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American Morning

A New Challenge for President Bush; Bad Weather Moving East

Aired March 13, 2006 - 08:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
I'm Miles O'Brien.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Soledad O'Brien.

Bad weather, and it is moving east. Deadly twisters. Look at these pictures. They killed five people in the Midwest. We'll tell you about that.

M. O'BRIEN: A new challenge for President Bush. One senator says he broke the law and would like to punish the president.

S. O'BRIEN: Cross-examination for the star witness in the Enron trial. Andy Fastow is going to be asked what was going on behind closed doors as the company was bleeding money?

A new trial for the son of the "Teflon Don." We'll take a look inside the second jury that couldn't decide racketeering charges against John Gotti, Jr. Could there be a third trial? What will change?

M. O'BRIEN: And there could be a break in the case of the wayward whippet. A real life pet detective on the scent this AMERICAN MORNING.

S. O'BRIEN: We begin with that severe weather we were telling you about battering the Midwest this morning. In Missouri, deadly tornadoes cut a wide path of destruction. At least five people were reported killed there on Sunday. One tornado touched down for 20 miles. It ripped through towns and just utterly destroyed homes. I mean, take a look at that videotape.

Classes are being canceled today at the University of Kansas, where 60 percent, 60 percent of the buildings at Lawrence Campus have now been damaged. Hail described as the size of baseballs shattered windows throughout southern parts of the state. And in Illinois, twisters hit Springfield with a one-two punch late last night and early this morning, too. At least 19 people were injured. One person still missing. Power is out. Several roofs were ripped right off.

A massive cleanup of the Illinois capital is due to get underway today.

Let's get right to CNN's Keith Oppenheim.

He joins us live from Springfield. KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

And take a look at the home behind me here in the southwest corner of Springfield. You can see that the roof of that home got lopped off in the middle of the storm. And we're going to show you right now, walk quickly to give you a sense of where that roof went.

The family that was in that home, a mom, dad and a child, they were inside the inside bathroom or the bathroom surrounded by walls of the house. And while they're inside, the roof of their house lands in the back of their neighbor's yard. There it is. In fact, the people who live here, the Hoylands (ph), we've been talking to them this morning. That's Gary Hoyland in the background. And he is really just beginning to assess the damage here. Stunned.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that many of the neighbors here are finding that their homes are generally intact.

Chris, if you don't mind just turning around the street here, we'll take a quick peek at what we see across the street, because this home behind me is in relatively good shape. Most of what people are dealing here -- dealing with here is tree damage. And, in fact, some of these streets are nearly impassable because of tree damage.

But still, this tornado came directly to the City of Springfield, which folks around here are telling us is the first time that's happened in this city in 50 years -- Soledad, back to you.

S. O'BRIEN: Keith Oppenheim for us this morning with a live report.

Keith, thanks a lot.

Let's get right to severe weather expert Chad Myers at the CNN Center with the very latest -- Chad, you know, wow! When he turned that camera and showed the minimal damage, nominal damage to some homes just across the street and then the others just shredded.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Typical of that vortex, you know?

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.

MYERS: I mean if you are under that bad vortex where the tornado is, that's where the damage is going to occur. Literally, the lift was created by it and took that top off the house and then dumped it into another neighborhood.

But I'll tell you what. I know we're going to have pictures that are a lot worse than that from these storms yesterday. There were some significant storms out there. And even for right now, we still have a couple of watches, but no warnings going on.

Detroit, you're getting some thunder and lightning. I just checked, over the entire country in the past hour, 2,800 lightning strikes. There's a line here from Vincenze (ph) right on down into Evansville and then the one kind of dying out here around Shreveport. There will be more weather today, just a little bit farther to the east. Look what's going on. It's 16 in Denver, 18 in Billings. This is where the cold air has been carved out and here's where the warm, moist air is in the Ohio Valley. So because we had the tornadoes and the damage here yesterday, now the weather is going to be here.

Eighty-four in D.C. this afternoon, so the wind and the weather and the severe weather will all just be charging off a little bit farther to the East. Make sure you have a radio on if you live there -- back to you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad.

