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American Morning
President Obama Attends Summit in Mexico With Leaders of Mexico and Canada; Hudson River Crash Collision Kills Nine People; Gas Prices Rise; Heroin, A Growing Problem in Maine; Truth on Health Care; Service With a Smile; The Man Behind the Drug war; President Obama in Mexico
Aired August 10, 2009 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And off the drums, a very good morning to you. It's Monday, it's the 10th of August. Thanks for being with us on the "Most News in the Morning." I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us today. We're following several developing stories we'll be breaking down for you in the next 15 years.
A drug war spilling into the U.S., a trade dispute and swine flu, all of that on President Obama's agenda today. We're live in Guadalajara, Mexico where the president meets with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.
ROBERTS: Back here at home, Democrats are trying to break through the noise of the health care debate. It's growing louder by the day, anger and frustration not just playing out of town hall meetings. What you, our viewers, have to say about it ahead.
CHETRY: And the latest on that dramatic midair collision between a small plane and a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River. A deadly combination after the two crashed and plummeted into the water.
Well, now, wreckage and more victims have been recovered and also what investigators are learning about a possible cause. CNN's Susan Candiotti is live for us on the scene.
ROBERTS: We begin this morning with President Obama in Mexico for a summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. It's a short trip with a long agenda from drugs and gun to swine flu and trade. These issues will be grabbing the headlines today.
Our White House correspondent Susan Malveaux is traveling with the president. She's in Guadalajara, Mexico for us this morning. And, Suzanne, lots of serious issues here for the three countries to be tackling in what is a very short meeting today.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, you're absolutely right. We don't expect any major announcements coming from the summit. President Obama is going to be on the ground for no more than 20 hours. But clearly, this is about setting the agenda for the United States and its neighbors. And because everyone is so close they impact each other. It relates to anything from jobs from the flu to even murder across the border. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Dubbed "the Summit of the Three Amigos," President Barack Obama with Mexico's Felipe Calderon and Canada's Stephen Harper. All smiles in front of the cameras. But in the space of 20 hours, it is serious business, starting with the swine flu which originated here in Mexico and since has spread throughout the world, with the fall flu season expected to be even more deadly. A senior administration official says the leaders talked about the need to coordinate their efforts to contain it.
ANDREW SELEE, WOODROW WILSON CENTER: If we want to keep this cooperation going, we want to keep our borders open, but we also want to make sure our medical establishments are working with each other to prevent this.
MALVEAUX: Trade is another key issue. The U.S.'s crumbling economy has met job losses in Canada and Mexico. How President Obama steers Americans out of this devastating recession will impact our neighbors.
SELEE: It may be the most important relationship we have. Mexico is our second largest commercial partner, second largest destination for exports, second largest commercial partner.
MALVEAUX: Mexico is also a partner in the war against drugs. A war Mexico's president is far from winning as the drug cartels gain strength.
President Obama says the U.S. shares responsibility. It provides the market for Mexico's drugs and is the source of many of the guns that have made the cartels so powerful. But the U.S. Congress is holding off on sending $100 million in aid to help fight the drug battle until its reassured the Mexican military is not involved in violating human rights.
A senior administration official said Mr. Obama addressed this with Mr. Calderon emphasizing that defeating the cartels in the long run would require the commitment and confidence of all the countries affected.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: Now despite the difficult issues, a senior administration official described the meeting between Presidents Obama and Calderon as cordial, a warm, friendly discussion, something that's based on the relationship of eight months. And today, John, they're going to be focusing all three leaders on climate change as well as energy -- John.
ROBERTS: Susan Malveaux moderating the meetings for us there in Guadalajara for us. Thanks very much, Suzanne. We'll see you again soon.
Mexico's drug violence has killed thousands of people. And if you think that doesn't affect you, think again. Later on this hour, we're taking you live to the front lines of the Mexican drug war with CNN's Michael Ware.
CHETRY: Well, in just about half an hour from now, recovery crews are going to be heading back into New York's Hudson River resuming their search for victims and wreckage and explanations following the midair collision of a small plane and a sightseeing helicopter. It happened Saturday. Nine people killed.
Was this an accident waiting to happen? The crash is renewing calls for new flight rules in that heavily traveled corridor that at low altitude is unregulated airspace.
