Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Florida Bank Robbery; CM/UAW Tentative Deal; Sen. Craig Hearing; Gerri's Top Tips

Aired September 26, 2007 - 10:00   ET

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

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins. s
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Tony Harris. Stay informed all day in the CNN NEWSROOM. Here's what's on the rundown.

Striking auto workers put down their picket sign today. GM and the UAW in a tentative deal to end the two-day walkout.

COLLINS: Senator Larry Craig wants a sex sting plea erased. His lawyers make their argument in court today.

HARRIS: A mother taking matters into her own hands. Better make that hand. Now she's looking at possible jail time, this Wednesday, September 26th. You are in the NEWSROOM.

COLLINS: In Florida, a bank robbed. An employee used as a weapon, strapped with what could be a bomb. Susan Candiotti's with us now from Florida to give us the very latest on this.

Susan, good morning to you.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.

Yes, police are still calling the victim of this alleged crime a victim, but they still have a lot of questions about exactly what happened during this very frightening scene outside a bank that involved a kidnapping, an apparent bank robbery and also the whole scene complete with a bomb, or what appeared to be anyway. And the police have so many questions, in fact, that they kept the alleged victim at police headquarters until 2:30 in the morning, asking him questions before they finally let him go home.

It was a frightening sight outside the bank yesterday after this bank employee told police that he was kidnapped from his house, that two masked robbers strapped a device on him. Told him it was a bop. It's described to us as having a couple of cylinders and wires. And then they drove this man to the bank where he worked, took him inside, they got away with a ton of money, we're told, and then the man was left to sit outside the bank until officers and the bomb squad approached him, were able to get the device off of him and then blew it up. We don't know yet whether it was real, but the cops say it sure looked that way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CAPT. TONY RODE, HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA, POLICE: I would say, on a scale from one to ten, a nine in terms of it being real, in terms of the alleged explosive device on his chest appearing real. So we took it very seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: And, in fact, whatever that device was, authorities are going to be picking it apart this morning in a laboratory to see whether it was a real explosive device or just a hoax. And they have additional questions for the victim in this case. Again, they're still saying this man was the victim of a kidnapping and being taken to that bank and having to go through this terrible, terrible thing.

But, did it really happen the way it looked? We still don't know the answers yet, Heidi.

COLLINS: Boy. Just a strange story. All right, Susan Candiotti following it for us. Let us know if anything else happens.

Thanks, Susan.

HARRIS: A single photo getting international attention this morning. The question, will it provide a break in the case of missing toddler Madeleine McCann? A couple vacationing in Morocco took the picture late last month that appears, take a good look at this hear, to show a local woman carrying a little blonde girl on her back while walking along a road. Now experts are using forensic techniques to analyze the photo and figure out if it's Madeleine. The four-year-old disappeared during a family vacation in Portugal in May. A family spokesman talked with our John Roberts on CNN's "American Morning."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARENCE MITCHELL, MCCANN FAMILY SPOKESMAN: This clearly is possibly significant. It does, as you say, look like her. It is a digital image. It doesn't suffer expansion very well. You lose a lot of detail if you enlarge it. And that is why technical experts, with the police, are now analyzing this material. And they are keeping Gerry and Kate McCann fully informed, of course.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Well, the spokesman says Madeleine's parents don't plan to comment on the photo.

COLLINS: The military regime reportedly clamping down on Buddhist monks in Myanmar. The secretive Asian nation formerly known as Burma. The opposition reports at least one monk shot dead by security forces. Three civilians hospitalized.

Also report of monks being beaten and bundled into army trucks. CNN cannot independently verify those reports. This is the first word of violence since thousands of barefoot monks began leading peaceful protests. They're demanding an apology for the mistreatment of monks, as well as reduction in gas prices and the release of protesters. HARRIS: While you were asleep, the nation's largest automaker appears to have ended a strike by its union workers. The tentative deal stops a two-day walkout at General Motors, at least for now. CNN's Ali Velshi has been covering the story over the last couple of days. He's in New York right now for us.

Ali, is this a win/win for both sides?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it might be, Tony.

I guess it's a win for striking workers who didn't really know that they were going to be on strike this weekend, weren't really keen on a strike. I mean a strike's a hard thing in 2007. These are workers who do earn a fair amount of money and they were going to go down to earning $200 a week.

