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Paterson Sworn in as New York Governor; JPMorgan Buys out Bear Stearns; Atlanta Cleans up Weekend Tornado Damage

Aired March 17, 2008 - 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: OK. Well, if you never heard the name Bear Stearns, well, meet the poster child of the U.S. credit crunch. The once mighty investment bank sidesteps collapse but at an unthinkable price.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CO-HOST: And it's a new day in Albany. David Paterson takes over the governorship of New York moments from now. We'll be there for the swearing in.

Hello, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield, at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta, in for Kyra Phillips, on assignment.

LEMON: And I'm Don Lemon. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

LEMON: Well, as we look at these live pictures from Albany, it is a new governor and a new day from New York, where David Paterson is rising to power in the wake of Eliot Spitzer scandal and the fall from grace there.

Paterson's taking the oath as New York's first African-American governor. A prostitution scandal pushed his predecessor from office. We reported on that a lot last week. Spitzer's resignation became effective. It just happened last hour, paving the way for his lieutenant governor to take the reigns there.

Let's talk about the historic transfer of political power here with consultant and longtime New York news anchor Mr. John Roland. He's joining us in New York City.

As we look at these pictures, John, what is running through your head? First African-American governor here? It's really uncharted territory.

JOHN ROLAND, NEW YORK NEWS ANCHOR: Absolutely. And the first legally blind governor, also.

But I think the irony that we have to start off with, Don, today is that our new governor's being sworn in by the chief judge, Judith Kaye, who got her job after the other chief judge, Sol Wachtler, was involved in a sex scandal back in 1992. So, we have a woman who got her job because of a sex scandal swearing in a man who's getting his job because of a sex scandal. Must be something in the water in New York. I don't know.

LEMON: Or there's something going on somewhere here, John. Can you see these pictures? Are you able to look at these pictures? ROLAND: Yes. I saw it just a second ago. You had Sheldon Silver there, who is the leader of the assembly, and Joe Bruno will be there, also. He's the senate majority leader. The two most powerful men in Albany; really, the two guys who really run everything. That is Sheldon Silver there right now.

LEMON: And Cuomo is up on the right there.

ROLAND: That's -- that's Governor Cuomo's son. Yes, that's Andrew Cuomo. He is the state attorney general now. He replaced Ranfor (ph) and took Spitzer's seat when Spitzer -- Governor -- former Governor Spitzer ran for -- ran for governor.

And the word is that Andrew is getting ready to run also, for, governor, which is going to be a little bit tricky now, because they're very good friends with David. And of course, David Paterson has -- will be governor for the next three years. And has a lot to try to accomplish, the budget being No. 1. That's due the first of next month. And we have a couple billion dollar...

LEMON: Hey, John, not to cut you off, real quick, Hillary Clinton there in the audience. And you can...

ROLAND: Senator -- Senator -- Senator...

LEMON: And David Dinkins.

ROLAND: David Dinkins there also, a former mayor. Ed Koch, I'm told, is there. Mayor Bloomberg is there. All of the politicians, of course, there. And everybody in Albany, everybody in -- through up and down the state of New York, we have very, very high hopes. We have our fingers crossed that Governor Paterson can get New York state moving again.

LEMON: Yes. And what might be going on -- I mean, obviously, this is, what, introduction, this sort of thing. I'm sure you've followed lots of inaugurations there in your years as a news anchor and covering the political beat in New York. What is going on at this point? What are we looking at in the chamber, John?

ROLAND: Well, you're looking at a lot of Democrats. Most of our elected politicians now in our state legislature are Democrats. As a matter of fact, the assembly is pure Democrat -- or the senate, rather, is pure Democrat. The assembly is close -- close to being so. So we -- we have an awful lot of -- we're close to being a one-party legislature.

And there's a lot of give and take among citizens group there who will tell you that it's a little better to have give and take in your government than a one-party system.

LEMON: Yes.

ROLAND: But the senate is -- two-Republican majority there. David Paterson was the senate minority leader in the senate, and Joe Bruno is the senate majority leader. And they're very good friends and work well together. So as I said, we're expecting things now to get back on track here.

LEMON: Yes, and I'm sure lots of New Yorkers are hoping, as well.

You guys have to tell me if you want to go with this a little longer, because it appears it's going to be a little bit before David Paterson actually gets up there and takes the oath of office.