CNN's Susan Candiotti is following developments for us. She's live on the Jersey side of the Hudson in Hoboken. And, Susan, for those who witnessed that crash, they say that they didn't think there was a chance anybody survived it.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was horrific. And, you know, this is an ongoing source of debate. Pilots who fly over the East River and the Hudson are supposed to use visual flight rules. They're supposed to watch out for each other. So the question is, how could two experienced pilots on a bright, sunny day run into each other? Victims' families want to know and so does the NTSB.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Sunday began with the recovery of four more victims, each painstakingly lifted from waters up to 50 feet deep. Divers worked in near zero visibility.
DEBORAH HERSMAN, CHAIRWOMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: The divers had extremely challenging conditions with current visibility. At times the visibility was no more than one foot in front of them. Our investigators have advised me that the helicopter sustained significant damage.
CANDIOTTI: Recovery teams transferred victims from motorized rafts to a police boat. The process of identification and autopsies is well under way. By early afternoon, a crane using heavy chains pulled the sightseeing helicopter from the bottom of the Hudson River. Trapped inside the wreckage, two more victims.
Investigators will examine every bit of twisted debris from the Liberty Tours chopper. The sightseeing company in business since 1986 has had several accidents in the last 14 years.
HERSMAN: The safety board has a record of eight accidents and one incident involving Liberty helicopters. The first accident was in 1995.
CANDIOTTI: In this July 2007 incident, a chopper crash landed in the water but no one was hurt. In a statement, a spokesman for Liberty Tours told CNN the company "is cooperating fully to get all the facts. At this time their priority is to help with the family of their pilot, and of course the families that were involved in the accident." Pilot Jeremy Clarke reportedly engaged to be married was killed, so were five Italian tourists, including two teenagers. On the small plane, 15-year-old Douglas Altman, his father and uncle lost their lives. The teenager's friends put together a video tribute to him on YouTube.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI: And so before long, divers will be back in the water looking for those two remaining victims and the wreckage of the small plane they were in -- Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. A little bit later we're going to be talking to someone from the NTSB about the situation, that unregulated airspace below 1,100 feet and whether or not they need to see that changed. Susan Candiotti for us this morning, thanks.
ROBERTS: As soon as President Obama returns from Mexico today, he is expected to focus on this make or break month for health care reform. This morning, Democrats are trying to shed some light on a plan that is steering passions and triggering shoving matches at town hall meetings across the country.
In an editorial in today's "USA Today," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer write, "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American." Kind of concerns over the safety of residents and staff force to school in Missouri to cancel Senator Claire McCaskill's town hall event that was scheduled for tomorrow. That's according to the "St. Louis Dispatch" newspaper.
This weekend, more tensions and more tirades from coast-to-coast. The frustration also evident on our show hotline, 1-877-MY-AMFIX. Here's what some of you are saying about all of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CALLER: They're just a vocal minority trying to hijack a process which the majority of Americans actually support.
CALLER: There needs to be some hard, fast questions and the president of the United States or somebody needs to explain this program because in my opinion, and I'm not a smart man, it is leading to socialized medicine.
CALLER: It's just a matter of time before something happens and someone gets hurt for real.
CALLER: I do not want thugs deciding my health care. And I do not want CNN to legitimize them by covering them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: But we certainly want to hear from more of you. Call our show hotline at 1-877-MY-AMFIX. That's 877-692-6349.
CHETRY: Also new this morning, challenges in Afghanistan and the "Wall Street Journal" quoting a top U.S. commander there saying that the Taliban has gained the upper hand on coalition forces.
General Stanley McChrystal says that forced a change in military strategy increasing U.S. presence in heavily populated areas like Kandahar to protect Afghan civilians. General McChrystal also saying he expects American casualties in Afghanistan to remain high for months to come.
ROBERTS: More than 40 people are dead and hundreds more injured in a string of deadly attacks on Iraqi day laborers. Two truck bombs near Mosul killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens more. In Baghdad, two separate car bombs killed 16 people. Today's attacks fueling fears that insurgents are preparing a comeback after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities.
CHETRY: Some disastrous weather across much of Asia. A deadly typhoon battering Japan. Five people reportedly killed, ten others missing. These storms also forcing nearly a million evacuations in China.
Taiwan has been hit with its worst flooding in 50 years at least.
ROBERTS: Look at this.
CHETRY: This is unbelievable that it was actually caught on tape. That was a historic six-story hotel that just simply toppled over. In Taiwan, they're saying at least 22 people are reported dead. And what you saw there was floodwaters just simply washing out the soil and land from underneath the building's foundation that toppled it into the water.
