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Debris in Atlantic Ocean Not From Air France Flight 447; Faulty Speed Indicator May Have Led to Crash of Air France Jetliner; SEC Goes After Countrywide Financial Founder; U.S. Doctor Treating Patients With Stem Cells; Former Sotomayor Critics Soften Rhetoric Against Her; L.A. Residents Wild For Cheap Tacos; GAO Finds American Companies Selling Weapons Parts to Potentially Hostile Governments

Aired June 05, 2009 - 07:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning again, everyone. If you're just joining us, we hit the top of the hour. It's Friday, June 5. Happy Friday to you. I'm Carol Costello in for Kiran this morning.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm John Roberts. It's good to have you here with us this morning. We're following several big stories for you today. We'll break them down for you coming up in the next 15 minutes.

First of all, this is a real stunner -- a major setback in the search for wreckage and answers in the crash of Air France Flight 447. It turns out, and listen to this -- it turns out that none of the ocean debris that was recovered off of the Brazilian coast actually belongs to the missing jetliner. They don't have it, any of it.

We're live in Brazil where the flight originated with more on that this morning. We're also looking at new clues as to what might have brought that plane down.

President Obama in Germany this morning strengthening ties on a European tour and fresh from delivering a key speech to the Muslim world. The president now focusing on the global economy. We'll show you what he had to say this morning.

And trial by secrecy in North Korea. No word on the fate of two American journalists believed to be on trial for committing what North Korea calls "hostile acts." They could face ten years in a labor camp. The U.S. State Department may call on some diplomatic heavyweights, potentially Al Gore or Bill Richardson to try to secure their release.

First, we're following a couple of major developments this morning in the urgent search for Air France Flight 447. A serious setback for investigators who want answers and families who need closure.

Brazilian officials now say debris that they picked up in the Atlantic Ocean, which they initially said were parts from 447 and as well, potentially some cargo were nothing more than sea trash. None of it. Key in on those three words -- none of it from the doomed flight that dropped off the radar on Monday. We're all over the story this morning. Jason Carroll here with us in New York City. But let's start with John Zarrella. He's live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That's where the flight originated.

And, John, you can't imagine what the families are going through this morning. They're told that they found the wreckage from the plane and now they're told, nope, none of what we found belonged to that plane. We don't know where it is.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. And you know, John, as part of the backside of the story on this that we were told that some of the family members were given permission that we're going be taken to a place called Recife, where the debris was eventually going to be brought to a military base there. And they were actually -- they had asked for. They were going to be taken there today to Recife so we don't know where that stands now and how that will shake out in light of what's happened.

But the way this all broke out was for the first several days, the Brazilian air force and navy, their priority was to find survivors if there were any or to find the remains, the bodies. None of that happened. So what they did yesterday for the first time was to go out and actually start to recover the debris that they were seeing in different spots on the ocean, seen by radar and seen by planes flying in the daylight.

When they got to the one location with a helicopter, they picked up a couple pieces of debris, brought it back to a ship, and determined that, in fact, it was not debris from Air France Flight 447. They picked up a pallet, a wooden pallet. An Air France official told them, "Well, no, that didn't come from our flight."

They also have noted that this 12-mile-long oil slick that they've been talking about may not be the oil from Flight 447, that it may have come from a ship.

We just got off with Air Force officials a few minutes ago. They say they're still convinced that some of what they've seen out there is from the plane -- a lot of wiring, a lot of small pieces of metal. But until they get that onboard the ships and can identify it, then they can actually eyeball it and see markings from Air France Flight 447, they're not going to know for sure. John.

ROBERTS: You know, John, can you sort of qualify, if you could, for us some of the debris that they have spotted and how big the pieces are? What leads them to believe that they are from a plane as opposed to something that was either just thrown overboard or washed overboard from a ship?

ZARRELLA: Well, a couple of other things, they said the bigger pieces. They talked of one that was about 23 feet in diameter. So they felt as if that piece might be from the flight.

They talked about finding lots of wiring as I mentioned out there. Bales of wiring that you would think would be from an airplane. They also talked about finding pieces of plastic out there. But as far as the size of most of that stuff, they don't qualify it in terms of feet or meters. It's small. Only when they get to the bigger pieces are they saying, like the 23 foot in diameter piece, what the sizes of those things are.

So -- and, again, they do believe that a lot of what's out there is from the flight. But they're qualifying it themselves saying until they get it onboard and can find an identified markings from Air France Flight 447, they're simply not going to know for sure. And they are going to be out there again today trying to recover more of the pieces that they know were there -- John.