And John Roland, it's amazing to have you there, really serving as our historian, because you had been covering these -- covering these types of events so -- so long in New York City.

Talk to us about what's go on now on the podium and again, what's in the room. You've got a lot of heavy hitters there. You've got David Dinkins, former mayor. You've got Hillary Clinton, vice- presidential [SIC] candidate and senator, and also current senator Chuck Schumer in the audience. Among others, you said Ed Koch, as well.

ROLAND: Oh, yes. And we've got Ed there. And as I've said, we've got Mayor Bloomberg there. There had been a lot of talk that Mayor Bloomberg might run for governor when Eliot Spitzer's term was up.

Now, this has thrown quite a monkey wrench into the whole New York government system, because the plan was -- the hopes were and the plan was that, should Mrs. Clinton, Senator Clinton, be elected president, then David Paterson was going to take her place. Governor Spitzer would nominate her [SIC] to fill her empty seat in the senate.

Eliot Spitzer himself had great plans to become the first Jewish president. Of course, those plans went out the window. Governor Paterson now will not take Senator Clinton's place, should she be elected president. Mayor Bloomberg now probably will not run for governor, since David Paterson is a good friend of his, also a Democrat, and has already -- David Paterson has already indicated that he probably will run when his term is up in three years.

LEMON: OK.

ROLAND: So it's a real changing scene here in New York right now. All kinds of things have changed.

LEMON: And John, he is -- that's actually tape we have there to the right. I thought it was David Paterson stepping up to the mike.

But John Roland in New York, stand by. Once this starts -- once this gets underway, we're going to be relying on you to give us some color and tell us about what's go on there. John Roland joining us from New York. We'll get back to this inauguration or swearing in ceremony of David Paterson just as soon as it happens.

WHITFIELD: All right. Meantime, Don and John, government policymakers are pulling out the stops. They are taking dramatic steps to calm financial markets in the face of a growing crisis. The latest symptom: the government backs sale of the fifth largest Wall Street investment bank. Bear Stearns went for the bargain-basement price of $2 a share as the Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate and moved to expand its emergency lending powers.

Here's President Bush, fresh from a meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for working over the weekend. You've shown the country and the world that the United States is on top of the situation.

Secondly, you've reaffirmed the fact that our financial institutions are strong and that our capital markets are functioning efficiently and effectively.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Record foreclosures, spiraling gas prices, a sliding stock market, a plunging dollar, and the list simply goes on. Small wonder the economy is the No. 1 issue this crucial election year.

Our go-to guy is senior business correspondent Ali Velshi in New York.

And you know what, Ali? I think a lot of folks, we already know, most people know, the economy is pretty wobbly. Folks are in a pinch in so many ways. But when you have a Bear Stearns that goes sort of belly-up like this or at least goes for sale at a bargain-basement price, people have to wonder what other bank might be next?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

WHITFIELD: Is my money safe in the bank?

VELSHI: How safe? Exactly, exactly the right thing, Fred. I mean, Bear Stearns, very well-known to all of us who cover business. It's now a household name in America. This is the fifth largest investment bank in the country, which of course, makes it one of the largest in the world, 85 years old. This is old, safe money. It's an investment bank. How could this possibly happen?

This stock was over $100 not so many months ago. On Monday, last Monday, one week ago today, Bear Stearns stock was worth $70.

Bear Stearns had a lot of investments in this hedge fund called Carlyle Capital. It started to go south, Carlyle did and people were wondering whether Bear Stearns would be in problems. So on Wednesday, Bear Stearns' CEO came out and said, "Never mind these rumors. We are safe. There's no problem at Bear Stearns." By Thursday the stock was at $57, and people started to take their money out, because Carlyle Capital had gone under, and Bear Stearns didn't look like it could meet its obligations. By Friday, the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan had put out a lifeline, money that they were loaning to Bear Stearns to keep it afloat. And by last night JPMorgan, with the promise of credit backing from the Federal Reserve, had bought or had offered to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share.

This stock went from $70 on Monday, $57 on Thursday, $30 on Friday, $2 yesterday, and still, after all of this intervention, the Dow has been all over the map today. It's off about 115 points right now.

Now that's one thing. Then, look at this. The Federal Reserve cut its discount rate to 3.25 percent. It cut it by a quarter of a percentage point. The discount rate is the rate that banks pay when they run out of options for getting money. They can go right to the Federal Reserve and say, "We need some money." And that's the rate that they pay.

