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American Morning

Reactions to the State of the Union; Cindy Sheehan's Arrest Constitutional?; Enron Trial Under Way

Aired February 01, 2006 - 08:30   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: Welcome, everybody. You're watching a split edition this morning of AMERICAN MORNING. I'm reporting from Washington, D.C., the Capitol this morning. We're in the Cannon House office building, which is actually connected underground to the Capitol, which you can see right there from my shoulder.

Miles, good morning.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: They don't build office buildings like that anymore. That rotunda is gorgeous, isn't it?

S. O'BRIEN: It's a gorgeous building and you're right, they absolutely -- you know, people really stopped with the whole giant beautiful marble column thing.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Architecturally speaking.

M. O'BRIEN: It's a shame, it's a shame. All right, thank you. I'm Miles O'Brien here in New York.

(WEATHER REPORT)

(NEWSBREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get back to reaction to the State of the Union address. Now we'll talk to some people with a deep stake in what the president said.

David Green, who lost his mother in Hurricane Katrina, joins us this morning. And Debbie Argel Bastian. Her son died in Iraq. Thank you for talking with us. I certainly appreciate it.

Let's begin with you, Debbie, first. As you well know, the president spent half of the speech talking about Iraq. Did what he have to say to you about that, was it something that resonated with you or no?

DEBBIE ARGEL BASTIAN, LOST SON IN IRAQ: ... message about Iraq and very comforting message to the American people and the Gold Star community that we are going stay the course. The decisions about the war are going to be made by the military and his military leaders and cabinet and not by politicians in Washington. I very much agree with that.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's listen to a little bit of what the president had to say yesterday in his speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am confident in our plan for victory. I am confident in the will of the Iraqi people. I am confident in the skill and spirit of our military. Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win and we are winning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think, Debbie, in light of all the bad news, some of the personal bad news that you've had to experience and the headlines, frankly, that come out of Iraq every day, that we are winning?

BASTIAN: I do believe that we're winning. I get daily e-mails from the field from my son's friends and so forth that say why is the media just portraying the casualty count? Why aren't they portraying what's really happening over here and the good we're doing? The hospitals, the clinics, the schools, schools without doctrine.

And I do believe that we are winning. The enlistment rate back in the war zone is higher than it's ever been. These military men and women believe in the cause that they're doing, as my son did. And I need -- I know that they need to be supported from here at home.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's turn to David Green this morning. And that we're looking at pictures of your son, by the way, Derrick (ph) right there. We'll get back to you in one second, Debbie. I want to turn to David Green, who's in Nashville, as I mentioned.

David, you lost your mother in Hurricane Katrina. The president spent a little bit less than a minute talking about the Gulf Coast and his focus there. What did you make of his speech last night?

DAVID GREEN, LOST MOTHER IN KATRINA: I think I understand his overall vision and can really appreciate that. Just a little concerned of the little attention that was paid to the Gulf Coast states, especially New Orleans and the Lower Ninth Ward.

S. O'BRIEN: So you felt that it was -- I guess I'm asking was what he said concerning to you or was it the amount of time that was spent talking about what's important to you concerning to you?

GREEN: I think the amount of time. I heard the overall vision, but I was looking for a little more detail how to -- how they were going to ensure that all of those things will be taken care of in the Gulf Coast states.

For example, a lot of people have chose not to return to New Orleans because there's a great amount of despair. I'm concerned that not enough attention has been paid to the Gulf Coast states, especially the Lower Nine.

S. O'BRIEN: The president also said that we need to address deeper challenges that existed before the storm struck. What did you take that to mean?

GREEN: I heard that. That interested me. Because from an economic standpoint, New Orleans and the Gulf states are depressed, very depressed. And that interests me. In fact, that caught my attention. And I guess my concern, again, is who is going to ensure that the politicians, Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin, ensure that those things occur?

S. O'BRIEN: We got to give a final word to Debbie Argel Bastian before I let you go. Debbie, do you think the poll numbers for the president will go up after this speech?

BASTIAN: Well, I don't pay a lot of attention to polls. If I go to one poll for a Web site that I like, the numbers are going to be absolutely different from another Web site. So I pretty much go with the feeling of the military personnel and how we're working together. And just hope, like so many of the other Gold Star parents, for our comfort and for the comfort of the military, that Congress will stop the partisan food fight and we can get on with business in the country.

