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American Morning
Obama Talks to the Muslim World; Obama to Meet With Republicans to Push Economic Stimulus Plan; Jobs Markets Blood Bath; New Zealand Man Discovers Top Secret Military Files in MP3 Player; What Americans Expect from Barack Obama
Aired January 27, 2009 - ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN HOST: Meanwhile, we're coming up to the top of the hour. Breaking news this morning, economic crisis talks on Capitol Hill. President Obama asking Republicans to support his $825 billion stimulus plan. The GOP still has enough power to kill it with a filibuster at least on the Senate side. Many Republicans are against the bill saying it's too costly. There are not enough tax cuts and that parts of it will not provide a quick spark that the economy needs.
Also, breaking overnight in Mideast, cease fire shattered. An Israeli and Palestinian reportedly killed in the first attacks since last week's truce. The Israeli military says that a bomb went off near the border with Gaza. Al Arabiya TV reported that the blast killed one Israeli soldier. Local medics say Israeli choppers have been firing a short time later killing a Palestinian man.
Well, Congress is close to delaying the digital TV deadline giving people four more months to get rid of the rabbit ears or get a converter box. The House could vote on a bill today after the Senate approved it last night. It extends the deadline from February 17th to June 12th. The administration asked for the delay when the feds ran out of cash to subsidize coupons for the digital upgrade.
Well, eight days into the new administration, President Obama reaching out to the Muslim world. He gave his first televised interview with precedent (ph) to an Arab TV station talking about his hopes for peace and mutual respect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the world being in the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The largest one.
OBAMA: The largest one, Indonesia. And so what I want to communicate is the fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I've come to understand is that regardless of your faith, and America is a country of Muslim, Jews, Christian, nonbelievers, regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams. And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives.
My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task but ultimately people are going to judge me not by my words but by my actions and my administration's actions.
And I think that what you will see over the next several years is that I'm not going to agree with everything that some Muslim leader may say or what's on a television station in the Arab world, but I think that what you'll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and the lack of opportunity. I want to make sure that I'm speaking to them, as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, here to weigh in on what this means for the Muslim world in the war on terror, as well as the United States, I'm joined by White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux and CNN's Jill Dougherty live in Washington.
Now, Suzanne, so we're in day eight of Obama's administration and he's out there. He gave his first interview to, you know, a Muslim TV station as we said, or an Arab television station, I should say. Even though the economy is issue number one here at home, is he trying to send a signal, and, if so, what signal.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He's certainly trying to send a signal here that there's a window of opportunity to reach out to the Muslim world and the Arab world and that Middle East peace is possible.
Kiran, I want to point out one thing in this interview that really struck me is when he said I have Muslim members of my family. I grew up and spent some time. I lived in a Muslim country.
Now, the candidate Barack Obama, you know, he didn't hide it, but he certainly didn't highlight that fact that he had Muslim members of his family. He spent much of his time downplaying or basically disagreeing with people because there was a false rumor that he was, in fact, a Muslim. He was saying, no, I'm a Christian. I'm not a Muslim. But I think you're not only getting a signal, a message to the Arab world, it is to Americans, it's to Americans who felt uncomfortable perhaps concerned that there was any connection that Barack Obama had to Islam, that that was a problem.
I think he's saying to Americans, to everybody, that, look, this is not something to be concerned about. It's not something to disparage just because he has a connection. There is an association with Islam that is within his own family. CHETRY: You know, it is interesting, and I want to come back to that but first I want to talk to Jill about this. Let's listen quickly to Barack Obama speaking about getting tough when it comes to Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Iran has acted in ways that's not conducive to peace and prosperity of the region. Their threats against Israel, their pursuit of a nuclear weapon which could potentially set off an arms race in the region that would make everybody less safe. Their support of terrorist organizations in the past. None of these things have been helpful.
But I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress. And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach and as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fists, they will find an extended hand from us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: And so, Jill, do you have any -- is what he's saying giving any indication of where that general framework is going to take us as a nation as we prepare to deal with Iran?
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: They're not saying specifically at this point, Kiran, exactly how they would do this, who would talk with whom, but the principal is clear and it's a very big break from the Bush administration that they will talk in some fashion. And I think what will be interesting about this is if you go back to the campaign, Hillary Clinton was saying Barack Obama is naive to talk to the enemy as it was referred to. Now she's the secretary of state and she is the person who will be charged with supervising a lot of this diplomacy.
They are making it clear that diplomacy is back. They want to get out there. George Mitchell as we know right now is in Egypt, the first part of his eight-day trip. And so it will be fascinating to watch how they go about talking to Iran.
