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American Morning
Killer Tornado Causes Severe Damage in Missouri; Fatigue May Have Played a Role in Buffalo Plane Crash; NASA Preps for Spacewalk to Fix Hubble Telescope; Craigslist Pulls Out Erotic Services Section; Colgan Air Crash Raises New Questions on Pilot Training
Aired May 14, 2009 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome once again to AMERICAN MORNING on this Thursday, May 14. It is 7:00 right on the nose here in New York.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. John Roberts together with Kiran Chetry. Here's what's on the agenda this morning, the big stories that we're breaking down for you here in the next 15 minutes.
The damage being described as unbelievable in one Missouri town where a killer tornado touched down last night. This went down as our Rob Marciano was chasing storms in Tornado Alley. He's going to join us live in less than a minute with all the news.
Sadness turning into anger and frustration in day three of hearings into that deadly plane crash outside of Buffalo, New York. Family members want to know why their loved ones were in the hands of a pilot who may not have gotten enough sleep or training. And the mission to fix the eye that sees through time. The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis takes the first of five risky spacewalks to repair the Hubble telescope. In about two hours time, we're going to have the pictures for you live from space.
But first, breaking news, three people killed, several injured, others trapped in their basements after a tornado ripped through homes in northern Missouri last night. IReporter and storm chaser Michael Ambrosia captured the giant funnel cloud on tape and almost became a part of it.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL AMBROSIA, CNN IREPORTER: It's very windy. Wow. It's coming across the road right here in front of me. OK. Actually, this is too close.
I feel the winds. Oh, my gosh. I've never been this close before. This is a fat one too. This is wide.
OK, see that wind right there? That's about 60 yards from me. This tornado is -- wow. OK, I got close. I got -- that's the closest I've ever been. We got to get out.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ROBERTS: Wow, quite an iReport. The severe weather targeting other areas today.
Our Rob Marciano live at the Severe Weather Headquarters in Norman, Oklahoma this morning.
Rob, you've been chasing tornadoes for the past three days. That guy almost got hit by one.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's where the most action was yesterday. That's where the most atmospheric energy was. That's where the Storm Prediction Center which is based right here thought the worst case scenario would pan out. And that gentleman certainly had his hands full.
More of that amazing video. He said he was driving his car. He's a hobbyist as a storm chaser, and this one a little bit too close. He just pulled over and let the thing go right over his car.
Amazing stuff there. As you mentioned, fatalities in Missouri near where this cell was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMBROSIA: This is a fat one too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIANO: Yes, I bet. He might not be that close again. Thirty to 40 homes damaged with that particular cell.
So maybe it stopped at Missouri. Also strong storms through Illinois. This video of damage shot in Ponca City, Oklahoma, near where we were in north central Oklahoma with a cell that touched down close to there.
And as you mentioned, we were chasing the last couple of days. Yesterday, we were chasing across parts of Oklahoma. We tracked down a couple of cells that actually later on in the evening developed into something a little bit more vigorous.
This still shot I took while we were chasing as the sun was setting. And then tornado warnings and sirens going off in Oklahoma City and Norman, Oklahoma last night as that cell developed and split and became a little bit more active.
The whole line now as seen on this radar is moving to the east and southeast fairly rapidly. Severe thunderstorm watches stretching from Ohio all the way back to Texas. And the strongest of these storms at last check across the ArkLaTex (ph) region and into street ports.
So a rough morning for those folks, John, as this has the potential of having damaging winds up to 70 miles an hour. Covering the Vortex2 (ph) mission here, we're headed home today but the mission itself researching tornadoes continues for the next five weeks. John, back over to you.
ROBERTS: Busy day for you this morning, Rob. Thanks very much.
CHETRY: Turning now to a developing story out of Washington, the second day of hearings over the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407. It left many family members anguished and in shock. We're learning now that the pilot and the co-pilot may have been suffering from fatigue and that may have played a role in the fiery crash that killed 50 people back in February.
Our Allan Chernoff is following the story for us this morning, and he has new details.
Hi, Allan.
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. And it appears to have happened on Flight 3407. The NTSB here revealed it could be happening quite frequently. Airline crews living far from their base of operations coming to work on little sleep.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHY JOHNSON, WIFE OF CRASH VICTIM: It is shocking.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): Kathy Johnson is furious her husband Kevin died on a plane whose crew may have been functioning on little sleep.
JOHNSON: I wonder how many other pilots, first officers do the same thing that we're not aware. So it is very shocking to all of us.
