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American Morning
'Paying the Price in the Heartland'; President Bush in Omaha, Nebraska
Aired June 07, 2006 - 09:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody.
You're looking at live pictures. That's President Bush obviously. He's in Omaha, Nebraska. He's talking immigration reform. This morning he's at the Juan Diego Center, which is run by Catholic charities. He is stressing, we're told, the need for assimilation of immigrants, and the need for nonprofits and faith-based organizations to help immigrants become more assimilated into the community. The president just making his remarks at the podium. The president clearly continuing his push, hoping he can get Congress to come together on some kind of immigration policy.
Let's listen for just a moment.
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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRES. OF THE UNITED STATES: ... to put food on the table for their families and to realize a dream.
Such an inspiring conversation for me. One such person I met was Salvador Pena (ph). He's a new American citizen who had a dream. He wanted to own his own business. And Salvador went to the Juan Diego Center and said, can anybody here help me? For some of us, we take it for granted that it's easy to understand what forms to fill out or what worker compensation means, or how do you pay your sales tax? But for some, they need a little extra help. They don't need to be inspired to dream big dreams, but they need help to realize those dreams. He -- Salvador received a $10,000 loan from Catholic Charities. That's not exactly a Microloan, but it's help. He said, can you help me? I work hard for whatever you'll do to help me, but can you give me -- can you lend me hand, brother? And Catholic Charities did, and today he own his own business. He's the proud other than of Pena Auto Repair.
S. O'BRIEN: President Bush in Omaha, Nebraska. We were listening just for a moment to his remarks. He is praising catholic charities and visiting, in fact, a group that's run by Catholic charities called the Juan Diego Center. He is stressing immigration, Hoping to get Congress to come together on some kind of immigration reform package in Omaha this morning.
A rare look inside of life's -- one of America's, rather, most notorious prisons, San Quentin Prison. Carol Costello has got that from the newsroom for us.
Hey, Carol, good morning. CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Good morning to all of you. It is a fascinating look into the criminal mind. San Quentin is a storied place. It opened in 1852, and it was built mostly by convicts who slept on a ship at night until the job was done, building their own prison. It has seen its share of famous killers. Charles Manson served time there. So did Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated Robert Kennedy.
In the first of a two-part special, Larry King went behind the prison walls to meet some of the lifers.
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COSTELLO (voice-over): San Quentin, California's oldest prison, is home to some 5,500. Scott Peterson and serial killer Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker, are among the prisoners on death row. Larry King talked with four men now serving life terms for murder and a former inmate turned minister about life behind bars.
LONNIE MORRIS: I did take a man's life, and I think that I have to pay for the crime I committed.
KEVIN HAGAN: I regret it every day I get up and I look in the mirror, and I know back then I was -- I wasn't capable of -- I didn't have the triggers. I had the triggers, but I didn't know how to handle the triggers. I didn't have the mechanics to deal with the stress that I was under.
JEFF ELKINS, SAN QUENTIN INMATE: The most dangerous thing in the world, Larry, is a child's man in a man's body, and prison is full of child's minds in men's bodies.
COSTELLO: Jeff Elkins was married while in prison.
ELKINS: Prison by design destroys families. After six-and-a- half years, my wife, she used to come visit me every week, but she couldn't take it anymore, and never knowing if I'll ever get out, she decided to move on with her life, and I didn't blame her for that.
COSTELLO: For these lifers, the goal day-to-day is self improvement. Their focus not on what they were but what they can be.
MORRIS: Reality for me is that I have to find a way to exist that's going to improve my life as a human being, that's going to make me a better person than I was before I came to prison.
HAGAN: I believe that I could be a powerful tool in a society by my experiences behind these walls.
MORRIS: When I looked at my previous life, there wasn't much good to be said about me, and so I had to change that dynamic, so that when I died, I wanted people to say, hey, man, here was a guy that had to contribute something, or tried to contribute something to life and making these lives better.
MICHAEL TOMLINSON, FMR. SAN QUENTIN INMATE: San Quentin is a place to put people to death. Nowhere else in California do they do that. This is the place. And this is also a place that people are going to come to change. I have changed. I have a wife and three wonderful kids. My middle son is graduating from kindergarten today. I mean, God has changed my life. I have a blessed life, but it started here.