S. O'BRIEN: I think a lot of people agree with you on that one. Debbie Argel Bastian joining us this morning. David Green, as well. Thanks to both of you for sharing your thoughts about the speech last night. Certainly appreciate that.

BASTIAN: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Soledad. Videotapes, audiotapes, e-mails and a whole lot of lorelei zingers. That was just during opening statements in the Enron trial. Testimony begins today.

Chris Huntington, live in Houston with us this morning. Chris, good morning to you.

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

We get into the meat of the trial today. The government trotting out its first witnesses. They're going to be former colleagues of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HUNTINGTON (voice-over): Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling will be hit with the first wave today of what federal prosecutors promise will be a flood of damaging testimony from several former Enron executives who pleaded guilty and cut deals with the government.

Prosecutor John Hueston told jurors the government will rely heavily on Andrew Fastow. He's Enron's former chief financial officer, who pleaded guilty to securities fraud in order to avoid trial and limit his time in jail. He's expected to tell the jury that Lay and Skilling deliberately deceived the public about Enron.

JACOB ZAMANSKY, SECURITIES LAWYER: The prosecution has to show that these men lied to investors, they sold their stock when they knew the company was crumbling so they could get out, and that that would show the motive -- the greed and the fraud that took place at Enron.

HUNTINGTON: Skilling's defense attorney, Dan Petrocelli, and Lay's lawyer, Mike Ramsey, insist they will aggressively attack the credibility of any witness who plea bargained with the government.

TOM AJAMIE, SECURITIES LAWYER: One of the best defense strategies is to pound really hard on any witness who testifies, who's cut a deal with the government. Because that witness has got every incentive to say whatever it takes to stay out of jail.

HUNTINGTON: That defense strategy could hit a snag when the government calls Sherron Watkins. She's the former Enron vice president who blew the whistle on Skilling and Fastow, but she's never been charged with a crime, and therefore never had to plea bargain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she's going to be crucial, because she knew what was going on, she warned Lay, and then he kept giving bullish reports to the public.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNTINGTON: First on the witness stand today, a gentleman named Mark Koenig, who used to run Enron's investor relations. That gets under way in a little less than an hour -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chris Huntington.

Coming up, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is back in the news. This time, a t-shirt she wore to the State of the Union, it got her arrested, but did she really break the law? We'll take look at that.

Plus, diagnosis breast cancer. Modern medicine offering new hope for women facing that terrible battle. It's news every woman needs to know, so stay with us. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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(MARKET REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, Cindy Sheehan, an invited guest at last night's State of the Union, but the t-shirt she was wearing got her arrested before she could see the speech. Did she really break the law? That's next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had a mastectomy. I had 28 lymph nodes removed. I was in my 30s! You know, no family history. Why is it that so many women are still afraid to take care of it? To test you have to go in, and the technique of doing mammograms, it would be so great if it could be something that they can tell if you're susceptible to cancer if it's maybe just a DNA testing, you know, come in with a saliva swab or maybe just do a blood test, if they could just identify it, deal with it and not take away your quality of life.

M. O'BRIEN: Mary's message is supported by this sobering fact: Every two minutes, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer. But there's some encouraging news from medical search. Better ways to predict it, detect it and treat it. In the fight against breast cancer, the future is now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's never been better to have breast cancer than now.

M. O'BRIEN: That startling statement is will also backed by facts. The survival rates for breast cancer have never been higher, and new therapies to fight the disease are unfolding every year.

Dr. Clifford Hudis is chief of the breast cancer medicine service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He says we should think of breast cancer not as one, but as a collection of diseases, each with different causes requiring different types of treatment.

The most exciting breakthrough, a drug called her Herceptin. It targets a particularly aggressive form of cancer that affects one in five breast cancer patients. When added to chemotherapy in the early stages of the disease, it cuts the chance of a relapse by half.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the question for us all is how many other targets are there like that? How many other drugs could we develop like that? How many subtypes of breast cancer will there be?

M. O'BRIEN: Also on the horizon, blood tests which better predict families that carry genes that could trigger some types of the diseases. Add to that better understanding of the effect of diet and exercise, advanced imaging techniques that can discover small cancer sooner, less invasive treatments to treat them and in the next ten years...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe you have an imaging test that makes a diagnosis of cancer and you actually can deal with it that day and be done with it. And I really think by 2016, we'll be able to say to patients this is the kind of breast cancer you have and this is the most effective therapy for it. And I'm confident that the outcomes that we offer patients in 2016 will be even better than they are today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm still here. So my work isn't done. We've got a way to go, but we're getting there. Just keep turning on the light.

