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Wooing the Latino Vote; McCain Addresses Latino Conference in Washington, D.C.; Zimbabwe's Mugabe Appears Unstoppable; Housing Crisis Remains Unresolved
Aired June 28, 2008 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: The Hispanic vote it is more important than ever, and it could play a make or break role in this year's election. Both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are making appearances today in front of the National Association of Elected Latino Officials. McCain is scheduled to speak at this hour. CNN deputy political director Paul Steinhauser reports that neither candidate has a lock on Hispanic support.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR (voice-over): Call it a battle for Spanish-speaking Americans.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: (SPEAKING SPANISH) Yes, we can.
STEINHAUSER: President Bush won 44 percent of Hispanic and Latino voters four years ago helping him win re-election. But only 30 percent of those voters cast ballots for Republicans in the 2006 congressional elections. Part of the blame on the divisive debate over illegal immigration.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the tenor of the debate has harmed our image amongst Hispanics.
STEINHAUSER: John McCain was one of the leaders in the Senate for reform. His stance hurt him with conservatives. Now he emphasizes border security first.
JUAN CARLOS LOPEZ, CNN EN ESPANOL: Many Hispanics feel that the debate on immigration has been a debate against Hispanics in general and it's made a lot of people register to vote, it's made a lot of people become citizens so they can vote.
STEINHAUSER: But it's not the only issue on their minds.
LOPEZ: They're just like any other voter in America. They care about education, they care about the economy, about health care.
STEINHAUSER: Polls indicate those issues favor Democrats but Barack Obama is no shoo-in with Spanish speaking voters. Exit polls suggest Hillary Clinton beat Obama among Hispanics and Latinos in the primaries.
LOPEZ: The first impression was they didn't know who he was, and now they're getting to know who he is.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: And Paul Steinhauser joins us live now from Washington.
Paul, why are the Spanish-speaking voters so important to both Obama and McCain?
STEINHAUSER: Some crucial states, some really important states that are contestants, like Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico. They make up a much larger portion of the voting population. So they can maybe swing it in those states. And where does it stand right now between McCain and Obama? A nationwide poll of Latinos and Hispanics that came out last week had Obama up by only eight points so really Randi, not that much.
KAYE: What are some of the challenges really here for Obama to try and woo some of these Latino voters knowing that Hillary Clinton certainly, I think she was taking him by two to one when they were running against each other in the primary?
STEINHAUSER: As Juan Carlos just said in that piece, a lot of Latino and Hispanic voters, just don't know Barack Obama very well, but they're going to get to know him a lot this summer and this fall. I expect to see Barack Obama campaigning in some states with large Latino populations and also expect him to advertise in Spanish as well. In Spanish language ads, McCain has already started doing that. Expect to see Obama join in that effort.
KAYE: All right, Paul Steinhauser, we'll have to leave it there.
We want to take you live to Senator John McCain who is speaking right now in Washington.
Let's take a listen.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
MCCAIN: ... where they'll pay less than half the tax rate they pay today. Employers can hire more people or they can pay more taxes. We can no longer afford the luxury or nostalgia of past times when American business faced little serious competition in the world. A global economy is here to stay. It's here to stay, my friends. We cannot build walls to foreign competition, and why should we want to? When have Americans ever, ever been afraid of competition?
America is the biggest exporter, importer, producer, saver, investor, manufacturer and innovators in the entire world. Americans don't run from the challenge of a global economy. The courage, patriotism, ingenuity, and industry of our forbearers earned the reverence that we hold for our storied past but we have never been a country that substitutes nostalgia for optimism. We have never been a country that would rather go back than forward.
We're the world's leaders. Leaders don't fear change. Hide from challenges. Hide from the past and trend the future. We make the future better than the past. That's why I reject the false virtues of economic isolationism. Any competent government should embrace competition, it makes us stronger and not hide from our competitors and cheat our consumers and workers. We can compete and win as we always have, or, we can be left behind.
