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American Morning

Judging Samuel Alito; Rebuilding New Orleans; Star Jones Reynolds' Book "Shine"

Aired January 12, 2006 - 07:30   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody.

Another beautiful day here in New York.

Let's get right to Carol for an update of what's happening around the globe.

Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Good morning to all of you.

A court date today for terror suspect Jose Padilla. Padilla was transferred from military to civilian custody last week. He was labeled an enemy combatant by the Bush administration and had been held for three years without charges. Padilla is expected to plead not guilty to a three-count terrorism indictment. He'll be in a Miami courtroom in less than three hours.

The man who shot Pope John Paul II says he will tell his story but he wants cash. Mehmet Ali Agca apparently already getting offers of up to $1 million for his story. He left prison in Turkey earlier today and was taken to a military post to see if he's fit for the military. Seems Agca dodged the draft back in 1979.

Doctors say Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will have a brain scan today. On Wednesday, they noticed some progress in his brain function but doctors say he's still serious and stable and not out of danger yet.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is catching a break after a weekend motorcycle accident. It left him with a fat lip and it brought to light the fact that he rode the bike without a proper motorcycle license. But the LAPD says it will not ticket the governor and the city attorney's office says it won't get involved either.

Somehow, Chad, I don't think I'd be so lucky.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right. Did you hear Jay Leno's joke?

COSTELLO: No, I didn't.

MYERS: He said, you thought Arnold Schwarzenegger was hard to understand before he had a fat lip. So -- and he did a bad impression.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: The Alito hearings will resume in about 90 minutes and we'll watch to see if there's an emotional hangover. Yesterday it did indeed get ugly. Pointed questions aimed at the Supreme Court nominee piercing the veneer of his wife. Joining us now from Washington, CNN Political Analyst Ron Brownstein of the "L.A. Times" as well, and our Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin. He's with "The New Yorker" as well. These guys have lots of work on their hands. They have full plates but we appreciate them being with us bright and early because I know they worked long days last night.

Thanks for getting up early, guys.

Before we get started with you, Ron, let's play a brief excerpt for those who did not see that moment when Mrs. Alito was overcome by emotion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: This guilt by association is going to drive good men and women away from wanting to sit where you're sitting. And we're going to go through the business (ph) ourselves as congressmen and senators.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: Here's what's interesting to me, Ron. Mrs. Alito had to excuse herself, was sobbing, as Lindsey Graham was coming to the defense of her husband. I guess it was the cumulative effect of all of those questions.

RON BROWNSTEIN, "L.A. TIMES" COLUMNIST: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: Give us your political take on that. It obviously creates a lot of sympathy certainly for her and for Judge Alito.

BROWNSTEIN: I think it does and I think it's an indication of why these hearings are so tough for the party that's resisting the nominee. As the day began, the Democrats were facing criticism from their allies that they had not been tough enough on Alito. They had not done enough to move him off of his prepared answers and so they clearly ramped up the volume on Wednesday and then ran into the opposite problem, where this incident, I think, will leave the impression with many Americans that they were bullying him.

I mean it was like watching a civilian caught on a battlefield to me, Miles. I thought that what we saw on Wednesday really wasn't that much different from the level of political debate we see here every day in Washington. But when you are caught up in it, as someone who has not been, and when you're seeing your husband facing those kinds of questions, it's understandable that she might react that way.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, you can't help but have kind of a, you know, a visceral reaction to all that.

Jeff Toobin, let's talk about the legal issues here for just a moment.

Did you hear anything over the past couple of days -- we've still got another day yet -- which really changed your mind one way or another about Judge Alito's legal stances on any of these cases? It seemed as if when it came, for example, to abortion, I don't feel like I learned that much more about where he stands.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Boy, I don't think I learned much either. You know, the way these hearings work is that the nominees say very little about their substantive views. And there's a lot of parsing of the very little that they say. Clearly yesterday, for the first time, there was a coherent democratic strategy on the issue of abortion, which was to say, John Roberts was confirmed 78 to 22 and his view on abortion was not as extreme as Samuel Alito's view. The Democrats, whether it was Dick Durbin of Illinois or Dianne Feinstein of California, basically tried to read Alito's words on abortion next to Roberts' words and say Roberts was more committed to the precedent of Roe v. Wade.

Frankly, that's a tough argument to make, I think, because both of them said it was a precedent of the court. There was a lot of talk about whether it was a settled precedent or not. I don't know if Roberts is committed to Roe v. Wade, frankly, based on his testimony, and I don't know if Alito is either, but that was the democratic strategy.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, if nothing else, it was interesting to hear them talk about super duper precedent.