President Bush fighting the war at home today, opening up a new campaign to try to seize the high P.R. ground for the war in Iraq. It's the first in a series of speeches designed to win over Americans who are souring on the war.

Suzanne Malveaux live at the White House with a preview -- Suzanne, good morning.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Miles.

Essentially, President Bush is trying to convince Americans that he gets it. And what he's going to talk about is he's going to say amid the daily news reports about the car bombings, as well as the kidnappings, the brutal killings, that there are some Americans, many Americans, who do not believe that this Iraq mission is worth it. He is also going to acknowledge the difficulties they're having with these improvised explosive devices, IEDs, that have been really devastating the U.S. troops.

But he's going to paint a larger, broader picture here and say despite all this, he believes it's worth it. He says on the military side they're adapting their tactics to deal with the enemy, to deal with the insurgency. And on the political side he's going to say look, there is a lot of progress that's being made. You may recall the bombing of that Shiite mosque, the Golden Temple, last month. Many people believe there was civil war. That did not happen. The president using that case to say look, he believes that progress is being made -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: The problem for the administration, Suzanne, is that this is juxtaposed against daily reports about additional violence there. It's a difficult thing to counteract.

MALVEAUX: Well, absolutely. And that's why the president is essentially going to talk about those aspects, as well. They want to let the American people know that the president is in touch, he realizes that there's daily difficulties there. And, look, there are a lot of things that are out of their control. But they also want to say, look, there are things that they believe, long-term, that are going to improve. Ultimately, they want to pull out U.S. troops, even as early as this year. It's a difficult case for the president to make. But as you know, Miles, he continues on a consistent basis to say that he believes this is going to work.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's shift gears here for just a moment and talk about Senator Feingold, Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, a liberal Democrat, says he'd like to initiate a censure campaign aimed at the president, the issue being those -- that NSA wiretapping campaign, the domestic spying program.

What does the White House say about that?

MALVEAUX: Well, one senior administration official I spoke with said look, there's no one in Congress who is saying let's put a halt to this program, that there is bipartisan support for the usefulness of this program. And so they will continue to work with Congress, essentially to codify the president's authority and using his authority for this NSA program. They are not backing down when it comes to this.

And the Republican leadership specifically using the harsh language to back that up, calling this ridiculous, calling it a way to smear the president and the administration.

But as you know, we heard from Senator Feingold today, who defended his actions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD (D), WISCONSIN: I think what we've done for three months is -- I'm on both the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee. We've listened and listened. We've not heard any persuasive argument at all that the president had legal authority to do that.

Would it be a good thing for the country now to start an impeachment proceeding? I'm not so sure. I think that's something we ought to think about. Do we really want to remove this president from office because of this? Or do we want to send a clear signal by a censure resolution that what he did was wrong?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: And, Miles, of course, we'll be able to get a chance to ask the president a couple of questions later this morning to see what he thinks about the possibility of censure or even a move for impeachment -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Suzanne Malveaux at the White House.

Thank you very much.

Just ahead in this hour of AMERICAN MORNING, we will check in with David Gergen and ask him what he would suggest the president say as part of this campaign. Of course, Mr. Gergen has advised no less than four presidents on both sides of the aisle.

And CNN will have live coverage of the president's speech at 1:15 Eastern, right here. Stay with us -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, the star witness in the Enron trial back for a grilling today. Former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow is expected to face tough questions from the lead lawyer for Enron founder, Ken Lay.

Chris Huntington is live outside the courthouse in Houston this morning for us -- hey, Chris, good morning.

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Well, Andy Fastow is considered the government's crucial witness because he's admitted to being part of most of the crimes alleged to have happened at Enron. As some say, he knows where the bones are buried. And the big challenge for Ken Lay's attorney is going to be to discredit Fastow in the eyes of the jury.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

HUNTINGTON (voice-over): Ken Lay, the founder and former chairman of Enron, is in deep trouble. He's charged with deceiving the public about Enron's demise and talking up the stock while selling it himself. Those charges based, in part, on what this man has to say, Enron's former chief financial officer, Andrew Fastow, who agreed to plead guilty and is now a crucial witness for the government.