Lowering barriers to trade creates more in better jobs and higher wages. It keeps inflation under control and interest rates low. It makes goods more affordable for low and middle-income consumers. Protectionism threatens all those benefits. Opening new markets for American goods and services is indispensable to our future prosperity. But in the global economy, what you learn is what you earn. Today half of Latinos and half of our African-Americans entering high school will never graduate. By the 12th grade, U.S. students in math and science score near the bottom of all industrialized nations.
As Bill Gates said, this isn't an accident or a flaw in the system. It is the system. Many parents feel their children won't have the same opportunities they had. That is simply unacceptable in a country as great as ours. In many schools, particularly where people are struggling the hardest the situation is dire, and I believe poses the civil rights challenge of our times. We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition. Hold schools accountable for results. Strengthen math, science technology and engineering curriculums. Empower parents with choice, empower parents with choice. Remove barriers to qualified instructors. Attract and reward superior teachers and have a fair but sure process to weed out incompetence.
I've spent the last two weeks addressing the problem that's causing Americans the most pain right now. Right now the dependence on imported oil, and how to free ourselves from a situation that threatens our economy, our environment, and our national security. Obviously, the crisis most acutely affects lower-income Americans who often drive the furthest to work and own the oldest cars. There are few, but not many things we can do in the short term to alleviate the economic distress Americans are feeling as they pay more and more -- more and more of their income for gasoline and higher prices for groceries, and almost all goods that are affected by the spiraling increase in the price of oil.
We must commit ourselves to addressing this problem as quickly, as humanly possible, and we must commit this country to the great national cause of breaking our strategic dependence on foreign oil. To do that, we must address both the supply and demand sides of the problems. We must produce more oil at home, while exploration and production will take some time, it will have an earlier effect on the oil futures market. When futures traders believe the supply of oil will increase in the years ahead and the cost of a barrel of oil will be lower, it will help curb some of the speculation in these markets that are driving prices so much higher today.
But the lasting solution to all the problems associated with our dependence on foreign oil is to begin in the next term of the next president, the most ambitious program ever, ever, to reduce our demand for the fuel that is a powerful inflationary force in our economy, is causing our climate to change. With all the unimaginable problems that creates, and is ransoming our future to regimes that care little for our values or our security. We need to unleash the competitive forces of the free market to encourage clean alternatives, wind, solar, tide, nuclear and clean coal. But to really achieve energy security, we must address the area where the demand for oil is the greatest. The way we fuel our transportation system.
I promised a plan which I call the Lexington project, a place where America's war for independence began, which will encourage the investment and innovation necessary to wean our cars buses and trucks off of our complete dependence on gasoline. It will take time. It will take time. But the longer we wait to begin, the longer it will take to achieve. It's an ambitious plan. I'm confident that our industry and entrepreneurs and all Americans are up to this next great challenge in our history. The genius, the hard work, and courage of Americans have never failed us and will not fail us now.
Let me close by talking briefly about my respect and gratitude for the contributions of Hispanic-Americans to the culture, economy and security of the country that I have had the honor of serving all of my adult life. I represent Arizona.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: John, you represent Arizona --
MCCAIN: You know that's a very familiar voice to me. Let me also point out --
(CHEERING)
MCCAIN: It's a long trip out. (LAUGHTER)
My friends, in case you haven't seen, I'm sure you've seen the polls lately about trust and confidence in government and the frustration Americans feel about us. You saw the front page of "The Washington Post" this morning, again the Senate is gridlocked. The one thing Americans want us to stop doing is yelling at each other. That's the one thing that they want us to stop doing.
As I was about to say, I represent Arizona where Spanish was spoken before English was. And where the character and prosperity of our state pose a great deal to the many Arizonans of Hispanic decent who live there. And I know this country which I love more than almost anything, would be the poorer were we deprived of the patriotism industry and decency of those millions of Americans whose families came here from our hemisphere, Mexico, Central and South America. I will honor their contributions to America for as long as I live.
