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Firefighters Battle Flames in Georgia; Saudis Disrupt al Qaeda Cells; Contaminated Feed May Have Contaminated Pork; The General's Impression; Presidential Debate; Hawking's "Amazing" Ride; Jack Valenti Dead; Boogie Fever
Aired April 27, 2007 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DON LEMON, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CO-HOST: And I'm Suzanne Malveaux, in for Kyra Phillips.
Wildfires out of control. Imagine having to run from your home not once but twice. That is the situation near one Georgia city. A live report from the fires threatening hundreds of homes.
LEMON: And the pet food recall. Potentially contaminate meat makes it to the family dinner table. Is there more we still haven't heard? And how dangerous is it to people? Our Elizabeth Cohen joins us with the facts on that.
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
MALVEAUX: Flaring up again. Wildfires in Southeast Georgia chewing up 61,000 acres of forest and swampland so far and threatening much, much more. Hundreds more people have evacuated. Several more buildings have burned.
Firefighters thought they had the upper hand on one fire till the winds picked up again.
What South Georgia desperately needs, the mid-Atlantic is getting too much of, and that is rain. Here's what it looks like in parts of Newark, New Jersey. Firefighters there are busy pulling stranded drivers from flooded cars.
And how is the weather shaping up for your weekend? Rob Marciano looking over the radars and maps as we speak -- Rob.
LEMON: Back to the fire where a smoke weary, evacuation weary southeast Georgia, wildfires are burning everything in sight: 61,000 acres so far.
Reporter Leslie Coursey of Jacksonville affiliate WAWS has been in the front lines of this fight, and she has the very latest from Waycross.
Leslie, what have you seen?
LESLIE COURSEY, WAWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I just got the latest numbers from Georgia fire officials. They say the fire has now grown to 61,000 acres. It's 50 percent contained right now, but homes still are in damage -- still are in danger.
I'm here, disaster relief is here. Eighteen homes have been destroyed so far. And the latest town to be threatened by flames is the small town of Astoria.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COURSEY (voice-over): The sun rises through thick, gray smoke over the small town of Astoria. In the past 24 hours, this place has become a ghost town. Evacuations were ordered. Roads were closed. Public school was canceled as flames got dangerously close to homes.
Armies of firefighters drive right into the haze. They've been working for 11 days straight, trying to keep the wildfire from devouring any more land. During breaks, they come to the National Guard armory.
GWEN BATTEN-CLARK, VOLUNTEER: Pulling together is what counts.
COURSEY: Volunteers have pulled together, working day and night to make sure firefighters are taken care of.
BATTEN-CLARK: Take a bath, they can eat. They can take care of personal hygienes (sic). And if they need medicine or anything like that, we can get it for them.
COURSEY (on camera): Smoke in this area is so thick a public health warning has been issued.
(voice-over) Folks in Ware County have been asked to postpone their outdoor plans this weekend and stay out of the smoke. But these volunteers say their only plan this weekend is to pray for rain and support their firefighters.
GARY COLEMAN, VOLUNTEER: We're all giving back to this community and it's been a tremendous outpouring of a lot of good feeling from everybody, from the entire region and from different states, too.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COURSEY: Firefighters are here from all over Georgia and north Florida. There's even a forestry crew here from New Mexico.
Now, a shelter has been opened for the hundreds of people who have been evacuated here. It's Waycross Middle School. It's open to people just in case.
Live in Waycross, I'm Leslie Coursey. Back to you.
LEMON: All right, Leslie. Thank you so much for that report.
MALVEAUX: And of course, our own Rob Marciano. We hear that there could be -- possibly, hopefully -- some rain in that parched area. What are the chances of that happening? They need it desperately.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MALVEAUX: Rob, thanks again.
Heading back to Washington, looks like I'm one of those people who's going to get kind of soggy, Rob?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Keep your umbrella handy.
MALVEAUX: OK, thanks.
Dead before arrival. That is the White House description of the Iraq war funding bill that's on its way to the president's desk, complete with a deadline for U.S. troops to start pulling out.
But what happens after the guaranteed veto? Democrats are torn, but the president is not. He says he will keep killing measures that try to tell generals when to pack it in.