ROBERTS: Well, it's a serious business for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her tour of Africa, but her dancing has made her a YouTube sensation. Secretary Clinton was cutting loose with the locals in Nairobi, Kenya last week.
CHETRY: Yes. It reminded us about another memorial video. You remember President Bush attempting to play the bongos during his malaria awareness event and then he sort of started free styling. There you see it. That was back in 2007 outside of the White House.
ROBERTS: You just can't get enough of that one, can you?
Then it was President Obama who was then Senator Obama showing off his moves on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" during the campaign.
You know, if this was "Dancing With the Stars," I think he'd win.
CHETRY: Although, I have to give former President Bush for creativity, you know, with the freestyle, and also the shocked look on the faces of those around him.
(LAGUHTER)
Audience participation.
ROBERTS: Sometimes when you're seized by the moment you just kind of do it.
CHETRY: You're right.
ROBERTS: President Obama in Mexico today for a summit with the leaders of North American countries, Mexico, Canada and the United States. What's going to come out of these meetings if anything? We'll find out coming right up.
It's 11 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It's 14 minutes after the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
President Obama in Mexico right now for a summit with Mexican and Canadian leaders. The visit short on time but long on issues like the drug war, the economy and the global swine flu pandemic.
Joining me now to talk more about the upcoming meeting today, Juan Hernandez. He's the founder of the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of Texas.
Juan, good to see you this morning. If you had to pick three issues that you think the president should focus on in the upcoming meetings today, what would they be?
JUAN HERNANDEZ, FOUNDER, CENTER FOR U.S.-MEXICO STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: Well, this is being called the new era of relationship between Canada and Mexico for the United States. But Canada and Mexico are not very happy with the new era because the United States has not kept its commitments that it had in previous areas.
For example, the United States was supposed to help Mexico with $100 million to fight the war on the narcos. And Congress has been very slow in providing that money. NAFTA, which has been good for all three countries is so far behind in creating infrastructure. And many times the trucks are coming into the United States with goods that don't pay taxes either way. It takes them longer than the ships coming from Asia even though Mexico and Canada buy much more goods from the United States than China does. So Mexico and the United States are not very happy with this new very short meeting of this new era.
ROBERTS: Right. Let's drill down for a second on the money you talked about there for the drug war in Mexico. Obviously, President Felipe Calderon has stepped up attacks, stepped up the campaign against the drug cartels. They do seem to be getting stronger but at the same time there are concerns about potential human rights abuses on the part of the Mexican military, and police are going after these cartels. And that's why Congress is saying, wait a second here, we've got a provision in the law that allows us to withhold 15 percent of this money until we're assured that there were no human rights violations. So is it really the United States' fault or does Mexico really need to come to the table here and say, hey, we're not abusing human rights violations and if we do find some, we're going to prosecute those to the full extent of the law?
HERNANDEZ: I think that Mexico has a lot to do with regard to human rights. Of course, there are areas of Mexico must work on. But, Felipe Calderon is risking his own skin in this fight against the narcos. There were 86 people just died in the last month. Last year was over 6,000 people that died and these are mostly up to 98 percent of the narcos themselves fighting and people of the army.
That army that we have been criticizing for not maybe being as good as they should be with regard to human rights in Mexico are the heroes. For a long time, the army in Mexico was not thought of in Mexico as being really as good as it should be but today the Mexican people love their army because they are risking their skin also.
ROBERTS: Another point of contention between the United States and Mexico is over whether or not Mexican trucks can travel freely through the United States. 1994 NAFTA agreement said, yes, they could. Congress then slapped a ban on that a couple of years ago.
Mexico in retaliation leveled tariffs up to 45 percent against American goods, everything from grapes to Christmas trees to paper products in this economy. A lot of American companies are hurting because of that. Do you expect any headway at all, Juan, on that issue?
HERNANDEZ: No, unfortunately, this meeting is very, very short. Last night it was a quick meeting with Felipe Calderon. Harper, the prime minister from Canada, is quite upset because he wasn't able to have even a one-on-one with President Obama. This is a very short meeting and there's so many issues that we must work with with our partners and with our friends and our neighbors.
ROBERTS: Yes. We should point out that President Obama and Prime Minister Harper do have a one-on-one that will be coming up in September, so they'll get a chance to talk more about these issues. But they are also going to be talking about swine flu, H1N1 flu and from what we understand, there will be an agreement to work together on this. Do you think that that is going to be the feel good moment out of this summit?