So what have they got right now? Let me tell you what it looks like. GM had been trying to unload this liability that it has because it has to pay the health care of retired workers and their spouses. And that's 340,000 people.

So the union is now going to run that health care trust. They didn't really want to have to do that, but that's how it's going to go. GM is going to transfer money into that trust. The union is going to manage it. It's not going to be GM's problem anymore.

Workers are going to get some lump sum payments. They wanted absolute job security that there wouldn't be more plants closed and things like that. Well, they're not going to get that.

Here's how the process works. The UAW and GM have both recommended that they ratify this contract and that's going to happen sometime over the course of the next few days. Workers will vote on the contract.

After that, the United Auto Workers has to start its negotiations with either Ford or Chrysler. They take the one contract they've got and they try and duplicate it at the other places. There's still 100,000 workers who are without a contract at those two places.

So this strike is in recess until the contract is ratified. And then later in the week, the UAW will name whether it's Ford or Chrysler that it's going to negotiate with next.

So that's the process. Folks are back to work or at least getting back to work by about midday today. Most factories should be back up and running.

HARRIS: Hey, Ali, just a quick question. Can the union invest the money in that trust fund?

VELSHI: Yes. The idea is -- whether the union runs it or GM runs it, it's still going to be professionals who are going to run this. It's like any institutional big pension fund or something like that. They invest -- here's the problem. You've got 340,000 people who theoretically do need that health care. So they've got to earn more money on those investments than the money that comes out, you know, from payouts and things like that. And that's a challenge. That's a challenge because you're talking about a bunch of retired people whose health care costs are, you know, high.

HARRIS: But there's always a chance that if you invest wisely . . .

VELSHI: You could beat that.

HARRIS: You could turn that into something.

VELSHI: That's exactly right.

HARRIS: Thanks. Ali Velshi for us in New York.

Ali, great to see you. Thanks, man.

VELSHI: You too.

COLLINS: Want to take a moment now to check on the weather situation all across the country. I know we're looking at some tropical depressions. Rob Marciano is here now to tell us whether or not . . .

HARRIS: Including the spots where you've worked (ph).

COLLINS: A tropical storm might be developing there.

HARRIS: And placed your hat for a day or two.

COLLINS: Do you hear anything? I can't hear anything.

Rob, are you there?

(WEATHER REPORT)

COLLINS: Want to show you some live pictures now. Former President Clinton, we are watching him speak there. This is at the CGI. We heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta talking about this earlier, the Clinton's Global Initiative. In that room, a huge gathering of people. My understanding is about a thousand people or so who are involved in this, leaders from across the country. Many of them, the point is anyway, with a lot of money, quite frankly, coming together with people who have very good ideas about getting the world to come together and help -- this is exactly what it says, I should tell you -- reduce the burdens of global interdependence, to make a world of more partners, fewer enemies and to give more people the tools they need to build a better future.

Today quite a bit of the topic is about children and children dying early, obviously, all across the world. And what can really be done to reduce that and help them not be at such high risk. So we'll continue to follow this one for you. It's the third one that President Clinton has held.

HARRIS: And still to come this morning in the CNN NEWSROOM, school bus slapping. A mom says her son was bullied, so she takes matters into her own hands. The daughter is there, too. Now both are in trouble with the law.

COLLINS: Bill O'Reilly fires back over his controversial comments about African-Americans. The story on the web today. Bloggers will weigh in in the NEWSROOM.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Plus -- I don't hear anything. I don't hear anything.

HARRIS: And still to come in the NEWSROOM, targeting insurgents. Did the military use an illegal tactic? New allegations and denials this morning in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And good morning again everyone. I'm Tony Harris. And you are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Is it a fight for kids or national health care? The House passes a plan to expand a children's health insurance program. Why the president is ready to block it.

COLLINS: And I'm Heidi Collins.

Tracking polar bears. A thrilling arctic expedition. Just a taste of CNN's upcoming landmark documentary, "Planet in Peril."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: President Bush gets a progress report on the fight for Afghanistan. The president met last hour with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. President Bush praised the Afghan leader for strides made in education, women's rights and health care. But Afghanistan is also battling remnants of the Taliban and a soaring opium trade.