Democrats say it's the president who needs to stop fighting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: We need to change direction. We must change direction in the war in Iraq. We must focus on the Iraq Study Group's recommendations. We must focus on what General Petraeus has told us, that the war cannot be won militarily. We need to win it politically, economically and diplomatically.
Please, Mr. President, follow the advice of the American people, the Iraq Study Group and bipartisan members of the House and the Senate.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I haven't vetoed the first bill yet, but I'm going to, and the reason why I'm going to is because the members of Congress have made military decisions on behalf of the military. They're telling our generals what to do. They're withdrawing before we've even finished reinforcing our troops in Baghdad.
They're sending, in my judgment, a bad message to the Iraqis and to an enemy and most importantly to our military folks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Terror cells, weapons stashes, almost 200 people arrested inside the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The size and scope of this counterterrorism operation only came to light today.
Our CNN senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson here, joining us with some of those details. Absolutely amazing when you think of the size of this.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very big and what's very interesting is the Saudis have been working on this for the past nine months. The arrests have been going on through that period of time.
What happened last year, there was an attack by al Qaeda on an old facility in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis later arrested some of those people. They used the information they got from them to lead them to these other terror groups.
The Saudis here using new tactics, rather than going in and shooting up small elements of a cell, have followed them, have watched them, have arrested them over a period of time so that they've been able to retrieve all these weapons that have been buried, in some cases, they say, buried in the desert for years.
And what's very interesting about this particular discovery, it's not just weapon. It's money and some of that money was going to fund al Qaeda fighters in Iraq targeting U.S. troops.
MALVEAUX: So do we believe that it's an al Qaeda operation?
ROBERTSON: Absolutely. The intelligence sources we talked to in Saudi Arabia describe this as the old al Qaeda, the al Qaeda that they've been tracking and fighting there for many years.
And it really shows that al Qaeda is still alive there, and it is still strong and it does have a depth, I mean, a strategic depth there. Some of these weapons when you see they were dug out from the desert. They were feet underground. They had been there for a long time.
Clearly, there's a lot of planning goes in. The cells have really sunk underground over the past few years.
MALVEAUX: A big problem, still, that Saudi Arabia we see still some of that support for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
ROBERTSON: There's a lot of money in that country. There's a lot of people with extreme views, and they have the space. It's a very big country. There's a lot of -- it's open. There's a lot of desert space. And they have the space to plan these types of operations.
The Saudis are getting more nuance. It used to be a few years ago in Riyadh -- remember, we've got a phone call. The Saudis were having a shootout with al Qaeda. They'd found a cell. They had a couple of killed. They'd arrested the others.
Now they're taking a more, perhaps strategic approach that they know where the cell is and then they monitor them and follow them and try and develop more information about them.
The people that were arrested this time, Arabs, a lot of them non-Saudi Arabs. Africans, they say, Muslim Africans were involved in this. They say they were young, that they didn't necessarily have good training, fighting capabilities but in some cases were planning to fly aircraft into oil facilities.
The Saudis know that al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia is all about bringing down the royal family and they can do that, they've discovered -- the best way al Qaeda has figured its tactics should be is target the economy, target the oil.
MALVEAUX: Absolutely. Money in the oil. Thank you so much, Nic. Incredible story. Thanks for the developments.
LEMON: From the trough to Hogs that may have eaten the same stuff that sparked a major pet recall have been traced to the human food supply. How dangerous is this? And how much is it still out there?
We're on it right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
MALVEAUX: And an admissions director at a prominent university admits she lied about her credentials. That's ahead in the NEWSROOM.
Plus, have you ever fudged on your resume? We're reading your e- mails.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: It's 14 after the hour. Here are three of the stories that we are working on here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Firefighters in South Georgia still have their hands full with a wildfire that's burned 95 square miles of forest. Hundreds of people have been forced out of their homes, some more than once.
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine says he'll pay his own medical bills while he recovers from a serious accident. Corzine's SUV was speeding, and he was not wearing a seat belt at the time.
President Bush and the Japanese prime minister are meeting at Camp David. The two are demanding North Korea fully abandon its nuclear program. Mr. Bush warns -- and I'm quoting here -- "our patience is not unlimited."
LEMON: Contaminated feed fed to hogs, and hogs fed into the human food supply. The federal government says thousands of hogs may have ingested the contaminate blamed for the deaths of 17 cats and dogs. With more on the story, our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen -- Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This story just seems to grow more and more every day. We're hearing about possible melamine contamination, not just of pet food but possibly human food.