CHETRY: Yes, it certainly will. All right. Jill Dougherty for us as well as Suzanne Malveaux, thanks.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: The president is heading to Capitol Hill today with your money and your job on his mind. That follows more than 71,000 announced job cuts yesterday. Analysts are now saying that we could see double digit unemployment figures by the end of this year, which would likely lead to more foreclosures and bankruptcies.
Christine Romans is "Minding Your Business" this morning. She's got a whole lot more on this. Yesterday was such a blood bath.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It really was. It really was. And you look at that wall with all of those different industries, it's from every corner of the economy really, company after company, industry after industry, cutting jobs. Even the president of the United States ticking off the layoff announcements.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Microsoft, Intel, United Airlines, Home Depot, Sprint/Nextel, and Caterpillar are each cutting thousands of jobs.
ROMANS: It's raining job cuts. Economists say don't expect the deluge to stop anytime soon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The year will undoubtedly start on just as poor of a note as the last year ended.
ROMANS: And it ended very poorly. Companies are reporting their fourth quarter numbers and with it, looking into their crystal balls for this year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you actually had a firm idea of how bad things could be, you could probably then just calculate exactly how many jobs need to be cut and just call it a day. I think right now, the problem is that no one really knows how much worse it's going to get.
ROMANS: Meantime, companies must show their shareholders they're doing something to weather the storm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As companies report these earnings, poorer than expected, they're almost pushed in to the position of having to take actions like layoffs to show the markets that they're trying to control their costs or bring their costs down.
ROMANS: Translation, those costs are your jobs.
I think they're trying to save themselves, save their company, but it's just tragic that the individuals have to lose their jobs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's a very difficult situation because something needs to happen.
ROMANS: So what to do if you've lost your job?
It's so important to get a fast start, be into the job market, be open to changing industries, to moving to a new location, taking a part- time job, maybe that will turn into a full-time once they see how you work.
ROMANS: And if you have your job but know layoffs are coming to your company --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take on roles that nobody else can do so that if they have to lay you off, they know there's going to be a big gap. Work long hours early and late, make them see that you're just indispensable.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ROMANS: Indispensable. We all have to be indispensable. You know, there are some companies that are holding off as long as they can, cutting the 401(k) matches first, we've seen that. Freezing executive pay, giving unpaid vacations. A lot of companies are doing this.
A lot of folks also asking their employees to take pay cuts. And over the next few weeks, we're going to no doubt see more job cuts. You know, the American Express earnings after the bell yesterday, very interesting. They showed their big severance cost that they had to pay because they laid off 7,000 people in the process of laying 7,000 people.
Also, they noted that so many of their loans are now going bad more than in the previous quarter. And they also pointed out that consumers are spending less on their credit cards.
ROBERTS: Yes.
ROMANS: You know, people losing a job, you know, they're having trouble paying their mortgage and they're also spending less on their credit card. So these quarterly reports are just really opening up a window into what's happening here.
ROBERTS: Everybody is watching the pennies.
ROMANS: Sure.
ROBERTS: Christine, thanks for that.
Well, it may seem like there's nowhere else to turn, but believe or not, there are jobs out there. Some fields need plenty of good people. Our Gerri Willis is going to show you where the jobs are coming up in the next hour of the most news in the morning.
The bailouts, the handouts and the stimulus packages line by line, item by item, Lou Dobbs is separating the pork from the important parts of our economic recovery packages in a new series called "Lou's Line Item Veto." It's a can't miss for your money. That's on "LOU DOBBS" tonight, 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
CHETRY: All right. We want to show you some amazing live pictures that are coming to us right now from Hong Kong as the festivities for the Chinese New Year continue.
You know, the Chinese New Year really is the equivalent of Christmas in terms of the size of its observance. The festival that last for 15 days. They were seeing some amazing fireworks displays right now over the harbor there. Just absolutely gorgeous.
This year, by the way, is the Year of the Ox. The Year of the Ox is very interesting because some of the qualities that are attributed to a person more than in the Year of the Ox include modesty, a strong work ethic, and patient. And traditionally, of course, there's 12 different animals in the Chinese New Years.
Every 12 years, the Year of the Ox, there have been economic difficulties. Back in 1973, there were the oil crisis, the long gas lines, a bad year for the stock market.
Back in 1997, that was also the Year of the Ox. It was the year that Asian markets took quite a dive. But they say that Chinese look at the Year of the Ox in a positive way because of the message it sends that if you persevere and if you work hard, that prosperity will still come your way.
Interestingly enough, our own president, Barack Obama, was born in the Year of the Ox, as well, and he's certainly going to need some patience. And the American public, we're going to need our patience as well as we try to get through some unprecedentedly rough economic times.
ROBERTS: Lovely display over there.
CHETRY: Beautiful. Beautiful fireworks.