I and many other colleagues twice attempted to pass comprehensive immigration legislation to fix our broken borders, insure respect for the laws of this country, recognize the important economic necessity of immigrant laborers, apprehend those who came here illegally to commit crimes and deal practically and humanely with those who came here as my distant ancestors did to build a better safer life for their families. Without excusing the fact they came here illegally, or granting them privileges before those who did.
Many Americans with good cause did not believe us when we said we would secure our borders. And so we failed in our efforts not once, but twice. We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States. But we must not make the mistake of thinking that our responsibility to meet this challenge will end without accomplishment. We have economic and humanitarian responsibilities as well and they require no less dedication for us to meet them.
When I was in prison in Vietnam I like other of my fellow POWs was offered early release by my captors. Most of us refused because we were bound by our code of conduct. It said those who had been captured the earliest had to be released the soonest. My friend, my beloved friend Everett Alvarez, a brave American of Mexican decent had been shot down years before I was and suffered for his country much more and much longer than I had. To leave him behind would have shamed us. You take the solemn stroll along that wall of black granite on the National Mall, its hard not to notice so many names such as Rodriguez, Hernandez and Lopez that so sadly adorn it.
When you visit Iraq and Afghanistan you'll meet some of the thousands of Hispanic Americans who served there and many of those who risked their lives to protect the rest of us. And some do not possess the rights and privileges of full citizenship yet in the country they love so well. To love your country as I discovered in Vietnam is to love your countrymen. Those men and women are my brothers and sisters, my fellow Americans, an association that means more to me than any other. As a private citizen or as your president, I will never, ever do anything to dishonor --
I'd like to conclude by saying as a private citizen or as your president, I will never, never do anything to dishonor our obligations to them and their families or to forget what they and their ancestors have done to make this country the beautiful bountiful blessed place we love. Thank you very much.
(CHEERING)
KAYE: We're listening live there to Senator John McCain address Latino conference in Washington, D.C., getting a standing ovation going to take a couple of questions here. We'll listen to a couple of those. He talked quite a bit about foreign oil, immigration, clean energy, Hispanic Americans he served with in Vietnam.
Let's listen to the questions.
MCCAIN: It makes me feel very wonderful to have such a wonderful reception and I'm grateful for it and I'm ready now to respond to any questions or comments that you might have.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Senator. We know your time is short, so we'll try to get in as many questions as we can.
MCCAIN: That means you're telling me to keep my answer short.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly. Our first question is from the commissioner from Harris County, Houston, Texas, the Honorable Sylvia Garcia.
QUESTION: Senator, many Latinos are living through our nation's mortgage crisis. Their friends and family members have lost their homes or are about to or can't make payments on them. Everyday they also face the challenge of meeting the growing costs of food and fuel. As president what will you do to ensure that all working and middle class Americans can realize the American dream.
MCCAIN: Thank you and I will try to make my answer brief. But your question comes to the heart of what Americans are sitting around the kitchen table tonight saying, how are we going to afford our home loan mortgage payment?
Some of many hundreds of thousands have suddenly and recently lost their jobs. Owning one's own home, as we all know, is part of the American dream. I made a proposal that people who are primary owners of a primary residence can go down and get an FHA guaranteed loan. A 30-year loan that's guaranteed by the FHA at the new value of their home so that they'd be able to make their payments.
Now, the -- the legislation that was winding its way through the Congress and unfortunately again did not pass before the United States Senate went out of session, again, incredible that the Congress should go on vacation while Americans are trying to stay in their homes. That's why you see the approval ratings of Congress at 12 and 13 percent. I don't know if you saw it lately. Anyone know anyone in the 12 or 13 percent range?
We're down to blood relatives and paid staffers. And so I hope we would pass this legislation that's pending before the United States Senate and appear on the president's desk right away. Is it the legislation that I would have written? No. I would have put more in the hands of the homeowners, more of the decisions in the hands of the homeowner. But it's not perfect but it's better than the status quo.
But also, when you look at the increase in the price of food, when you look at the inflationary spiral we're in, when you see the dollar weaken and, therefore, the cost of a barrel of oil going up, and we're in this spiral, my friends, it's got to be stopped. We got to get a (INAUDIBLE) on home prices and values in America.