Last week, Fastow testified that Lay lied to Enron's shareholders and employees when he told them just weeks before the company collapsed that business had "never been stronger," even though, according to Fastow, Lay knew the company was in a death spiral.

Lay's lawyer wants the jury to focus on Fastow as a liar and a thief.

MIKE RAMSEY, KEN LAY'S ATTORNEY: Well, I mean, he was obviously stealing for himself, you know? He admitted that. And there's no way to avoid that. There's a paper trail that's clear as an interstate (UNINTELLIGIBLE) demonstrating that he was stealing (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

HUNTINGTON: Fastow's infamous off the book deals that inflated Enron's profits also inflated his own bank account, by siphoning tens of millions of dollars from the company. Fastow concedes Lay had no idea this was going on.

In the fall of 2001, after re-assuming the role of CEO after Jeff Skilling's abrupt resignation, Lay publicly proclaimed several times that Enron was in good shape. Fastow testified that Lay was part of Enron's culture of corruption, that Lay knew the company was in trouble but tried to convince investors otherwise.

Jurors must decide whether Lay was an upbeat leader or a liar. The wildcard is whether they believe Fastow.

RICHARD HERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That's the multi- million dollar question. And that's what -- that's how these cases go every day in federal district courts and state courts all over the country. When these cooperators who get on the stand, if they can be perceived as telling the truth despite the fact that they've committed all these crimes, they get to jurors. And jurors believe it.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

HUNTINGTON: Now, getting to jurors is going to be Mike Ramsey's challenge.

Mike Ramsey is a local attorney from here in Texas. You can look for a folksy style with the jury, quite different from that of Jeff Skilling's attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, who last week lashed out and ripped into Andy Fastow with very, very tough, abrasive, at times, cross-examination. So look for a folksy style, a chance to appeal to jurors, perhaps, with some home town style.

Back to you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, that's going to be interesting to watch.

Chris Huntington for us this morning.

Chris, thank you.

More headlines.

Let's get those from Carol Costello in the newsroom -- hey, Carol, good morning again.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

Good morning to all of you.

Saddam Hussein is not there, but his trial picked up again earlier in Baghdad. A former judge under Saddam's regime said he gave the death penalty orders for more than 140 Shiites back in the 1980s, but insists they were given a fair trial. We are expecting to see Hussein himself on the stand as early as tomorrow.

In Alexandria, Virginia, the Minneapolis FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui will be on the stand this morning. Moussaoui is the only person charged in the United States in connection with the September 11 attacks. Jurors must now decide whether Moussaoui will get the death penalty or spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Oh, I know, drivers are feeling that pain at the pump again. Gas prices jumped nearly $0.11, $0.11 over the past two weeks, to an average of $2.35 a gallon. And that's even though the price of crude has dropped. Gas prices are lowest, by the way, in Newark, New Jersey, at $2.15. That's all according to figures from the Lundbergh Survey. The highest Gas prices is in Honolulu of $2.63. And, ooh, summer is coming, isn't it?

two southern Indiana counties under a state of emergency after major downpours swamped roads and some highways. At least one death being blamed on the flooding. Other parts of the state under a tornado watch. And, boy, it's been a wild, wild weather month, hasn't it? March is certainly coming in like a lion.

S. O'BRIEN: Absolutely. In some places it's just devastating to see that damage in the Midwest.

M. O'BRIEN: You know, it's interesting, it still is kind of early in the tornado season. But we've had some -- we've had tornadoes, really, all throughout the winter, if you think about it.

COSTELLO: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you, Carol.

So what can the president say to you to make you feel better about the war in Iraq? We'll talk to a former presidential adviser about what the president needs to say as he begins his series of speeches today.

S. O'BRIEN: Then we're going to tell you why some 9/11 families want to put a stop to the new World Trade Center memorial.