ROBERTS: All right. John Zarrella for us this morning in Rio de Janeiro. John, thanks so much for that.

COSTELLO: You know, you would just think they would know or they wouldn't communicate what they think they know until they're absolutely sure because this painted a really ugly picture. I mean, there were theories that the plane broke apart in air.

ROBERTS: Right.

COSTELLO: And that -- which would mean that the people onboard that plane died a horrible death. So, why let that information out? And do they have any definitive new information that we can count on being kind of true?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here's what we do know. I mean, what investigators are relying on at this point are the four minutes of automated messages that did come through. So that's what they're relying on. And based on that, there is a bit of new information on what may have caused the plane to go down off the coast of Brazil.

One possible theory -- the pilot was flying at the wrong speed heading into those thunderstorms because the device called an air speed indicator may not have been functioning properly. A plane that flies too slow can lose lift and crash, while flying too fast can cause a midair breakup.

The maker of the aircraft, Airbus, issued a warning to pilots urging them to follow the flight crew operating manual when they suspect the air speed indicator is not working. A failure to correctly manage speed has been cited as causing several other major crashes. Investigators also say the autopilot which flies the plane much of the time may also have failed.

The former vice chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board says that type of failure would be devastating.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB FRANCIS, FORMER VICE CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: It's just a remarkable loss of just about every way to control the airplane. I mean, you've lost your electricity. You've lost your flight controls. It's an all electronic-controlled airplane. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: Officials have also not ruled out the possibility of foul play. Pilots in the area where the plane went down reported seeing an intense bright flash erupt in the sky and reported their findings to the Spanish Civil Aviation Authority.

Air France also received a bomb threat last week for a flight from Buenos Aires to Paris. The plane was inspected and no bomb was found.

Also, the French are sending a minisub out to the area to try to go into that area. And you know, just coincidentally, it's the same mini sub that recovered artifacts from the Titanic. So they're going to be sending that into the area, try to retrieve those black boxes. But again, you know, without that cockpit flight recorder, without the data recorder there, there is -- there is -- what they're relying on right now is just speculation and those four minutes of automated messages.

COSTELLO: And whatever small, tiny, little pieces of the actual plane they find in the vast ocean.

CARROLL: If they do find it.

ROBERTS: And the terrain that they'll be looking for those things is far different than where the Titanic was, too. That was on a flat plane. This is an underwater mountainous region.

CARROLL: Correct. We were talking about that earlier. And some depths, 3,000 -- 3,000 feet deep in some areas.

ROBERTS: Yes.

CARROLL: So a lot of area to cover.

COSTELLO: Well, we hope to know more later because just in about five minutes, the former managing director of the NTSB will be with us to try to make sense of this plane crash mystery. That's coming your way up. That's coming up in just a bit.

ROBERTS: Also new this morning, President Obama is in Germany kicking off the European leg of his overseas trip. Right now, he's in Dresden where earlier this morning he spoke alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The two covering a lot of ground from global warming and the challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the global economic crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've seen I think on both sides of the Atlantic some progress in stabilizing the economy, but we're far from done in the work that's required. I mentioned to her that in the United States, we are working diligently to strengthen financial regulations to ensure that a crisis like this doesn't happen again and it's going to be very important to coordinate between Europe and the United States as we move to strengthen our financial regulatory systems.

We affirmed that we are not going to engage in protectionism. And as all of us do what's required to restart our economy, we have to make sure that we keep our borders open and that the companies can move back and forth between the United States and Europe in providing goods and services.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: In about an hour's time, President Obama will be making his way to Buchenwald, the German concentration camp that his great- uncle helped liberate.

COSTELLO: Other stories new this morning, we're closely monitoring developments out of North Korea waiting for any word on the fate of those two U.S. journalists. Laura Ling and Euna Lee are reportedly on trial for entering the country illegally and engaging on what North Korea calls "hostile acts."

Both reporters work for Al Gore's Current TV. The State Department says it may send the former vice president or New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to Pyongyang to try to negotiate their release.

Right now, federal authorities searching for a man who's been charged with making threats against President Obama. According to court papers, Daniel James Murray recently withdrew $85,000 from a Utah bank and told a teller he was on a "mission to kill the president." Murray is believed to have access to at least eight guns including semiautomatic pistols and revolvers.

And tweet, tweet -- Lance Armstrong is a dad again. The cycling legend announcing the birth of his son late last night on Twitter. Must everyone announce everything on Twitter? But, anyway, he did.