HERNANDEZ: Unfortunately, the United States is the one that has been pushing so that swine flu be the topic of discussion. But Mexico and Canada are wanting to talk about a NAFTA plus, a working together of Canada, United States and Mexico so that together the three can compete against other combinations of countries that are now competing very well against the United States.
ROBERTS: All right. Juan Hernandez from the University of Texas. Good to talk to you this morning, sir. Thanks very much for joining us. Appreciate it.
HERNANDEZ: Thank you.
ROBERTS: All right - Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Well, still ahead, we're going to be talking about gas prices up now for 20 consecutive days, in most places closer to $3 than $2. Stephanie Elam joins us "Minding Your Business" to talk a little bit more about why.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Good morning, it's Monday. Twenty minutes past the hour. Christine Romans is off and Stephanie Elam is "Minding Your Business," watching the gas prices creep up day after day after day. What's doing on?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I think anyone who's been out there on the roads, they're aware of the fact that there's a slight increase there. Kind of like my voice there for a second where I just decided to leave.
But if you take a look at the national average, $2.64, that's what we're paying for a gallon of regular gas. But here's the thing. Over the last two weeks, gas prices have gone up 15 cents, according to the Lundberg survey. You can blame that on crude oil prices that have been on the rise the last full month there.
So, demand for gas being down in August, but really it has a lot to do with the fact that people are so out of jobs. We've got a lot of people out of jobs. I know the unemployment number was better but a lot of people still feeling the pain because of that. And then the summer driving season, a lot less people are taking to the roads. So that's impacting it there.
So they say, you know what, we may see a few more cents of an uptick on our gas prices. But it should level out there because overall demand is down. So gas prices, though, let's put it in perspective.
$1.20 cheaper than we were paying a year ago. Remember July last year, we were at $4.11 a gallon? Remember how painful that was?
CHETRY: Right.
ELAM: We're nowhere near that right now. So that's giving people a little bit of relief, obviously when you do that comparison. Also just to give you an idea of the biggest or the highest places that people are paying for gas, that would be Hawaii, which usually is Alaska or Hawaii that has the highest one, right?
So, Hawaii is $3.07. California overall $3.05. L.A. is where the most gas is consumed in our country. Cheapest gas in good old Charleston, South Carolina $2.42.
CHETRY: You know, and some economists are saying if the oil is up and we're in this global recession, what is that going to say for us once we start to recover?
ELAM: I know. Is it going to go higher? A lot of this too is also they're trying to decide how much demand is out there for oil, so they're trying to truncate how much they're putting out. That's part of it as well. ROBERTS: Yes. Where are we going to be next year, this time next year? That's the big question.
ELAM: Right. It's a whole different question. Yes.
ROBERTS: Steph, thanks. Good to see you this morning.
ELAM: Sure. Thanks.
ROBERTS: So, heroin addiction and heroin problem in what might seem like a very unlikely front in the war on drugs. It's a small coastal community in Maine? What's this all about. We'll tell you coming up. Stay with us.
It's 23 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's 26 minutes after the hour right now.
It's a long way from Mexico but coastal Maine, believe it or not, has become an emerging market for Mexican drug cartels.
ROBERTS: And the drug in demand, oh no, it's not marijuana. It's not even cocaine, it's heroin. A story that you'll see only here on AMERICAN MORNING. CNN's Alina Cho following it for us.
Good morning.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys. It is surprising. Good morning, everybody.
You know when you think of the war on drugs, you think off in inner cities, places like New York, L.A., Chicago, D.C. But coastal Maine? Well, you may be surprised to hear in this tiny area of New England, heroin has become a massive problem too big to contain.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHO (voice-over): Picture perfect Maine, home to lighthouses, lobsters...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heroin, heroin, more heroin.
CHO: And heroin?
LEANNE LARIVIERE, RECOVERING DRUG ADDICT: It's very available out here. It's scary.
CHO: Thousands of miles from the drug cartels of Mexico, Kittery, Maine in bucolic New England is a new mecca for heroin use. Detective Steve Hamel has been working narcotics for two decades. He says he's seen it all but never this.
DET. STEVE HAMEL, KITTERY, MAINE POLICE DEPARTMENT: My case let alone for heroin and OxyContin has tripled over the past three years.
CHO: That's incredible.
HAMEL: Yes, it is.
CHO: Detectives are working around the clock. Dealers are making a killing.
CHO: This is fast cash.
HAMEL: Exactly.
CHO: And the addicts are some of Maine's youngest getting high on $5 a hit.
HAMEL: Cheaper than a six-pack of beer for most high school kids.