We've got to proceed with confidence and trust in the American people towards achieving independence of foreign oil. A short gas tax holiday for Americans who are paying more and more at the gas pump. Exploration of offshore oil, if the states agree, oil and natural gas deposits. Adoption of alternate fuels, hydrogen hybrids, electric cars. My friends, we should give $300 million to the individual or organization that invents a battery that will take you 200 miles before it has to be -- before it has to be recharged.
KAYE: Very passionate John McCain there answering the first of what will be many questions as he addresses this Latino conference in Washington, D.C. Certainly working his way there through a series of hecklers and protesters. Talked quite a bit about foreign oil, clean energy and Hispanic Americans that he served with in Vietnam. Coming up in our next hour we will be listening live to Senator Barack Obama, who will also be addressing that same group. We will take you there live when he takes the stand there.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, a pregnant U.S. soldier found dead. Authorities trying to figure out exactly if she was killed in the first place.
KAYE: Today, new developments from a person claiming to be Megan Touma's killer.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Just in to us this morning, a new and pretty startling development in the case of a pregnant soldier who was found dead in a North Carolina motel. "The Fayetteville Observer" newspaper says it has received a letter from a person claiming to be the killer of Specialist Megan Touma.
KAYE: The letter reads, "To Whom It May Concern, the following is to inform that I am responsible for the dead body that was found on Saturday, June 21st at 11:30 in room 143 at the Fairfield Inn." That's in Fayetteville. It goes on to say, quote, "It was a masterpiece. I confess that I have killed many times before in several states."
Now apparently in that letter is included a symbol which matches the symbol that was found symbol, written in lipstick on the mirror at the Fairfield Inn, it resembles the cross hairs of a rifle scope. Now police are saying that the letter is valuable evidence but was written to try to mislead investigators.
Meanwhile, army and state investigators are still trying to figure out how the young pregnant soldier died and when.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): Could Army Specialist Megan Touma have been dead for more than a week without the army ever reporting her missing?
MAJ. ANGELA FUMARO, FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA: We're shocked. First and foremost, and, you know, it's always sad when you lose a soldier.
KAYE: Officials at Fort Bragg believe the last time anyone there saw her was at roll call nine days before her body was found at this Fayetteville hotel. Police have not named any suspects. Touma was seven months pregnant, her first child. Her aunt said she had a boyfriend but didn't know if he was the father.
(on camera): A search warrant says a hotel maintenance man went inside Touma's room Saturday morning, he smelled a foul odor, saw her badly decomposed body in the bathtub and called police. Her bed was slightly pushed away from the wall and the nightstand and lamp on top of it were out of place. EL SAYED TOUMA, VICTIM'S EX-HUSBAND: The army knows that she stayed in that hotel and then they didn't even bother to check on her to make sure that she was OK.
KAYE (voice-over): Touma's ex-husband says someone should have looked in on her.
TOUMA: Where's the cleaning people? I mean where's the maintenance? Where's the front desk. How come nobody checked on her.
KAYE (on camera): That we don't know, since hotel staff and police aren't talking. Here's what we do know. Touma arrived here at Fort Bragg June 12th from Germany, where she'd been stationed for three years. The army says she signed in at base 2:00 a.m. and later that day, around 3:15 in the afternoon, arrived for roll call. That is the last record of her at Fort Bragg. She was supposed to return to roll call Monday, June 16th but the army says it has no indication she ever showed up.
(voice-over): Keeping them honest we asked Fort Bragg why Specialist Touma wasn't declared AWOL. Officials declined to speak on camera but told us if someone is reported missing its policy to declare them AWOL within 24 hours. The army says Touma was not properly accounted for and is investigating why proper procedures were not followed. It's still not clear if Touma's commander ever reported her missing, even though five days had passed and she skipped roll call without a word.
The army did not call her cell phone. Adding to the mystery, police documents show a do not disturb sign had been on Touma's door four days. Touma was scheduled to check out the morning her body was found, the keys to her rental car on the dresser. Fort Bragg wants to know where she was headed. Police want to know who stopped her.