He posted a picture of the newborn on his Twitter page with a caption, "What's up world. My name is Max Armstrong and I just arrived." Armstrong says the baby and his girlfriend, Anna Hansen, are doing just fine. That means Lance now has four kids.

Eleven minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ROBERTS: And more on our breaking news this morning. A shocking report about debris found floating in the Atlantic Ocean. First it is, then it's not from Air France Flight 447.

Brazilian officials now say it was just sea trash and not part of the jet that apparently went down with 228 people onboard. Other pilots now say they saw an intense flash where it's believed that the doomed plane went down.

Peter Goelz is the former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board. He's here to help us sort through what might have happened.

Are you surprised, Peter, to hear the news this morning that what Brazil officials thought they had turned out not to be what they thought?

PETER GOELZ, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR, NTSB: Well, I thought the announcement was a little premature, but it is very disappointing because it really sets the investigation back in terms of searching for the flight data recorder and the voice recorder. They don't know where to start.

ROBERTS: So, they're back to square one again. What about these other pieces of debris that they saw floating in the ocean, pieces, of metal, bales of wire that our John Zarrella was talking about? Will that give them some idea of where the plane might have gone down?

GOELZ: Well, the longer time goes on, the further away from the actual crash site does the -- you know, the debris floats. It's just going to be terribly challenging to find where to start the search for these data recorders and the clock is ticking. You know, the batteries on these locator devices attached to the black boxes have a limited life span -- just 30 days.

ROBERTS: And in your experience, when they continue to work in the depth of water that this plane might be in by looking at the ocean floor depending on, you know, if it rolled into a canyon or if it's sitting on top of a seamount, it could be anywhere between maybe 2,000 feet deep to 14,000 feet deep.

GOELZ: Yes, the depth of water is challenging but it doesn't eliminate it. We've recovered boxes as deep as 6,000 or 7,000 feet. We've recovered debris from as much as 10,000 feet.

ROBERTS: So we're learning a lot more this morning, too, Peter, about the electrical malfunction signals that were sent out from this aircraft. Do you believe there's a chance that so many systems went down, that these pilots were flying blind at least for a time? And flying blind at night is particularly difficult.

GOELZ: Yes. These are -- these messages that were sent out automatically are very intriguing. First of all, we don't know how many there were. We've got different reports on it. But very clearly, the French investigative agency, the BEA, are interested in this. And that announcement that Airbus sent out late yesterday with the approval of the BEA indicates that there are some concern that there was a faulty speed indicator on the aircraft, and that could really be disastrous. And it's happened before.

There have been accidents in which these -- the speed is determined in an aircraft by two devices facing forward called the pitot (ph) tubes and then they have static ports (ph). That's how the speed and the altitude is determined. If they're malfunctioning, it can give a false read into the cockpit that can be misinterpreted and a disaster can follow.

ROBERTS: I read one report that there might have been some ice buildup on the tip of one of those tubes that helps to measure the air speed. But there were also a couple of incidents, some of them fairly recent on that type of aircraft that when there was a mismatch between the computers that were reading speed indications, the computer went with the one that was reading the low speed and put the plane into a dive.

Now Airbus is saying, or at least Air France is saying, that this is different equipment on this aircraft than the aircraft that went into a dive. But is it potential that maybe it suffered the same problem and given the fact that the pilots were having all these conflicting reports from the various instrumentation that was malfunctioning that they could have gone into a fatal dive that was so fast that it ripped the aircraft apart?

GOELZ: Yes, I think Airbus has said, well, it's a different manufacturer of the unit. But I'm sure the BEA is going to look at that carefully. And the real issue is, were these signals correct in how they were received, you know, over a period of time? Or were they really all blasted out at one time...

ROBERTS: Right.

GOELZ: ... which would reflect a catastrophic event at altitude?

ROBERTS: And on that point, can we rule out foul play?

GOELZ: You cannot rule out foul play without the physical evidence. I mean, when we investigated the accident of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, we spent a lot of time, the NTSB, examining the wreckage to see if there were any signs of a bomb or even a missile strike. We found no physical evidence. That's the way you can eliminate terrorism. That's the only way.

ROBERTS: So, until you find the wreckage, you're really blind in all of this, right?

GOELZ: You really are.

ROBERTS: Peter Goelz, it's great to talk to you. Thanks so much for sharing your expertise with us this morning. We sure do appreciate it.

GOELZ: Thanks, John.

ROBERTS: All right.

It's now 18 1/2 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Christine Romans is here "Minding Your Business" this morning. And word on Mr. Mozilo and...

