Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Welcome to the Future; Immigration Battle; New England Flooding

Aired May 15, 2006 - 06:29   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Retirement isn't what it used to be. A matter of fact, baby boomers seem far less likely to escape to Florida and days filled with shuffleboard. Welcome to the future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Staying active physically helps to keep you alive mentally. I'm a grandmother of three beautiful little girls, and I take care of them during the daytime, and I work here at Borders at night. That's a grand total of an 87-hour work week.

When I first started working, by dad said to me, "Don't ever be caught standing around." I'm not so sure how pervasive that kind of work ethic is anymore. My goal is to try and continue to work at this pace as long as my health will allow it.

M. O'BRIEN: It turns out Mary is not alone. A matter of fact, nearly three out of four baby boomers plan on staying in the workplace beyond the age of 65. In fact, many are vowing to work well into their 80s.

Brace yourself for a graying workforce, employers.

(voice over): Many people are staying at work longer for the medical benefits or the money, or they simply want to stay active. Deborah Russell (ph) of the American Association of Retired Persons says these workers are about to give retirement a whole new meaning.

Retirement is going to be much more of a cyclical type of event, where people are going to be in and out of the workplace. They may not want to work in the same job for as many hours, but they're going to want to be engaged in the workplace.

M. O'BRIEN: And while a happenedful of companies are embracing their older staffers, Russell (ph) says many employers are stuck in some old stereotypes about the value of seasoned workers. In the future, those that make it easier for older workers will have an easier time finding good employees.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The changing demographics is going to require them to look differently at 50-plus workers. It shouldn't matter too much how old that person is. It's really what do they bring to the table and are they getting that job done?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.

M. O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien.

President Bush poised to send the military to the Mexican border with the U.S. Tonight in his Oval Office address, we are told he will unveil a plan to send thousands of National Guard troops to help the U.S. Border Patrol try to stop illegal immigration. The idea is raising some concerns on both sides of the border.

CNN's Sumi Das with that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUMI DAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... assisted with hurricane relief efforts, now some are suggesting that National Guard troops be used to assist with border patrol.

(voice over): A proposal to use National Guard troops to boost security along the U.S.-Mexico border has further fueled the immigration debate. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley says this stopgap measure is not a new idea.

STEPHEN HADLEY, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: It's not about militarization of the border. It's about assisting the civilian border patrol in doing their job, providing intelligence, providing support, logistics support, and training, and these sorts of things.

DAS: The proposal has the backing of Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist, who says it's a short-term solution.

SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: Securing our borders is a federal responsibility. We need to act. We have failed miserably in the past. This time we've got to get it right.

DAS: Lawmakers from both parties have expressed skepticism.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: I am concerned that we have so overstretched our military, overstretched especially our National Guard, I'm not sure what capacity they would have. That's not the role of the National Guard.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: This is a president who refused to increase the end strength of the Army, which means we rely more upon the National Guard. They're spread all over the place.

DAS: In a phone call to President Bush Sunday, the Mexican President Vicente Fox voiced concerns about the proposal. White House officials say Mr. Bush told the Mexican president the border would not be militarized and that the U.S. considers Mexico an ally and friend.

(on camera): National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has said the president has not yet decided whether or not to implement the program. Sumi Das, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Stay tuned to CNN for special coverage of the president's speech, 7:00 p.m. Eastern. We begin with "THE SITUATION ROOM." Then the president's remarks at 8:00, followed by a special "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" at 8:30 Eastern; 9:00, "LARRY KING LIVE" with a debate on border security; 10:00 p.m., "ANDERSON COOPER 360," all Eastern Time -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Hundreds of people already evacuating ahead of floods in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Those who are still in their homes are being warned they should be ready to go at a moment's notice. Governors in both states have called in the National Guard to try to help out.

AMERICAN MORNING'S Dan Lothian is in Peabody, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.

Hey, Dan. Good morning.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

I'm in the town square, where it's pretty much deserted, because as I'm walking down off Main Street, about a foot of water here, and it goes anywhere two-plus feet as you walk down any one of these side streets. As you mentioned, the problem is not only here in Massachusetts, but also New Hampshire and Maine, after more than 48 hours of constant rain.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice over): A weekend of torrential rain turned roads into rivers. The floodwaters forcing hundreds of people in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to flee their homes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm just so glad we're out of the house. It's so good to be out of the house.

LOTHIAN: For some, the only way to safety was by boat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We put all our stuff on the roof. All the stuff's on the roof of the house because there's so much water.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the worst we've seen. Definitely the worst we've seen. We've never had it out like this.

LOTHIAN: Rescuers waded through waist-deep water, searching for stranded families.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of water. That's all I can tell you. There's a lot of water, and there's still some more people out there.

LOTHIAN: The governors of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine declared states of emergency, and the weather is expected to get worse before it gets better.

GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R), MASSACHUSETTS: There are a number of rivers which we expect as of Monday night to rise substantially above the flood level.

LOTHIAN: Forecasters predict as much as 15 inches of rain will fall in some areas by the time the storm passes.