CHERNOFF: Colgan Air Captain Marvin Renslow had nearly a full day off before assuming command of Flight 3407. Yet the NTSB investigation found he slept in the Newark Airport crew lounge against Colgan Air regulations. The airline though appears to have been lax in enforcing the rule.
KITTY HIGGINS, NTSB BOARD MEMBER: The Colgan policy is that they're not to sleep in the crew room, but it turns out that they are sleeping in the crew room.
DANIEL MORGAN, COLGAN VP FLIGHT SAFETY: People can come in between their flights when they're on duty and take a nap.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is napping sleeping?
MORGAN: That's a definition I'm not -- probably not prepared to answer.
CHERNOFF: First Officer Rebecca Shaw had three days off before the flight, yet she commuted through the night from Seattle catching rides on connecting FedEx flights to get to Newark.
HARRY MITCHEL, COLGAN VP FLIGHT OPERATIONS: We hire professionals and those professionals we expect should show up fresh, ready to fly that aircraft.
MARTY AGIUS, BROTHER-IN-LAW OF CRASH VICTIM: You know, they're supposed to have their own accommodations but we can't follow up on that. And that's totally ridiculous.
CHERNOFF: Captain Renslow hid his background from Colgan by not revealing two pilot exam failures in his job application. And the crew violated another rule that requires cockpit conversation to be focused on the flight.
MARK ROSENKER, NTSB ACTING CHAIRMAN: I am concerned about the winking and nodding that I have seen in some of the policies of the company -- your company and crew members, and I don't believe it is only within your company.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHERNOFF: That winking and nodding by the airlines recognizing that the rules are not being followed to the "T" may be putting us in danger the next time that we step onboard a flight -- Kiran.
CHETRY: As you pointed out, they're allowed to live as far from base as they want to and then they have to sort of pay for their own accommodations. How realistic is that?
CHERNOFF: It's ridiculous, really. Because we know that the first officer was earning very little money. The airline has actually just corrected the number that they gave in the hearing. They said $16,000. She was earning actually close to $24,000. Still, not a lot of money.
She lived with her parents out in Seattle, commuted all the way from Seattle. The pilot came up from Florida.
I mean, maybe there should be a rule that people have to live closer to their base of operations, because these people don't make a lot of money. They don't really want to spend the money on a hotel before they start their flights.
CHETRY: Something to think about for sure.
All right, Allan, thank you.
CHETRY: Well, this case is bringing up a lot of questions about the training requirements as well for pilots. Our Jason Carroll is looking into that side of the story. He's going to be joining us with that story in about 20 minutes.
ROBERTS: President Obama delivering the commencement speech at Arizona State University last night. And before he gave the graduates some advice for the future, he joked about the fact that the university decided not to award him an honorary degree at the ceremony.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I really thought this was much ado about nothing. But I do think we all learned an important lesson.
I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. It won't happen again.
President Crow and the Board of Regents will soon learn about being audited by the IRS.
We need young people like you to step up. We need your daring. We need your enthusiasm. We need your energy. We need your imagination.
I know starting your careers in troubled times is a challenge, but it is also a privilege. Because it's moments like these that force us to try harder and dig deeper and to discover gifts we never knew we had. To find the greatness that lies within each of us.
So don't ever shy away from that endeavor. Don't stop adding to your body of work. I can promise that you will be the better for that continued effort as will this nation that we all love.
Congratulations class of 2009 on your graduation. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The president gave a great commencement address there yesterday, and making light of the dunderheaded move for them to not give him the honorary degree even though they renamed its largest scholarship program after the president.
CHETRY: There you go.
ROBERTS: So he gets an honor, right?
CHETRY: Exactly.
ROBERTS: But what were they thinking of? Just you got to question them, what were they thinking of?
CHETRY: All right. Well, also new this morning, Pope Benedict XVI celebrating an open-air mass in Nazareth to a crowd of 40,000. The pope urged Christians and Muslims to reject the destructive power of hatred and prejudice.
The bodies of five soldiers killed at a combat stress clinic in Iraq back on U.S. soil this morning. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was on hand for the somber homecoming at Dover Air Force Base. The families of three of the five victims allowed cameras to capture the formal military transfer.
Shuttle astronauts about to exit Atlantis. They're headed on a spacewalk, making repairs for the Hubble telescope, putting in a powerful new camera, replacing batteries and tightening screws. We're going to see what the shuttle astronauts told us exclusively about training for the mission of a lifetime.
It's 10 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Good morning, Baltimore, where it's cloudy and 60 degrees right now. Later on, partly cloudy going up to a high of 75. As long as the rain stays away, should be a fairly nice day there.