Federal and state authorities are now trying to track down who might possibly have eaten contaminated pork. And right now what they do know -- and here you see some hogs on a farm -- is that at two -- at one or maybe two California hog farms, there were some pigs who possibly ate the feed contaminated with melamine.
What they know is that 22 people, at least 22 people, ate this possibly contaminated pork, and that none are sick. It's important to note that these people did not buy the pork at the grocery store. They bought the pork directly from those hog farms.
However, there are also concerns about supermarkets. Authorities in California -- authorities in various states say that there are some 300 pigs who have been -- who possibly ate the contaminated -- contaminated feed and were sent to slaughter.
What they don't know, was the pork distributed? Was it consumed by people? Is it still on market shelves?
Unfortunately, the way the food system works, they don't know. They don't know where this possibly contaminated pork should be, and so they're going to be investigating this.
Now, the good news in all of this is that health experts have told us, look, we know that household pets died from melamine contamination, but human beings are not household pets. We're a lot bigger. Our systems are very different.
They said even if you ingested this, you would have to ingest a lot of it to get sick, and you would have maybe kidney stones, maybe bladder stones. But they're not talking about people dying from it.
LEMON: And just off the cuff when you were saying that, what about immune compromise, does that make a difference? Probably so, if you're immune compromised.
COHEN: It usually does make a difference. But they're talking, hopefully, about such small amounts of melamine that -- that it's not an issue.
LEMON: So I think you said like 300 pigs or something like that.
COHEN: Right.
LEMON: We keep hearing every day, every day. Are there going to be more pigs possibly contaminated with this?
COHEN: Federal and state authorities say they think this is it. They say that they think that they've caught all the hogs who might have eaten the contaminated feed.
What they've done is they've taken several thousand, about 5,700 pigs in various states and held them. And they say -- they said, "We're going to kill these pigs. We're not going to allow their meat into the food system." These are pigs that might also have eaten the contaminated feed. They want to cast a wide net. And they think after they kill these 5,700 hogs, they say that's it.
LEMON: OK. What about other foods, because that's a question.
COHEN: That is a question.
LEMON: What can you eat? What can't you eat?
COHEN: Right. If it got into the pigs, what else did it get into? LEMON: Right.
COHEN: Well, the FDA is about to start a search. They're going to be investigating whether or not this melamine got into gluten that's being consumed by human beings. It got into gluten that was consumed by pets. Now they want to know if it's gotten into gluten, wheat gluten, rice gluten, other kinds of gluten that might have been consumed by human beings.
They haven't yet started that study, but they're going to be starting soon.
LEMON: And you'll be following this for us.
COHEN: That's right.
LEMON: We'll have lots more questions.
COHEN: That's right.
LEMON: Thank you so much, Elizabeth Cohen.
COHEN: Thank you.
LEMON: And for the first time since the pet food scare erupted, China reportedly acknowledges being the source of the banned ingredient contained in the recalled products.
Now at the same time, though, "USA Today" reports Beijing cast doubt on whether the melamine actually caused the pets' death.
The U.S. government inspectors are preparing to visit China to investigate the firms where the ingredients in question were made. China is pledging its full cooperation, but officials in both countries say the far-flung nature of China's processing industry makes additional problems possible.
And for more information, go to CNN.com/PetFoodRecall. You'll find the latest on all the affected brands.
MALVEAUX: And it turns out that eight is more than enough for a political debate. Did voters really learn anything useful from the Democratic showdown last night? Our senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, breaks it all down for us here ahead in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: A popular dean of college admissions makes a stunning admission about her own credentials, and now she is out of a job. Felicia Taylor is in the New York Stock Exchange to help us separate what we are seeing, truth from fiction.
Hey, Felicia.
FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Suzanne.
This happened at one of America's most -- excuse me-- most prestigious universities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions, was forced to resign after the school found out that she'd lied about graduating from college. MIT launched an internal investigation after receiving an anonymous tip.
In a statement, Jones admitted she misrepresented her degrees when she first applied to MIT 28 years ago and said she didn't actually have the courage to correct her resume when she was then promoted to dean back in 1997 -- Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: So what exactly was she claiming?