(END OF VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: An autopsy has been done by the state medical examiner's office. The results have not been released yet..
HOLMES: Federal health officials are wondering if something other than tomatoes to blame for a spread of salmonella. They're looking into other possibilities and checking warehouses to see if the contamination might be coming from there. So far 810 people in 36 states have gotten sick.
KAYE: If you build it, they will come. Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the big easy this morning. He is the lead surgeon on "Operation Playground" we'll call it today.
How's that -- how's it going? Any progress?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, tons of progress. Actually doing really well.
Let me just paint a picture for you again. An area you're looking at behind me, this is (INAUDIBLE) an area that was really, really devastated by the hurricane and by the subsequent floods. In fact, it's hard to imagine now, but the water was five feet high in many of these areas.
One of the things we heard so much as we talked to people about health care down here in New Orleans, I've been down here about a dozen times since the hurricane, they say most of the kids don't have a safe place to play. You tell them to get off the couch, but where do they go?
Good points we said. So along with the non profit Kaboom and Cox Communications, we are helping build this playground. It's about $100,000 to build it and 3500 square feet, it's going to serve us about 10,000 people in the surrounding neighborhood. So as you say, I think aptly so, if you build it, they will come. Volunteers certainly showed up. We think the kids will come as well in the future.
KAYE: And the kids Sanjay, actually helped design this. Didn't they?
GUPTA: Yes. This was actually amazing. 4-year-old kids, 5- year-old kids, they actually said so you get to build your ideal playground? Describe it for us. Better than that, draw it for us and they actually gave us some of these drawings over here. Take a look. It may be a little bit hard to decipher. But looking at someone of these drawings we actually bought the playground equipment that actually tried to match what the kids were actually drawing and put it all together.
I want to give you a quick idea as well over here. This is sort of this composite of wood and plastic. This is something that they're going to use to actually put into the ground between a bench, around some of these trees behind me as well. So it's going to be sort of this full-service playground. It's going to take a while but as you can see behind me, hopefully, because Randi I know you're a little bit skeptical.
As you can see behind me, they're making pretty good progress here already. They have 10 tons of concrete to still lay. We have 200 cubic yards of mulch to still put down. But it's going to happen.
KAYE: I'll admit, I was a little skeptical when we spoke a couple of hours ago. But it looks like you're getting it done.
GUPTA: We will. In case you're curious, I'm going to work too here. I'm getting some of the work done here, contributing, beyond just standing here doing television live shots.
KAYE: You keep saying that. But that's the part I'm most skeptical about.
GUPTA: Come on!
KAYE: But we're going to let you go so you can actually go do some -- put some sweat equity in that playground, OK?
GUPTA: All right. Sounds good.
KAYE: All right, thanks Sanjay, nice work there.
You can actually supervise the team's progress which is pretty cool.
HOLMES: Like Sanjay is doing there.
KAYE: Yes, maybe not Sanjay's progress but the team's progress throughout the day against a very demanding deadline. Because they said they're going to be done, they hope by the end of the day. You can log on to CNN.com/fitnation and then join us for the ribbon cutting here in the NEWSROOM today at 3:00 Eastern.
HOLMES: Sanjay getting stuff done. We'll see if he can get this one done as well.
We need to take a turn to nuclear power now. Is that the answer to our energy crisis? Well, we'll see. And we're going to tell you what John McCain and Barack Obama are saying about the idea.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: It is just about 11:34. Happening now around the world, Republican presidential candidate John McCain was interrupted by hecklers several times as he spoke to the National Association of Elected Latino Officials this morning. You saw his speech live right here on CNN. Democrat Barack Obama speaks to that same group next hour, and we will carry that address live as well.
HOLMES: We have no word yet on when Zimbabwe will release results of yesterday's presidential election runoff. But President Bush is already calling it a sham. U.S. diplomats are drawing up a United Nations resolution, calls for tough action against Zimbabwe's government. CNN's Nkepile Mabuse is joining us now from a listening post outside of Zimbabwe in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Nkepile, tell us here, a lot of people are watching this and seeing that President Mugabe is going to end up being the president once again. Can anything be done to keep him from taking power yet again?