CHETRY: All right. Well, astronauts on the Shuttle Atlantis are prepping for the first of five spacewalks. They're trying to fix the Hubble Space Telescope this morning.
Here's a look at NASA's view of the shuttle orbiting 350 miles above Earth this morning. The crew is swapping out Hubble's 15-year- old camera with some new equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Our John Zarrella is monitoring it all for us, and he's here to break down their mission.
A very important one, pretty risky as well, huh?
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boy, there is no question about that, Kiran. As you mentioned, the first of five spacewalks. Each of those scheduled to last about six and a half hours.
John Grunsfeld, astronaut John Grunsfeld, along with Andrew Feustel will be the first two astronauts to work on the Hubble today.
Right now, the Hubble is in the shuttle's cargo bay. It got there yesterday after a successful capture.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA (voice-over): The Hubble telescope stood out, a shimmering lone sentinel against the blackness of space, the sun glistening off its solar panels. The first glimpse in seven years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From 200 feet, the Hubble Space Telescope, first time it's been seen since March, 2002.
ZARRELLA: From a camera mounted on the shuttle's robotic arm, Hubble up close. Ever so slowly at a speed of a tenth of a foot per second, Commander Scott Altman positioned shuttle Atlantis to within 35 feet of the telescope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And just about that coming into view, the forward shell of the telescope.
ZARRELLA: From here, astronaut Megan McArthur, using that robotic arm, moves in and snags it.
GREGORY JOHNSON, ATLANTIS PILOT: Houston Atlantis, Hubble has arrived onboard Atlantis with the arm. ZARRELLA: Then a series of precise moves. Hubble no longer facing the heavens but eyeballing the Earth below. Like a school bus- sized fish, McArthur reels it in to Atlantis' cargo bay.
Astronaut John Grunsfeld on his third repair mission likes what he sees.
JOHN GRUNSFELD, MISSION SPECIALIST: Amazingly, the exterior of Hubble, an old man of 19 years in space still looks in fantastic shape.
ZARRELLA: This was the first of what amounts to a six-act play.
GRUNSFELD: On the day when I'm there in the telescope, I'm sure I'm going to feel a little bit of pressure.
ZARRELLA: Thursday, John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel will be the first two-man team spacewalking for nearly seven hours in the shuttle's cargo bay, upgrading and repairing Hubble. In a swimming pool in Houston, they along with astronauts Mike Massimino and Michael Good have spent two years practicing for the five days of spacewalks.
GRUNSFELD: This is going to be running a marathon at a sprint pace.
ZARRELLA: The two teams will change batteries and gyroscopes, replace and repair cameras, cut through aluminum and in the weightlessness of space, handle hundreds of tiny screws.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: Now, the first order of business is to replace what's known as the wide field camera. And that's the camera that over the years has provided all of those unbelievably spectacular images from space, of new galaxies and old galaxies and stars. And they're replacing it with an upgraded version which will, astronomers say, allow them to see even deeper back in time into the universe.
And less than hour away now, Kiran, from the first of what are going to be some incredible five days of spacewalks -- Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Keep us posted. The pictures are just amazing as well.
John Zarrella, thanks so much.
ROBERTS: Well, one critic called it a blatant Internet brothel. Now, Craigslist is pulling its erotic services section. The site CEO explains the decision and the timing of it in an AMERICAN MORNING exclusive, just ahead.
Plus, did the pilots on Colgan Air Flight 3407 get enough training before the deadly crash? Hearings in Washington are raising some tough questions. We're looking for answers.
It's 17 a half minutes now after the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: After weeks of pressure from law enforcement officials, Craigslist is getting rid of its controversial erotic services section. Police say a medical student accused of murdering a masseuse found his victim on Craigslist. The company says the ads will now be manually reviewed by staff and placed in an adult services section.
Late yesterday, I sat down with Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster who just two weeks ago said there would be no change to the site. I asked him whether he felt pressured to change his mind?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM BUCKMASTER, CEO, CRAIGSLIST: We don't really view it as pressure. We're looking for constructive criticism and certainly we've been getting plenty of that.
ROBERTS: Constructive criticism, that sounds like a euphemism for what was actually going on. I mean, Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County, Chicago had taken you to court. That sounds like a little more than constructive criticism.
BUCKMASTER: Our job, as we view it, is to look for the constructive criticism in what people are saying. You know, criticism that can be useful and help us get better at what we do.