On the domestic front, the presidents focus is on education. This hour, he will push for renewal of the No Child Left Behind Law. The administration says new national test scores showing improvement in math are evidence the program is working. Critics say the law's too narrow and too focused on punitive measures.

COLLINS: Idaho Senator Larry Craig looking to reverse his guilty plea in an airport bathroom sex sting. His attorneys go before a Minnesota judge today. Congressional correspondent Dana Bash is in Edina, Minnesota.

Dana, Senator Craig's lawyers have their work cut out for them. And we've talked about this for a while. Not easy to get a guilty plea overturned.

BASH: Not easy at all. And what they are going to argue -- what they have to argue legally is that it would be a manifest injustice for Senator Craig's guilty plea not to be withdrawn because, as we have heard from him many times, he is still maintaining that he is innocent. And what his lawyers are going to argue is essentially that he panicked. That because of an investigation from his hometown newspaper into the fact that allegations, rumors that he was gay, that that was going on at the time back in June. That is the reason they are going to say why he panicked and decided to pled guilty.

They're also going to say that because Senator Craig actually pleaded guilty by mail, he didn't go before a judge, that he didn't have the benefit of a judge telling him, as they do for defendants in these cases, exactly what the consequences would be for this particular guilty plea.

And lastly, they are going to argue, according to a brief that they filed, that the underlying crime that he pleaded guilty to, disorderly conduct, really wasn't the crime. They're going to argue that toe-tap -- we've heard a lot about that -- about peeking into the stall, that that really isn't disorderly conduct. But, Heidi, as you can imagine, the prosecutor is going to simply say that none of that should be accepted by the court.

First of all, we know from the brief that the prosecutor filed that they are going to argue that panic shouldn't be even -- it's not even a legal term, but shouldn't be accepted here because it was two months between when this incident happened in June and when the senator pleaded guilty in August, that panic doesn't last that long. And also the prosecutor is going to detail, according to the brief, the fact that they spoke several times and that the senator was calm, was collected, was methodical and intelligent in the conversations, knew exactly what he was doing.

And it's sort of interesting, the other arguments that he makes, Heidi, the prosecutor says, look, you know, if we overturn -- allow this particular guilty plea to be overturned, it would set a precedent for others and it would cause -- wreak havoc in the court. And also that, you know, the prosecutor asked, why is the senator's panic, panic because this would become public, that this would become a big political problem, why should that be different or held to a higher standard than panic for any ordinary citizen that they might have in pleading guilty. Panic about what their family might think, what their friends might think, what their employer might think.

So those are the kinds of arguments we are going to hear in this court. We are not going to see, Heidi, Senator Craig. He is actually not going to be here. He told us back in Washington yesterday that his lawyers suggested that these are just oral arguments, that's why he's not coming. We did hear from a source close to Senator Craig that he was also -- that they were worried that the judge would start asking the senator questions. The senator denied that.

Heidi.

COLLINS: So, Dana, is anything going to happen in four day? I mean September 30th was the date that he gave himself that he would actually resign if he was not able to overturn this guilty plea. But, I mean, this could take a while.

BASH: It could take a while. In fact, most legal experts, people who observed this court and just, you know, people who are involved in this case, Heidi, they don't think that the judge will actually rule, if you will, on whether or not to withdraw the senator's guilty plea today. That he will likely take it under advisement after he hears the oral arguments.

And the senator gave himself that deadline that you talked about, September 30th. That's four days away. And Senator Craig, Heidi, is definitely still leaving the door open to not resigning on September 30th. We know from a source close to Senator Craig, who had been talking to him, that he is trying to find ways to stay. The Senate stay, I should say.

The senator told us yesterday in Washington that he has not submitted his letter of resignation and that he still wants to figure out what will happen with these legal deliberations before he resigns. That is not going over well, as you can imagine, with his own Republican leadership that pressured him to resign.

Heidi.

COLLINS: Yes, that's what I was going to ask you about, but we'll save that for the next time.

All right, Dana Bash from Edina, Minnesota.

Thank you, Dana.

HARRIS: Victim or accomplice? A man say his was forced to wear a bomb in a bank robbery. Police asking questions this morning.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Gerri Willis.