TAYLOR: Jones said she had three degrees, but apparently, she only went to college for one year and, obviously, didn't graduate.
Here's the ironic part, though. She spent years redesigning MIT's application because too many students were pumping up their own credentials to win acceptance.
Jones recently published a book, by the way, that is meant to help students during the college application process. And in it she advises parents to insist on integrity and honesty.
Jones' publisher says it will stand behind the information and its positive message.
(STOCK REPORT)
TAYLOR: Coming up next hour, luring new recruits is getting whacked by falling home prices. Find out why the weak housing market could have an impact on your career path.
Don and Suzanne, back to you.
MALVEAUX: OK. Felicia, thank you so much.
LEMON: OK. You know what? We want to hear from you about -- about that MIT thing that happened. Have you ever lied on your resume? Logon to CNN.com and give us your answer. Right now 15 percent -- there it is right there, those are the results -- say you have lied on your resume, and 85 percent say you haven't lied.
You can also send us your e-mails. The address is CNNNewsroom@CNN.com. And we'll read some of your responses right here in the CNN NEWSROOM throughout the afternoon.
MALVEAUX: And we're assuming you're telling the truth when you say you're not lying. But we really don't know.
LEMON: We don't want you to lie. We just want you to tell the truth, right?
MALVEAUX: Imagine it was your job to fix Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, COMMANDER, MULTINATIONAL FORCES IN IRAQ: The situation in Iraq is, in sum, exceedingly complex and very tough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: It is General David Petraeus' job, of course. Ahead in the NEWSROOM, Jamie McIntyre has more on the man, his mission and his prognosis for the war.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
MALVEAUX: And I'm Suzanne Malveaux, in for Kyra Phillips.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETRAEUS: Let me just again talk about the fact that we're always concerned about, you know, what is the reaction of four different groups to what it is that we're doing, and it's what we're doing in a whole realm of ways. It is what's the enemy think? What do our partners think, our Iraqi partners? What do our own troopers think and, oh, by the way, what do our families think?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: The surge, the strategies, the sacrifices. Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre joining us with details of his one-on-one interview with David Petraeus. He is America's top general in Iraq.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
LEMON: First we start with this. George Tenet says he is a scapegoat, blamed, defamed and hung out to dry for pushing the war in Iraq.
The former CIA director claims a comment he made in 2003, the infamous slam dunk on Iraq's purported WMDs, well, has been taken out of context to wreck his career. He tells "60 Minutes", ahead of a book launch, it's the worst thing that ever happened to him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE TENET, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I remember picking up the phone and calming Andy Card, who is a terrific human being and somebody I've always trusted and I said...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president's chief of staff at the time.
TENET: The president's chief of staff. I called Andy. I said, "You know -- you know, we believe -- I believed that he had weapons of mass destruction, and now it's happened. Here is -- you've gone out and made me look stupid. It's the most despicable thing I've ever heard in my life. Men of honor don't do this." SCOTT PELLEY, CBS "60 MINUTES": Men of honor don't do this?
TENET: You don't do this. You don't throw people overboard. You don't do this -- give me -- you don't call somebody in. You work your heart out, you show up every day, you're going to throw somebody overboard just because it's a deflection? Is that honorable? It's not honorable to me. OK. And that's how it feel.
Now how it happened and who orchestrated it and what happened, you know, at the end of the day, the only thing you have is trust and honor in this world. It's all you have. All you have is your reputation built on trust and your personal honor. When you don't have that anymore, well, you know, there you go, trust is broken.
PELLEY: Between you and the White House?
TENET: You bet. You bet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, White House Counselor Dan Bartlett denies Tenet's description of a rush to war without serious debate, saying the president "did wrestle with those very serious questions." George Tenet is Larry King's guest Monday night right here on CNN.
What about the man running the Iraq War in country these days? U.S. Army General David Petraeus is in Washington for a few days fielding questions about money, about troops and about progress in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: To what extent is this still a test of wills? A test of U.S. resolve? And if it is, what effect does it have when political leaders in the United States say things like, the surge is not working, the war is lost? Does that become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, CMDR., MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE, IRAQ: Well, certainly any endeavor like this is a test of wills. And, frankly, the most important demonstration of our will is on the ground. And what we're doing on the ground right now is reinforcing our force structure very substantially, adding five Army combat brigades, two Marine battalions and a Marine expeditionary unit and a number of different enables, as they're called.