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Mr. Mozilo, he's the tanned founder -- the tanned and very rich founder of Countrywide Financial. This is a company you know that was selling an awful lot of very complicated, very exotic loans, subprime loans for years.

And now the SEC has gone after him and two colleagues in a complaint here over a fraud and insider trading violations. There are a lot of people who've been saying this is the poster boy, this is the poster company of just renegade practices in subprime lending that led to this debacle in the housing market.

This is what Mozilo, according to e-mails, internal e-mails that the SEC released in its complaints, 53-page complaint said. "In all my years in the business, I have never seen a more toxic product" -- about one of the products they were making money on.

Internally, he was saying this is on adjustable rate mortgage loans. "We have no way with any reasonable certainty to assess the real risk of holding these loans on our balance sheets. The bottom line is we are flying blind on how these loans will perform in a stressed environment of higher unemployment, reduced values, and slowing home sales."

Oops, that's what happening right now. So the idea here is that the government is saying, look, he knew -- he knew that these loans were going to be a problem for his company, for the people who hold these loans. At the same time, he was selling stocks to the tune of $140 million in profit all along the way knowing that there could be a problem here.

COSTELLO: You know, a lot of people think that criminal charges should be filed against Mr. Mozilo.

ROMANS: And that we know that the Justice Department is pursuing 12 different mortgage lenders and we know that Countrywide is one of them. But no criminal complaint just yet.

I want to very quickly say that Mozilo's attorney says that he acted properly and lawfully at all times as the CEO of Countrywide. He is maintaining his innocence here.

ROBERTS: All right. Well, we'll see if that stands.

Time now for our "Romans' Numeral." Every day, Christine gives us a number that's driving a story about your money. And what do we have today?

ROMANS: It has to do with the subprime mess. $7,200 -- this is the number. It's our number -- 7,200 bucks.

ROBERTS: The average amount -- no, that's too much. I was thinking the average amount that every American owes but...

COSTELLO: I'm never brave enough to guess.

ROMANS: It has to do -- it has to do with the average amount that every American owes in the form of -- it's the average loss of home value due to a neighboring foreclosure. This is from the Center for Responsible Lending. This is why the subprime mess is everyone's problem. It's all of our problems. When one of these houses goes into foreclosure, the whole neighborhood goes down. And that's how much money we're losing on our homes because other people are going down because of loans like this crazy loans that were sold by a lot of different mortgage firms including Countrywide.

ROBERTS: 7,200, today's "Romans' Numeral." Christine Romans "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Twenty-four minutes now after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Well, could be foggy old London town, but it's foggy, old Atlanta this morning where it's anything but. Sixty-seven degrees, only going up to 74 degrees. Expecting lots of showers there.

And now a story that you'll see only here on CNN. Everyday, gravely ill Americans and their loved ones travel to clinics in foreign countries in search of a miracle. They believe their last best hope for a cure is experimental stem cell therapy.

Now, we introduced you to one of these families earlier this week. This morning CNN's special investigations unit correspondent Drew Griffin goes face-to-face with an American doctor who has no formal training in stem cell therapies, but he is serving as a go- between for Americans who are seeking those treatments abroad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE UNIT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We met in a hotel room in Tampa. Later this very day, 80-year-old Dr. Burton Feinerman would fly to Peru to meet three Americans he says will be treated with stem cells. The patients, he says, all terminally ill.

Are you curing these diseases?

DR. BURTON FEINERMAN, STEMCELLSREGENMED.COM: I never use the word "cure" with people because number one, our work is only been over the past three years.

GRIFFIN: He doesn't use words like "cure" on his Web site. He uses the words "treatment" and "hope" and offers pictures and stories of those he says he has helped. The work is done at this clinic in Lima, Peru because the treatment is not approved in the United States.

The idea is tantalizingly simple -- take healthy embryonic or even umbilical cord stem cells, inject them into a diseased body where they would repair the damage. Scientific studies have yet to prove that works, only some progress in laboratory animals. The FDA has only just approved a single clinical trial. But that hasn't stopped Dr. Feinerman from charging patients with cancer to muscular dystrophy between $8,000 to $25,000 to at least see if simple injections could work.

Isn't it exactly what you're doing is just experimenting on these people?

FEINERMAN: Yes, and people are fully aware...

GRIFFIN: Charging them large amounts of money to do those experiments?

FEINERMAN: The amount of money is large. And -- but it basically is pretty close to my costs.