M. O'BRIEN: And prosecutors are hoping the third time is a charm with Junior Gotti. Two mistrials now. How he has dodged yet another legal bullet. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The president beginning to fight a P.R. campaign today, launching a series of speeches trying to bolster support for the war in Iraq. Americans are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the way that war is going.

Let's ask David Gergen, former presidential adviser, now at the Kennedy School of Government, what he would advise the president to say today.

David, good to have you with us.

The most recent poll I could find, A.P./Associated Press/Ipsos Poll, shows 58 percent of Americans are feeling unsure or disapprove of the war. There you go. Fifty-eight percent disapprove, 39 percent approve. And if you look at the trend lines, that's just steadily increased, the disapprove numbers.

How do you go about stemming that?

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER, KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT: With real progress on the ground, not with rhetoric, Miles.

The president has spoken up numerous times. He's had a variety of P.R. campaigns to support the war rhetoric. But, you know, you can only go to that well so many times. And I think that this time around it's very, very unlikely to work. It's clear what he's trying to do. We've got the third anniversary of the beginning of the war just around the corner, coming here late -- coming this weekend. And he's trying to get some protective covering to go through that period when the press and his critics are likely to beat up on him and likely to beat up on the effort.

But at this point, Miles, people are not looking for rhetoric. They're looking for real progress on the ground. So I would think the administration would be putting far more emphasis on forcing these Iraqi politicians to say look guys, this -- we're rapidly approaching the hour of truth. You've got to put together a government or you can't count on us being here indefinitely, and try to get some other countries involved.

M. O'BRIEN: That's what happens -- has to happen in the real world. Let's talk a little bit about what is said to the American people.

Is it time to strip a little bit of the varnish off, you know? I'm thinking in particular a week ago Sunday. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, on "Meet The Press," offered an extremely sanguine view of the situation, to say the least. And I think at a certain point people tune that out because they feel like it has very little credibility.

GERGEN: Well, General Pace, of course, is a terrific military man. I was surprised by the tone of his comments because they're just in such conflict with what we see on television every day and by what our own ambassador on the ground has been saying, which that is that there's an urgency about this, that we've opened Pandora's Box, that we may be on the edge of a civil war.

You know, so when the general back home says it's all bright and good and our representative on the ground is saying it's anything but bright and good, there's a natural skepticism on the part of the country. And that's what I think is contributing to the -- to the urgency and the administration moving beyond rhetoric and moving toward trying to get some policies in place that will win this thing, or at least allow us to get out of there gracefully without a mess on our hands.

M. O'BRIEN: It's a difficult situation because I guess from the perspective of the administration, an increasing amount of candor might send the wrong messages or the perception from the administration would be that it would send the wrong messages.

GERGEN: Well, there's -- there is that fear, of course. And there's always that fear in an administration. I'm sympathetic with what they're facing. They've got a real dilemma on their hands. But, Miles, I have to tell you something. The, you know, great leaders in the past have always been very straightforward. One of Churchill's most famous speeches started out, you know, when things were going really badly in Europe. It's first line was the news from France is very bad. He leveled with people and he respected their intelligence and as a result people, the British people rallied around him. And in this case we've had so much rhetoric that has been wide of the mark, you know, far more optimistic, very panglossian, if I may use that term, and it's left people sort of saying they don't know who to believe anymore. They think the press is overly, overly negative, by the way, and so they don't particularly believe everything they hear from the press. But they think the administration is overly positive.

And so they're left confused and not supportive of what the president is trying to do at a critical hour. The hour of truth is approaching rapidly in Iraq. We're down to the end game now, whether they can form a government, whether they can put down this sectarian violence and whether we, the United States, can begin to remove ourselves gracefully. And those decisions are all just a matter of weeks, if not months, away.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, we're just about out of time.

But quickly...

GERGEN: Sure.

M. O'BRIEN: ... the first straw poll for the '08 presidential stakes in Tennessee. Bill Frist at the top, a hometown favorite there. So let's discount that for a minute. Or maybe not.

What do you think about Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts coming in second there?