Now, the Federal Reserve is meeting tomorrow in about 25 hours exactly, Fred. I'll be back with you, and we will be talking about the fact that the Federal Reserve is cutting rates now for the rest of us, probably by half a percentage point.

But all of that put together is still not helping.

There's one little piece of good news for you right now, and that is oil, which was at $111.80 early this morning, is now trading at $106. Boy, what is wrong with this world when I'm happy to tell you that oil is just at about $106? But oil has started to back off its day after day after day records. But boy, this is a messy, messy situation.

WHITFIELD: It really is very messy. And with oil, we've only seen numbers go up. It's been a while since we've seen numbers go down.

VELSHI: Yes.

WHITFIELD: So every little bit counts. Ali Velshi, thank you.

VELSHI: Good-bye.

LEMON: All right. We want to get you back now live to Albany, New York. David Paterson, and there his wife, standing by his side, is about to be sworn into office. And you can see and hear now the applause for folks getting ready to watch this ceremony.

Again, it is historic in the sense that it's the first African- American governor of the state. And then also we've been saying, and lots people have been reporting, that David Paterson would be the first legally blind person to serve as governor.

But we're also hearing that Bob Riley, who is legally blind, Fredricka, was governor of Arkansas for 11 days in 1975. So only 11 days, but that counts, right? Don't you think? WHITFIELD: Absolutely, counts for something. Well, this 53- year-old man, David Paterson, is enjoying the stand-up applause right there. He really is known as being very candid; actually very humorous, as well. His wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, right alongside him. And their kids there, as well, as they await this historic moment of the official swearing in.

You got think he's got butterflies in his stomach, you know. But at the same time, you know, just hours after, I guess, the baton was being passed to him on Friday, when it was made official that Monday would be the day for the swearing in, he was quick to make jokes and make light of the situation. And really rather disarming.

LEMON: Maybe not make light but also add some humor to it.

WHITFIELD: Right.

LEMON: So that people wouldn't, you know -- because it's been such serious news when it comes to this. The last thing people expected was their governor to be caught up in a -- in a sex scandal with a prostitute or with a prostitution ring. And then he comes out, and he says, "You know what? We've got very serious things" but gets some levity to it...

WHITFIELD: Yes.

LEMON: ... you know, to disarm them, so to speak.

WHITFIELD: Yes. He's very affable, very likable and very popular. And this is a man who has represented the Harlem district for 23 years. So he's no outsider to New York. He certainly has been in politics for a long time in New York. And now, he is about to be sworn in as the 55th governor of New York.

JUDGE JUDITH KAYE, NEW YORK CHIEF JUSTICE: ... David A. Paterson, do solemnly swear...

DAVID PATERSON, INCOMING GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK: I, David A. Paterson, do solemnly swear...

KAYE: ... that I will support the Constitution of the United States...

PATERSON: ... that will I will support the Constitution of the United States...

KAYE: ... and the constitution of the state of New York...

PATERSON: ... and the constitution of the state of New York...

KAYE: ... and that I will faithfully discharge...

PATERSON: ... and that I will faithfully discharge...

KAYE: ... the duties of the office...

PATERSON: ... the duties of the office...

KAYE: ... of governor of the state of New York...

PATERSON: ... of governor of the state of New York...

KAYE: ... according...

(APPLAUSE)

KAYE: Not yet.

According to the best of my ability...

PATERSON: According to the best of my ability...

KAYE: ... so help me God.

PATERSON: ... so help me God.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David! David! David!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David! David! David

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: David! David! David

PATERSON: Thank you. Thank you all.

NPR took a DNA test with -- for me, as they did in the program "African Lives," and they found a number of hits from Ireland and Scotland. So I want to wish you all St. Patrick's Day.

I would like to thank the chief judge, Judith Kaye, for administering that oath, the chief judge who I believe will go down in history as one of the greatest chief judges this state has ever had.

I would like to thank Rabbi Shmuel Lefkowitz (ph), one of my dear friends, for coming and speaking here today, and also Monsignor Wallace Harris, my pastor, for delivering that invocation, as well.

I would like to thank my colleague in government, who I have now forgiven for shooting me with a water gun a few years ago, the attorney general of the state of New York, Andrew Cuomo. And I would like to thank a moderately popular controller in this chamber, the one and only controller, Tom DiNapoli.