GRIFFIN: In an e-mail after this interview, Dr. Feinerman said, "We are not selling snake oil, but our scientific approach to diseases that are not available in the USA." He admits his background in stem cell research is limited.

FEINERMAN: I, myself, trained at the Mayo Clinic and have been in medical practice for over 50 years. So -- and we also have...

GRIFFIN: But you never trained in stem cell research.

FEINERMAN: No.

GRIFFIN: You've gone to some international conferences, self- taught?

FEINERMAN: Right.

GRIFFIN: Right?

FEINERMAN: That's true.

GRIFFIN: And now you're basically taking people from the United States to other countries because the procedures can't legally be done here?

FEINERMAN: That is right. But, again, the person I am the organizer, so to speak. I'm the person who does an enormous amount of reading and visiting and discovering and putting protocols together that have -- that appear to work in other countries.

GRIFFIN: But aren't you, in the end, just peddling hope? Peddling hope with no real proven cures?

FEINERMAN: I take offense to the word "peddling." And I want to -- I feel that we're not just offering hope and holding their hand, we're offering a realistic -- what we feel is a scientific medical treatment.

GRIFFIN: Thousands of Americans are seeking that very treatment. Desperate people, many of them with incurable diseases who will take a chance paying tens of thousands of dollars for promises of treatment overseas.

Drew Griffin, CNN, Tampa, Florida. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: It's now 30 minutes past the hour, checking our top stories.

The United States might send former Vice President Al Gore or New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to North Korea to try to negotiate the release of those two American journalists. The State Department is not ruling it out. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were scheduled to go on trial yesterday. But so far the North Koreans have been silent about the proceedings. Their families are just waiting in agony. They both work for Gore's Current TV.

One of America's strongest allies is in political turmoil this morning. Five ministers have now abandoned British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's cabinet. They most recent ones to resign urged Brown to step down too amid a scandal over living expenses. The resignation comes as polls closed in local British elections.

President Obama is in Germany right now. He's holding talks today with Chancellor Angela Merkel. And just after 9:00 Eastern time this morning, he'll visit the site of this Buchenwald concentration camp.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: First of all, I've never traveled to one of the concentration camps, but this one has a personal connection to me. It's not only that I know Henry Weisel and have read about his writings, it's also that -- and I stated this before, that my grandfather's -- my grandmother's brother was one -- was part of the units that first liberated that camp.

And I talked about this before in the United States, perhaps not in Germany. The shock for this very young man, he couldn't have been more than 19 or 20, 21 at the time, was such that he ended up when he returned having a very difficult time readjusting to civilian life. And it was a memory that burned in him for quite sometime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: At noon Eastern, President Obama is scheduled to spend time with wounded U.S. soldiers at a medical center in western Germany. At the top of the hour, we'll be talking to Ahmed Yousef. He is a former senior advisor to Hamas. He'll be joining us live from Gaza to discuss how Hamas might react to the President Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo yesterday.

Now to the most politics in the morning -- in a pronounced shift in strategy in the Republican party. This week, Newt Gingrich softened his rhetoric against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. On May 27, the former House Speaker called her a Latina woman racist on a post on Twitter. On Wednesday, he said that characterization was too strong and didn't apply to Sotomayor as a person.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh blasted Gingrich for softening his rhetoric, but now he too says he can see himself possibly supporting Sotomayor's nomination. Couple all that with former Vice President Dick Cheney coming out for gay marriage earlier this week, and it looks like the dawning of a more moderate GOP, or does it?

Let's got to Washington and ask our guest. Susan Molinari is a former Republican member of Congress and an advisor to Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign, and David Frum is a former speech writer for President George W. Bush. Welcome to you both.

SUSAN MOLINARI, FORMER REPUBLICAN MEMBER OF CONGRESS: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Susan, let me start with you. Because you know what it's like to be in those high-level strategy sessions on how to grow the Republican party.

MOLINARI: Right.

COSTELLO: So, what happened? Did someone say to Newt Gingrich, "Hey, you got to soften your rhetoric. This is hurting"?

MOLINARI: First of all, I do want to separate what Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh from a significant portion of the Republican leadership in Washington, D.C. today who came out, you know, I think almost from the start whether it was Senator John Kyl, Senator Jeff Sessions, Senator John Cornyn, you know, who are very moderate and planned in their initial response to the Sotomayor announcement. You know, they embraced her life story and how it celebrates America and said, you know, we have to wait and see and let's talk some of these more social decision.

COSTELLO: So, Newt went rogue and did it by himself? And then...