Your heating bills are on the rise. We'll show you how to keep your wallet insulated. That's next on "Top Tips" in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Taking a look at the big board now, 10:22, 10:23 Eastern Time. But so far at least we have a positive sign in front of those numbers, right, up 60 points or so for the Dow Jones Industrial average. The Nasdaq still up 16 points as well. So we will be bringing in Susan Lisovicz shortly here to talk probably more about this tentative deal that has been struck between General Motors and the auto workers union in just a few minutes.

HARRIS: If you've been keeping your ear to the ground on this, we're hearing it from everyone that we can expect record prices for heating oil this winter. That's according to a new report. But you can actually cut those bills before the first flakes fall. Great to hear that. Here's CNN personal finance editor Gerri Willis.

Gerri, good to see you.

WILLIS: Good to see you too, Tony.

HARRIS: So you've got our attention here. Exactly how much more are we likely to be paying this winter? WILLIS: Well, the average heating oil bill is expected to be almost $1,900 this winter and that is up 28 percent from a year ago. Now, Tony, if you use natural gas to heat, you may well see that bill rise, too, almost $50. And electricity prices, they're not going down. They're going up 7 percent.

HARRIS: That's right. So should we look to sort of lock in those heating oil prices? I know that there's some programs out there that allow you to do that.

WILLIS: Well, oil prices are at very high levels. And it never really makes sense to lock in a rate when prices are hitting highs.

HARRIS: Right.

WILLIS: Last year oil prices peaked toward the end of the month of August, but then declined until March. So people who locked in at the peak paid higher rates than people who waited out the cycle. The oil market has already been heavily influenced by worst case scenarios. That's according to the expert we talked to. But don't buy into the speculation.

HARRIS: What can we do to sort of -- I bet we get to insulation here. What can we do to sort of reign in some of these prices and some of the costs associated with heating the home in the winter months?

WILLIS: Well, you guessed right. About 80 percent of homes built before 1980, hey, they don't have enough insulation. That's according to the Department of Energy. Your home will lose most of its heat through the attic. So you want to make sure you have insulation. Go to the website simplyinsulate.com to figure out what the recommended "r" value is for your area. "R" value basically measures how efficient your insulation is in keeping heat contained. The higher the "r" value, the greater the insulation effectiveness. Find out if you have enough by figuring out what the "r" value is of your existing insulation. Then you can hire a contractor or add the extra insulation yourself. And you can get the materials, hey, at any home improvement store.

HARRIS: Right. You know we talk about the attic all the time here and needing insulation and the idea it's a visual we can see of money just sort of flying through the roof here. But it's not just the attic, is it?

WILLIS: No, no, no, no. Not by a long shot. Seal the cracks and openings in your home. The worst culprits are windows and doors. To find the air leaks in your home, look at areas where different materials come together. I'm talking about those places where the brick and wood siding meets, a place where the foundation meets the walls. Light an incense stick, believe it or not, and pass it around the edges of the common leak sites. If the smoke is moving, sucked out or blown into the room, you've located a draft.

HARRIS: How often should we actually check the heating system itself? Once a year? Twice a year? What do you think? WILLIS: Well, you know, I've forgotten this myself. But you need an annual checkup on your heating system. Now is the time do it. Regular maintenance will help boost your heating efficiency in the long run. Check the furnace filter. Make sure it's clean or replace it as needed. Dirty filters, as you can guess, block air flow through the heating system. And if it's full of dust, your system will have to work harder. That drives up the cost.

And, of course, if you have any questions, e-mail us at toptips@cnn.com. We love hearing from you and we answer your questions right here every Friday.

HARRIS: And we do this segment today because, look, it's the end of September. It's virtually October. We need to get on this right now.

WILLIS: Get on it. Get on it, Tony.

HARRIS: All right. Gerri, great to see you.

WILLIS: Great to see you.

HARRIS: Thank you.

COLLINS: Picket signs coming down, GM workers heading back to the plant today with a tentative deal in hand.

HARRIS: A mom goes up side the head. Up side the head. Now she's in trouble for this school bus smackdown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bus driver kind of cracked the doors a little bit and she said, I'm so-and-so's mom. She kind of pushed the doors open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Mom up side the head, in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Good morning, once again, everybody. I'm Heidi Collins.

HARRIS: And I'm Tony Harris. Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM. We want to quickly get you to Fredricka Whitfield in the CNN NEWSROOM. Fred is following some breaking news out of Denton County, Texas. I guess that's close to Dallas, correct, Fred?