ROBERTS: Right. Now in announcing that you were shutting down the erotic services, in your statement, you blame the media for sensationalizing what was going on on Craigslist in the wake of the so-called Craigslist killer up there in Boston.
But isn't it true, Jim, that you knew that this site was being used for criminal enterprise and basically ignored it? Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said that Craigslist was like an on-line brothel.
BUCKMASTER: Not at all. In fact, we thought a disservice was done to viewers and readers when Craigslist was classified or characterized, mischaracterized as being especially dangerous. The incidence of violent crime connected with print classifieds is actually, believe it or not, 1,000 times greater. That's a thousand fold greater than the incidence of violent crime that we've seen in Craigslist classifieds thus far.
ROBERTS: But to the point of my question, Jim, isn't it true that you knew that people were using these erotic services for criminal enterprise and you basically turned a blind eye to it?
BUCKMASTER: No, that's absolutely not true. Ninety-five percent of the inappropriate activity on the site in this category was eliminated -- eliminated by the measures that we took last year.
ROBERTS: Instead of erotic services, you're now going to have a section of the Web site called adult services. You're going to be monitoring all of the ads that are posted. My question is, how will those monitors know which ads are legal and which aren't?
BUCKMASTER: Each ad is going to be read by a human and the image looked at by a human to verify that that ad is in full compliance, not only with the law but also with our terms of use and posting guidelines. Any ad that falls short of those criteria is not going to be posted to the site.
ROBERTS: How will they know for sure that somebody is not just giving you a very bland-looking ad for prostitution services?
BUCKMASTER: They'll know that in the same way that telephone yellow pages know it and newspaper classifieds know it. And what we're going to be doing is going to be exactly the same.
ROBERTS: The Cook County sheriff there in Illinois, Tom Dart, who had launched this lawsuit against you says, "While these changes are a step in the right direction, we know Craigslist promised changes before. I'm suspicious of their new promises and our vice unit will be tracking activity there to ensure their promises are kept this time. It's just a shame that it's taken this long and so many people have been victimized before Craigslist would agree to do the right thing."
So it begs the question, why did it take you so long to do this, to shut down these erotic services?
BUCKMASTER: Well, of course, we're always trying to do the right thing. That's been the case from when Craigslist was first established. We don't claim to have the ultimate solution from the get go. We keep trying new things until we get it right.
ROBERTS: Can you give us a guarantee that there will be no more prostitution services advertised on Craigslist as a result of these changes?
BUCKMASTER: Certainly, it's going to end it on Craigslist. If we could wave a magic wand out there and eliminate prostitution from society, we would do that.
ROBERTS: Well...
BUCKMASTER: But so far we don't have that power.
ROBERTS: Well, I don't think that anybody is asking you to do that. Your promises aside here law enforcement, they're going to be watching very closely it would seem at least in the near term.
BUCKMASTER: We think that anyone who looks at the results we've achieved in the last year will agree that we held up our side of the bargain, so we're going to keep looking for new measures. And that's exactly what we've done.
ROBERTS: We'll keep watching it to see how it goes. Jim Buckmaster from Craigslist, good to talk to you today. Thanks very much for being with us.
BUCKMASTER: Thanks for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Well, angry loved ones are speaking out for the victims of the commuter air crash near Buffalo, New York this past winter. They're accusing the FAA of not doing enough to train pilots before they hit the skies. You're going to hear from both sides just ahead.
It's 24 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
In just hours, the third day of hearings in the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 starts in Washington. We now know that fatigue may have played a role in the deadly crash, but it's also bringing up a lot of questions about pilot training standards.
Our Jason Carroll has been looking into all of this, and he joins us this morning.
Hi, Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And hello to you.
And as you know, Colgan Air has since put into place measures dealing with things like fatigue. The airline industry does have standards in place for dealing with things like fatigue, but the reality is, there are areas where there are no standards. An aviation expert say that could have made the difference on how the plane's captain and his first officer responded.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL (voice-over): It happens after every airline crash, the investigation. What went wrong? Who was at fault?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we ready to begin?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, sir.
CARROLL: Hearings into the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 raised more questions. Should industry training and standards be upgraded?
Margie Brandquist says, yes. Sister Mary Petis (ph) was killed in the crash.
MARGIE BRANDQUIST, CRASH VICTIM'S SISTER: I think this was a perfect storm accident. And so until we know, we want to make sure that the FAA is held absolutely accountable.
CARROLL: The Federal Aviation Administration says that Colgan Air Captain Marvin Renslow met federal guidelines, which include being licensed and trained on the Dash-8/Q400 Bombardier. HARRY MITCHEL, VICE PRESIDENT OF FLIGHT OPERATIONS, COLGAN AIR: All I can say is Captain Renslow was fully qualified.