The last time I was in this chamber, I was gaveling in for "The State of the State." And Speaker Silver had brought me in here to practice, so I didn't destroy anything, in our first year, but in our second year I told the speaker, "Don't bother. I know how to do this." And apparently, I was about to bring the gavel down on a glass, like this one.

The Speaker, at the last second, grabbed the gavel away from me, and he told me, in his own way, as only Shelly can, "I would not allow you to turn 'The State of the State' into a Jewish wedding." He had a Jewish hit in there, too, Shelly. Thank you so much for your hospitality and for having all of us in the chamber today.

I would also like to thank the members of the assembly, along with the speaker, for having us and the members of the senate for coming to this swearing in and their leader, none other than my good friend, the majority leader of the New York state senate, Joseph L. Bruno.

The other day we had lunch and he said, "Listen, some evening, if you feel like it, come out to the ranch and have dinner with me." I'll go, but I'm going to take my taster with me.

I would also like to thank the senate minority, the conference from which I first served as a state senator for 21 years, and their very great leader, the man who has moved the conference beyond any place anyone ever thought it could go, the one and only senator senate Democratic leader, Malcolm A. Smith.

And I would like to finally thank the leader of the assembly Republican conference in the New York state assembly. He asked me the other day, when he came by the office, "Do you still play -- do you still play basketball, David?"

I told him, "I don't play basketball, Jimmy. I teach basketball. Maybe you'd like to come by for a lesson some time." Jim Tedisco, assembly minority leader.

After some very difficult surgery, I don't know if I am touched by the appearance of anyone else here today than to have back with us our former governor, George Pataki. The governor's looking very well, and he's getting a lot better.

Also with us today, former governor, Hugh L. Carey, everybody. Please greet former lieutenant governor -- you know I had to get the lieutenant governors announced, Stan Lundine.

And a very good friend of mine and to all of you, our former comptroller, Carl McCall.

We have with us today both of our United States senators. We would like to present them right now. The senior senator from New York, and of course, a rose from Brooklyn, Charles Schumer.

LEMON: This is just as good a time as any to move on here just for a bit. And if you're looking at, he's introducing Chuck Schumer. That's really the heavy hitters row right there. You've got Hillary Clinton. You've got Chuck Schumer. You've got David Dinkins. You've got George Pataki. You saw the former governor, Hugh Carey, in that row. You saw Mike Bloomberg, a bunch of people there.

We're going to come back after a quick break. There he is, introducing Senator Hillary Clinton. We're going to come back after a quick break, continue this and also get some perspective from John Roland.

CNN NEWSROOM continues right after this. But we're still going to have this for you. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Real quickly, want to get you back. This is his mother, Portia Paterson, that he's introducing. His dad, Basil, sitting right next to him. He just introduced him just a short while ago.

But what's interesting about this, John Roland, is that Basil Paterson is the first nonwhite secretary of state of New York and the first African-American vice chair of the national Democratic Party. So he's accomplished, in his own right. So that's got to be a very proud moment now that he's looking there, you know, looking at his son being sworn in as governor.

Now he's introducing his wife and his kids, as well.

ROLAND: ... New York City deputy mayor.

LEMON: John, say again. Sorry, we didn't have your mike up.

ROLAND: Basil Paterson was also the first African-American New York City deputy mayor.

LEMON: Yes, and last -- last week, when this was all going on, we talked about this, what a moment this was for Basil Paterson and for his wife. And you -- you actually brought that up. And about the -- how he has served New York state, his dad.

And again, talk to me about the moment, watching his son. Probably something that he would like to have done but just didn't -- it wasn't the time for him.

ROLAND: Well, you know, he's got -- he's so proud of his son and the way that they raised him. They never, for a second, let him or themselves give in to the fact that their son was born legally blind. They even moved to another town, because the area that they lived in, in Brooklyn, they didn't think that David should go to a regular public school because of his sight problems.

So rather than have him be treated special, they moved. And they went to another town, where he was able to go to the public school. And they sent him to public school, and that's how -- he runs in marathons today.

LEMON: Yes.

ROLAND: The man went to -- he went to Columbia. He got his law degree. They just -- they treated him like just a regular person. And they pushed him and pushed him, and to the point now where look where he is. He is the governor of the state of New York.

LEMON: Yes. Yes. John Roland, hey, we really appreciate...

ROLAND: It shows you -- you know, it just shows if you work hard, you can accomplish anything.