TOOBIN: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: That was a moment.

Ron, it seems like a game of gotcha, and I think that can backfire politically. It's interesting that the talk of a filibuster seems to have gone by the boards.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, as Jeffrey was saying, it's very difficult in these hearings. Very early, in fact in the answer to a question, the very first round of questioning from Arlen Specter, Judge Alito said that what he had written and said about abortion and any other issue before he got on the bench wasn't really relevant to how he would rule on the Supreme Court because he would approach issues differently as a judge than he did as an advocate. He dropped kind of an iron curtain between his prejudicial career and what he might do on the Supreme Court.

At that point, of course, it really does become an effort to kind of pick through the end trails and look for any signal. Now whether you believe that is a fundamental question. I think what's happened here over these couple days, is that Democrats probably haven't done anything to change the basic dynamic here, which is that you have 55 Republicans in the Senate and only twice in this century has a president been denied his nominee when his party held the majority in the Senate. But they probably have laid out the arguments, without really advancing them, but laying them out in a way that would probably make more Democrats comfortable voting against Judge Alito than did vote against Judge Roberts.

M. O'BRIEN: But in the end, it seems, Jeff Toobin, as if Judge Alito is probably headed toward the Supreme Court. That's the feeling right now today. We have another day of questioning. I want you to just comment for just a moment, based on whatever blanks have been filled in this week. The seat that he would take is Sandra Day O'Connor's, that pivotal seat. Is the court going to be that much differential should he get there?

TOOBIN: I think the court will be different. How different, I don't know. I mean, you know, all this talk about how pivotal this seat is, it really is that pivotal. You know, Sandra Day O'Connor was the vote that made five votes for George Bush on Bush v. Gore. She was the vote that made five votes for the University of Michigan Law School Affirmative Action, saving affirmative action. So, you know, she's been on both sides of the fence, but it's been, in many respects, the O'Connor court.

And Samuel Alito, I think it is very safe to say, is more conservative. How conservative, how much more conservative, I am as confused as anyone on that one.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Jeff Toobin, Ron Brownstein, our legal and political analysts this morning, thank you very much for getting up early.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Miles.

TOOBIN: See you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Live coverage of the hearings coming up 9:00 Eastern. Wolf Blitzer in a special edition of "The Situation Room," along with Jeff, Ron and others. And they will take you through the day on that. So stay with that.

Also, if you can't get to a TV, Pipeline subscriber can get gavel to gavel coverage of the hearings as well and they can watch replays of the highlights as they occur. That's at cnn.com/pipeline.

Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, New Orleans unveils its long- awaited plan for rebuilding. Some of the residents say they hate it. Can it move forward anyway? We're going to talk to two former mayors just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: This rebuilding plan for New Orleans we've been telling you about all morning, brand new and being met by some very vocal opposition. Let's take a quick look at it this morning. Each of the 13 districts should come up with their own rebuilding plan by May 20th. If there isn't enough support to rebuild, well then some of the neighborhoods will just be abandoned. Now some of those areas would be turned into parks. The plan also calls for a federal fund to be created to help the city buy back abandoned homes.

Here's a little bit of what some of the New Orleans residents had to say about the plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROLINE PARKER, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: I don't think it's right that you try to take our property because, like I said, over my dead body.

HARVEY BENDER, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: You don't live in my yard (ph). How you going to tell me to rebuild? What (ph) to rebuild?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Here with their own thoughts of the rebuilding plan, two of the city's former mayors, Marc Morial joins us from New York, right here in our studio.

Nice to see you, Mr. Mayor.

MARC MORIAL, FORMER NEW ORLEANS MAYOR: Good morning, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: And also in New Orleans, Sidney Barthelemy joins us as well.

Nice to see you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for talking with us.

SIDNEY BARTHELEMY, FORMER NEW ORLEANS MAYOR: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Mayor Morial, let's start with you. What do you think of the plan in a nutshell?

MORIAL: I think the plan is a massive red lining plan wrapped around a land grab. By that I mean, in effect it shuts off about two- thirds of the city and shifts the burden to residents who have lost everything, who have been devastated by a hurricane, to somehow "prove" that their neighborhoods are viable. It's not a helping hand in any way, shape or form.

S. O'BRIEN: So you hate the plan.

MORIAL: I'm not going to say I hate it. I'll say that I think the plan violates the notion that everyone ought to have a right to rebuild that's equal and everyone ought to have a right to rebuild that's equal.