MOLINARI: Newt is not in -- he's not a leader in the Republican Party anymore in terms of an elected official. I think Newt's, you know, initial reaction probably was of someone who is looking to perhaps try to clear the field in the Republican conservative primary for president and then stepped back and saw what, you know, what the poll numbers were and how the rest of the Republican party was reacting. Nobody followed Newt in this kind of tone of calling this woman and this judge a racist. So I think maybe he looked around and saw there wasn't a lot of people behind him and decided he needed to shift gears.

COSTELLO: But David, as you know, once words come out of your mouth, they're out of your mouth. That it's hard to take them back.

DAVID FRUM, FORMER GEORGE W. BUSH SPEECHWRITER: Well, it certainly is. You see here that this is an example of kind of a vortex, a sort of bad incentives in the Republican space. On the one hand, that the incentives of politics. Republicans properly are concerned about this nomination, worried that Judge Sotomayor will tilt the court, not only too far to the left, but will rule in a partial biased way. At the same time, they have to politic about the way they make this argument. You don't want to overstate it. In politics, overstatement is often much more dangerous that understatement. There's a conservative show business complex and a conservative political imperative. And they often conflict. We know which side of that divide Rush Limbaugh is in. For Newt Gingrich, he's both. He's both a prominent conservative talker but he also I think, as Susan says, has ongoing political aspirations.

COSTELLO: OK. Well, I just want to read to you because "The Washington Post" has a very interesting article this morning on Sonia Sotomayor. And it talked about things that she said in past speeches.

And I'm going to read you a quote to what Sonia Sotomayor told a group of minority lawyers. And she was talking about her confirmation as a federal appeals judge a decade ago. And this is what she said to this minority lawyers. She said "I was dealt with on the basis of stereotypes. And it was painful and not based on my record. I got a label because I was Hispanic and a woman, and therefore, I had to be liberal."

So, as more and more comes out about Sonia Sotomayor, will we hear an even more softening of the rhetoric from the far right?

MOLINARI: Listen, Carol, I think this is a woman who, again, has had some, you know, beautiful things to say about this country and about her life and clearly what you just read doesn't surprise anybody that people would stereotype her and that she had had to fight probably every step of the way to get -- despite her brilliance and her hard work -- to get the credibility that she has to as a Hispanic woman in this country. I mean, you know, growing up in the projects, in the Bronx, no doubt not an easy way to get where she is. We do owe her a lot of respect. That doesn't mean the Senate owes her a confirmation, but they do owe her a cautious, careful, respectful hearing.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: But David, I guess I found it interesting that Rush Limbaugh softened his rhetoric and say, maybe, you know, I can support her nomination. Maybe she isn't - maybe she is conservative about things like, you know, about abortion rights.

FRUM: Look, I don't -- I'm not going to take Rush Limbaugh's signals on this. But here's the thing about this that's so -- I think off-putting and unfair. Presidents all the time, through American history, picks somebody because they were the first.

President Cleveland put the first southerner on the Supreme Court after the Civil War, Lucius Lamar. That was a first. It was done for political reasons as this is done. But nobody then said that southerners have some special empathy that northerners lack. That southerners ruled better than northerners. You undertook exactly what President Cleveland was doing and you were allowed to say so.

So, we should be at least as free to speak as Americans as were in the 1880s. And to say, you know, what President Obama is doing is as American as deep-dish pizza. He is making a choice in order to make a first. He's making a political point. Obviously, this woman has a very respectable career but she's no titan of the law and we should be able to say all those things.

COSTELLO: Okay. Susan, I want you to button it up for me. Does this softening of rhetoric and even that Dick Cheney came out and said he was for gay marriage, does that signal a more moderate Republican party or does it signal nothing?

MOLINARI: I think what people and journalists like yourself are finding is that, you know, are people who govern in the Republican party are people who, you know, who wanted to do the right thing, want to work with President Obama, want to make sure that they respect the judicial system. And lastly, I just have to say, you know, I just adore the vice president and I don't think he's ever made a political calculation in his life and clearly out of office, I'm sure he's not doing it. I trust that he's speaking from his heart.

COSTELLO: And by that you mean, and I found this interesting when we talked before that, you know, because he has a gay daughter, he understands these issues in a way that many Americans cannot. And perhaps that's why he's more amenable to gay marriage now.

MOLINARI: And it is and will always be open to speaking his mind. Bless him.

COSTELLO: All right. Susan Molinari, David Frum, thank you for joining us this morning.

FRUM: Thank you.