LEMON: Right. In America, right? And especially. ROLAND: Absolutely.

LEMON: All right. John Roland, thank you. Hey, we appreciate your perspective so much.

John has been pivotal throughout this whole transition in New York. And very important to this story, and we want to thank John Roland, longtime anchor of New York City and now a political consultant.

But again, just -- his wife, he's introducing there -- just to give you an idea of the players, Michelle Paige Paterson is his wife. His two children, Ashley and Alex. Ashley entered Ithaca College in the fall of 2006. And Alex attends public school in New York City.

So a very interesting, a very proud moment.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

LEMON: And sort of levity.

WHITFIELD: It's a beautiful Cinderella story...

LEMON: Yes.

WHITFIELD: ... if you will. I mean, and just to add to what John was talking about in terms of his parents, really making sure that he got the right kind of education. He wasn't treated specially. He also refused to learn Braille. So he memorizes most of his material, and he has his aides read him documents, et cetera, so that, you know, he feels like he is just like everybody else.

LEMON: And he's got the taster, so when he goes over to Joe Bruno's house....

WHITFIELD: Yes. That's the funny one. And he's got a great sense of humor, which we all saw and enjoyed.

LEMON: All right. We have other news, though, that we have to get to.

WHITFIELD: Yes. All right. Let's begin with this. You heard about all the storms over the weekend in the southeast. Block after block, blown out windows, twisted metal, crumpled roofs and yes, you are looking at the CNN building there.

Safety is a major concern now in the aftermath of a powerful tornado in the middle of downtown Atlanta. The historic Cabbagetown neighborhood was especially hard hit Friday night. Huge, old trees ripped up by the roots, destroying homes almost as old. Amazingly, no one was killed in that part of town.

The next day, more tornadoes swept across North Georgia. One man was killed by flying debris. A woman died when her home took a direct hit. And as you no doubt heard, the freak tornado hit while Atlanta was playing host to thousands of visitors. A lot of venues are damaged, and CNN's T.J. Holmes is right in the middle of it all to give us some perspective as to how the cleanup is coming along.

Not so fast, is it?

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Not so fast. But -- but you know what? It is happening. Certainly, this area is a hub of activity all the time. And a different kind of activity this time around.

To give people some perspective, of course, downtown is the heart, the center of Atlanta. But where the tornado hit is the center of that center. This is the area where so many tourists often come and congregate.

But we still see tourists out. It's strange, today. But you know, they're here looking at a different type of tourist attraction now. This wasn't the attraction they were expecting when they came to visit Atlanta. A lot of people out taking pictures with their camera phones and whatnot. And this is what they're seeing.

We're seeing a whole lot of this down here in downtown. People who were down here parked for several reasons, several different events happening in downtown Atlanta, came out, cars are essentially destroyed down here. Totaled. This is one of the ones that is in better shape than a lot of the other ones. But we -- we've seen a lot of cars being towed away.

Just behind this car, this is the Tabernacle. This is the hot hub downtown in Atlanta where they have concerts and things like that. You see what we've seen a lot of places and a lot of buildings downtown, is windows blown out.

If you keep moving to my left here, you see a building here. This is a brick building. A lot of old buildings in downtown Atlanta. Well, it's not much of a building left. The inside totally exposed. All of these bricks just laid out on the ground here now. And it seems strange to look up there. You see the staircases inside the building all exposed. You even see exit signs up there in that building. And obviously, now a lot more exits to that building, if you will, given that the walls have been blown out.

It is dangerous in downtown Atlanta right now. Police are telling people, don't come down here. You didn't need to call in sick, you could call in tornado to work, if you will.

This is part of the reason it's dangerous. You've got power lines and things like this down all over the place. And also, some of those buildings with the busted-out windows, a lot of debris is still falling. It's dangerous just to be walking around in downtown Atlanta.

If you keep moving, again, to my left, the camera right here, you come to home for us, the CNN Center. You see the side of that building. At least 50, probably more windows have been blown out by the tornado. And you see them boarded up now. But windows blown out. Also you see that crane that's working there to help replace our ceiling. Our roof up there sustained a good amount of damage. By earlier reports that we were getting from the folks working on that, some $3 million to $5 million damage done to our building, some 65 percent of the roof going to have to be replaced.