MCINTYRE: But when people say that the cause is lost, does that kind of defeatist talk end up leading to defeat?
PETRAEUS: Jamie, I've spent the entire week here in Washington trying to avoid blundering into political mine fields and I'm not about to stumble into this one if I can avoid it.
Well, let me just again talk about the fact that we're always concerned about, you know, what is the reaction of four different groups to what it is that we're doing. And it's what we're doing in a whole realm of ways. It is, what's the enemy think? What do our partners think? Our Iraqi partners. What are our own troopers think? And, oh, by the way, what do our families think? And so -- but let me just leave that there, if I could.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: And that comment from the general's face-to-face interview with CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre and Jamie joins us now.
Jamie, what's going to happen in September when a decision needs to be made?
MCINTYRE: Well, that's really the key question because General Petraeus has essentially set for himself a September deadline. He's laid out some benchmarks that they're going to use to assess how the surge is going. He's promised, by the way, that if it's not working, he will give that unvarnished assessment to the president and Congress.
But they have to decide at that point whether, for instance, if it's not working, do they continue with the surge in order to give it more time? Or if it is working, do they continue with the surge to try to build on the success? Or do they decide that maybe it's time to start bringing some troops home? And General Petraeus wouldn't give any hint right now of what he thinks might happen in September.
LEMON: And there's been some discussion here, especially from our folks who were in Iraq, Michael Ware, Kyra Phillips, just about not really how honest -- about how much they're letting on in these interviews with folks like you and anyone who's interviewed. What do you get a sense of how honest and open he's being with you. Did you get a sense in that interview, Jamie?
MCINTYRE: Well, you know, he's obviously limited. He can't sound defeatist. It's his job to make this strategy work. So if he has some private doubts about it, it's not something he can talk about.
But you can see he picks his words very carefully. He said it's an exceedingly tough challenge. He's not guaranteeing success.
And a lot of people have looked at him as almost a miracle worker because, after all, he's the guy who wrote the book on counterinsurgency, he's considered one of the best and brightest. The thinking is if Dave Petraeus can't do it, you know, nobody can. Well the problem is, if Dave Petraeus can't do it, it might be the fact that nobody can. But he can't admit that at this point.
LEMON: Yes, it was a very interesting interview, Jamie, just that small piece of it. Are we going to see a bigger piece in "The Situation Room" later? Are you going to air more of your interview?
MCINTYRE: Yes, we talked for about 20 minutes. So we're going to pull out some of what we thought were the more interesting parts and air them throughout the day. LEMON: All right. Jamie McIntyre, thank you so much. I look forward to seeing more of that.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And the Democratic candidates for president were supposed to debate one another last night in South Carolina, but they saved most of their fire for President Bush. The first debate of the 2008 campaign was marked by widespread agreement, especially on Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If this president does not get us out of Iraq, when I'm president, I will.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We were one signature away or 16 votes away from ending this war.
GOV. BILL RICHARDSON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This war is a disaster. We must end this war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Senior political analyst Bill Schneider joining us now.
Bill, we both watched this debate here. Eight candidates. Still in the beginning of the process here. Was there anybody who you think really stood out in the pack, especially when it came to the issue of Iraq?
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, on Iraq, the Democrats were all in agreement because 90 some percent of Democrats out there in the country are in agreement. They're all opposed to the Iraq War. You found some differences, however, when some of the more fringe candidates, who are lower in the polls and have less to lose, like Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich, talked about being anti-war rather than anti-Iraq war.
Kucinich made that point specifically. And you heard Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, the front-runners in the Democratic field, making the distinction very clearly. They're not anti-war. Senator Obama talked about the necessity of using force in certain circumstances.
For instance, he mentioned Darfur as a possible circumstance to prevent the kind of violence we're seeing there. Senator Clinton said that if there were a terrorist attack on the United States, once she found out who was responsible as president, she would definitely retaliate. Almost as if they were running in a general election. So they were careful to make the distinction between being anti-war and anti-Iraq War.