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Not far from Dallas, that's right. It's in that Dallas metropolitan area. Well, if you live in that area and you're expecting a FedEx package by 10:00 a.m. your time, it might be delayed, as a result of the fact that an 18-wheeler FedEx truck -- you're looking at the remnants of that FedEx truck -- that apparently got into some accident on the Interstate 35-W tipped over. Two trailers loaded with all of these FedEx packages you see strewn about there in that median.

It has slowed down traffic considerably as well, so if you are expecting to get somewhere fast, as well as receive that package fast, it's not going to happen, at least not in that roadway there in north Texas, outside the Dallas area, in Denton County.

Interstate 35-W, quite a nightmare situation there. And, of course, who knows how the process of picking up all of these package is actually going to take place, let alone actually picking up the remnants of this 18-wheeler that is kind crumpled there.

HARRIS: Whoa!

WHITFIELD: Yes, a pretty magnificent image there.

HARRIS: All right, hang on a second here, Fred. We've got a lot of amazing pictures into the NEWSROOM, of course. But just take a second and consider what we're looking at here. That truck split in two virtually, packages everywhere. What do we have? One, two lanes of traffic moving through there, but, boy, that is a sight to behold, isn't it?

WHITFIELD: Yes, it really is. And we don't even know -- most importantly, how that driver is doing of that truck.

HARRIS: Absolutely.

WHITFIELD: Someone was driving this vehicle. We don't know how that person has fared. But you're seeing all of the packages and you're seeing that kind of watery ravine as well. So they've got to retrieve package not just in that grassy median, and of course they had to remove some from the road so that some of the traffic could kind of creep by as it is. But they've got to retrieve packages now that's in that watery mess. And you can see in this wide view the huge backup there that has resulted.

HARRIS: Sure. Sure.

WHITFIELD: There on Interstate 35-W. And also traffic near the Texas 114 apparently is down to one lane. That must be that other road there on the right side of that screen that we just saw. So there you go. It's a horrible mess. And hopefully your package will get there soon.

HARRIS: Well, Fred, let us know if you've got an update on the condition of the driver in that.

WHITFIELD: Yes, that's most important. We will.

HARRIS: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: OK.

COLLINS: General Motors hoping the worst is in its rearview mirror. Earlier this morning the nation's largest automaker reached a tentative agreement with its striking union members. On Monday UAW members walked off the job in the company's first nationwide strike in 37 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON GETTELFINGER, UAW PRESIDENT: We're pleased to announce that, at 3:05 a.m. this morning, we've reached a tentative agreement with the General Motors Corporation pending ratification by our membership. We are recessing the strike effective at 4:00 a.m. this morning. And we will be prepared to go into ratification meetings, hopefully, by the end of this week.

Now, the contract must be reviewed by local UAW presidents. Then it will be voted on by more than 70,000 union members.

HARRIS: Protests led by Buddhist monks reportedly turning violent in Myanmar. The military regime in the country formerly known as Burma clamping down on demonstrators.

CNN's Dan Rivers is on Myanmar's border with Thailand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This injured monk is a potent symbol for the struggle for freedom in Myanmar, tended to by his fellow protesters after being attacked by riot police. The feared crackdown has begun in the main city of Yangon. In some areas the air thick with tear gas as Myanmar's regime tries to regain control. The monks ignored army orders to stay off the streets, marching in defiance of the junta. Soldiers reportedly firing shots in the air and charging the crowd with batons.

Most Western journalists are banned from entering Myanmar. Photos and footage are being smuggled out by pro-democracy groups, some news agencies and protesters themselves.

But we crossed the border from Thailand as tourists, and visited the remote town of Tachalak (ph).

We visited a monastery where devout Buddhists were celebrating a holy day. But there was no sign of the defiance so openly on display in Yangon. The monks here seem subdued. The abbot was reluctant to talk politics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here in Tachalak we don't have demonstrations. (INAUDIBLE).

RIVERS (on camera): Do you think the government will change? possible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Impossible?

RIVERS: Impossible?

(voice-over): I met one lady who was a student during the last major protest 19 years ago. Then she took to the streets and watched fellow students being massacred.

(on camera): One of your friends were killed?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, there were many. There were 10.

RIVERS: Ten of your friends?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

RIVERS (voice-over): I asked her what she thinks will happen now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Government like this, I think, (INAUDIBLE) don't win.