ROBERTS: So, Saturday afternoon I'll be driving around near Reston, Virginia, and I would see the this Antojitos Mexicanos truck and you knew you were going to get a great taco or a great burrito or whatever. A lot of people love eating from these trucks, and now it started these craze on Twitter.

COSTELLO: I was wondering where that came from.

ROBERTS: It's the latest craze on Twitter. Tracking down the fabulous $2 taco. We're looking into that next. It's 40 1/2 minutes after the hour.

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ROBERTS: The thrill of the chase. How far would you go to get a $2 lunch? Our Ted Rowlands shows you a hot new trend on the street. Find the roving taco trucks using Twitter. And the race is on.

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TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The latest L.A. must-have that has people scrambling to find and waiting hours to buy is a $2 taco sold from a difficult-to-find food truck called Kogi. The tacos and other specialties are the creation of Chef Roy Choi who along with two business partners started Kogi last November. The food is a mix of Korean and Mexican cuisine, which is a hit with both food snobs and late-night partiers.

KATHERINE GLOUIET, CUSTOMER: Someone has taken two very normal, boring things, mixed them together and come up with something completely different.

ROWLANDS: But it's not just the food, there's also the chase. There are two Kogi trucks. One is named Verde. And the other, Roja. Finding either requires some work. Locations are posted online and updated on Twitter. Changes are frequent. The night we followed Chef Roy, plans to go to Orange County were scrapped at the last minute because they couldn't get a permit.

CHEF ROY CHOI, CHEF, KOGI: We said on our Twitter, we're going right to the county line of L.A. county and we're going to sell our food.

ROLLILNS: Whenever the truck arrive, a line was waiting. Kogi is so popular that most nights the truck runs out of food. Kogi You Tube videos show how long the lines can get and they also show what lengths some people will go to find a Kogi truck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There it is. Yes!

ROWLANDS: There's even a rap song about Kogi.

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ROWLANDS: Kogi fans run the gamut from the professional lunch crowd to "Lord of the Rings" star Elijah Wood who recently hired the truck for his birthday.

CAROLINE SHIN-MANGUERA, COFOUNDER, KOGI: It doesn't make sense whatsoever. We make our people wait in line for two hours. We make them wait in the rain. We don't give chairs to sit on. We don't take reservations. We're late half the time, you know? But we must be doing something right.

ROLLINS (on camera): Kogi is doing so well, they've added two new trucks to the streets of Los Angeles and they say they're thinking of expanding to New York. Ted Rollins, CNN, Los Angeles.

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COSTELLO: Music to my ears. They're expanding to New York.

ROBERTS: Have you eaten from one of those trucks?

COSTELLO: No.

ROBERTS: It's a weird thing, like, you know, I remember when I was a kid working a summer job, the lunch truck would come around. It's kind of sketchy. But some of these new trucks like the one that I mentioned that I saw in Reston, it's got like the big double stainless steel refrigerator, a great grill and the food is unbelievable.

COSTELLO: Well, when I get back to Washington, I'll hunt it down. I'll drive to Reston.

ROBERTS: Drive to Reston.

COSTELLO: To find the truck.

ROBERTS: Antojitos Mexicanos. Not giving them a plug. But it's a just good thing. Forty-six minutes after the hour. Stay with us.

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COSTELLO: It is 48 minutes past the hour. Let's fast forward through the stories that will be making news later today.

At 8:30 this morning, the Labor Department releases its jobs report for May. Most analysts expecting the unemployment rate to rise from 8.9 percent to 9.2 percent with the economy losing another 525,000 jobs.

At 11:00 this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds a briefing with reporters to discuss North Korea. She's also meeting today with South Korea's foreign minister. They'll discuss the North's nuclear ambitions and there might be an update on the two U.S. journalists who were supposed to go on trial this week in North Korea for what the communist country is calling hostile acts. North Korea has stayed silent about that.

And two international space station astronauts are staying inside for now. They were supposed to be in the middle of a space walk to prepare the ISS, for the arrival of the Russian spacecraft in November. But we're told high carbon dioxide readings in their space suits delayed that. It's time to check on the weather all around the country. Reynolds Wolf is standing by to fill us in, in Atlanta. Hi.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi. Thankfully no carbon dioxide in my space suit. We're in pretty good shape with the forecast today.

We're going to get started, Carol, with a look at the possibility of severe weather in the front range of the Rockies, back into parts of the central plains. It looks like it's going to be a late afternoon/early evening deal. And if you have any travel plans, say, taking you to Grand Junction or maybe even to Denver, you might have delays there. Meanwhile for the Eastern seaboard this morning, getting some sprinkles out there from New York southward to even here in Atlanta as far south as the Florida keys.