CHO: And highly addictive.
CAROL LARSON, DRUG COUNSELOR: We're tended to think a drug is a drug is a drug. One of the things that is happening with heroin is that the craving for the drug happens months and months and months after they put it down.
CHO: Treatment for heroin addiction in Maine was up 40 percent last year. Some are not able to kick the habit like 17-year-old Bethany Fritz (ph) who died of a heroin overdose in 2004. Since then, Kittery police say another four from the area have died, all in their 20s. Why Maine?
HAMEL: Little Kittery, Maine, people think, wow, nothing goes on up there. Law enforcement is way behind the times. It's just a relaxed -- you know, I can blend in better up there.
CHO: And it never ends. The day of our visit, a heroin arrest is front page news.
(on camera): How hopeful are you that you can fight this and win?
HAMEL: We're never going to win. I really don't think we're ever going to win. But if we weren't there, just think how bad it would be if we weren't up there doing what we do. For every one we get, maybe ten get away but we're still going to stay in the fight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Wow. I don't usually see this small town like that has got such a problem, but what's the transit route to get there for these drugs?
CHO: Well, this narcotics agent basically told us, this detective told us it's being literally muled up from Mexico, these drugs. You know, the president, as you know, is there right now. Drugs on the agenda among many other things. But what's interesting is this drug counselor we talked to said basically it happens like you go to the doctor, you get prescribed OxyContin for say, back pain or something, and a lot of people are simply getting hooked. They start to doctor shop. They try to buy this OxyContin. Then they can't get as much as they need, so they go on the streets. It's $50 a pill.
They realize heroin, which is also an opiate is $5 a hit. So you do the math.
ROBERTS: Right.
CHO: It's a tenth of the cost. You get the same high and that's how people are getting hooked. It's really incredible. And it's scary because this counselor is saying, you know, it used to be one of those things you thought junkies in the city. Now, she's seeing a lot of college graduates coming in as drug addicts and the demographic of the drug addict is really changing. So, it's really incredible.
CHETRY: It's interesting that that leads back to prescription pills as well?
CHO: She's saying that we are just overprescribed as a nation. And this is one example of that.
ROBERTS: Yes. It's interesting that prescription drugs are the gateway to an illicit drug.
CHO: That's right.
ROBERTS: Unusual route. Alina, thanks so much.
CHO: You bet.
ROBERTS: It's half past the hour now. It's 6:30 Eastern Time. And checking our top stories, the Mexican drug war, one of several big issues topping President Obama's agenda today. Right now, he is Mexico meeting with the leaders of that country and Canada. He'll also be discussing the swine flu pandemic and the job losses the U.S. economy has caused in those two nations.
Several young police officers who took part in the rescue and cleanup after the World Trade Center attacks are now battling a blood cancer that usually targets older Americans. That's according to researchers who have been studying more than 28,000 9/11 responders. Experts say it's too soon to know for sure if conditions at Ground Zero caused the multiple myeloma cancer cases in the small group of officers.
And states banking on revenue from casinos, slot machines and lotteries are seeing profits decline for the first time. Forty-eight states depend on some form of gambling for income. "The Wall Street Journal" reports that the money commercial casinos pay to the states and local government fell more than 2 percent in 2008. Nevada's gambling tax revenue fell 15 percent in the fiscal year that just ended in June - Kiran. CHETRY: All right. Well, now that they're home for summer recess, some members of Congress are getting an earful about the Democratic-backed plan for a health care overall. As we've seen pictures and sounds coming from these town hall protests, all the rage now, lawmakers often facing large and hostile crowds. This is a make- or-break month for the President Obama's reform plan.
And PolitiFact is exposing some of the distortions out there from both sides concerning health care. Bill Adair, founder and editor of Politifact.com, joins us now from Washington. This is our special health care edition.
Bill, good to see you this morning.
BILL ADAIR, EDITOR, POLITIFACT.COM: Good morning, Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. So, our first Truth-O-Meter comes from Paul Krugman, a columnist and economist for the "New York Times."
In a blog posting Wednesday, he said, "During the 2005 fight over social security, there were noisy demonstrations, but they were outside of the events. And opponents were not disruptive. Crowds booed lines they didn't like, but that was about it."
So you guys did some digging, went back to see what it was like during that contentious debate about social security and privatizing it. Did you find his statements true?