CARROLL: Renslow failed test flight called check rides five times before passing, but there are no FAA regulations on how many times a pilot can retake these tests. One former NTSB investigator and current commercial pilot, Ben Berman, says that should have been a warning.
BERN BERMAN, COMMERCIAL PILOT: So if a pilot has a pattern of failing multiple check rides over their careers, it should and usually does raise a red flag for the airline.
CARROLL: Renslow ended up meeting FAA-mandated experience in a flight simulator, but that did not include flight simulator training with a stall warning called a stick pusher. He only had classroom training.
Why? Again, not required by the FAA so Colgan Air didn't require it either.
MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Number of proposals in the works.
CARROLL: Mary Schiavo is the former inspector general of the Department of Transportation.
SCHIAVO: It's a co-dependent relationship. The airline did only what the FAA required even though going above and beyond would have been prudent.
CARROLL: The investigation shows Renslow pulled up on the control column when he should have done the opposite. The airline says it could not speculate why. Since the accident, "Colgan has instituted stick pusher demonstrations in a flight simulator, even though it is not required by the FAA and is not the standard in the airline industry."
Families of the victims still have doubts the airlines and the FAA will take responsibility and make needed changes.
BRANDQUIST: I'm not confident at all. So you may see all these family members dancing (ph) Capitol Hill until we get some responses.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: That investigation also revealed Renslow was not forthcoming about failing some of those tests. We did reach out to the FAA. They said they may end up commenting on the accident once the hearings are over. Aviation experts say the industry is well aware that those FAA standards are minimum standards, and either the carriers have to take it upon themselves to increase standards or the government has to step in and do something about it.
ROBERTS: We're learning a lot of things in the wake of this crash that are very disturbing, particularly this idea that pilots really aren't taught, required to be taught how to deal with icy conditions, you know, in a simulator. Not taught to recover from a stall, taught how to avoid a stall.
CARROLL: There are so many things. You know, when it comes to the stall, I guess that inside the aviation industry, that's sort of the debate that's going on.
What they're basically doing is teaching these pilots how to avoid getting into the stall. So they're focused on that rather than also focusing on what to do when you're actually in the stall.
ROBERTS: Yes.
CARROLL: So a lot of things that are going on there. But the bottom line is, they are minimum standards. Either the carriers have to do something about it or the FAA has to step and do something.
ROBERTS: Certainly there's going to be a big public outcry for somebody to do something about it.
CARROLL: Without question.
ROBERTS: Jason, thanks so much for that - Kiran.
CHETRY: Coming up on half past the hour now, checking our top stories.
Senate Democrats are trying to stop Guantanamo Bay detainees from ending up here on U.S. soil. They're pushing new legislation that would fund closing the prison camp but would block the transfer of any of 240 terror detainees to the United States.
Sources are telling CNN that President Obama's Supreme Court short list is down to about six now and all but one are women. A new round of vetting is said to be underway by a small group of top staffers, including Vice President Joe Biden and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
And President Obama making the first of his three commencement addresses this weekend in front of 70,000 people at Arizona State University. The school refused to grant him an honorary degree saying in so many words he has not accomplished enough yet. Well he turned that snub into a lesson saying that even the title like president of the United States says very little about the life you've led.
Meanwhile, there's an even bigger controversy ahead. The president is scheduled to give the commencement address at Notre Dame University this Sunday. Many Catholics are protesting that invitation because of a stance on abortion rights and stem cell research.
CNN's Candy Crowley takes a look at what could be awaiting the president.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): By the time they graduate, American students are well schooled in free speech.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do not think it's right to celebrate a man who's gone so against Catholic principles.
CROWLEY: The man is President Barack Obama, supporter of abortion rights, who will give the commencement address to and get an honorary degree from Notre Dame, a premier Catholic school, a religion that considers abortion a mortal sin.
Let the free speech begin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't send a message to people that we value power and fame over our Catholic identity.
CROWLEY: The debate is not confined to campus. It made it to the pulpit of Orlando Bishop Thomas Wenski.
BISHOP THOMAS WENSKI, ORLANDO, FLORIDA: It implies almost an approbation or if not an approbation or approval of the president's position, at least a winking at it, as if it was not that important.
CROWLEY: And it made it to a "Washington Post" column by Father Thomas Reese.
FR. THOMAS REESE, S.J., GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: I think when we start banning speakers, we look afraid. We look like we feel we can't come up with convincing arguments. And I think that's a self evading strategy.