S. O'BRIEN: Mr. Barthelemy, what do you think of this plan?

BARTHELEMY: Well, I think there are some good parts of the plan, particularly the part that deals with flooding and the need for a plan to protect the city, particularly to put a plan together, a flood protection plan that can handle a category five hurricane. But I agree that the part dealing with residential development leaves a tremendous number of questions unanswered and is very troubling, particularly to those people who have started to rebuild. They want to put a moratorium on permits, which puts a lot of people in jeopardy who have already started rebuilding.

S. O'BRIEN: For those of us who watch from the outside, New Orleans, right now, seems to be just a mass of contradictions. People are invited back. Come back, repopulate but, oh we're going to put a moratorium on the permits so you can't rebuild. Come back and if there's enough of a critical mass, then we'll bring the services in. When people are like, well how can I come back if there's no services, no water, no sewer, no electricity. Do you think there's going to be enough of a vocal outcry, Mayor Morial, to have the plan just scuttled?

MORIAL: I think that the rebuilding commission should go back to the drawing boards immediately and work much more closely with residents in all of the neighborhoods to come up with a plan that unifies public opinion in the city, not drives a wedge between public opinion in the city. I visited New Orleans. In fact, Mayor Barthelemy and I were before the council on Friday, along with former Mayor Landrieu. And he's absolutely right, strong flood control and levees are necessary for New Orleans to be viable.

But at the end of the day, the plan fails to meet basic standards. I think it probably has some unconstitutional and some illegal aspects to it. And I don't understand. It seems like who's driving the train to create a plan that's coherent.

I was in New Orleans east, which is a wonderful neighborhood of home owner, mostly African-American, on Saturday, and people want to come back and the lights weren't on and the electricity wasn't on. So those that wanted to rebuild, those that were in a position to rebuild, were, in effect, barred from rebuilding. There needs to be, if you will, a helping hand for people, both from the city, the state, and the federal government, to give them an equal opportunity to rebuild.

S. O'BRIEN: Mayor Barthelemy, is it . . .

BARTHELEMY: I think that's . . .

S. O'BRIEN: Go ahead.

BARTHELEMY: That's the real point. In a sense, this plan punishes those who want to come back. The people who have been the greatest victims are being punished by having to provide their own utilities, which is insane. The city is responsible. The government is responsible for doing that, not the neighborhood people.

The other problem I have is that we all know homes are necessary or places for people to live if they're going to come back and there are no places for people to live to come back and participate in this plan. And I think that's another fallacy to it.

S. O'BRIEN: Lots of the plan seems to have the cart before the horse sort of feel to it.

MORIAL: I would also add this, Soledad, and this is critical. For the city's economy to rebound, the hospitality industry, the port, the oil and gas industry, they need housing for their workers. If you, in effect, decommission two-thirds of the city, it could cripple the city's economy long-term. The commission should go back to the drawing board and build some consensus before they put at a plan.

S. O'BRIEN: Former New Orleans Mayors Marc Morial, Anthony Barthelemy. Thank you, gentlemen.

MORIAL: Thanks, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: We should note, we asked Mayor Nagin if he wanted to be part of our roundtable this morning and Mayor Nagin declined.

Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

MORIAL: Thanks, Soledad.

Thanks, Sidney.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, Star Jones Reynolds is going to talk about her new book. It's called "Shine." We're going to ask her about working her way to the top, losing all that weight and finding the love of her life. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: First, a prosecutor, then a TV star. We have all followed Star Jones' success and struggles for nine years on "The View." Now she is sort of half the woman she used to be and proud of it. Her new book is called "Shine." It's about her life and her love and her weight loss too. Star Jones Reynolds joins us.

Nice to see you.

STAR JONES REYNOLDS, AUTHOR, "SHINE": Nice to see you also.

S. O'BRIEN: You look fabulous.

REYNOLDS: I'm feeling great.

S. O'BRIEN: Hi. Woo. Hi.

REYNOLDS: She's petting me this morning. Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: It's great to see you.

So tell me why you decided to write a book.

REYNOLDS: I was actually a middle of a crossroads for myself, which is, of course, a nice word for crisis, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I, in a phrase, was killing myself physically by not acknowledging that I was no longer full-figured, but instead morbidly obese. And so for a three-year period, I just started to work on myself in all those areas. And it's been three years. I think people see the end result and then they think, whoa! When in reality, you have to see the beginning and then everything in-between.

S. O'BRIEN: That process you write about in the book and you kind of lay out those sort of different areas that you had to work on.

REYNOLDS: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: And one of them is weight. And you've written that you lost about 150 pounds.