All right. Well, that's a little sampling of the fireworks for the Chinese new year over the harbor in Hong Kong there.
Still ahead, secrets sold for a song. Confidential American military information found on an MP3 player that was for sale in a thrift shop then taken halfway around the world.
Also, a new language on terror for a new administration. President Obama grants his first formal interview to an Arab media outlet. Wait until you hear what he had to say.
It's 12 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Another look there at the fireworks over Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong ringing in the Chinese New Year. It's the Year of the Ox and this is live. Let's listen for a second here.
No? It's all over. Well, there you go.
Somebody is feeling pretty good over there. Lots of celebration for the Chinese New Year.
Day eight and counting for the Obama administration. The economy is still job number one. The president heads to Capitol Hill at 12:15 today. He's going to be meeting with House and Senate Republicans to garner support for the economic stimulus plan.
And hopefully at 3:45 this afternoon, we're going to get an update on President Obama's meetings with lawmakers when Press Secretary Robert Gibbs holds his daily White House briefing.
CHETRY: Well, still ahead -- well, right now, actually President Obama sat down last night with a member of the Arab media for his first formal interview since taking office, a significant change in tactic and language for the United States and possibly a sign of what's to come in the Obama administration foreign policy.
The president told Al-Arabiya Television that his job is to communicate to the Muslim world that Americans are not the enemy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Bush famed the war on terror conceptually in a way that was very broad war on terror. And he used sometimes certain terminology that alienated many people Islam fascism (ph).
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've always framed it in a different way, specifically against one group called al-Qaeda and their collaborators.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And is this one way of --
OBAMA: I think that you're making a very important point. And that is that the language we use matters. And what we need to understand is that there are extremist organizations, whether Muslim or any other faith in the past, that will use faith as a justification for violence.
We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name. And so you will, I think, see our administration be very clear in distinguishing between organizations like al-Qaeda that espouse violence, espouse terror and act on it, and people who may disagree with my administration and certain actions or may have a particular viewpoint in terms of how their countries should develop.
We can have legitimate disagreements, but still be respectful. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down. But to the broader Muslim world, what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Barack Obama speaking with Al-Arabiya Television yesterday.
MP3 confidential, the hits just keep on coming for a man who bought a secondhand MP3 player and got a bonus track of American military secrets on board.
And flashing a smile and dropping names like Oprah and Gandhi, the Illinois governor's bizarre media blitz that ended right here on CNN. We'll have the highlights for you.
Seventeen minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Twenty minutes now after the hour.
American military secrets discovered on an MP3 player and sold at a bargain basement price. That confidential information isn't even in the United States anymore. Our John Zarrella (ph) has got the mystery for us.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Kiran, this is a story that will have many people, especially American soldiers asking how in the world did that happen. A New Zealand man buys a used MP3 player in Oklahoma and discovers that the little device is holding confidential U.S. military files.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: Chris Ogle (ph) says he bought this MP3 player a year ago at a thrift store in Oklahoma City, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago back home in New Zealand that he tried downloading a song from it and that's when about 60 military files, some he says labeled top secret, popped up on the screen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The more I look the more I see, and from this I think I should --
LAVANDERA: Ogle (ph) says the files included home addresses, Social Security and cell phone numbers of U.S. soldiers. It also included what appeared to be mission briefings and lists of equipment deployed to hot spots. All the information dating back to 2005.
The New Zealand journalist who first reported the story verified the authenticity of the files by calling one of the soldiers listed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello is this Zandro (ph)?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, speaking.
LAVANDERA: The reporter says once she explained why she was calling, the soldier hung up. Pentagon officials tells CNN they are aware of the MP3 player but can't talk about it until investigators confirm that the information came from the Department of Defense.
MARC ROTENBERG, INFORMATION SECURITY EXPERT: The government is not doing a very good job protecting the information that it collects.
LAVANDERA: Despite government efforts to protect sensitive information, privacy experts say this is a growing technological problem. Two years ago the Department of Veterans Affairs lost track of a laptop with personal information of millions of soldiers. And computer hard drives with classified military information were found for sale at street markets in Afghanistan.
ROTENBERG: When you can identify American military personnel when you have their names, their home addresses, their cell phone number, you actually put people in a very dangerous position.
LAVANDERA: Fortunately for the several hundred soldiers whose personal information is stored on this device, the secret data landed in friendly hands.
(END VIDEOTAPE) LAVANDERA: Chris Ogle(ph) tells us that he has put the MP3 player in a safe place and will happily turn it over to U.S. military officials if they ask for it -- John and Kiran.
ROBERTS: That's Ed Lavandera this morning, and I can imagine that he's going to get a call from somebody who probably in the next few hours to say I'd like to pick that up from you please.