NKEPILE MABUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't seem so, T.J.
We're hearing rumors that he may even be sworn in this weekend. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has few ballots to count. They finished counting and they're going through the verification process and we are expecting results to be released very soon. Today, Saturday, or on Sunday.
HOLMES: What about other world leaders? Others have been called on and many saying not enough has been done. Not enough of the other African leaders have even been speaking out. So are they now starting to get in gear and take more action and speak out against what's happening in Zimbabwe?
MABUSE: Many more African leaders are speaking out against what's happening in Zimbabwe. But of course, the people of Zimbabwe need action and not words. And as African leaders meet on Monday in Egypt, Zimbabwe is going to be a hotly debated topic and the world is really looking on African leaders to come up with some tough measures and tough actions to take in Zimbabwe, seemingly, there is no turning back from Robert Mugabe becoming president, if he is declared president, but some action needs to be taken to rein him in.
HOLMES: Finally here and quickly, we have been seeing, hearing all of those reports leading up to the election and as well on Election Day that many supporters of the opposition were being threatened, were being beaten, some even being killed. Has that seemed to have subsided since the election is now observer?
MABUSE: Not at all. We are receiving more and more allegations of the state-sponsored violence, opposition in that country, the MDC, saying that over 90 of its members have been killed since the first election that was on March 29th and five of them allegedly killed this week. So the violence continues. We've managed to get footage of some of these people who admit that they've been tortured by Robert Mugabe's militia and (INAUDIBLE) with melting plastic and boiling hot water poured over them. So the situation does not seem to be getting any better in Zimbabwe.
HOLMES: All right. Nkepile Mabuse for us there in Johannesburg. Thank you so much.
KAYE: More than a thousand wildfires are burning right now across California, the biggest one is near Big Sur. A popular tourist area now a battleground in a fight to save some 500 homes threatened by the fires. 16 homes are already destroyed and authorities have closed a roughly 12-mile section of the pacific coast highway. Most of the wildfires were started by lightning.
HOLMES: The U.S. Olympic swim trials are expected to begin as scheduled tomorrow at the Quest Center in Omaha, Nebraska, despite this. Huge chunks of the building were ripped off late yesterday as violent storms swept across the region. 70 mile-an-hour winds knocked out power to more than 125,000 homes, one uprooted tree crashed into a car and killed two people in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
KAYE: I guess a lot of the swimmers were evacuated during the storm. Even Michael Phelps mom, I understand had to go down into the basement of her hotel.
(WEATHER REPORT)
KAYE: High fuel prices have helped resurrect two words hardly ever heard on the campaign trail. Nuclear power.
HOLMES: Yes, it's not easy to get through all this (INAUDIBLE) of nuclear power here.
KAYE: Yes, you're working through it.
HOLMES: We're working through it. Josh Levs, Mr. Reality, you have a reality check for us. KAYE: Try to use that word you just taught him.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I just taught him schmutz (ph) and now he wanted to use it ---
KAYE: You're working it in to his script?
LEVS: This goes in the gag reel at the end of the year. Hi everybody, let's transition to serious. Nuclear energy, right? Two big buzz words you're going to be hearing throughout the rest of the campaign and right now Obama and McCain are going at it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEVS (voice-over): Gas price, oil prices, global warming fears. It was only a matter of time before the presidential race would turn to --
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nuclear power.
LEVS: McCain wants a lot more of it. His web video claims Obama says no to clean, safe nuclear energy and you hear Obama saying.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am not a nuclear energy proponent.
LEVS: That quote comes from the vet in Iowa and Obama also said he has not ruled out more nuclear power.
OBAMA: -- but only so far as it is clean and safe.
LEVS: How clean and safe is it? A founder of Greenpeace, who now consults to the nuclear industry says --
PATRICK MOORE, CO-FOUNDER, GREENPEACE: America's future should be powered by nuclear energy.
