything legislatively as ambitious as remaking a program like Social Security that affects 40 million Americans. But the question is, whether they're going to have a more inclusive strategy or still believe their best chance of getting what they want done and doing well in 2006 is to mobilize and consolidate that Republican ...

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Yes, we'll see. Ron Brownstein, CNN political analyst and "L.A. Times" columnist, thanks for joining us this morning.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, Carol.

O'BRIEN: Let's check back on the weather. Bonnie Schneider at the CNN Center with the latest.

Bonnie, good morning.

(WEATHER REPORTS)

O'BRIEN: Hey, Bonnie, do you know what to do if you get attacked by a shark? Do you know what you're supposed to do?

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, actually, from working here and seeing all those stories, punch it.

O'BRIEN: Punch it in the nose.

SCHNEIDER: Hit it hard, you know.

O'BRIEN: That's right. You new that too.

SCHNEIDER: Would I do that in the situation? I don't know.

O'BRIEN: That's the question. We'll meet someone who in that situation did just that. There he is right there. He has lived to tell the tale. He said the scary part came after the punch. What will the shark do next?

COSTELLO: I can not even imagine. O'BRIEN: Is that where you hear the cello music?

COSTELLO: I don't know but I'm glad he's smiling today.

And later, we'll look back at the year's biggest news makers in our special series "The Five in '05." Today, how Tom Cruise temporarily lost his mind. We'll be right back on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: So you're in the water surfing. Your feet are dangling in the water. Suddenly you're attacked by a shark. What did you do? Well, as we said a few moments ago, you punch it in the nose and that should be the end of the story hopefully.

Well, that's actually when things get really scary. Brian Anderson has lived to tell just that tale. He joins us from his home in Seaside, Oregon. He's there with George De Soto (ph) who helped Brian out of the water. This all happened Christmas Eve.

Brian, tell us what happened. Paddling, legs in the water, what happened?

BRIAN ANDERSON, SURVIVED SHARK ATTACK: We had been out for about an hour and a half and there was about six or seven guys out with us and they had all gone in and I was the only one on the outside. And I was waiting for a set wave. And George was on the inside of me.

And the shark just grabbed my leg. I felt a sharp pain on my foot. And it just happened in some split second. And right after that, then I saw the shark just right up in my face and I just gave it a good punch to get it to let go and it did. And it let go after I hit it.

O'BRIEN: Was it a reflex response or did you have time to even think at that point?

ANDERSON: Yes, I had time to think because I saw -- I looked down and saw the shark and new it was a great white. And then a couple of swear words came out of my mouth! And then I just punched it as hard as I could in the eye and then it let go. And then the drama -- the real drama starts when you start paddling back in to get in to . . .

O'BRIEN: So the thing to do is punch and offer a few expletives at the same time and that gets the shark away. So he let go. And then you started making you way in. Did you stay on your board?

ANDERSON: Yes, I stayed on my board and my foot was totally numb, so I couldn't tell how bad the damage was to my foot. And it was just real amazing because the waves just like of let me in real gently onto the beach. I was practically on the shore before George even got in. And he was way closer to the beach than I was. So it was . . .

O'BRIEN: Well, but your concern at that point was, once you punch a shark, could that make him mad? Could it actually get worse? What were you thinking as you were paddling in?

ANDERSON: I was just praying that I will live through this day. That's all. That's what I was thinking.

O'BRIEN: George, you were about 15 feet away when this happened. What did you see? What did you do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I just -- I saw some commotion in the water and then I didn't know what was going on until I saw the tail and I knew right then that it was a shark. And I was just thinking, what's the chances of me being here during this shark attack, you know?

And I just -- I was kind of -- I was paddles in but I was also hesitant. I was looking back to see if it was actually thrashing him around or how aggressive the attack was. And I was relieved when I saw him paddling to the beach as well and I figured it wasn't going to be too bad. I wasn't even sure it even bit him.

O'BRIEN: All right, so when he go to the -- when he got to the beach you saw, obviously, that he had been bitten. What happened then?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I saw a little pool of blood underneath his body. And he was actually pretty quick-witted and he started taking off his leash and he was instructing me to tie it around his leg to cut off the blood. And I was just worried about trying to get him to the -- into the ambulance and I just wanted to pick him up and carry him myself, even though I knew I couldn't.

O'BRIEN: So, Brian, the ambulance got there pretty quickly. You're all stitched up. How much stitches did you take?

ANDERSON: Over 70.

O'BRIEN: And that's a lot of stitches. And the doctors say everything's going to be just fine? Your foot's going to be 100 percent eventually?

ANDERSON: They don't really know. So it's kind of up in the air right now.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Well, have you thought much, you know, George kind of referred to it there. You don't think really of the Oregon coast of being shark attack central. Have there been many sightings of sharks in the past? And are you kind of surprised this happened at all?

ANDERSON: No, I'm not too surprised. I hear the fishermen see them all the time out in their fishing boat. So, yes, they're out there. They're just -- it's a risk we take. It just -- but it happens really rare and what was going on out there was the perfect timing for the shark because they pick out loners. And when everybody was in, I was the only one out there and it just -- I think it saw a chance to get another meal and it, you know, did its thing.

O'BRIEN: Are you going to surf again?

ANDERSON: Oh, yes.

O'BRIEN: No problem, huh?