Right now the heaviest rainfall in that part of the world forming mainly back towards Virginia is the southeast of Richmond down the James River. Virginia Beach has splash and dash showers and back to Philadelphia and even New York, again they got the cloudy skies. But there is a good aspect to that. With the cloud cover and the rain- cooled air it's going to feel fairly comfortable. New York and Boston, highs only into the low to mid-60s. Eighty degrees over Nashville and 83 for Kansas City and 96 in Phoenix.

That is a quick wrap for you. Carol, let's send it back to you in New York.

COSTELLO: All right. Thank you, Reynolds. It's 50 minutes past the hour.

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ROBERTS: Somehow, that's an appropriate song to play for Washington and Capitol Hill.

COSTELLO: I'm just trying to...

ROBERTS: Paralyzer.

COSTELLO: That is appropriate. Sixty-one degrees and light rain right now. Later on today, the rain continues and the high only a degree above where we are now at 62. Finger Eleven is the band if you like this song.

Welcome back to the Most News In The Morning.

In the market for gyro chip that can steer a guided missile, how about a spark gap that's used to detonate nuclear weapons. No problem. Apparently it's pretty easy to buy these stuff and ship it overseas to potentially hostile government and groups.

Let's go live to the Pentagon where our Chris Lawrence has got the details of a stunning investigation by the Government Accountability Office. Chris, by any measure, this is pretty troubling.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I think easy is probably an understatement, John. You know, the Internet and e- mails, that's all it took to buy parts for these potentially deadly weapons.

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LAWRENCE (voice-over): You don't need night vision goggles to see there's a problem here. American companies selling these lenses and other weapons parts to potentially hostile governments and terrorists.

GREGORY KUTZ, GAO INVESTIGATOR: You have nuclear applications, guided missile applications, improvised explosive devices, potentially being used in Iraq against our own soldiers.

LAWRENCE: The Government Accountability Office says American parts are bought, sold and sent who knows where. KUTZ: They were items that were shipped to places like Pakistan, China and Iran or Hezbollah.

LAWRENCE: To prove the lack of oversight, GAO investigators set up a fake company, address and e-mail. They used a credit card to buy parts from American companies like equipment used in smart bombs. These chips helped steer guided missiles and even after a real American company was punished for selling them to China, GAO's fake company got an order for 10.

KUTZ: We never really had to meet with anybody, talked to them on the phone.

LAWRENCE: Some parts were strictly military. Others said dual uses. This high voltage switch has medical applications and can also be used to detonate nuclear weapons. The GAO got approval for a hundred.

REP. BETTY SUTTON (D), OHIO: It's as if our own country has become a terrorist bazaar (ph).

LAWRENCE: Some distributors do ask to sign an end use agreement which just states how you plan to use the equipment.

REP. GREG WALDE (R), OREGON (via telephone): So, if I wanted to do something bad with what I got, I just sign this and say I promise not to use this to create a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon, honest. That's what we signed, Osama, it will be believable and enforceable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We signed it in all cases and I don't believe there are any other checks done.

LAWRENCE: But there are hardly any restrictions on buying this equipment in the U.S., so the distributors who sold to GAO's fake company didn't break any laws.

REP. GREG WALDEN (R), OREGON: The scandal here may be what is legal, not what is illegal.

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LAWRENCE: You're not allowed to export a lot of this stuff, but the GAO proved even that security is laughable. What investigators did is they took dummy, fake versions of those smart bomb equipment and those chips and they shipped it to a company in southeast Asia, a country known to be a transit point for terrorists. And, John, they did it all from the post office and Fedex right here in Washington, D.C.

ROBERTS: So the obvious question then is, Chris, what do we do about all of this?

LAWRENCE: Well, a lot of people are calling for these laws to be updated, saying, you know, there hasn't been an overhaul. You know, not even since 9/11 for 20, 30 years. These laws about where it's sold need to be updated and there also needs to be better coordination between departments like Commerce and State to make sure you don't have these jurisdictional fights that just get in the way of really enforcing some of these rules and laws.

ROBERTS: Pretty shocking stuff. Chris Lawrence for us this morning from the Pentagon. Chris, thanks so much.

LAWRENCE: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Well, Air France 447 all of that debris they found in the ocean didn't belong to the plane. How could that happen? And are investigators back to square one? What brought down Air France flight 447? More on this when we come back. It's 57 minutes past.

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