LEVS: But Greenpeace itself says nuclear power presents an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. Here are some basics. Nuclear power plants generate electricity without burning fossil fuels. The 104 nuclear reactors in the U.S. provide 19 percent of the country's electricity. They create and store radioactive wastes.
The long-term plan is to embed that waste into a facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. McCain supports it. Obama opposes it.
Some environment group says other problems such as dangers of uranium mining to run the plants. They also point to the 1986 explosion at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant that studies say could be linked to thousands of deaths. And the 1979 partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, not officially linked to deaths or injuries. Some nuclear energy supporters say Chernobyl would never happen today and that Three Mile Island showed protective steps work. And some blame movies, like "The China Syndrome" for stoking unnecessary fears." UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God!
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEVS: Remember that one? There have not been major disasters from U.S. nuclear facilities in a decade since they've existed. But some environmental groups complain that the incidents of contamination they say are under investigated and they say these plants overall, guys, are just too dangerous. There you go. That's the battle.
KAYE: Thank you.
LEVS: Thanks a lot.
HOLMES: All right.
Up next, we will talk about, of course, a lot of our CNN heroes. We're going to introduce you to another one. This one helping America's farmers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: This is T.J.'s favorite story of the day. A confrontation caught on tape.
HOLMES: All right. This is that incident here, this is in Kansas City, Kansas. Yes, he goes in the trunk, he's hitting the truck with a bat. Now this might be road rage, or any other conclusion you come to here. But would you believe this is over what?
KAYE: Doughnuts.
HOLMES: It's over a doughnut. Actually a 50 cent pack of doughnuts. Customer tried to return that package of doughnuts, because he says they were stale. Like most 50 cent packages are fresh or something. The store owner says the customer was shouting actually at the clerk and that's when the guy went for the bat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KHALID CHEEMA, CONVENIENCE STORE OWNER: The guy's coming in, and props himself right in front of the door and shouting to the clerk, and then the problem was started.
LEN HILL, CUSTOMER: We were both talking about getting into a fight. You know? He was going to kick mine and I was going to kick his.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Kick my, kick your-whatever.
KAYE: We're not sure what.
HOLMES: But yes again, 50 cent package of doughnuts is what this was all about. The clerk now will be charged with criminal damage to property.
KAYE: As well he should, for his 50 cent pack of doughnuts.
HOLMES: Like we said, if they were Krispy Kreme's I could totally forgive him. Those are good doughnuts.
KAYE: NEWSROOM continues at the top of the hour with Fredricka Whitfield.
What do you have coming up?
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello.
KAYE: Hello.
WHITFIELD: Fifty cents to you for doughnuts, invaluable to him.
KAYE: Obviously.
HOLMES: Little Debbie's.
WHITFIELD: (INAUDIBLE) over some doughnuts.
KAYE: You'd go to return doughnuts that were 50 cents?
WHITFIELD: Oh, well, it happens. Strange things out there.
You guys look well this Saturday.
KAYE: You too.
WHITFIELD: We have a lot straight ahead. Of course we heard John McCain speaking to Latino Leaders conference in Washington, D.C. last hour. Well Barack Obama will be doing the same thing in the noon hour. We'll take you there and monitor his comments as well.
And then this week, the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing residents of D.C. to bear arms. Unlike most places. Our legal guys will be delving into that case to find out if there will be some ripple effects.
And later on, looking straight ahead to the 3:00 hour today, you do want to tune in, because the National Geographic is going to profiling a region in Africa, the Congo, where guerrillas and people are not co-habitating. Gorillas are being killed by large number. They are a national treasure, we'll be talking to one of the producers of National Geographic special, to talk about why this is so important and why now the government or many leaders in the Congo are trying really hard to preserve this national treasure, these gorillas.
KAYE: Yes, it's really sad what's happened to them.
WHITFIELD: Very brilliant, intelligent animals. I guess some folks make the presumption that they are immediately very dangerous, but they're brilliant and they become very familiar with the people there, and have almost been like family members. And so for them to learn that now human beings are killing them, it's kind of astounding for a lot of folks in the Congo.