CHETRY: Exactly. What a wild situation. And that's the thing, I mean, you can put so much information on these tiny little devices now.
ROBERTS: Not only do they hold music but they act as hard drive as well.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: And you know, when you got 20, 40 gigabytes in some of these, that's a lot of information.
CHETRY: It really is.
All right. Hope they got that squared away and straightened out and don't do that again.
Well, President Obama has a big job ahead of him of course, the hopes of a nation and a world and also his race. He'll pressure though. We'll talk about what African-Americans expect from the new president.
And Rush Limbaugh has said he hopes the new president fails. Well, now he thinks Obama is "frightened of him." We're going to find out why when the "Most News in the Morning" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Well, President Obama is facing great expectations as he works to implement an extensive domestic and international agenda, but what do African-Americans expect from him as the nation's first black president?
For more, I'm joined by Gwen Ifill of PBS, and she's the author of "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama. Great to see this morning.
GWEN IFILL, MODERATOR & MANAGING EDITOR, WASHINGTON WEEK: Good morning, Kiran.
CHETRY: You know, even his own daughter as they were standing, as he was prepping for his inaugural speech and they were standing at the steps of Lincoln Memorial said, first African-American president, better be good.
It seems that there are, though, a lot more expectations on his shoulders, not only to fulfill a first term president, but also because of his race. IFILL: You know he's part of a generation of African-American politicians who have decided that other people knocked you on the door, as other people protested and sat at lunch counters. But now we're going to pick up where they left of and try to actually implement the things they fought for. They understand that the African-American makes them stand out, but they also understand they have responsibilities and they have goals and they have aspirations. And so Barack Obama is kind of the leading edge of that crowd.
CHETRY: It's interesting. There are people who say because I'm a woman or because I'm a minority, I have to work twice as hard. There's, you know --
IFILL: But it's true.
CHETRY: People expect -- people expect me to fail and so I have to prove it doubly. And so as he confronts these enormous, enormous tasks at hand like what's going on right now with our economic crisis, how does he balance that with the expectation put on him?
IFILL: You know, I've been watching the president spend a lot of time in the last several weeks tamping down expectations. I'm not going to fix everything right away. And so far the polls seem to indicate that people get that. That they're not saying we expect you to fix it all with a magic wand, and that they're not necessarily holding his race for or against him. They just want him to fix things. And so I think that's the way he approaches it. That's the way all this other breakthrough candidates approach it too.
CHETRY: And, of course, as a the first family, it's a picture of American life we haven't seen before in the White House as well. An enormous interest in Michelle Obama and also as the first African- American first lady and a descendant of slaves. She confronts an extra burden and there are people who even Valerie Jarrett, within his own administration acknowledged that yes, she does carry a heavier burden because of her role.
IFILL: But you know, so did Hillary Clinton. When she first took over, people said wait a second, she was an accomplished lawyer, what is this policy thing she's doing and they grave her grief. There's always going to be burden. The question is whether this generation as opposed to the generation that was trying to pass laws is trying to focus on the burden or focus on the opportunity. You hear them focusing on the opportunity.
CHETRY: You know, it's hard to believe that 2008 election season is over because of just how long it was. You, of course, famously moderated one of the big debates that took place, the vice presidential debate. And of course your book at the time became the center of controversy.
Some in the McCain camp said, wait a minute, if Barack Obama wins and her book is about Barack Obama, does she have a financial interest here? How did you -- what do you say to critics who question whether or not you can be impartial at that debate? IFILL: I say the best possible thing that an author can say which is read the book. The book itself is not about Barack Obama. It's about this generation of break-through politicians of which he is one.
There is one chapter on Barack Obama which I had not even written prior to the debate. There's a conclusion at the end which I had not written prior to the debate because as a journalist, how do you conclude what you don't know. So there were critics out there. They were looking to distract. They were looking maybe to get inside my head a little bit, but it didn't work. And I think now if they read the book, they'll see that it's not what they thought it was.
CHETRY: Hey, if tumbling down the stairs right before the debate didn't get inside your head that was a point, too, right?
IFILL: Exactly.
CHETRY: Well, I'm glad you recovering and the book is great, "The Breakthrough." And you know, we didn't get a chance to get to it, but there is a very interesting chapter about how the old guard sort of views, you know, as you said, up and coming African-American leaders and it's a very interesting read.
Gwen Ifill, great to have you with us.
IFILL: Thank you, Kiran.
CHETRY: Thanks.
ROBERTS: With his impeachment trial under way, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is appealing to the court of public opinion, popping up in front of camera after camera, microphone after microphone, saying the fix is in. It all made for an interesting day of television. Alina Cho joins us now wit the highlights.