MALVEAUX: And, Bill, I guess we're all a little bit guilty of this when we watch these things. We're looking for those ah-hah, those gotcha moments. And I guess Brian Williams referred to it really as the elephant in the room. I want to play a quick clip for you. This, Brian Williams to Senator Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Can you reassure voters in this country that you would have the discipline you would need on the world stage, senator?
SEN. JOE BIDEN. (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Now, of course, he was talking about the fact that many people think that Biden is a bit bravos. He talks and talks and talks and then I guess it kind of caught him by surprise there. But I guess the point is here, is that people were looking for mistakes and did we really see anything of that nature? Are people so cautious now, looking at Republican candidate John McCain and the jokes he's made on the campaign trail, that they can't let loose, be themselves, talk out of the box a little?
SCHNEIDER: Joe Biden, himself, had said something on the campaign trail a reporter from "The New York Observer." He made a comment about Barack Obama. He referred to him as "clean and articulate" and that became a big issue, received a lot of comment.
The candidates are very cautious because everything they say, everything they do is magnified instantly. We have YouTube. We have blogs. We have reverberations throughout the Internet. And this is genuinely new in campaigning and it means that the candidates are going to be very, very cautious. You know why, none of them wants to have a macaca moment when George Allen last year in the campaign made a sleight against a reporter -- rather one of the opposition researchers who was following his campaign, and that became a tremendous issue played over and over and over again. They're going to be very cautious now.
MALVEAUX: Sure. And there was a face, I think, that a lot of people hadn't seen before and people were scratching their heads wondering who this guy was. Tell us a little bit about that candidate and whether or not he's kind of playing the role of foil here.
SCHNEIDER: Well, he is, really. It's Mike Gravel. He was the former senator from Alaska. And he was very outspoken in this debate.
A lot of people wondered, who is this guy? What's he doing there? A lot of people were impressed by him because he had the least to lose. I mean he's unknown. Very few people had ever heard of him or even seen him.
He had to make a strong impression. He used the opportunity of the debate to do that. And, look, if you have nothing to lose, well, you know, you can often say the most.
I notice that when Brian Williams asked the first question, which was a very good question, he said do you agree or disagree with the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, that the war is lost. Biden and Clinton didn't really answer the question, but Gravel came right out there and he said, the war was lost the day we invaded Iraq. He had the least to lose. He could be right out there.
MALVEAUX: Do you think he made the biggest impression? Do you think he made the biggest impression, the biggest impact of this debate, really kind of waking people up, shaking them a little bit?
SCHNEIDER: Well, a lot of people are asking, who is he? I'm not sure if it's going to gain him a lot of votes. We'll see. But a lot of people are asking each other, who is this guy? In the end, however, I think the front-runners are likely remain the front- runners.
MALVEAUX: And the last question, Bill. Do you think a lot of people were tuning in here? It is so early in the process. Are people really interested outside of Washington?
SCHNEIDER: Well, there are people around the country. There are political people. You know, look, where did all that $125 million that the candidates raised come from? It didn't come from Washington. It came from Los Angeles, from Utah, from New York, from all over the country. There's a lot of interest in this campaign everywhere. An unusual amount of interest. It's almost as if the election were one month away, not a year and a half.
MALVEAUX: A year and a half. A long way to go. Thank you, Bill.
SCHNEIDER: Sure.
MALVEAUX: Of course, be sure to tune into CNN's own presidential debates live from New Hampshire, home to the next year's first presidential primary. The Democrats square off on June 3rd, the Republicans on June 5th, right here on CNN.
LEMON: He's probably the most infamous suspect recently that we have seen. Everyone in New York City said if they found this guy, man, what they were going to do with him. Remember the guy who was accused of beating up a 101-year-old woman in New York City, taking her purse. He only got away with $33.
Guess what, he has been found, picked up on drug charges and that's according to New York City's Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. The guy's name is Jack Rhodes, 44 years old. He had been wanted in the questioning of this vicious attack. That was back on March 4th against Rose Morat.
And she was quite a young lady. There she is. Very strong. She suffered in this -- let's see -- I think it's a fractured cheekbone and spent some time in the hospital. She's OK. This guy only got away with $33. But again, he is in custody and he's going to be charged and processed.
MALVEAUX: A lot of people angry when they saw that.
LEMON: Very angry about this guy.
MALVEAUX: They really were. And they, fortunately, had that surveillance camera able to capture him.