ADAIR: No, we didn't. We gave it a "False" on our Truth-O-Meter on PolitiFact.com. You know, Krugman is trying to say that Democrats were better behaved back in 2005. They weren't. It was pretty much the same scene. We found plenty of examples of town halls that were disrupted by liberals, who were Democrats who were unhappy with the president's social security proposal.
So, Krugman gets a "False" on this one.
CHETRY: All right. Next one we go to is an ad that's out there right now. And it's really comparing the U.S. health care plan, or I guess what we envision to be the plan, there's many going on right now in Congress, to Britain's health care plan. Let's listen to the comparison and what it says.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $22,750. In England, government health officials decided that's how much six months of life is worth. Under their socialized system, if a medical treatment costs more, you're out of luck. That's wrong for America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: All right. There you go. So will the U.S. plan put a price limit on someone's life?
ADAIR: Not as it currently exists. This one also gets a "False" on the Truth-O-Meter. And the implication here is that there would be such a linkage and it's just not the case. There's nothing like this in the bill. It's really -- you know, there is a public option in the bill, in some versions of the bill, but it wouldn't do what the ad suggests.
So, this one gets a "False."
CHETRY: The interesting thing, though, about this one is that the Cato's expert that you guys referred to in researching this says it's not too far off, as you take a look and say you want to -- you want to control costs, you want to include everyone, that rationing is not necessarily something that's not conceivable perhaps down the road.
ADAIR: Well, I think you could make the same argument about private health insurance, that if it rations care, and these are important issues that need to be discussed. What's happened in this debate, though, is there are so many falsehoods that it's hard for people to really have a reasoned discussion about it. It's really become a debate defined by what's not really in the bill.
CHETRY: Right. And that brings us to our next one right now. This comes from Republican Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio. And what he was talking about was a real hot button issue, of course, that's going to get people upset.
He said the Democrat-backed health care plan -- reform plan will, quote, "require Americans to subsidize abortion with their hard-earned tax dollars."
You know a statement like that is going to raise a lot of concerns. How does that statement hold up?
ADAIR: Well, we gave that one a "False" on the Truth-O-Meter. And the reason is that the bill he's referring to, the House version of the bill, has an amendment in it, at least as it passed out of one committee that goes to some pains to make sure that federal money would not be used to subsidize abortions.
So, we gave this one a "False." Now here again, there -- you know, it's a -- it's a tricky question. What the -- what the amendment does is it says that no taxpayer money can be used for abortion coverage.
And that's a little bit tricky. You can -- you can say, well, you know, it's a big pot of money even if the person insured is paying a certain amount in premiums, how do you know that that amount is going toward the abortion.
But the Democrats are trying to take abortion out of the debate. They say this shouldn't be a debate about abortion, it's a debate about health care. So they're trying to keep the plan, as they put it, abortion-neutral.
CHETRY: All right. Well, you have you a lot of great information on the Web site as well. If people want to find out more, because you're right, there's a lot being said out there. And we thank you for helping us get to the bottom of some of this.
Bill Adair with PolitiFact.com, thanks so much.
ADAIR: Thank you.
CHETRY: And for the complete political scorecard, by the way, you can go to our Web site at cnn.com/amfix - John.
ROBERTS: OK. So, we've got the Truth-O-Meter. PolitiFact.com even has the Obameter.
But what about the smile-o-meter? How's your smile today? Some companies are forcing their employees to check their grin every morning to make sure that, you know, that smiles are real and not just one of those smiles you probably see...
CHETRY: Right. They actually rank your smile 1 to 100.
ROBERTS: They do, yes. Tell you all about it, coming right up.
Thirty six and a half minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: What do you think? Were those genuine smiles?
CHETRY: It's Monday morning, 6:39 here in New York. That's about as genuine as you get, right?
ROBERTS: Yes. For anybody to even practice smile this time of the day, I guess, is a pretty impressive thing.
CHETRY: Thanks to our crew. We appreciate that. Only one female. You see what I have to deal with every morning, all you men?
Well, anyway, there is a reason to smile, of course. And that's if you're working at one particular Japanese company, they're really ranking you on this.
ROBERTS: They are. It's a rail company. They're putting a new spin on service with a smile.
CNN's Morgan Neill is following that story for us.
MORGAN NEILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kiran and John, you know that feeling when you have to hold your smile for a picture and it gets kind of frozen on your face. Imagine going through that every day at work. We went to one workplace where that's exactly what's happening. The surprise? No one is complaining.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NEILL (voice-over): At Ketu Railways, morning routine is serious business.