RIVERS (on camera): You don't think she's going to win?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, no.

RIVERS: Why not?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is only woman. But the government, they have so much. They have so many people.

RIVERS (voice-over): Another man summed up life in Myanmar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have no rights, no rights of media, no rights of freedom, no rights, no freedom at all.

RIVERS (on camera): And you want that to change?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

RIVERS: As this crisis continues to grip Myanmar, people here are praying that their Buddhist ideals of peace and nonconfrontation will prevail and that there won't be a repeat of the terrible bloodshed that occurred in 1988.

(voice-over): But despite those prayers for peace, the violence seems to be escalating. The army determined that this land of golden pagodas shall not be set free.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Dan Rivers live from Myanmar's border with Thailand.

And, Dan, here is the critical question at this point, least one of them. Is there a chance that this demonstration, this protest, could grow to a size that could actually threaten this military regime?

RIVERS: I think it's certainly getting toward that stage; 100,000 people have been marching through the biggest city, Yangon, so far. That is a massive, protest in terms of this country, where normally any form of dissent at all is severely punished, and normally any discussion even of politics results in people being arrested.

Last time we were in the country a few months ago we met people who had been locked up for 10 years in solitary confinement just for campaigning for democracy. So these people are very brave. The momentum is growing.

At the moment, though, the regime seems intent on trying to crush this dissent. There has been violence. Shots have been fired today. There are unconfirmed reports of people having been killed, including monks who've been at the center of this demonstration.

HARRIS: CNN's Dan Rivers for us. Dan, appreciate it. Thank you.

COLLINS: Lingering controversy -- Bill O'Reilly says his remarks about African-American behavior the a New York restaurant were taken out of context.

CNN's Mary Snow reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here's what happens Bill O'Reilly had to say about his recent dinner at Sylvia's, a famous restaurant in Harlem.

BILL O'REILLY: And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same. You know, it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same. And that's really what the society's all about now here in the USA. There's no difference. There's no difference.

SNOW: Radio talk show host and CNN contributor Roland Martin says callers to his show see stereotypes in glaring neon lights.

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: What bothered was when he said that he was surprised that there was no difference between Sylvia's and someone else. Well, why would you be surprised? Have you not gone to a black restaurant before?

SNOW: CNN's Rick Sanchez reached O'Reilly by phone yesterday.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: He said, look -- to be fair now, this is what he says. He said this is totally -- it was a totally benign conversation. There was absolutely no racist intent.

SNOW: O'Reilly also went to talk about stereotypes of rappers, saying...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming M-fer, I want more iced tea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please.

O'REILLY: It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb, in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun, and there wasn't any kind of craziness at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: O'Reilly's words were first brought to the media's attention by liberal-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters. It's the same group that first noticed the controversial remarks made by Don Imus that cost him his job. Fox News's reaction, "This is nothing more than left-wing outlets stirring up false racism accusations for ratings. It's sad."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: And joining me now with more on the O'Reilly controversy, Syracuse University professor, author and blogger, Boyce Watkins. Hello to you. And freelance writer ...

BOYCE WATKINS, BOYCEWATKINS.COM: Hi, how are you?

COLLINS: I'm good, thanks.

And freelance writer, blogger, and blog consultant La Shawn Barber. Thanks so much for being with us, guys.

All right, let me begin with this. I want to show you a little bit of sound from Bill O'Reilly's program last night and then get to your comments on the back side. He's talking with Juan Williams here. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: It was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference.

JUAN WILLIAMS: Correct.

O'REILLY: Black, white, we're all Americans, the stereotypes they see on television are not true. None of that ...

WILLIAMS: I'm glad you said that.

O'REILLY: ...none of that.

WILLIAMS: You should repeat that so they hear it again. You said stereotypes are not true. I said to you, you should go up there more often, it shouldn't be a foreign trip. But it had nothing to do with racist ranting by anybody except these idiots at CNN.

O'REILLY: Right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: La Shawn, what is this story about? Is this about race, is this about the way things come across on television? Is this about a battle between CNN and Fox?

LA SHAWN BARBER, LA SHAWN BARBER'S CORNER: I think this is a lot of media-generated nonsense. I, personally, as a black person, wasn't offended by what O'Reilly said.