Now let's show you video we'll go to from other parts of Atlanta -- of downtown Atlanta. Again, Centennial Park was hit. Things strewn about, all over the place, here in downtown. So many of the streets right now still blocked off and all of this cleanup going on. And the Georgia World Congress Center right now closed. Going to be closed all week, as far as we know, because of all of the damage it sustained. They don't know. They're going to do this on a week-by- week basis and figure out when they're going to open again. But for at least now going to be closed. Of course it's a center for so many meetings and so many conferences that happen. And those people not coming in for those meetings mean the downtown businesses are going to be hurt. It means so many of these hotels that were booked for all of those things are going to be hurt as well.

Come back here live. I'm trying to give you a little more perspective. A lot of people have been to Atlanta and know the area, but many have not. But what you will know, people, is the Centennial Olympic Park, the site of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, if you look through here -- you can't see it that well -- but right across the street is Centennial Park, where the bombing happened in 1996, and again, Fredricka, like I said, Atlanta, downtown Atlanta, this is the center.

But this area where we are, Centennial Olympic Park, is the center of the center. The tornado could not have picked a more populated and, if you will, a worse spot to hit. But the cleanup is going on, but it's going to take quite some time.

WHITFIELD: Yes, and what you don't see because the trees are, of course, in the way in, T.J., right there in Centennial Park, those big, beautiful pillars that are right in the middle of the park that decorate and kind of memorialize the Olympic Park, a lot of those were just torn down as if they were toothpicks. Just kind of evidence of the 130-mile-per-hour winds that we saw.

HOLMES: The power. And it's just amazing. Again, it's almost like that tornado had a bull's-eye on the absolute center of activity for all of Atlanta, and this is it right here.

WHITFIELD: All right, the cleanup begins. T.J. Holmes, thanks so much, downtown Atlanta, just down the block.

HOLMES: All right, Fredricka.

LEMON: You dread filling up your gas tank. You cringe when you check out at the grocery store. The markets are a mess. And you can't bear to look at your 401k. We just depressed everybody right there. We find out what you and other Americans are saying in a new poll on the U.S. economy.

WHITFIELD: And tragedy in Manhattan. New developments in a deadly crane accident at a construction site there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right, you may want to avert your eyes because the market is down 147 points right now. At one point we saw it down 150 points. Hopefully that'll move into positive territory some time this afternoon. And speaking of this afternoon, we're going to check in with our Stephanie Elam, who's at the New York Stock Exchange, for a full report in just a bit.

In the meantime, we know what's on your mind. What's on your mind these days, of course, the war on terrorism, health care. A new poll says for most of us, it is the economy. And for most of us, well, we don't like where it's headed. Let's take a look at the latest numbers with our Bill Schneider. He joins us now.

Bill, it's the economy, and we're not happy about it, right?

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POL. ANALYST: That is exactly right. It looks like the economy may swallow up the political agenda for the year 2008. We asked voters in our new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll taken just over the weekend, what will be the most important issue to you when you decide how you intend to vote for president? The economy clearly led the field, 42 percent said that issue, the economy, would be their top issue.

It leads the war in Iraq now by 2-1. And concern over the nation's economy has nearly doubled just since October. The reason for that, nearly three-quarters of Americans say the economy is now recession. That is up from two-thirds who felt the economy was in recession last month. Just under half felt that way five months ago in October. Twenty-nine percent say that they think the recession is a serious recession, another 29 percent say that they expect it to be a moderate recession.

And most Americans believe that this recession will go on for at least another year. The ruling in politics says, when the economy's bad, the economy is the issue. That was certainly true in 1992, when Bill Clinton first got elected president. And it looks like it will be true this year. Now, voters usually hold the president's party responsible for the state of the economy, even if the opposition party controls Congress. And so it could be bad news for the Republicans, particularly because President Bush has been in office now for more than seven years -- Don.

LEMON: And you remember, Bill, that little plaque that sat on Bill Clinton's desk, what it said, right?

SCHNEIDER: Oh, yes. The economy, stupid.

LEMON: "It's the economy, stupid."

SCHNEIDER: That could be the rule again this year. But there's still a significant number of voters who say the war in Iraq will be their top issue, not as much as the economy, but the war in Iraq is still on the agenda very much so. LEMON: All right. Thank you, Bill Schneider, joining us from Philadelphia.