CROWLEY: Beyond the church sanctuary, anti-abortion activists, Catholic and non, have gathered in South Bend to make their case. Among them, former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, arrested for trespassing, and conservative anti-abortion activist Randall Terry.
RANDALL TERRY, ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVIST: We push baby strollers peacefully, quietly, prayerfully on campus and in the strollers were baby dolls covered with stage blood and an Obama bumper sticker saying, "Obama '09 One Dead Baby at a Time, Notre Dame," to make a statement.
CROWLEY: Countering the protests, critics accuse republicans of trying to drive a wedge between Catholics and democrats. And they note, both President Bush and Ronald Reagan spoke at Notre Dame and they were pro-death penalty. Also, against Catholic teaching.
Having won the Catholic vote last year, the president is on firm territory when he takes to that podium. And while at least one Notre Dame honoree is boycotting along with students, the vast majority of graduates and some parents are expected to show up. Beginning in the Vietnam era, protests has been a time-honored graduation exercise. At Furman, some faculty members boycotted then President Bush's address, others silently made their case.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I supported the decision...
CROWLEY: John McCain was interrupted constantly by protestors during his commencement address at New York's New School.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're graduating, not closing.
CROWLEY: No one was disinvited. Everyone spoke, they all survived. The tradition goes on.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president intends to go to Notre Dame, speak, accept the degree and come back to the White House.
CROWLEY: Democracy 101. Everyone gets free speech.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Let's hear what you think about this. Do you think the president should speak at Notre Dame? Call our show hotline at 877- my-amfix. Or you can send us an e-mail at CNN.com/amfix. That's our show website. We'll try to air some of your comments tomorrow.
ROBERTS: It's new and historic. North Carolina, the country's top tobacco-growing state is going smoke-free in bars and restaurants. Last year, North Carolina farmers grew nearly half of all U.S. tobacco produced. North Carolina and Wisconsin will now join 22 other states and the District of Columbia in banning smoking. Four more states will do so by the end of the year.
Sony expects to report their second straight full-year loss this morning. The global slump in demand for consumer goods as the world's second largest maker of consumer electronics readying to post a net loss of over $1 billion.
And while President Obama puts health care reform at the top of his priority list, the man who brought you the famous "Harry and Louise" commercials that helped torpedo the Clinton health care plan chances will be with us live.
It's 35 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: When health care reform was a hot topic in the 1990s, insurance companies turn to the now famous "Harry and Louise" advertisements to fight back. Here's a look to jog your memory.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "HARRY AND LOUISE" ADVERTISEMENT)
"HARRY": So the paper says Congress is moving ahead on health care reform.
"LOUISE": If they can cover everyone.
"HARRY": But they're talking price control.
"LOUISE": Rationing the way I read it. You know, long waits for health care and some services not even available.
"HARRY": Government-controlled health care. Congress can do better than that.
"LOUISE": They will if we send them that message.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Well, the man behind those ads is Chip Kahn. He is now representing America's hospitals and is pushing for reform. He joins us this morning from Washington.
So Chip, "Harry and Louise" helped torpedo the Clinton health care plan back in 1993. Now they're inside the tent with the White House. What changed?
CHIP KAHN, PRESIDENT, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN HOSPITALS: Well, good morning, John. What changed is that we're now at a point in time that the number of uninsured Americans and cost increase that we really need health reform. Actually, I think in 1993 and 1994, it's unfortunate that we didn't get the right kind of health reform. But now is the time, I think President Obama is providing great leadership and I look forward to help reform being enacted this year.
ROBERTS: You know, the situation now with the uninsured is certainly worse than it was in 1993. But it was bad back then. What is it about President Obama's proposal that you liked better than the Clinton administration's?
KAHN: Well, first, I think President Obama is providing the right kind of leadership. He's defining the issue. And those on Capitol Hill, the leaders who spend time getting into the depth of issues are now preparing the legislation. So I think they've got the process right.
And I think in terms of the plan, they're looking at plans that will allow Americans to keep the insurance they have and those who are uncovered to receive the kind of insurance they need. So I think they're getting it right in terms of the details they're working on now.
ROBERTS: You weren't at the meeting earlier this week. But the umbrella groups of the industry, the health care industry, met with the president. They pledged to cut $2 trillion in health care costs over the next 10 years. But the plans were vague, no guarantees of cost savings, and there is no enforcement mechanisms. So do you think they can actually make good on that pledge?