If you actually listen and read his comments -- listen to and read his comments and context, it becomes clear that he and Juan Williams were talking about the violent, profanity-laced element of the gangster rap culture. And Bill O'Reilly was trying to make the point that people -- white people who don't know black people or aren't exposed to black people, may get the impression that gangster rap culture represents black Americans.

Well, we know that's not true. So, he may have expressed it awkwardly. I have to admit that it was kind of an awkward way he said it, but it wasn't offensive to me, given the context in which he spoke.

COLLINS: And Boyce Watkins, your opinion?

WATKINS: Well, I think that in controversial comments, you have to consider the context and the character of the commentator. If the villain in a movie comes up and says, I love you very much, that usually means he wants to kill you.

The fact is that Bill O'Reilly is a guy who has made a career demeaning, degrading and devaluing every black institution he can get his hands on. So this notion that we will perceive him as some sort of remorseful, reformed racist bearing gifts is kind of ridiculous.

You know, he's about like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when it comes to making ridiculous assertions and waiting for people to respond. I remember when he actually complimented Barack Obama for being articulate. Well, Barack is a Harvard graduate. Note to Bill O'Reilly, most Harvard graduates are pretty articulate, except of course President Bush.

COLLINS: Let me ask you this, La Shawn, would we be talking about this in the same way if perhaps Tom Joyner had said something like this?

BARBER: Definitely not. It's -- there's certain things that black people can say to one another and about one another that won't generate the kind of press that Bill O'Reilly has generated.

Look, Bill O'Reilly is a white, male conservative, no matter what he says about race, it's going to be taken to the extreme. It's going to be blown up into this cable news generated controversy. I mean, Juan Williams himself wasn't offended. He was talking to the man. I wasn't offended. I don't speak for all black Americans, there are plenty who may be offended by what O'Reilly said. But I think it's ridiculous.

COLLINS: Boyce, you're laughing. Why are you laughing?

WATKINS: Well, because, you know, Juan Williams sitting there is sort of the happy negro agreeing with Bill O'Reilly doesn't impress me at all. A man cannot walk into your home and congratulate your mother for not being a prostitute and not expect you to be offended. Now, on yourblackworld.com, we're not calling for him to lose his job or anything like that, but what we are doing is we're firing a warning shot and saying look, if you degrade and devalue black women, black children, black people, or black institutions, we're going to come after you and we're going to challenge you because what he tends to do is he tends to judge the black community based on bad apples and the fact is that that's like me judging the entire white community based on episodes of "Jerry Springer," and that would be wrong.

COLLINS: OK, so Boyce, so far, you've called him a villian and you've compared him to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Other people are comparing what he said to what Don Imus said about the Rutgers basketball team. Is that a fair comparison to you?

WATKINS: Well, I think it is -- it is actually a fair comparison. It's only unfair to the extent that actually O'Reilly has done more damage than Imus. It's like comparing 9/11 to the Iraq War. More people have died in Iraq, but in 9/11, it was more traumatic, so people would consider that to be a more devastating event.

Don Imus' clash sort of came all at once, where as O'Reilly's -- his pain has sort of been evolving through time and I think he needs to be challenged and he needs to understand that people are going to come back at him if he makes these sort of offhand remarks about stereotypes in the black community. He may think he's complimenting us, but the fact is that it was an insult.

COLLINS: So, your blog has gone absolutely crazy about this, Boyce. Everyone is writing in to you about this saying, how outraged they are?

WATKINS: Oh, absolutely. A lot of people have been outraged for a long time about Bill O'Reilly. Remember, it's the context and the character of the commentator ...

COLLINS: No, about this particular incident and about this particular thing that he said. Not about him in general.

WATKINS: Yes. Well, actually both.

BARBER: Can I add something?

COLLINS: Yes, just one second. Let me hear his answer first -- Boyce?

WATKINS: Yes, absolutely both. People are basically saying good, you need to go after him, you need to challenge him and let him know that he shouldn't congratulate black people for being articulate, or for not saying M-ffer, give me more iced tea and all these other things that he's saying. What -- because what he's really saying, when I congratulate you for not behaving in a pathetic way, I'm really saying that I thought you were pathetic in the first place, now I found out that you're not as pathetic as I thought you were.