The economy, well it's issue number one, as the polls have been showing. You saw Bill tell you right there. And we'll bring you all the latest financial news all this week, it's at noon Eastern. Information you need on your mortgage, on the mortgage meltdown, on the credit crunch and much, much more. "ISSUE #1," 12:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.

(NEWSBREAK)

LEMON: A fifth body has now been pulled from the rubble of a crane collapse in midtown Manhattan. Searchers haven't given up, though, on finding two other people alive.

CNN's Jim Acosta's is on the scene now and he is joining us to tell us about the rescue effort there.

But, Jim, just as much as I'm transfixed by these pictures here in Atlanta, I am just even more astonished by this story happening in New York with this crane.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Don. And if you take a look behind me right now, unfortunately, the scene is getting only more grim. A medical examiner's van did just back up to the site of this crane collapse, just a few moments ago.

The last time that happened here in midtown Manhattan, that was earlier this morning, about 10:00, when they we are removed the body of what was believed to be a construction worker, one of the three missing people, as of early this morning.

Now they're just, according to officials down here on the scene, looking for the body of one construction worker and of a woman who was visiting New York from Miami for today's St. Patrick's day parade. And so as this recovery operation is happening here, officials are trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened on Saturday, just why this crane, at 19 stories up, suddenly broke loose from its top bracing and then forcing the entire apparatus to come crashing down.

Not only atop of that townhouse where the woman was inside, but other buildings around it. If you look behind me -- and if we point up towards this building that I'm standing in front of, there's a sixth story building behind me. It's not just the building that was demolished when the crane came down. As you can see, just this building I'm standing in front of, a huge chunk off the back corner was also taken off.

And so that just is just one indication of the awesome power of this crane as it came crashing down. And because of the magnitude of that accident, emergency workers, construction workers sort of have the painstaking task at this point of pulling these pieces out of the rubble.

They pulled the main part of this construction, the main -- excuse me the section of this crane out of this rubble earlier this morning and that has really sped up the process, really intensified the process of finding these additional victims at this point. So, for the moment, it appears that they may be on the verge of finding another victim from this terrible accident and we're just waiting for confirmation of that now, Don.

LEMON: And we hope that person -- we hope the person is still alive. Because they're still hoping that -- they're thinking they're going to find him alive. Is that right, Jim?

ACOSTA: Well, they're hoping. They were calling this, as of early this morning, a rescue operation. But as we've been standing out here today, obviously firefighters always put their best face on these types of operations. But as the day has been going on, this has looked more and more like a recovery operation.

LEMON: All right, Jim. I'm sure people walking by and people in Manhattan will never -- when you see a construction crane, it's going to go through your head, should I veer around this?

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

LEMON: Thank you very much, Jim.

ACOSTA: You got it.

WHITFIELD: Actor Dennis Quaid, speaking out about the hospital mistake that nearly killed his newborn twins. Human error in healthcare system, more common than you know. We'll break it down for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: You recall this, actor Dennis Quaid and his wife nearly losing their newborn twins to a medical mistake. Well four months later, the babies have recovered and the Quaids have gone public about the scare.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENNIS QUAID, ACTOR: It was ten units that our kids were supposed to get, they got 10,000. And what it did is it basically turned their blood to the consistency of water where they had to -- a complete inability to clot. And they were basically bleeding out at that point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Whoa.

All right, medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, with us now from New York.

This was an overdose, but you have to wonder, how unusual is this? Does something like this happen often in our hospitals? ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know what, Fredricka, this is much less unusual than you would think. Now, Dennis Quaid is a celebrity so we're hearing about this. But unfortunately, medication errors happen in hospitals every day.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to tell you a statistic which is really quite stunning. There is a medication error -- one medication error per patient per day in hospitals. So when you go into the hospital there really is an excellent chance that you're going to have an error happen to you.

It may be completely inconsequential, but there probably will be some error. So at least 400,000 patients are harmed or killed by hospital drug errors every year.

WHITFIELD: Oh my gosh.

COHEN: It is amazing. Now, let's take a listen one more time to Dennis Quaid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUAID: It's bigger than AIDS, it's bigger than breast cancer, it's bigger than automobile accidents. And yet, no one seems to be really be aware of the problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now, while the public may not be so aware of the problem, actually experts and hospitals are. They are aware that humans make errors and that hospitals need to do a better job of having precautions in place to double-check errors that humans just are bound to make -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. So they know they need to do a better job, but are the hospitals doing a better job?