REYNOLDS: Yes, that's where we are at this point.

S. O'BRIEN: But, you know, it's interesting, as you well know, you don't talk about what you did.

REYNOLDS: No, absolutely.

S. O'BRIEN: The dramatic weight loss. And you say, you know, I know -- I need to have complete medical intervention and supervision and a weight loss program that would also be a long-term health plan. Why not say, "I had gastric bypass?" Why not say, I did this or I did that or whatever the case may be?

REYNOLDS: I think that when I was writing the book, and more importantly as I spoke to all of my doctors, I realized the influence that somebody in the public eye has in talking about weight loss, and especially me because there's so many women who identify with my struggle because it's their struggle also, and I was very concerned with becoming a poster child for a particular weight loss method when your experience may not be the same as mine and your result may not be the same as mine.

S. O'BRIEN: A couple of pages later, though, you sort of say, here's what you need to do, you know, portion control, nutritional balance and exercise.

REYNOLDS: You know, Soledad, I can honestly tell you, and if you talk to any nutritionist or any dietitian in the entire world, there is no long term work -- thing that will work other than those three. You can do peer group dieting. You can do packaged food dieting. You can have a surgery. You can use pills. But they're all jump starts. That's where you start two and a half years ago, three years ago. But three years later, if you're not practicing nutritional balance, portion control and exercise, one, you will gain the weight, two, you will be unhealthy, three, there's no way you can shine. So I knew that. And no matter what people want me to say, I want to be the role model that I proclaim to be and you don't plan to be a poster child.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, I hear you.

Let's talk a little bit about your list, because you're very open in lots of other areas.

REYNOLDS: Every area that you can imagine.

S. O'BRIEN: You talk about pre-marital sex. You talk about the pre-nup. You talk about . . .

REYNOLDS: I talk about shopping.

S. O'BRIEN: You talk about shopping and shoes.

REYNOLDS: I talk about fashion and shoes.

S. O'BRIEN: We know you're a little bit of an addict on that front.

REYNOLDS: I talk about all of that. And, more importantly, I ask you to think about it. It's a self-assessment book. It was me sort of using my struggle as a backdrop so that other women can say, let me assess myself and know that I'm not by myself.

S. O'BRIEN: One struggle is to find a man.

REYNOLDS: Yes, or let him find me.

S. O'BRIEN: And you write up a little list and it involved hunting on both parts, right?

REYNOLDS: Yes it did.

S. O'BRIEN: You write up a little list of what you're looking for, your perfect man. Tell me about that.

REYNOLDS: We called it the ideal man list. And in the . . .

S. O'BRIEN: It's kind of long.

REYNOLDS: It was very long and in "Shine" I end up teaching you how to make your list. But it was a realistic thing. For me, it must have had 30, 40 top things on it, height, weight, where you came from, you had to be a southerner.

S. O'BRIEN: You're picky.

REYNOLDS: I wanted a Democrat. I mean -- picky? Barbara Walters once said to me, you're not going to get that list, you're too picky. She was wrong. But more importantly . . .

S. O'BRIEN: Take that, Barbara!

REYNOLDS: As I made the list, I literally took it into my bathroom and put it up to my face and I realized I didn't match the list. You can't . . .

S. O'BRIEN: This is what you want but that list may not want you. REYNOLDS: That's not who I was. And, more importantly, that's not who I was. If you want kind, you want generous, you want healthy, you want somebody that takes care of themselves, you need to be that person. So I had to make a choice, change myself or change the list. And I knew what was on the list was what I wanted, so I changed myself. I tried to become the person that I asked for.

S. O'BRIEN: The book is called "Shine." And then also called, "A Physical, Emotional, Spiritual journey to finding love."

REYNOLDS: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Star Jones is the author. Nice to have you. Thanks for talking with us.

REYNOLDS: Thank you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thanks very much, Soledad.

Coming up, a CNN exclusive on "Larry King Live." Author James Frey says his memoirs are true. Well, mostly. Oprah says that's good enough for her, but do readers feel betrayed anyway. Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come, controversial plan to rebuild New Orleans. Some residents may not be allowed to rebuild. A lot of neighborhoods kind of in a limbo for four months' time with the chicken and egg issue of, they will be allowed to rebuild if enough people decide they want to rebuild there or something along those lines. It's not a pretty picture. A lot of angry people as we just heard from those mayors. And we will check in with some residents shortly. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Good morning. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

Judging Samuel Alito. The Supreme Court Nominee stays cool but his wife, in the upper left there, comes undone. Why? We've got that story live in Washington.

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