KAHN: At the end of the day, all the groups involved in health care in the country and frankly all of us as taxpayers are going to have to contribute to make sure that we get to as close as to universal coverage of Americans with health insurance as we can.
And we do need to reduce health care costs. I'd rather not place a number on it. But I think we're going to see the kinds of reforms legislated with the cooperation of all of us who provide health care to Americans, the kinds of reforms that will make a difference in terms of health care costs.
ROBERTS: So far the major opposition of any kind of government sponsored health plan is coming from conservatives for patients' rights. They say that we're going to have government-run programs. It's going to be like it is in England, where there are long waits, denial of access. People have a difficult time getting access to prescription drugs as well. Do you really think that's going to happen?
KAHN: Well, at the end of the day, to get universal coverage in this country, there's going to have to be the participation of the government. And at the same time, we are a country in which even with the private sector, and we feel very strongly that the private sector is where health care should be delivered that there's got to be a regulatory overlay.
So I think this group is raising a red flag and making noise that's unfortunate. Because at the end of the day, health care in this country for Americans is a partnership between the private and the public sector. That's the way it's been and that's the way it's going to be going forward.
ROBERTS: So this country has been talking about universal health coverage since 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt ran with that as a central plank in his campaign and managed to lose. Do you think that this is ever going to get done?
KAHN: I'm hopeful. I think this is the first time in my experience that I think the sun and the moon are really coming together with the right combination of policy makers, the right interest, the public demand for change and the commitment of so many people that I am very optimistic at this point.
ROBERTS: Chip Kahn, it's great to talk to you this morning. Thanks for your perspective on all this. Appreciate it.
KAHN: Thanks, John.
ROBERTS: Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Still ahead, a former FBI agent, who said interrogation methods during the Bush administration were a mistake, join us live. We're going to talk about whether or not others are also to blame.
And how do you prep for a spacewalk. We're going to show you what the space shuttle astronauts had to go through to get ready for the mission of a lifetime.
It's 43 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
A former FBI interrogator and Bush White House insider summed up enhanced interrogation methods as a mistake during the first congressional hearings on alleged torture. He also called the program a collective failure and said both parties actually share some of the blame.
Philip Zelikow is the man who made those claims. He was a top aide to Condoleezza Rice at the State Department. And he joins us live this morning from Charlottesville, Virginia.
Philip, thanks for being with us.
PHILIP ZELIKOW, HISTORY PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Glad to be here.
CHETRY: So, you testified yesterday at that hearing that, "the U.S. government adopted an unprecedented program of coolly calculated, dehumanizing abuse and physical torment to extract information. This was a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one. It was a collective failure."
Now, when you talk about this as a collective failure, where do you think, though, that much of the blame lies with?
ZELIKOW: I think this is one of the things that we need to understand better. What happened is the country, a lot of the leaders of the country in both parties believed for a while that they needed to use these methods to protect the nation. They believed that because they thought there were no good alternatives and because they thought this was legal.
I think both of those judgments were wrong. We know a lot about alternatives and, in fact, we've now proven that the alternatives work in our own record in Iraq and against al Qaeda worldwide. And I think we've also learned that the legal judgments were flawed too.
So, we need to understand how our - how our leaders, including the congressional leaders who, of both parties, who were briefed, came to these conclusions that there was no alternative and that this was legal. This was a collective mistake.
CHETRY: All right. And the interesting thing about what you're saying is that you believe they were largely ineffective.
Now, that is a position that Dick Cheney, the former vice president continues to defend. He's saying that these interrogation methods were effective. And that they didn't violate the law. He said they save lives and he says that the Bush administration has successfully defended the nation for seven and a half years since 9/11.
What do you make of his claim?
ZELIKOW: Well, it's actually highly misleading because, of course, if you have the highest value al Qaeda captives in the world for years, anything you get from them is going to be of some use. And a lot of valuable information was obtained. The issue isn't, did we get valuable information from these people. The issue is, were there other ways of getting the information that would have been as or more effective without having to subject them to physical abuse? In other words, it's a comparative evaluation. So, when you just say, did we get good information reports from these people, and then you get an argument about that, that's a sucker's game.
The real issue is to do the comparison and actually a lot of the information was available at the time to do an honest comparison that wasn't used. And since then, for example, we've been fighting al Qaeda in Iraq for years using methods that comply with international standards in a very effective fight.
CHETRY: I want to ask you this, because you were there and you had a front seat to some of this. As I said, you were a former senior aide to Condoleezza Rice. Why do you think, then, if we have history on our side that there are other methods to get information from people during - that we capture during times of war, why do you think that this was allowed to happen on our watch in the United States?