HOLMES: We look forward to that, that's in the 3:00 hour.
WHITFIELD: Yes.
HOLMES: You have a lot coming up at noon as well.
WHITFIELD: Just here to confuse you. You wanted me to talk news. You wanted me to take it beyond.
HOLMES: No. We appreciate that.
WHITFIELD: I want you hanging all day.
HOLMES: We're just waiting to see if you had a doughnut story for us.
WHITFIELD: We're saving that for 4:00.
HOLMES: Right. All right. Fredricka, we will see you shortly. Thank you.
KAYE: About 200,000 farms in the U.S. go out of business each year and for family farmers and injury or natural disaster like the devastating floods along the Mississippi can wipe out their livelihood.
HOLMES: The lucky ones will get to meet this week's CNN hero. His name is Bill Gross and he comes to the rescue when tragedy strikes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My dad bought this land in 1947. I've been here all my life. It's home. It's where we belong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's our roots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People don't realize how tough it is until you lose everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anything on the path of the tornado, you name it, it was gone. We didn't have no insurance.
BILL GROSS, CNN HERO: The family farmer is endangered. So when a major injury, illness or natural disaster occurs, its devastating to them.
I'm Bill Gross and I help family farmers in crisis.
Ready to go.
The farm rescue is operated all by volunteers and we're very proud of that. The volunteers are eager to come in and by the time we leave we have their crop planted or harvested. I was raised on a family farm in North Dakota. And now a airline pilot for U.P.S. However, my heart never left the farming community. I firmly believe that if you're going to help people, you should do something that you know how to do and so I started farm rescue to help the farmers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a situation like we're in, there's no way we'd be able to survive on our own.
GROSS: They seed 200 acres of wheat and about 530 acres of soybeans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got a place that we can call home again. A new beginning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure is.
GROSS: Yes. Farm rescue didn't come in and plant these farms, then they would not be able to maintain their livelihood and families are very, very thankful and we become lifelong friends.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: It was a CNN viewer just like you who told us about Bill Gross. In fact, this year all of our CNN heroes are extraordinary people you've nominated on our Web site. So go to CNN.com/heroes right now if you know someone who deserves to be a CNN hero. Tell us all about him or her. You never know you could see your hero right here on CNN.
HOLMES: OK. More video. Just when -- dancing on Israeli television.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Well, no question, you've probably seen those ads trying to scare you about the coming of the digital TV.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: Those are mild compared to how HDTV is being advertised in Israel.
CNN's Atika Shubert reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Irreverent, blasphemous or just plain funny. It depends on who you ask. Israel's "Yes" cable television thought this was the perfect way to promote its new high definition service. Orthodox Jews dancing in protest over the highly detailed resolution on HDTV.
But the ad was no laughing matter for Israel's religious community, they threatened to boycott, yes, unless the commercial was pulled. One orthodox journalist wrote a scathing complaint to Israel's communication board calling the ad anti-Semitic. Yet said its intention was not to offend anyone. It pulled the commercial, though, and decided to take a different tack.
Dancing Islamic mullahs in Iran. This group, a protest against plans to hit Israel with a nuclear bomb. With Israel wiped off the map, they think, who will they watch their must-see, yes, TV. Yes executives say surveys show both ads are controversial but extremely popular.
RON EILON, DIRECTOR, "YES CABLE TV": The volume of the controversy surprised us, yes. I will try to be bold, we try to be funny. A little bit going on the edge and it worked.
SHUBERT: Atika Shubert, CNN, Jjerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Well, there you have it. We will turn to one of our dancing anchors here at CNN.
KAYE: Not me.
WHITFIELD: I'm not ready to dance now.
KAYE: Are you ready? Are you feeling it?
WHITFIELD: I'm feeling it. I like the music.
HOLMES: Go right ahead, Fredricka. We're only a step away.
WHITFIELD: No, that's OK! Maybe I will do it in a break. I'm shy.
HOLMES: OK, we'll see you Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, you all have a great day.