COLLINS: OK, La Shawn, let me give you a chance here. First and foremost, I wanted to find out from both of you what your bloggers are saying. Are they saying any of these things or is it completely to the opposite end of the spectrum?

BARBER: Well, are you talking about my readers? I haven't blogged about this at all. I just agreed to come on and try to make some sense of this and put it into context in that the "happy negro" comment about Juan Williams was totally uncalled for. That's the kind of ad hominem that we have to deal with.

And you know, these people are going to talk about O'Reilly and they're doing the same things. Put the man's comment in context, I'm not a Bill O'Reilly apologist. He does say outrageous things, but that's what he does. It's not that big a deal. It's really not that big a deal given the context ...

WATKINS: You think -- you think he was actually -- you think he was complimenting the black community with these comments?

BARBER: Given the context ...

WATKINS: Do you think he actually thinks highly of the black community?

BARBER: He was -- he was talking about the gangster rap culture and he's saying that people who don't know black people will get the impression that this is how people behave. He wasn't saying that he thought that black people talk like this in restaurants. All you have to do is just listen ...

WATKINS: But you can't apologize for people's ignorance. If people characterize the entire black community based on gangster rap culture, that is their ignorance, that's not something we have to apologize for. At the same time ...

BARBER: That's what O'Reilly was saying.

WATKINS: But ...

BARBER: O'Reilly was saying the same thing. That's the problem.

WATKINS: No, I don't think he was saying that. I think he was ...

COLLINS: OK guys, all right. We can -- since we have you in a split screen, one's on the left and one's on the right, we're going to agree to disagree on this one and carry on.

Thanks so much to the both of you ...

WATKINS: Thank you.

COLLINS: La Shawn Barber ...

BARBER: Thank you.

COLLINS: ... and also Boyce Watkins. Appreciate it, guys.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange where GM shares are soaring in the wake of today's landmark agreement with the United Autoworkers Union. Why Wall Street is pleased, next.

You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

HARIS: Still to come in the NEWSROOM this morning, the disappearance of little Madeleine McCann. This morning a single photo could offer new clues in the case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Kids' health care fight. The president and members of Congress at odds. The House passing a bill to expand a federal program to cover 10 million children. It currently provides health care for about six million kids. The extra funding would come from a cigarette tax hike. The government calls it a move toward government- run health care for all Americans. President Bush promises a veto. The Senate expected to pass the legislation tomorrow.

HARRIS: Confrontation on the school bus. Not students, it's a mom who loses control.

Dave Balootz (ph) from affiliate WTSP reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVE BALOOTZ (ph), WTSP REPORT: St. Peterburg police arrested 34-year-old Karen Barber and her 15-year-old daughter each on one count of simple battery. Police Barber stopped a school bus headed for Riviera Middle School Friday morning at 16th Avenue South and Sixth Street.

BILL PROFFITT, ST. PETERSBURG FLA., POLICE: The bus driver kind of cracks the doors a little bit, and she said I'm so-and-so's mom. She kind of pushed the doors open.

BALOOTZ: Surveillance video shows what happens when Barber -- in the red shirt -- got on the bus. She confronted a 13-year-old boy who had allegedly punched her 12-year-old son on the bus the day before.

PROFFITT: And she's talking to the 13-year-old victim pointing her finger at him.

BALOOTZ: Police spokesman Bill Proffitt said it appeared Barber was about to leave the bus, but she turned back to the boy.

PROFFITT: And then she goes back. She begins poking the victim in the forehead.

BALOOTZ: The tape also shows Barber slapped the boy on left side of his face.

PROFFITT: The moment she slaps him one time, followed by the daughter slaps him twice.

BALOOTZ: Proffitt says the bus driver asked Barber and her daughter to leave. You can hear students on the bus cheering as they go.

ANDREA ZAHN, PINNELLAS CO., FLA. SCHOOLS: Having folks get on the bus would not be appropriate.

BALOOTZ: Pinnellas County school spokesperson Andrea Zahn says the bus driver's has been reassigned pending an internal review. Zahn says if a student is being bullied, parents should not confront students directly.

ZAHN: We would certainly hope that parents would report any kinds of those incidents to their school administration office.

BALOOTZ: And irate mother and her daughter could now face up to six months in jail for losing control on the school bus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Location, location, location. A house right off the freeway -- actually right on the freeway. Only in Hollywood.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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