Safety makes for a happy workplace, but recently a change in the routine has workers smiling and smiling and smiling some more. Every morning, they sit down in front of this terminal, log in and grin. The program then scores their smiles from 0 to 100.
Of course, good service is the most important thing, says this railroad representative, but you can't practice good service with a scary face.
A smile affects overall service. And that's why Ketu workers like station attendant Kiomi Yogiwara (ph) are beaming.
"By having a smile on my face," she says, "I make others feel good. They smile back at me."
The company just started using the software a few months ago. Customers certainly seem pleased. And while not everyone's smile is equal, workers say they've had fun with it. The company says no one is forced to use the program.
"In the beginning, everyone was confused, but now it's become a habit," she says. In the morning, everyone lines up and practices smiling.
(on camera): So how hard could this really be?
Well, let's find out. Here is my normal face and that gets me about a zero. And advice down here tells me to relax, OK? And that gets me a 94. Not bad for me, but I would hate to have to do that all day long.
(voice-over): But that's not a sentiment shared by many at Ketu. Through repetition and practice you can create a natural smile, says the railroad rep. Smiling, after all, is serious business.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEILL: Now, we should be clear about a couple of things. First, no one is getting promoted or demoted on the basis of their smile. And second, the workers genuinely seem to be enjoying this -- Kiran and John.
ROBERTS: All right. Morgan Neill for us this morning.
Morgan, thanks so much.
You see it all the time, though. People smile and they go...
CHETRY: And it slowly starts to fade, yes.
ROBERTS: So we've got the summit going on in Mexico today, in Guadalajara. President Obama there along with Canada's Stephen Harper, Calderon from Mexico. One of the things they'll be talking about is the drug war. It's raging on our doorstep.
Our Michael Ware is coming up in just a couple of minutes. He's going to introduce you to "El Chapo," who is one of the leading and most violent men in the drug war on our doorstep. So, stay with us for that.
It's 43 minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Good morning. And we're saying good morning to Manchester, New Hampshire today. Thanks to our friends at WMUR, who, of course, we rely on during the primary process to bring us all that great information. 65 degrees there right now. A little bit cool. But don't worry, going up to a high of 89 today and thunderstorms in the forecast for later on today.
Of course, if you think it's going to be hot in Manchester today, don't be in New York City.
CHETRY: No. It should finally, finally, now that we're -- August 10th actually feel like summer. Our Rob Marciano has the weather for us from Atlanta.
And it looks like we're supposed to up to above 90. We haven't seen that here in New York.
(WEATHER REPORT)
ROBERTS: Rob, thanks so much. We'll see you in just a little bit. It's coming up now on 48 minutes after the hour.
Our Michael Ware in Mexico on the frontlines of the drug war there, introducing us to the man who became the face of the violent war that's spilling into the United States.
Who is "El Chapo"? Michael tells us. It's coming up. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: We're back with the Most News in the Morning.
Right now, President Obama in Mexico. One of the big issues that he's tackling -- the escalating violence along the U.S.-Mexican border, nearly all of it drug-related. And much of the carnage can be blamed on one of the world's most wanted man.
Our Michael Ware is live in Guadalajara, Mexico this morning with more on that.
Michael, who is this guy?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, he's the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most dangerous and one of the most powerful drug cartels operating here in Mexico.
But he's also more than that. If you want to get a sense, if you want to get a measure of how hard or how seriously America is fighting the war on drugs, "El Chapo" is the man.
Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WARE (voice-over): This man makes a living mockery of America's war on drugs. He is Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, one of the world's richest man and Mexico's most wanted wth a $5 million U.S. government bounty on his head.
RALPH REYES, D.E.A. MEXICO & CENTRAL AMERICA CHIEF: Chapo is the face. He is the guy who is currently at war against the government of Mexico, against law enforcement and military forces.
WARE: At war because El Chapo heads the ultra violent, ultra lucrative Sinaloa drug cartel. His exploits legendary.
"El Chapo Guzman is like a god in Mexico says Antonio Ortega. Nobody sees him, but he's everywhere. He's a myth."
Criminal lawyer Antonio Ortega is one of the very few Mexicans daring enough to speak of El Chapo on camera, having met the man himself while El Chapo was here in Puente Grande Prison before El Chapo escaped in 2001.
When you sit with him, says Ortega, you see a human contradiction.
REYES: He has that Robin Hood persona, and that he's constantly attending to the poor, the needs of the poor and the people that surround him.