LEMON: It would have made it worse -- I mean not only was this terrible, you know, 101 years old. She was on her way to church and then he, you know, does this in the vestibule of her building. Yes. So we have another developing story.
MALVEAUX: Don, we've got another one here. This is breaking news. Want to show you some video from our affiliate KCAL.
This here is a chase of a possible bank robbery suspects and a possible high school that's under lockdown here. We are hearing from Los Angeles County sheriff's office, they are currently searching the area near Highway 118 and Havens Hurst (ph) in Granada Hills, California, for two male suspects who robbed a bank in Stevenson Ranch, California, approximately 12:10 Eastern. I guess that was about an hour and a half ago. That would be 9:10 Pacific.
And the sheriff's department, they say they responded to this bank robbery and then shortly after there was this car chase on the Interstate 5 south. There was a female who was driving the car and they were pursuing this car and then it ended in Granada Hills and then we understand that it was the two male suspects that fled. The female suspect who was driving the car was taken into custody and then Kennedy High School is now under lockdown while the sheriff's deputies are searching for these suspects.
So you have a high school that's on lockdown now and you have a search that is underway for these two guys who are suspected of robbing a bank in the area.
LEMON: Obviously a very serious situation. The videos, as you were talking there, you could see police officers searching the cars, obviously because this guy is very dangerous.
MALVEAUX: Still on the loose.
LEMON: We'll continue to follow this story and other breaking news here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
We're going to move on to talk about a brilliant mind who escapes the limitations of a disabled body. Stephen Hawking's amazing journey is straight ahead in the NEWSROOM.
MALVEAUX: And rating the president's moves.
LEMON: Oh, man.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like watching an elephant dance. It's not how good they are, but it's that they can dance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Well, we'll make the most of it, straight ahead in the NEWSROOM. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: It was the ultimate thrill ride. World famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking escaping the bounds of his wheelchair, his years of debilitating illness, escaping gravity itself. CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Stephen Hawking was waiting for this not-so-weighty moment for years. The brilliant astrophysicist and best selling populizer of science, slipping the bonds of gravity after nearly four decades in a wheelchair.
STEPHEN HAWKING, PHYSICIST: It was amazing.
O'BRIEN: Hawkings suffers from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's Disease. He is almost totally paralyzed, unable to speak without computerized assistance, but there was no mistaking his enthusiasm as he floated free.
PETER DIAMANDIS, ZERO G CORP.: Professor Hawking reached for the sky and he touched the heavens today. And the best thing is, if someone like he can go, all of you can go as well.
O'BRIEN: He got a free ride on a specially rigged 727, flown by a company called Zero G, which offers astronaut-style thrills to anyone willing and able to pay $3,500. The plane flies a wild roller coaster pattern, giving passengers 30-second spurts of weightlessness, which I got a chance to experience a few years ago. Hawking and his doctors were most worried about the steep climb after the free fall, where passengers suddenly get pressed to the padded floor at gravity times two. But he flew and floated without a worry.
HAWKING: The zero g part was wonderful. And the high g part was no problem. I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come.
O'BRIEN: He enjoyed eight spurts of weightlessness. About four minutes in all. A brief moment in time to savor for a man who gave the world new insights into gravity and now has defied it.
Miles O'Brien, CNN, at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: He never made a movie, but he was still a leading man. Longtime movie industry lobbyist and former White House Aide Jack Valenti died yesterday of complications from a stroke. He was 85. CNN's Wolf Blitzer has more on a Washington insider who became the toast of Hollywood.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): With his shock of silver hair and his impeccable clothes, Jack Joseph Valenti was a fixture in Washington for more than four decades. JACK VALENTI: I can't dispute the fact that I've been around a long time. That's a matter of record.
BLITZER: He was Hollywood's most well-known lobbyist in Washington. And in the late 1960s, as president of the Motion Picture Association of America, he began to rewrite the existing version of the movie rating system. Before Valenti's intervention, all movies released in the United States carried four distinct ratings, G, M, R and X.
Under his guidance, that all changed to the rating system still in use today. G for viewers of all ages, PG, parental guidance suggested, and R, restricted to those 17 and older. Years later, another, more subtle rating, PG-13, suitable for children older than 13 came into general use. The rating NC-17 replaced the X classification.