Good morning to you.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. He was kind of everywhere yesterday, wasn't he, John? Good morning. Good morning, everybody.
You know --
ROBERTS: He was saying all kinds of things.
CHO: Yes, he was saying all kinds of things. You know, Larry King, we should mention, was his first live prime time interview. Governor Blagojevich, of course, is facing federal charges for allegedly trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat. But just as the Illinois state Senate began his impeachment trial Monday, he hit the talk show circuit maintaining he did nothing wrong and should be presumed innocent. Now, Blagojevich may be on the verge of getting kicked out of office, but he is not giving up.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) GOV. ROD BLAGOJEVICH (D), ILLINOIS: If I would have somehow under all the pressure say I can't take it and give up and just quit, then what will that say to my two daughters?
CHO: But why boycott his own impeachment trial? Because Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich says he can't call any witnesses. And those infamous tapes that allegedly incriminate him, Blagojevich says we've only heard part of the story.
BLAGOJEVICH: Snippets of conversation taken out of full context is unfair and if the full context of all the tapes are heard, you'll hear a story of someone who is trying to make decisions and trying to maneuver for the best interests of the people of Illinois.
LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Why don't you go to Springfield and say what you just said now to them tomorrow. They would give you a voice.
BLAGOJEVICH: Because I'd like them to give me a chance, to be able -
KING: You don't think they would?
BLAGOJEVICH: Well, I don't think - well, I know they won't allow me to bring witnesses.
CHO: Blagojevich says the federal government as well as the Illinois House and Senate are all out to get him.
BLAGOJEVICH: I'm not comparing myself to Dr. King or Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi but I try to reach into history and imagine some inspiring figures that may have gone through something like what I was going through.
CHO: It was a wide ranging interview in which Blagojevich reiterated that Oprah Winfrey was once on his list of possible Senate picks.
KING: Was she is seriously on the list?
BLAGOJEVICH: An idea came to me from a friend who suggested Oprah. That wasn't my idea.
CHO: And that was news to the queen of talk who says she was never notified and has no interest. As for Blagojevich, he faces possible prison time, the loss of his job, and he's been the butt of thousands of jokes for nearly two months. Last night, he got to see what much of the country's been laughing at.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that really your hair or did you grow out your eyebrows and comb them up?
AMY POEHLER, "SNL": Really. It's like someone put the hair on backwards in one of those Fisher Price people. Really. The first time I saw you, I thought you were walking away.
BLAGOJEVICH: Which show was that?
KING: That was I think "Saturday Night Live." (END VIDEOTAPE)
CHO: Come on, of course it was "Saturday Night Live." Blagojevich obviously not a "Saturday Night Live" fan. Of course it is an uphill battle for the Illinois governor to say the least, given the fact that he won't even show up to defend himself at his own impeachment trial. It is expected to an short one and the Illinois State Senate could vote Blagojevich out of office, John, in a matter of days. What I found interesting, though, about his interview, especially with Larry King last night is that he said, listen those infamous tapes that we've been reading all about, all the excerpts, he says release all of them.
When you take the snippets, they were taken out of context. When you see the whole tapes or hear the whole tapes, you're going to see that I am innocent and innocent of all criminal wrong doing. And he says, listen, I need to be presumed innocent. This is the way our judicial system works.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: You know, so far he has managed to prevail. And while it seems like a sure thing that he'll be thrown out of office -
CHO: Some people have said he's the cat with nine lives. Yes.
ROBERTS: Maybe the final chapter has not been written.
CHO: It is interesting to say the least, right, John?
ROBERTS: Yes, it is. Alina, thank you so much.
CHO: You bet.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And again, yes, breaking news, unfortunately not the kind we like to tell. Job cuts this morning, Christine Romans is tracking the story for us. Anything that you tell us will be on top of the 71,000 from yesterday.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And this is Corning announcing its results for the quarter and for the year and saying that it is undergoing a restructuring. That's what you're going to hear from a lot of these companies, folks. You're going to hear them tell their shareholders, they are restructuring and that usually means job cuts often in this kind of environment. It means job cuts, corning cutting 3,500 jobs. Also in the process it said of letting go of about 1,400 temporary workers.
Sales for the company were down 30 percent. So when you see sales drop 30 percent that's something that definitely gets the attention in the executive suite. It means they have to make tough choices. This is a company that's a specialty glass maker, of course, also a technology company. It has really made itself into a technology company. So 3500 job losses at Corning. We've sort of heard over and over and over again, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, and then yesterday we started to hear 7,000, 8,000. Companies giving very big what we call mass layoffs. So we'll keep watching these quarterly earnings reports and see what companies have to say, but I'm afraid this is sort of a tone we can expect for at least the next couple of weeks as companies get out there after last year and say what they have to do for this year.