WARE: On the run, El Chapo's business has continued to flourish and investigators say his orders followed. Ten months ago, this mutilated body appeared outside a Mexican police station. The message hanging over his corpse signed in El Chapo's name.
Many Mexicans believe El Chapo's whereabouts unknown history. In April, this Catholic archbishop Hector Gonzales Martinez pronounced everybody knows his whereabouts except the authorities. Claiming El Chapo is in these mountains, in the country's north, not far from the U.S. border.
El Chapo's exploits continue to undermine Mexican President Felipe Calderon, especially when "Forbes" magazine named El Chapo 701st on the world's rich list with a net worth of $1 billion.
"We regret what seems like a campaign against Mexico, which has escalated" said President Calderon. "First, from public opinion, and now even magazines, which are not only attacking and lying about the situation but are also praising criminals."
This from a president who upped the edge in the drug war sending over 40,000 Mexican army soldiers into the streets of his own cities in a bid to crush the cartels. A bid backed by U.S. President Barack Obama.
OBAMA: It's important that the United States steps up and cooperates effectively in battling the adverse effects of drug trafficking.
WARE: That was back in June. Since then the slaughter in Mexico has continued, and El Chapo's drugs have continued to pour into America.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WARE: And El Chapo continues to be the face of America's un- winnable drug war. And with President Obama here, it's a hope that he'll actually say something about what America is about to do to step up that commitment in the war on drugs. But from what the national security adviser said leading up to the summit, he promised that there will be talk about more talk that will lead to talk that might give us an agreement - John.
ROBERTS: Sure, those meetings very closely today.
Michael Ware for us in Guadalajara this morning. Michael, thanks so much - Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, you certainly couldn't have missed all of the health care town hall debates that have been going on. People screaming each other, shouting each other down, bringing in posters, hanging politicians in effigy. Well, now we have Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska calling reform down right evil. We're going to hear what else she had to say about it.
It's 55 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
President Obama is in Mexico this morning for a summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. It's a short trip, and there is a laundry list of items on the agenda. From drugs and guns to swine flu and trade, these issues will be grabbing the headlines today.
Our White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux is traveling with the president. She's in Guadalajara, Mexico.
And Suzanne, a lot of serious issues here for the three countries to tackle this morning. Obviously, they are not going to solve all these problems, but I guess they're just trying to sort of discuss it, put it out there and figure out if they can find consensus on anything.
MALVEAUX: Sure. And one of the things, Kiran, I traveled commercially to get here. And through customs, the first thing you're greeted with is a custom agent with a bottle of Purell, literally squeezes it in your hands, trying to sanitize your hands because the concern here obviously about swine flu. It's where it originated, expected to be quite a bad flu season in the fall. And that is at the top of the agenda.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MALVEAUX (voice-over): Dubbed the summit of the three amigos, President Barack Obama with Mexico's Felipe Calderon and Canada's Stephen Harper. All smiles in front of the cameras, but in the space of 20 hours, it is serious business, starting with the swine flu, which originated here in Mexico and since has spread throughout the world. With the fall flu season expected to be even more deadly, a senior administration officials says the leaders talked about the need to coordinate their efforts to contain it.
ANDREW SELEE, WOODROW WILSON CENTER: We want to keep this operation going. We want to keep our borders open, but we also want to make sure medical establishments are working with each other to prevent this.
MALVEAUX: Trade is another key issue. The U.S.'s crumbling economy has met job losses in Canada and Mexico. How President Obama steers Americans out of this devastating recession will impact our neighbors.
SELEE: It may be the most important relationship we have. Mexico is our second largest commercial partner, second largest destination for exports, their largest commercial partner.
MALVEAUX: Mexico is also a partner in the war against drugs. A war Mexico's president is far from winning as the drug cartels gain strength. President Obama says the U.S. shares responsibility. It provides the market for Mexico's drugs and is the source of many of the guns that have made the cartels so powerful.
But the U.S. Congress is holding off on sending $100 million in aid to help fight the drug battle until its reassured the Mexican military is not involved in violating human rights. A senior administration official said Mr. Obama addressed this with Mr. Calderon emphasizing that defeating the cartels in the long run would require the commitment and confidence of all the countries affected.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: Kiran, we don't expect any major announcements. President Obama really just on the ground here for less than 20 hours or so, but obviously a packed agenda. One senior administration official saying that these conversations have been cordial, warm and friendly today. They are going to focus on climate change, as well as energy.
Kiran?
CHETRY: Suzanne Malveaux for us in Guadalajara today.
Thanks so much.