GOV. JOHN LYNCH (D), NEW HAMPSHIRE: Well, five out of 10 counties have really experienced widespread flooding. Many roads closed, parts of roads washed away. We've had mandatory and voluntary evacuations. A number of shelters have been set up across -- across the state.

LOTHIAN: And there's concern across New England about weakened dams giving way and sending walls of water sweeping through areas already hit hard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just hard. We lost everything. And we just redid everything in our house.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Water was at the door when we left. Who knows where it will be when we get back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: We've live again in downtown Peabody, where the area is pretty much deserted under one to two-plus feet of water. So it's shut down, but not only towns. Some schools across New England also closed, not only because you can't get through some of the roads to the get to those schools, but some of those schools are being used as emergency shelters -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, what a mess. Gosh, it looks just incredible behind you.

Dan Lothian for us this morning.

Dan, thanks.

We'll continue to check in with Dan throughout the morning.

Let's get right to the forecast with Jacqui Jeras. She's in for Chad, who's on a little vaca.

Jacqui, how's it going to look for those folks today?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Not good.

(WEATHER REPORT)

JERAS: Back to you guys.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you, Jacqui.

Still to come this morning, a rocky road for President Bush's choice to lead the CIA. We're going to hear from one political analyst about a new wrinkle that could make Hayden's confirmation a little bit tougher.

M. O'BRIEN: And some big trouble along the ring of fire. One of the most dangerous volcanoes in one of the most volcanic countries on Earth is rumbling, but will people heed the call to evacuate?

S. O'BRIEN: And in business news, a giant payout for Boeing after a major scandal. Andy is "Minding Your Business" just ahead.

First, though, a look at some of the other stories that are making news today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The president with a rare primetime speech tonight. We're told he will unveil a plan to send National Guard troops to buttress the border. The White House may find this is one way to seize the political high ground again.

Just one of the political issues on the radar of our next guest, John Mercurio, who is the senior editor at "National Journal's Hotline".

John, good to have you back on this Monday morning.

JOHN MERCURIO, "THE HOTLINE": Thanks, Miles. Good to be here.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk some numbers for just a moment. We have a CNN poll which is about a week old or so. And the question is a straightforward one.

"Do you think increasing border security is a good idea, making it more difficult for illegal immigrants to find jobs?" Sixty-nine percent favor. Big numbers for this.

So when the president says we're going to buttress the border, he's got a lot of popular support. But is this going to be enough -- excuse me -- to shore up the president's right flank, where he has some problems on this immigration issue?

MERCURIO: Right, absolutely. I think the president is looking at those polls and other polls and seeing that border security is the sort of pivotal issue that divides conservative Republicans from the, you know, liberals and moderates who are supporting the Senate version of this immigration bill.

I think he actually has a relatively -- despite the fact that he's speaking to a primetime audience and it's going to be viewed by millions of Americans, I think he's got a relatively narrow targeted audience, and that is the House Republican conference that's going to actually have to negotiate the final terms of this bill. He's made, I think, domestic -- I'm sorry, he's made immigration reform his biggest domestic priority in this year. This is the first time he's ever done an Oval Office address on a domestic issue. And I think what he's trying to say to Republicans, House Republicans who are critical of the Senate version of the bill which he's more in line with is that, look, he's serious on border security, he's serious on these issues, and he hopes that there can be some sort of resolution sometime in the next few weeks.

M. O'BRIEN: It's a tough situation for Democrats to come out against it because it makes them look soft on national security. And so it goes also for this national security agency domestic spy program, whatever you want to call it, surveillance program. I want to share with you as we look ahead toward the hearings for the prospective CIA chief, Michael Hayden, some interesting numbers.

Right after it was announced that the NSA was compiling this super database of all of our phone records, there was a poll taken by ABC which indicated 63 percent of people thought that that was acceptable, 35 percent unacceptable. And then a day later...

MERCURIO: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: ... "USA Today" and Gallup came up with this -- actually, they did this over the weekend -- 43 percent approve, 51 percent disapprove of it. So, in other words, the more people heard about this program, the more upset they got with it.

What do you think that says?

MERCURIO: I think that actually there are several other polls that are out there, too. And I think we see there was a "Newsweek" -- I think we see that there's -- the numbers are really all over the place.

What we do know, though, is that this administration, this White House believes that this is ultimately a winning issue. This is an issue that they think they can rally Americans behind.

This is why they nominated Michael Hayden to this job in the first place. They believe that ultimately Democrats will be viewed as weak on national security, and just like the president did in 2004, when he focused his reelection campaign on this one issue, they ultimately will prevail. And, of course, this is an election year. So a lot of people are focused on exactly how that's going to play into it.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, it's an election year? Really? I didn't know. OK. Thank you for reminding us of that one.

The other issue aside from national security which, of course, helped the president get to office were these cultural issues, these issues of ethics and morals. And the one that's on the near-term horizon here is the possibility the federal government in some way is going to take up the notion of same-sex marriages, a marriage amendment of some kind or legislation. But what's interesting here is you have the first lady coming out with some words, kind of cautioning Republicans against doing this.