ANDERSON: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen. Thanks very much for being with us. Brian Anderson, George De Soto, joining us from Oregon.

Carol.

COSTELLO: Unbelievable.

Coming up, we kick up our special look back at the five, the "Top Five in '05. This year's biggest news makers. And today, the man who brought new meaning to couch trip when he went on with Oprah. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Oh, 2005 was a year to remember. There were some people we just couldn't take our eyes off in 2005. Do you remember jumping the couch with Tom Cruise? How could you forget his maniacal courtship of Katie Holmes? Every day this week we're looking at the top five in '05. So number five in our countdown, Tom Cruise.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OPRAH WINFREY: I've never seen you like this.

COSTELLO, (voice over): It's still strange. Tom Cruise crashed through our TV sets like a maniacal Romeo. In an instant, he carefully crafted veneer looked vulnerable. The world famous smile was still there, but who was this guy.

RICHARD ROEPER, FILM CRITIC: It was astonishing. And it's interesting now because Oprah keeps telling everybody, oh at the time I thought, oh gosh, he's lost his mind. No she didn't. She was going right along with him. So's going, wow, you're gone. And the audience is going crazy. And I'm at home thinking, are these people all insane?

COSTELLO: It was a long way from the days of the all-American cool guy in "Risky Business." Hollywood types blame it on Cruise' new agent, his sister. But Cruise deserved, or at least took the brunt of the blame.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't you understand, Elron (ph), it's me, Tom Cruise.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I know who you are.

COSTELLO: Cruise's brand of crazy in love played out like a bizarre sitcom. Look, there's Tom and Katie all over each other. And with each seemingly fixed smile, fans and critics alike grew more suspicious. He also provided a brand new term in the urban dictionary, jumping the couch, slang for insane, insanity, gone crazy.

WINFREY: Let's focus here.

TOM CRUISE: OK. I'm OK.

COSTELLO: But Cruise wasn't just crazy about Katie Holmes. It was that "Today Show" interview with Matt Lauer when Cruise pushed Scientology and told us psychiatry is a pseudoscience.

MATT LAUER, TODAY SHOW: I'm just saying, but aren't there examples where it works?

CRUISE: Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even you're glim (ph).

ROEPER: The interview with the "Today Show" with Matt Lauer was just disturbing and frightening to see him get so argumentative with Lauer and to spew out a bunch of stuff which I think, quite frankly, is nonsense. It was not a good advertisement for Scientology or for Tom Cruise.

COSTELLO: Or for Cruise's image with women. He attacked Brooke Shield, calling her misguided for taking Paxil to cure her post-partum depression, a condition Cruise called a myth and could be treated with vitamins. Shields was not amused, saying "Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing post-partum depression decide what treatment options are best for them."

Despite all this, Cruise showed he was still a draw at the box office. "War of the Worlds" was proof.

ROEPER: Crazy/happy is OK. Crazy/mean is not.

COSTELLO: Tom Cruise, one of our "Top Five of '05."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And that should be your motto in 2006, crazy/happy, OK. Crazy/mean, not.

O'BRIEN: Well, now, his sister was his publicist for a while. No longer.

COSTELLO: She's been fired, yes.

O'BRIEN: She's been fired. Maybe that will change the whole thing. But what is it in the water in Hollywood that makes these stars think they're experts on all these things they know nothing about? I don't know.

COSTELLO: Well, you could tell he was just wait to burst from his shell to talk about these things.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: And his previous agent was smart to keep that under wraps. And now he's calm. You don't really see, you know, binnacle (ph) behavior from him anymore.

O'BRIEN: Back in the shell, Tom. Back in the shell.

COSTELLO: Back in the shell, yes.

Well, as I said, the "Top Five in '05" is a week long series. Tomorrow we take a look at Pope John Paul's legacy and the man in the red Prada shoes.

O'BRIEN: Looks like the top three in '05 right there.

COSTELLO: I wish.

O'BRIEN: Let's say they are.

All right, resolving to shed a few pounds next year? I am. Coming up, we'll begin our special series called "Five Diets That Work." See the five theme here? Today, a secret French diet. What do the French know about staying thin?

COSTELLO: I don't know, but they're beautiful.

O'BRIEN: A lot of wine? A lot of food? I don't get it.

Anyway, a holiday message from our troops overseas first.

MAJ. J. HENDERSON: Hello. My name is Major Jesse Henderson. I would like to send this special holiday greetings to my wife and my two lovely kids, that's Jenny and my son Jesse and my daughter Leslie (ph). See you when I get home. I miss all of you.

MAJ. HENDRICKSON: Hi. I'm Major Joel Hendrickson, Taji, Iraq. I just want to say happy holidays to my wife, Elizabeth, and my son, Zach, back home in Ft. Hood, Texas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Good morning. I'm Miles O'Brien.

The Asian tsunami one year later. Remembering the victims of the disaster, perhaps 225,000 people killed. We're live in Indonesia.

COSTELLO: I'm Carol Costello in for Soledad today.

A developing story out of New Jersey. Authorities giving new details right now on the search for two police officers who drove off a raised drawbridge last night. One reportedly has been found. We'll have the latest for you straight ahead.

O'BRIEN: And all across America, holiday shopping part two, back in the stores and wasting no time with that. We'll tell you what they're offering on this AMERICAN MORNING.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com