CHETRY: All right. Hopefully it's the last we'll hear of about this morning, but unfortunately probably thought.
ROMANS: Right.
CHETRY: Christine Romans, thanks so much.
Well, still ahead, President Obama told GOP lawmakers that they can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done. Well, the radio host then fired back saying the president is scared of him.
And what being an athlete in a contact sport can actually do to your brain? Our resident brain surgeon, Dr. Sanjay Gupta will show us the damage that can occur. It's 35 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: A war of words between President Barack Obama and conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh heating up. First Limbaugh told his audience that he hopes the president fails, now he's saying the president is frightened of him. Carol Costello joins us now from Washington. So why does Rush Limbaugh think that President Obama is scared of him?
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Kiran, I thought we were going to put aside childish things, but, no, where is the love in Rush Limbaugh land. Well, love doesn't really sell a radio show and Rush Limbaugh knows it. Now it has become a political soap opera. Limbaugh said he wants the president to fail. The president told republicans not to listen to Rush Limbaugh. Now the third installment.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
VOICE OF RUSH LIMBAUGH, CONSERVATIVE TALK SHOW HOST: He's obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He is more frightened of me than he is of, say, John Boehner. Which doesn't say much about our party.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
COSTELLO: At least he's dissing everyone, right? Democrats and republicans. But there is more. Limbaugh has come up with his own stimulus plan. He said, are you ready, President Obama wants him to fail.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE) LIMBAUGH: I think Obama wants me to fail. There's no question. Obama didn't use the words, but President Obama, by telling you and the elected republicans in Washington to not listen to me because I am not how things get done in Washington, he has said that he wants me to fail.
(END AUDIOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And now you know, Kiran, what Rush Limbaugh is hoping for. He is hoping for president Obama to come back with another verbal jab so he can keep it going.
CHETRY: Yes, it's interesting because, you know, he was vigorously defending the fact that he said he wants him to fail in terms of big government, in terms of the stimulus passing. And he said, look, I'm a conservative, I have a right to say that. I don't want big government.
COSTELLO: He does, but this is supposed to be a time of unity and Americans working with one another and I think President Obama was telling republicans look you can't listen to this partisan banter and expect to get anything done in the halls of Congress. That's what President Obama meant. Of course Rush Limbaugh is using it to fodder for his program as he has every right to do because, you're right, it's a free country and he has every right to his conservative view points.
CHETRY: And it's funnily because perhaps Obama said it best when he was talking about, when it comes to getting republicans support in the end. I won. That's what he said.
COSTELLO: Pretty clear.
CHETRY: All right. Carol, good to see you this morning. Thanks.
ROBERTS: Barack Obama's big promise on universal health care, find out why at least one leading democrat says the president will probably have to put that idea on hold.
And billions of dollars for bailouts and the stimulus plan. Congressman Ron Paul joins us live. Find out why he thinks this whole thing is a big disaster for the U.S. economy. It's 40 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the most politics in the morning. Health care reform. It was one of the president's big campaign promises and soaring insurance costs continue to drain American families as thousands more line up for unemployment each and every week. But now one top democrat is saying don't count on health care reform, at least not anytime soon. House Majority Whip James Clyburn is on Capitol Hill this morning, he's joining us.
Congressman, it's good to see you this morning.
REP. JAMES CLYBURN, HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: Thank you so much.
ROBERTS: You're suggesting that we were not going to see major health care reform in the next year. This was a center piece of Barack Obama's campaign. Why aren't we going to see it?
CLYBURN: Well, Barack Obama, as a candidate, laid out health care reform at one point as being the big issue of the campaign. That was about a year before last November elections. And then about six months later, it became energy. Everybody was talking about gasoline prices.
By the time we got around to election day, the big thing was getting people back to work. So I think the primary in his thoughts has got to be getting Americans back to work. We just heard of what 55,000 additional layoffs and still more to come. I think that's the first priority.
Now, if you couple that with things that we're already doing, we passed the stage of insurance program and we are pretty much on point at least in the House to do something about the community health centers. I think that we ought to really do this thing incrementally, but first get people back to work.
ROBERTS: Well, when you talked about doing it incrementally, what are you talking about? Because the goal of Barack Obama as a candidate was to provide universal health coverage for everyone in America. Though some say his plan fell short of that, but he wasn't talking about incrementally tinkering around the edges.
CLYBURN: Well, we aren't tinkering around the edges. If you cover 11 million children that's a four million increase in what we call S- CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program. And if you quadruple as we are proposing Bernie Sanders and myself, that we do with community health centers that's not tinkering around the edges.