ZELIKOW: First, it's because of the atmosphere after 9/11, full of crisis and alarms. I had some insight into that atmosphere at the time. And people were fearful about what - about what might happen to the country.
Second, you had an agency that came up and said, look, we can develop some new ways that America has never tried before that we think will work and for which there's no alternative.
Third, the leaders were told these methods were uniquely effective.
And fourth, the attorney general told the nation's leaders that those methods were legal and several of those judgments, I'm afraid, were deeply flawed and we need to understand how that happened.
CHETRY: You wrote in a memo in 2005 challenging the findings of these interrogation memos. You actually questioned the legality of the justification for some of those techniques and you said that the memo was considered dead on arrival, DOA, and actually was ordered destroyed.
At that point, why didn't you resign or come out publicly about your concerns?
ZELIKOW: It wasn't just my concerns. I was being joined by my colleagues in the State Department, including Secretary Rice. We were all trying to change the policy and we didn't leave because we were changing the policy. The policies that we had been using for interrogation of prisoners were effectively dismantled by the end of 2005.
And actually, we brought all the prisoners out of the black sites and to Guantanamo where they could be brought to justice in an announcement made by President Bush in September 2006. So the policy was being changed and moving us in a healthier direction. CHETRY: Interesting to get your take on it this morning.
Philip Zelikow, the former senior aide to Condoleezza Rice and now a professor at the University of Virginia, thanks so much for joining us this morning.
ZELIKOW: You're welcome.
ROBERTS: This morning we're learning that pot is not as harmless as you might think it is. The government is saying marijuana is becoming more potent and more dangerous. Just how so. We'll find out. Our Jeanne Meserve will report on that.
Fifty-one minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
If you had to guess what the biggest global health threat of the 21st century is, I'm not sure that this would be your first guess. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now with a new report out of Britain, that's really sounding an alarm.
Good morning to you. So what are we talking about?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We're talking about climate change here and it is sounding the alarm.
It's interesting, we talk about climate change in all sorts of different venues. This is in a journal, "Lancet," a pretty prestigious medical journal, sounding the alarm. In so many ways, saying look you know climate change could lead to all sorts of things.
You know, global warming will lead to climate change. It will lead to emerging patterns of disease in areas around the world where you might not expect it. So things that are typically tropical diseases migrating their way north. And also create the uncertainty of certain food and water supplies. Again all of this in a medical journal for doctors, for medics to sort of look at.
I sat down and talked to the EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, before the report was out and asked her specifically about this big global health threat.
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GUPTA: Greenhouse gases and climate changes, are they a threat to human health?
LISA JACKSON, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: The EPA says yes. The EPA has the proposed findings, it's out for public comment. So we have to allow that process to run its course. But about a month ago, in April, the EPA (inaudible) said six gases, including CO2 are a threat to human health and welfare. It means there are serious problems for this generation and more importantly for future generations.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: She is squarely taking some of these gases and saying look we're not just talking about global warming here but we're talking of a threat to human health and specifically the biggest global threat to human health.
John, it's interesting as part of this report, they talk about, for example, in India they're building a seven-foot high razor fences, 4,500 kilometers long to keep our climate migrants which they suspect will happen from Bangladesh in the years and decades to come.
ROBERTS: So the administration is proposing to do some things about greenhouse gases. There is currently a bill that is making its way through Congress that will get voted on in a committee very soon. What are those proposals?
GUPTA: Well, there are some specific things. First of all, it's quite a bit of money. $15 billion, you're talking about, over a period of time looking at alternative energy sources which the president campaigned on, solar power, wind power but also looking specifically at what it means to have a cap on carbon emissions. What is that really going to do? And I think some of that still going to be worked out according to Jackson.
ROBERTS: But we talk about this green economy and the cost of going green. How does that cut you out?
GUPTA: It's interesting. She doesn't put a cap on how much eventually it might cost but the number that people might seem to arrive about is $150 a year per family in the United States. It's kind of hard to get your arms around that number but it is going to be a large number and she said it could go into the thousands, depending on how much this all will cost.
ROBERTS: By the way, these are some of the things that we will be talking to former Vice President Al Gore about in an exclusive interview tomorrow.
Doc, thanks so much. Great to see you.
GUPTA: Yes. Sure.
CHETRY: Well, 350 miles above Earth, seven astronauts getting ready for one very expensive repair job. We're going to take you live to space as the "Atlantis" crew starts its first Hubble telescope spacewalk.
Right now, it's 56 minutes past the hour.
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