Listen to this from Laura Bush. She was on "FOX News Sunday". Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY: I don't think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously. But I do think it's something that people in the United States want to debate. And it requires a lot of sensitivity to just talk about the issue, a lot of sensitivity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: So if the first lady says this shouldn't be a campaign tool, do you think Republicans will listen?

MERCURIO: You know, I have to say, we also saw Mary Cheney, who is a lesbian, the daughter of the vice president, come out in her book tour right now and say that she's -- she's strongly opposed to the gay marriage amendments and that she almost left the campaign in 2004 because of this. I have to say, though, I'm a little bit skeptical.

The Bush family, dating back to the former president and his wife, Barbara Bush, who used to come out and talk about her -- her sort of marginal limited support for abortion rights, you've seen Laura Bush do the exact same thing. They're not in power. They might have some sort of sway over the president, but if the president ultimately and the vice president remain committed to these gay marriage amendments and, you know, committed to their stands on abortion rights, then, ultimately, what sort of influence does the first lady have and the former first lady and the daughter of the vice president?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, the first lady certainly has bigger popularity numbers right now, doesn't she?

MERCURIO: Well, she certainly does.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. John Mercurio, always a pleasure having you drop by on Mondays.

"Hotline" senior editor, John Mercurio, who is with us every Monday morning -- Soledad.

MERCURIO: Good to be here.

S. O'BRIEN: Still ahead this morning, some residents feel forgotten in Mississippi. They say they're living in an environmental disaster in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, living in tents and trailers, and worried about what's in their water and what's in their air. We did our own tests and what we found was pretty shocking.

We'll tell you just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Women hate it, that ugly, bumpy cottage cheese fat under the skin usually on the hips and thighs known as cellulite. Some women opt for plastic surgery and liposuction, but other women are now trying to combat cellulite with another option.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mesotherapy involves the injection of medications under the skin.

COHEN: Even with thousands of dollars in potential expense and weekly injections, some women do swear by this relatively non-invasive procedure. The cocktail is a blend of drugs. Each drug is approved by the FDA. Using them in combination is not, and there's no standardized formula for the cocktail. Physicians mix their own. And there have been reported cases of skin irritations and infections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm convinced that it doesn't work. And I'm not going to risk my patient's health with something that's unproven.

COHEN: And there is a bottom line to any fat reduction program.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very important to eat right and exercise to keep it off long term.

COHEN: Elizabeth Cohen, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Talking business news and Boeing.

ANDY SERWER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "FORTUNE": And Boeing.

S. O'BRIEN: Big moola for Boeing.

SERWER: Yes, that's right, Soledad.

Good morning.

This is a $615 million fine the giant defense contractor has to pay the federal government to settle a three-year investigation into improprieties in defense contracting. The largest penalty of its kind ever paid out. Boeing does not have to admit any wrongdoing.

I always love that, they don't have to admit any wrongdoing.

S. O'BRIEN: The best kind of deal.

SERWER: And there won't be any criminal prosecution.

The company improperly procured documents from rival Lockheed Martin, which it used to win a rocket launching business, also recruited an Air Force individual who worked for that part of the military to help them. Also win other kinds of business.

The CFO was fired and the CEO left the company. But this will lift a cloud over the company, I think it's safe to say.

M. O'BRIEN: You might say that.

SERWER: You could.

Another defense contractor in the news is Halliburton. It has its annual meeting usually in Houston. But this year it's decided to change the venue and move.

M. O'BRIEN: Baghdad.

SERWER: Good guess.

M. O'BRIEN: No, bad idea.

SERWER: Duncan, Oklahoma, is where it's going to have its annual meeting. And a little bit of a controversy here.

The company, indeed, was incorporated there in 1924. True. However, critics say that they're having the annual meeting there to duck protesters who will be coming to the meeting in full force.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, why couldn't the protesters just go to Duncan?

M. O'BRIEN: They could probably go to Duncan.

SERWER: Oh, they intend to. But it's a lot easier to get to Houston.

And this is sort of a tried and true strategy...

S. O'BRIEN: What kind of protester worth their salt is like, yes, I can't make it.

SERWER: Oh, but it is true that...

(CROSSTALK)

SERWER: And it's also shareholders who are discontent. And it really is true that if it takes a couple plane rides and bus rides to get somewhere, it will deter some people...

S. O'BRIEN: Maybe they're not that committed to the project, then.

SERWER: ... from going, I think it's true. So interesting. It will be fun to see.

There is a protest planned in Duncan, and there's also a counter- protest planned in Duncan. And I hope we have news cameras there.

S. O'BRIEN: I'm sure the videotape will be fascinating.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, it will.

S. O'BRIEN: Andy, thank you. SERWER: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: A short break. We're back in just a moment.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Well, the first hour of the week is nearly over, which means we should check in with Jacqui Jeras in the weather center -- Jacqui.

JERAS: Hey, Miles.

(WEATHER REPORT)

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