Community health centers have been around for 40 years. They're very accepted. They are the kinds of programs that would get people out of emergency rooms and into health care in their communities. That's a big, big part of this. Now we're going to (inaudible). We're going to expand Medicaid, all in this comprehensive program. So what I'm saying is you can reach universal access to health care without having to have one big mammoth program bitten off this year.
Though this does put you at odds somewhat with the Senate, particularly Senator Ted Kennedy for whom this is an issue of great importance to him. He said, "I expected to lead a very full agenda in the 111th congress including working with President Obama to guarantee affordable health care, at long last for every American. This an opportunity of the lifetime. And I intend to make the most of it." The opportunity of a lifetime, might it be an opportunity squandered?
CLYBURN: No, no, no. I agree with Senator Kennedy. All we're talking about here is the approach to get there. I think that to get there over a 12 to 24 month period is a way to go especially when we've got the now something between $125 billion and $900 billion recovery package. That's not a whole lot about health care. So none of this was on the agenda when Senator Kennedy first laid out -
ROBERTS: Right.
CLYBURN: ... his approach, but I agree with him, that's where we need to get. But the question is do we get there tomorrow or do we get there a few days later.
ROBERTS: Congressman, why didn't you speak out about this earlier? It strikes me that if you had talked about this in the waning days of the campaign to say, hey, nice plan on health care, candidate Obama, but we don't think we can get it done, I think that would have really sparked quite a vigorous debate.
CLYBURN: Well, you know, John, nobody was listening to me back in the campaign. I have been talking about this. Community health care center, I've been there. We celebrated the 40th anniversary of community health centers year before last. I expressed this at that point. I have always believed that the way to get the universal access to health care is to use community health centers as a foundation.
If you go back to 1994 when we were doing this, I was working with Congressman Roland from Georgia, trying to get this to be the foundation on this we do this back in 1994.
ROBERTS: Right.
CLYBURN: So I'm not late to this, it's just that you guys have just begun to listen to a little bit of what I say.
ROBERTS: Well, don't forget we did listen to you very closely last January when you told Bill Clinton to just chill a little bits. Congressman, it's always good to see you. Thanks for coming by this morning.
CLYBURN: Thank you so much for having me.
ROBERTS: All right. We'll see you again soon.
CHETRY: Well, President Obama has some arm twisting today to get some republicans to support his economic stimulus package. We're going to talk to Congressman Ron Paul. Find out why he thinks the entire plan is a terrible mistake for the country.
Plus, Clinton and Bush teaming up again. The two former presidents look back at their time in the White House and admit their greatest regrets to America. We have the tape and it also includes a butting joke about a protestor. It's 48 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Oh, baby, baby! A woman gave birth to octuplets, six boys and two girls in a southern California hospital. Doctors say it is just the second time in history that eight babies have survived more than a few hours. They scheduled a C-section for seven babies and then they got a surprise, a bonus eighth was hiding in there tucked away.
Mom says they plans to breastfeed all of them. She says that now, of course. Who knows. But, my goodness. You know, they seem to be doing quite well. Two of them are on ventilators and one requires oxygen but you know, considering how premature they were and how small they were, one pound, eight ounces to three fourth. They're doing pretty well.
CHETRY: I just can't imagine carrying eight babies. No matter how little they are and she was on bed rest I guess for seven weeks, right? To try to hold her up as long as possible.
ROBERTS: Yes, They said they put here in the hospital at week 23 and she's going to stay there for a while. And the babies will be in the hospital for another couple of months but indications are that maybe all of them will make it.
CHETRY: It's unbelievable. The doctors said you know we just kept going and then suddenly there was baby eight, which we didn't expect.
ROBERTS: And they all came out really quickly, too. Just like this. One after another, you know?
CHETRY: Exactly. Well, good luck to that family.
ROBERTS: One short of a starting lineup but you know, there you go.
CHETRY: I can only imagine what life will be like.
We're 51 minutes after the hour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY (voice-over): Forget who is firing. AMERICAN MORNING tells you who is hiring. Gerri Willis with good news. Where to find a brand new high-paying job without going back to school.
Plus, he sounds hopeful.
PRES. BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES: The Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives.
But one congressman is a skeptic and he is about to tell you why. You're watching the most news in the morning.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: The very fact that this crisis is largely of our own making means that it is not beyond our ability to solve. Our problems are rooted in past mistakes, not our capacity for future greatness. It will take time. Perhaps many years. But we can rebuild that lost trust and confidence. We can restore opportunity and prosperity and I'm confident that Tim, along with Larry Summers and Peter Orzag and the rest of our economic team can help us get there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: President Obama now has to turn to his main man at the Treasury. Timothy Geithner has his work cut out for him. Certainly more than 70,000 job cuts yesterday alone. Today we are already talking about companies like Corning announcing layoffs. So what can the president do about the deepening recession.