GERGEN: Well, he did pretty well. I mean for -- in the Southern, you know, polls, straw poll, he did very, very well. But the big news out of Memphis was also John McCain swinging so forcefully behind President Bush. And he's clearly making a move now to become the heir apparent to President Bush.

The big question over John McCain right now is in moving behind President Bush, does he threaten to blur the portrait of him as a maverick, independent, straight talking, moderate conservative? Or does he begin to become another Bush hard-core conservative. And people will need to know and we'll need to have a certain -- and, you know, McCain has been doing extraordinarily well in these polls, running ahead of everybody else. If the election were held today, the national election, McCain would be the winner.

But as he moves now, it's an interesting question what he was doing in Memphis. Does this help him or hurt him? That's a very hard question.

M. O'BRIEN: David Gergen, thanks for your time.

GERGEN: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Mr. Gergen is the former presidential adviser to several presidents, currently with the Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge -- Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, Miles, construction is set to begin at the site of the World Trade Center Memorial. But not if some victims' families have their say.

And they're calling him the "Teflon Don" just like his mobster daddy. How John, Jr. Gotti dodged yet another legal bullet.

Stay with us.

You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: It's been four-and-a-half years now since the 9/11 attacks and work finally begins today on the memorial. But some victims' families oppose the design and are trying to stop the construction before the memorial is even set in concrete.

AMERICAN MORNING'S Alina Cho spoke with some family members at ground zero.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rosemary Cain is never far from her son at ground zero. She carries his picture, hands out prayer cards, even gives guided tours of the grounds.

ROSEMARY CAIN, MOTHER OF 9/11 VICTIM: Someday when you're a daddy and you bring your children down here, hopefully there will be a beautiful memorial.

CHO: A memorial that will honor her son George, a New York City firefighter who died here on September 11.

CAIN: The majority of family members want a memorial that is going to be dignified, respectful and historically accurate. This memorial isn't even for us.

CHO: The current plan is to build two reflecting pools where the Twin Towers once stood and an underground museum. Annemarie McAleese is most upset about that. She lost her son Brian on 9/11. The firefighters' remains were never found.

ANNEMARIE MCALEESE, MOTHER OF 9/11 VICTIM: I had no recovery. This is where I have to come. This is my headstone. And I had to go all the way down to find his name. So I think they should have the daylight and the sunlight. We have enough darkness.

CHO: With every plan, at every turn, there has been great debate. One woman who lost her brother on 9/11 recently decided to sleep on a sidewalk opposite ground zero indefinitely.

(on camera): The main problem is that no one has full control of the World Trade Center site. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owns the land, so both governors have a say. So does the mayor of New York, the developer, the Memorial Foundation and the families. GRETCHEN DYKSTRA: You are never going to make everybody happy.

CHO (voice-over): Gretchen Dykstra is the president and CEO of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the group in charge of raising money for, building and operating the 9/11 memorial.

DYKSTRA: There will always be questions about some aspect of it. But I remember back to the building of the Vietnam memorial. There was a on the of dissension around that. Now, it's often held up as the standard of memorials.

CHO: No matter what happens with the memorial, Rosemary Cain will never forget.

(on camera): Does it get any easier for you?

CAIN: No. It never gets easier. It's the last thing I think about every night. It's the first thing I think about every morning. I see my family with a hole in it.

CHO (voice-over): A hole no contractor can fill.

Alina Cho, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: Opponents of the current design will head to court today. The hearing is on a lawsuit from the Coalition of 9/11 Families, charging the memorial would damage the footprints of the original towers.

You can understand sort of the high running emotions there.

M. O'BRIEN: There is nothing that is not emotional and difficult on that one. That is for sure. That is sacred ground.

Still to come, "The Da Vinci Code," that huge best-seller already dispersed by the Vatican. But now there are allegations of plagiarism. Did the devil make Dan Brown do it?

And the case of the wayward whippet. Some tantalizing clues Vivi the show dog is alive and roaming the streets of New York. Time to call the pet detective and her helpers. You could call them gum paws, I guess.

Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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