COHEN: Well, some hospitals are doing a better job. For example, let's talk about what happened in the Quaids' case. In this case, a nurse turns to get a vial of medicine, it's been in the same place every day, year after year, but someone goofed and put the wrong medicine in and the labels look similar. So she looks down at the label, and it looks right because they're so similar. But in fact, gives the wrong dosage of the medication.

Well, if that medicine had a bar code on it and the baby's bracelet had a bar code, you could just scan the bar code, scan the bracelet and it would tell you if you're making a mistake. So that's -- some hospitals are doing that, but not many. Only a minority of hospitals are doing it.

And I asked experts, why isn't everyone doing this? They said money. It costs money. You have to put out a lot of money on the front end to have a system like that.

WHITFIELD: Wow. So it sounds like you have to really continue to be a vigilant patient and do your research to find out what the hospitals are equipped to do in terms of having safety nets in place so that you can be one of the lucky ones who leave unharmed.

COHEN: You know what? That is true, Fred. And you do, definitely, want to be aware of what medications you're getting and try to keep a list. But really, the bottom line, the experts I talked to said, look, patients can't be held accountable for everything.

You can't sit next to your baby's bed 24/7. And even if the Quaids had said to the nurse, is that the right dosage, she would have said yes because she thought it was. They would have had to grabbed her wrist and looked at it. That's not practical.

WHITFIELD: Right. All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much -- from New York.

COHEN: Thanks.

LEMON: Heather Mills is walking away from ex-hubby Paul McCartney anything but empty handed. The question is, is she happy about it? The A judge rules on what four years of marriage to an ex- Beatle is worth. We'll tell you what if it is.

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WHITFIELD: That's kind of sad.

LEMON: I know. I didn't expect that song. I did not expect that song. So pardon --

WHITFIELD: Let's rephrase it to no love, no love, no love.

LEMON: Yes, Otis, thanks for springing that on me.

But really, how much is four years of marriage to an ex-Beatle worth? What do you think? All right, almost $50 million.

WHITFIELD: You don't care what I think?

LEMON: Almost $50 million. That's what a British judge set today in Heather Mills' divorce from Paul McCartney -- $50 million. CNN's Phil Black --

WHITFIELD: Most people would think that was big bank, but not Heather Mills.

LEMON: He;s a billionaire.

WHITFIELD: OK.

LEMON: CNN's Phil Black was outside the courtroom when Mills and -- we have our whole conversation going on -- when Mills and McCartney emerged.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exhausted but very pleased, that was how Heather Mills describes her mood, if you like, after emerging from three hours of private hearing at London's high court. She announced that she had been awarded close to $25 million pounds, or $50 million, by the judge.

She said that the ordeal had been tough. She believes that as a person who chose to represent herself, the system was stacked against her. She had a good deal to say about that and Paul McCartney's conduct and the conduct of his legal team through the proceedings.

HEATHER MILLS, FORMER WIFE OF PAUL MCCARTNEY: First of all, I just want to say I'm so glad it's over. And -- it was an incredible result in the end to secure mine and my daughter's future and that of all of the charities that I obviously plan on helping and making a difference with because you know it's been my life for 20 years.

BLACK: Heather Mills says she accepts the judgment and will not appeal the settlement, that is the award of the money itself. But what she will appeal, as early as tomorrow, is the publication of the judgment. She doesn't want that to happen because she believes it contains lots of details about her, her daughter, private details that she believes are a security risk to both her and her daughter.

She did say, though, that she had some advice. This experience has taught her that anyone going through a divorce should try and settle the matter as early as possible.

Phil Black, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Well, from that to a pipes-a-palooza -- bagpipes that is. It's the annual wearing of the green in the NEWSROOM.

LEMON: Always a good parade?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: We're all green today, especially New York's Fifth Avenue, known for its pricey goods. Well, they're celebrating another kind of green today. You see it right there. This is a scene from the city's 247th annual St. Patrick's day parade.

Bagpipers and kilts played Irish tunes, as well as "God Bless America" for the crowd. And not to be outdone, this was the scene in the windy city this weekend. Chicago has its own St. Paddy's tradition --

LEMON: Love it.

WHITFIELD: -- dying the city's famed river green. Thousands gathered on the waterfront to watch, of course. The annual ritual dates back to more than 40 years.

I bet you miss that, don't you?

LEMON: I do. I do.

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