Joining me now from Washington is republican congressman and former presidential candidate, Ron Paul. Good morning, Congressman. Great to talk to you this morning.
REP. RON PAUL, FMR. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 2008: Good morning.
CHETRY: You know some call libertarians call the first financial bailout, the patriot act of finance. Now we're looking at a stimulus package that is going to be bigger by all accounts. And a lot of economists seem to say that a massive spending package is needed to get the economy moving again. You're against it. Explain.
PAUL: Well, it's because it's the government that is spending. If the people were spending it, that would be fine, but government, they - the government never does anything productive. They have to take money from productive individuals and spend it in a nonproductive way. So it's just digging a bigger hole and a bigger debt and that is our problem. This stimulus package is going to cost each and every American $6,700 of more debt.
So how can that be beneficial? If debt was the answer, we would have never had our problem, because we've been doing, you know, a lot of deficit financing here in the past eight years and it got us into the trouble. So all this plan of more government stimulus and more inflation, it's absolutely the wrong way to go. We're doing exactly what we did in the 1930s. So we are taking a recession and working very hard at trying to turn it into a depression.
CHETRY: When we're talking about 7.2 percent unemployment on the national average and 10 percent in some states that have been hit hard, especially in the manufacturing sector, what is the answer then for so many people who are out of work?
PAUL: Well, there is no easy answer. And those who propose more government, I'm sure they are well motivated, but the answer is to get out of the way to allow the liquidation of debt and to allow prices to come down. You want to have prices of houses to come down. You don't want to stimulate housing building when we have over billed about a million in houses. So you want to allows the market to work. You want people to be able to save their money and liquidate all the mistakes that have been made. Governments make mistakes when they keep interest rate artificially low and they spend too much money and if you don't erase those mistakes you just get a bigger hole for -
CHETRY: I see your point. But you're basically telling people that you know what the majority of Americans sort of have to suck it up and realize we've been well beyond our means and go back to almost a 1960 standard of living. How is that really going to be a realistic pitch.
PAUL: Well, politically it isn't realistic and that's why you can expect more inflation, more spending and more deficit because taking the hard medicine is not acceptable. But the tragedy is to continue to do what we're doing isn't going to solve the problem. It won't create productive jobs. What it will do is make the problems worse and create a depression.
What we're worried about right now, at least I am, is that it's even worse in the '30s because we're on the verge of destroying the dollar. So if you think the financial crisis is bad and the financial system isn't working, wait until you find out when the dollar doesn't work and that is when the markets are telling us right now.
People are still hanging on to Treasury bills. But that's the last thing they're hanging on to and when they finally reject the dollar and go into assets of real value, you're going to see a calamity because it's going to be a lot worse than what we're having today.
CHETRY: I mean, this is something that you've been talking about for boy, since we've had you on the show. So more than a couple of years now. But you know a lot of people, you say the government needs to step out of the way. A lot of people say it was deregulation that got us into this mess in the first place and that's why things collapsed.
The hands-off approach didn't seem to work. I mean, not only with the types of loans that were given to people that couldn't pay them back, regulation and oversight in places like Fannie and Freddie and on and on. So why is the hands-off approach now going to make a difference?
PAUL: Because we never had any hands-off approach. That's a fallacy. As long as we believed that, we will never correct our problem. If you blame capitalism and free markets and sound money for this, then we can't win the intellectual fight. Because take Enron. When that failed, what did we do? Immediately, the conservative republicans passed Sarbannes-Oxley, more regulation, which chased a lot of businesses out of this country.
So we were doing all this piling on. But we were already over regulated. Now, if you want to get deregulated, if you want to regulate, regulate government agencies, regulate the Treasury, regulate the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has no oversight. They are not even permitted to be audited by law. So that is the kind of oversight that we leave. That's where they have free rein. The Federal Reserve has been committed trillions of dollars to individuals and corporations and banks that they don't even have to tell us where it's gone to. That's the kind of regulation we need.
Regulation of the market is very, very efficient. Companies that don't do well fail. And when prices have to come down, the consumer won't buy things until they are in the right prices. The best regulation is through the free market and to blame the free market for this calamity is an absolutely intellectual error that has to be changed. CHETRY: All right. Well, it's always refreshing to get your point of view. We spent so much time talking about the stimulus today, we didn't get a chance to talk and I will let people - direct people to your website because you also have a very interesting video that you released yesterday, addressing how you think Barack Obama should take on foreign policy. Very interesting as well.
Great to talk to you -- Congressman Ron Paul.
PAUL: Thank you.