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COSTELLO: The man who said he had a blessed life, Michael Tomlinson, now runs his own ministry, helping ex-cons like himself, as well as inmates still inside, and he's written a book about his experience, titled "From the Pit to the Pulpit" -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks. You can see part two of "LARRY KING LIVE," which Carol obviously featured there, his special, "Inside San Quentin." That's tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN -- Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to keeping our eye on the Senate floor today. As a matter of fact, in about 20 minutes' time -- you see live pictures now, Senator Dan Durbin there -- as the debate begins soon on the same-sex marriage ban amendment, the U.S. Constitution. No one expects it to prevail. That would require a two-thirds majority of the Senate. However, there's a lot of symbolism in this vote, and a lot of importance given to the debate itself. There is some reason to believe, and Republicans are hoping that they will win at least a simple majority, thus making a symbolic statement about a same-sex marriage ban, and we will watch that for you as it unfolds.
The world is anxiously awaiting the first pictures of baby Brangelina. Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, whatever -- blah, blah, blah. Anyway, we know "People" magazine paid big bucks for it. We'll tell you what it took to snag the first shot of baby Shiloh. A lot of benjamins! Dan Lothian out there in Iowa.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They haul our food, our clothes and our cars, but now some independent truckers are having a hard time staying on the road. That's coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.
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M. O'BRIEN: Well, you think you have big gas bills filling up your rolling zip code SUV. Imagine being a truck driver -- more like a rolling area code for them. You practically need to leave your firstborn behind at the pump! AMERICAN MORNING's Dan Lothian continues our series "Paying the Price in the Heartland." Today we find him in Atalissa, Iowa at a truck stop.
Good morning, Dan.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.
Well, you know, if a trucker works for a big company, that company has more negotiating power, can even absorb these unexpected costs. But for independent truck drivers, like the one we rode along with, these are difficult times.
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LOTHIAN, (voice over): In Brian McDowell's home on 80 stunning acres in Peru (ph), Iowa, it's hard to find anyone who is stressed. But lately, every time he sees off his family . . .
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bye.
BRIAN MCDOWELL: Bye. You be good, OK?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will.
LOTHIAN: Fires up the engine of his semi and heads out.
MCDOWELL: Here we go.
LOTHIAN: Stress seems to find him and follow him down the road.
MCDOWELL: Because you worry about the money and everything all the time.
LOTHIAN: Talk to me about how the gas prices have impacted your bottom line.
MCDOWELL: They're killing me.
LOTHIAN: McDowell, an independent trucker, says rising fuel costs have cut his profits in half.
MCDOWELL: On a good week, say I made $1,000. I'm down to $500 now. A $600 week I might bring home $200 out of it compared to what I was making. I mean, it hurts.
LOTHIAN: McDowell receives a lesson in economics every time he pulls up to the pumps.
MCDOWELL: Fuel is one of the biggest expenses we have. Fifty- two gallons. But you've just got to put up with it.
LOTHIAN: As we bounced along the highway to pick up a load of bricks, McDowell explained why a fuel surcharge customers must pay him doesn't relieve all of his pain.
MCDOWELL: But it's only set once a week. So if the fuel surcharge rate is set at, say, $2.76 a gallon fuel on Monday and if fuel jumps to $2.82 on Tuesday . . .
LOTHIAN: You have to pay the difference?
MCDOWELL: Yes.
LOTHIAN: So this veteran trucker is shifting gears to save money. He's cut down on his speed.
MCDOWELL: Any time you can save anything, a tenth, two tenths of a mile pickup, translates to dollars in your pocket.
LOTHIAN: He's had his engine fine tuned to be more efficient. Will often drive at night. Less wind resistance he says. And then there are the little things.
MCDOWELL: Instead of running into a convenience store and buying a bottle of pop or a bottle of water, carry it with you, you know? Any place that you can cut costs and if it isn't absolutely necessarily, don't bother.
LOTHIAN: McDowell also tries harder to get more lucrative loads. While hauling bricks to Chicago may not pay all the bills, the bridge span he'll bring back is a cash cow.
MCDOWELL: We don't make money until it's delivered.
LOTHIAN: Driving to feed his family and determined to keep rolling despite the high costs.
MCDOWELL: I'm a very competitive person and I don't like to be forced into anything. So as long as I can keep making it work, nobody's going to force me out of business. I hope.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LOTHIAN: McDowell says that he decided he wanted to be a trucker when he was 16 years old because he wanted to see the country while getting paid. Well, now he's having to pay high price to do what he loves -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: So, Dan, first of all, what is a typical bill for him at the pump? well into the hundreds, right?