Jack Valenti became widely known to Americans when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. His advertising and political consulting business was in charge of the press on that trip. He got that job because he was a close friend and admirer of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. And he was present in that famous still photograph of Lyndon Johnson's swearing in on board Air Force One.
He came to Washington as one of LBJ's most devoted aides and ultimately worked in a wide range of jobs inside the Johnson White House. Jack Valenti retired from his movie lobbying position in 2004 at the age of 82, insisting his job was anything but political.
VALENTI: And it's an open secret that I came directly from the Johnson administration into this job. So I'm saying to you, from my standpoint, and from -- for the rostrum from which this job springs, is non-political. It is all American.
BLITZER: Politicians loved to be seen with movie stars. For 40 years, Jack Valenti made certain that Hollywood played its part on Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: And how is this for a blurb. Steven Spielberg calls Jack Valenti, the greatest ambassador Hollywood has ever known. And, Don, I saw him just a couple of months ago. You should see him work the crowd. He made everybody feel good around him. And he was really well loved.
LEMON: All right. Thank you so much, Suzanne, and Wolf Blitzer. That was a great obit that he did.
New video coming into the NEWSROOM just this hour. It is from Tennessee. It's that storm damage north of Knoxville. We'll check on the situation there and get an update on your weather, your weekend weather at the top of the hour. The news keeps coming and we just keep bringing it to you right here in the CNN NEWSROOM. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Oh, no.
MALVEAUX: Say what you will about these. These are moves, you know, President Bush busting a move here this week at the White House. This is video that has legs. We just keep running this video. CNN's Jeanne Moos has more.
LEMON: It's great.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Ditch the presidential seal. Lose the podium. Make way for the dancer in chief. Already seen it, you say? Bet you haven't seen everywhere it ended up after you first saw it. Jay Leno didn't even bother to make a joke.
JAY LENO, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO": This is your president at work.
MOOS: Jon Stewart ended his show with it.
JON STEWART, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART": Here it is, your moment of zen.
MOOS: David Letterman slipped it into his "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" segment.
FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But the only thing we have to fear.
JOHN F KENNEDY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ask not.
DAVID LETTERMAN, "THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": You get the feeling that he might be under the impression that he's attending a luau.
MOOS: And after viewing it at "The View," they scored it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, "THE VIEW": I'm giving our president a 10. Thank you very much.
MOOS: Our president seems to like to shake his thing. Here he was in Brazil joining in the festivities. And here he was in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. He hears music. His head bops. His hands do that robotic thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He dances like a white guy from Texas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think he'll ever end up on "Soul Train."
MOOS: The guy who could derail "Soul Train" is Karl Rove.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, (singing): Get out his gun cause he's shooting quail.
MOOS: Rove makes President Bush look like Michael Jackson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he's kind of doing this, and he's kind of doing this, and, yes, he was getting into it.
MOOS: Maybe the best way to judge the president's moves is by the amount of laughter and applause each move got on the comedy shows.
Drumming.
Horizontal hand gestures.
Upraised arms with fingers pointed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had a kind of a woo. You have to give the man credit for getting out there and doing it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The poor beknighted fellow, him. As a former music student, I cannot endorse this kind of behavior.
MOOS: If you want better presidential boogeying, head for the Internet where you determine the moves. There the president was publicizing Malaria Awareness Day. And before he's aware, the West African Dance Company director won't let him escape.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no. You're not going like that.
MOOS: At least President Bush didn't go as wild as Russian President Boris Yeltsin, may he rest in peace. It's fun to watch our leaders let loose.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like watching an elephant dance. It's not how good they are, but it's that they can dance.
MOOS: But when a leader gets down, don't expect him to live it down.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: OK. I think he was direct -- you know the airplanes, when you direct that, you know, the airplanes are coming in.
LEMON: No, it's this way first. And then there. Do you like it?
MALVEAUX: You know. His deputy press secretary says spontaneous combustion. He just breaks out in dance sometime.
LEMON: All right.
MALVEAUX: So I'd like to see more of that. I'd like to see that. But we don't see a lot of that. LEMON: In the break -- I want to talk to you about Karl Rove, because you witnessed that. So I'm going to talk about that in the break.
But we're going to check on those Georgia wildfires when we come right back. The CNN NEWSROOM continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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