(END VIDEOTAPE) M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, Cindy Sheehan back in the headlines this morning. Arrested right before last night's State of the Union speech because the t-shirt she wore had an anti-war statement. Did she really break the law? We'll take a look ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Gold Star mom and now anti-war protest leader Cindy Sheehan spent the State of the Union in a state of rage. She was invited to see the speech in person by a member of Congress, but when she was sitting down in the gallery, unzipped her jacket, security saw her t-shirt and she was quickly hauled away and charged with unlawful conduct.

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University joining us now to talk a little bit about this. Jonathan, good to have you with us this morning.

JONATHAN TURLEY, LAW PROFESSOR, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Good morning.

M. O'BRIEN: The t-shirt said -- it was a black t-shirt, big white block letters, I'm sorry we don't have a picture of it, but it said 2245, how many more? Referring to the number of war dead in Iraq. And it's large letters. It clearly would have been seen certainly by the cameras, probably by the president as well. Is it against the law to wear a shirt like that to the State of the Union?

TURLEY: Well, you know, it's always been ambiguous in terms of the rules of Congress. Because you're not allowed to disrupt Congress or to demonstrate in the galleries. But there has been this gray line as to what constitutes demonstrations. The Supreme Court has dealt with this, actually, in the context of high schools and what t-shirts that students should be able to wear in high schools.

What the court has said is that you can have time, place and manner restrictions. But if Sheehan was just wearing a t-shirt and not doing anything else, then it raises very significant First Amendment questions. Because people routinely go to the gallery with t-shirts that say various things.

Now what the House is saying is that she also stood up and was in the process of demonstrating, that she uttered some words and stood up. We have to look very closely at the sequence of those events. I got to be honest, I expect that they were watching her like hawks, that anything that could be viewed as stepping over the line, they wanted to get her out of there before the president started to talk.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. She claims in a letter she wrote on one the blogs this morning she had no intent to disrupt and that she did, in fact, wear the t-shirt. The -- couple of things here. First of all, let's -- we were able to look up the House rules of decorum here. And at the bottom of the list, among many other things, is that people have to wear appropriate business attire. Now that probably is rules that are aimed at the members of Congress, but...

TURLEY: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: ... that's only thing I could find here that would apply to that. But if you violate that, is it a law that is broken or just a rule of Congress?

TURLEY: No. You can be removed if you're wearing something disruptive or doing something disrespectful. But there is this still this thing called the U.S. Constitution. And particularly in the United States Capitol, that Constitution has some obvious relevance. That rule that you cited really is directed at members. People, members of the public, routinely wear t-shirts, particularly women do, and are not removed.

And what we want to be concerned about is whether we have a rule that's so ambiguous that they just arrest the Sheehans and let the people they like through. And that's, itself, a type of constitutional violation, if it is so vague that they can enforce it against anyone they want.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Andy Serwer was just talking to me about this. And it's a hypothetical question but, you know, what if the t-shirt had said I love the president or whatever?

TURLEY: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: What would have happened then? We don't know the answer to that, but the question is what is appropriate or not during the State of the Union? Certainly, there are buttons, lapel pins, all those kinds of things, which do, in fact, indicate support for various causes?

TURLEY: Well, there's a sharp discontinuity, obviously, with the president saying we have to fight for the rule of law in our constitutional system. And now we have an allegation that somebody who was simply wearing a t-shirt with a statement on it was not allowed to be in the presence of the president and the members of Congress.

You know, Congress has had a number of these instances recently. A woman was actually charged criminally and convicted recently for standing up in a committee hearing and asking to speak to the committee. And so Congress is getting very tough on demonstrators as the country gets more divided over things like the Iraq war.

But this was hardly the scene that we wanted to. The State of the Union is supposed to be a moment of coming together, celebrating who we are. And this has left, I think, a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, I think, if nothing else, it just hardens those divisions. Jonathan Turley, constitutional law professor at George Washington University. Thank you very much.

TURLEY: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: Thanks, Miles.

Ahead this morning, much more on the last night's State of the Union address. Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, only got a passing reference, though, in last night's speech. How is that playing on the Gulf Coast this morning? A look at that's ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in a moment.

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