LOTHIAN: Oh, yes. When he fills up if he's on empty and fills up, it's about -- we figured about $630 to fill up. So yes, it's a big chunk of change.
M. O'BRIEN: Suddenly I feel like I'm getting a bargain at the Yukon XL. Tell us, you've been -- I know you've been keeping track of your costs as you've been traveling across Iowa. How are you doing?
LOTHIAN: That's right. We're driving an SUV. We've so far traveled 931 miles. We've used up 58.6 gallons, spent $159, and the average price that we're paying for fuel, $2.70.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, $159, that's a rounding area for a trucker, isn't it, pretty much?
LOTHIAN: That's true, exactly.
M. O'BRIEN: Dan's not done. We're leaving him out there in Iowa a few more days. He's leaving the town of Atalissa. He's headed eastward now. He goes to Eldridge, Iowa tomorrow.
Spike in fuel prices has cost teachers in one district there their jobs. Paying for fuel for the school buses instead of teachers. Dan will explain that. And more of our weeklong series "Paying the Price in the Heartland." We'll be here tomorrow, so stay with us all week long. Stay with us all the time for that matter -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: "CNN LIVE TODAY" is coming up next. Fredricka Whitfield is in for Daryn this morning.
Hey, Fred, good morning.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Soledad. Lots going on this morning, including the expected Senate vote next hour on same-sex marriage. We'll watch it for you.
Also a CBS reporter badly injured in Iraq is coming home. Kimberly Dozier is on a military transport plane headed back to the U.S., and her bosses say she is in great spirits.
Plus this...
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never seen this kind of weather before.
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WHITFIELD: What's going on here? It's a giant dust storm. That's what. We'll take you in the middle of it all ahead here on CNN LIVE TODAY.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Fred. Thanks. Boy, those dust storm pictures look amazing, don't they? When you finally get inside, it's crazy.
Andy Serwer is minding our business.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning, Soledad.
Some business news coming up for you all. A candy bar and major league baseball make it official. And, no, it's not the Oh Henry bar. We'll tell you which one it is, coming up.
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S. O'BRIEN: This morning's "A.M. Pop," we're about to get our first look at the world's most sought after little mini-celebrity. The baby's not even two weeks old. Little baby Brangelina, spawn and spawned a bidding war for her very first photos.
And as CNN's Brooke Anderson tells us, it's kind of getting par for the course.
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BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's newborn baby finally arrived on May 27th. Her name, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Some biblical references define Shiloh as quote "generally understood as denoting the Messiah." And perhaps not since Jesus has a baby's arrival been so eagerly anticipated, at least in some circles. Brad and Angelina have been chased around the globe as the paparazzi's pursued its holy grail.
Now the photos are out, shot by Getty Images, a commodity so guarded and valuable, we can't show you them here. Even its CEO hasn't seen them yet.
JONATHON KLEIN, CEO, GETTY IMAGES: The reason I haven't seen them is because of the security around the pictures. It's the first time we've done a major shoot where the only people who have seen the pictures are the photo editors and the sales people who are working with customers.
ANDERSON: "People" magazine won a tabloid bidding war and paid a reported sum of $4.1 million for the exclusive North American rights to the first glimpse of Baby Jolie-Pitt, and says it will publish the pictures in this week's issue, on newsstands Friday.
When the tabloids began heralding the news in January, the couple was with child, this was the big money shot: a visibly pregnant Angelina. People paid an estimated $500,000 for exclusive rights to it. The money went to one of Brad and Angelina's favorite charities, Yele Haiti.
The philanthropic group is one more and more stars, such as Julia Roberts and Courteney Cox, have taken to to relieve the stress of being pursued by tabloid photographers. Photos of their firstborns were sold, and the money given to charity.
"People" magazine reportedly gave $500,000 to a Hurricane Katrina relief fund for the first photos of Britney Spears' firstborn, Sean Preston. In 2002, after giving birth to son James Wilkey, Sarah Jessica Parker tipped off photographers to when and at which exit she and her newborn would be leaving the hospital. The family stood and posed on the steps for several minutes. Everyone had this shot, turning what some predicted would be a million dollar photo into a discount special.
Brooke Anderson, CNN, Hollywood.
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S. O'BRIEN: Let's go to the Senate floor. They're debating same-sex marriage. We've been following this for quite a while there. Obviously, Senator Frist is now making his remarks. We're going to continue to follow this story. The measure is not expected to pass by the necessary two-thirds margin to change the Constitution. We're watching this and much more ahead as we continue, right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
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