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More Forces in Afghanistan; Snowe's Lukewarm Support; White House Briefing
Aired October 13, 2009 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines -- the Pentagon claims all four hit their recruiting goals for this fiscal year. In fact, the Army got more than its goal, first time since the all-volunteer force began in 1973. And good news if you're looking for up to 40,000 more troops to send to Afghanistan, because right now, the military might not have that many warriors to spare.
The president and his advisers tackling the Afghan strategy again tomorrow. How many more meetings is it going to take?
So, how did General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, come up with that 40,000 number?
CNN Pentagon correspondent Chris Lawrence does the math.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One hundred thousand American and allied troops are already fighting in Afghanistan. To understand why it's believed General Stanley McChrystal wants 40,000 more, you need to look at a map the way military strategists see it.
KIMBERLY KAGAN, ADVISER TO GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: What 40,000 does is fill in the gaps around Kandahar, around Khost, in Helmand province. It does not, however, cover the entire country.
LAWRENCE: Kimberly Kagan is an adviser to McChrystal. She says it's the minimum number to root out the Taliban and identify and protect potential Afghan partners. But the military's own counterinsurgency ratio dictates it takes well over half a million troops to secure Afghanistan's 33 million people.
(on camera): But General McChrystal is not applying this ratio to all of Afghanistan. He feels certain parts of the country are peaceful enough like the north or just not as important like the west that they don't need the same number of counterinsurgency fighters as these areas do.
KAGAN: And that's what gets him from a figure of hundreds of thousands of troops down to a figure such as 40,000 or 60,000 troops.
LAWRENCE (voice-over): Kagan says McChrystal would use those troops to turn the tide so the Taliban doesn't control every other town. She says 10,000 or even 20,000 troops just aren't enough. KAGAN: It's not as though we can simply plug half as many holes with half as many troops and somehow seize the initiative from the enemy. On the contrary, half as many troops will probably leave us pinned down as we are.
LAWRENCE: The problem is roughly 25 million Afghans live in thousands of small rural villages scattered all over an area the size of Texas. Up to 80 percent of the population could still be out of reach for coalition troops.
(on camera): So, when 30,000 American troops surged into Baghdad, that's where one out of every four Iraqis lived. Even if you take the top 30 most populated areas of Afghanistan, you still only account for 20 percent of the population. That's how rural and spread out it is.
Chris Lawrence, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: We wondered if the military has 40,000 more troops to even spare. And if they don't, where are these extra warriors going to come from? It's not like you can just take these new recruits, ship them to Afghanistan.
Let's talk about Pentagon math with Mark Kimmitt. He's a retired brigadier general and former State Department official under President George W. Bush.
Mark, let me ask you -- I was reading how they were sort of defining the role that these guys and women will take when they go to Afghanistan. And it said, "These are roles that are being shifted from enabler to combat."
So, what does that exactly mean? Because they're short on warriors, are they going to take the mess cooks and put a gun in their hand and say, OK, fight on the battle line?
BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY (RET.): No, I certainly don't think we're going to go to that extreme. There are a sufficient number combat-ready units within the Army inventory, troops that have come back from deployment perhaps a year ago that can be used for those roles. But I don't think that we're going to be taking cooks and giving them rifles anytime soon.
PHILLIPS: Well, let me ask you about the fact that there are enough warriors to head out there. I was talking with someone within CENTCOM, a source of mine, and he said to me, hey, you know, we just don't have the manpower. They're going to have to come from Iraq, they're going to have to come from other missions, because we just don't have it, unless we're taking men and women and putting them into their second, third, fourth time around. And then you've got the issues of PTSD and depression and even suicide. We saw how those numbers have been going up.
KIMMITT: Well, what I'd also say is, earlier, you mentioned that we recruited soldiers in record numbers. One of the reasons that is the case is that the Army, the Marine Corps have been very good about making sure that the rotation patterns are such that, for almost every day they spend in combat, they will spend an equivalent amount of time at home. Because the families are important in this as well.
So, whether it's the enlistment or the reenlistment, yes, it's difficult to send these troops off to combat. But we've got to ensure them that they are going to have some time off to refit, retrain and rest when they get back. And I think because of that very, very meticulous and well thought out personnel policy that the services have, that's why we continue to retain record numbers of troops and recruit record numbers of troops as well.
PHILLIPS: Now, we're saying that the recruiting numbers are up, and that's a good thing for the military, but it takes a while from being recruited, getting the training, and then being ready for battle. It's not like these men and women could go and start fighting within the next month.
KIMMITT: No, that's certainly the case. That's exactly right, we need to send them through basic combat training, we need to send them to units where they can train up. But you can be assured that we are not taking troops, kids straight off the street and sending them straight to Afghanistan. They have to reach a certain measure of performance before they're assigned to a unit and before that unit deploys off into combat.
PHILLIPS: General, good to see you.
KIMMITT: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: A milestone, but still miles from the finish line. Sometime today the last congressional committee to take up health care reform plans to act, passing a bill that was supposed to be bipartisan. Instead, it's likely to get only one Republican vote. But that's one more than any of the other reform bills they have gotten so far.
The so-called Baucus bill is projected to cost $829 billion over 10 years, and covering 94 percent of the country while trimming the federal deficit. It was crafted primarily by three Finance Committee Democrats and three Republicans. But in the end, those Republicans bailed. The lone GOP senator to state her support is Olympia Snowe of Maine. And Senator Snowe kept everything guessing until this announcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE (R), MAINE: People do have concerns about what we will do with reform. But at the same time, they want us to continue working.
And that is what my vote to report this bill out of committee here today represents, is to continue working the process. I do it with reservations, because I share my Republican colleagues' trepidation about what will transpire on the Senate floor, what will emerge in the House/Senate conference, and how, indeed, the Finance Committee bill will be merged with the HELP bill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, HELP is the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which passed a much more liberal health care bill in July.
For the Democratic chairman of the finance panel, support from Snowe means months of grueling effort wasn't entirely in vain.
CNN's Brianna Keilar joining me now from Capitol Hill -- Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kyra, you better believe that the chairman of this committee, the Democratic chairman, Max Baucus, had a big grin on his face when Senator Snowe made that announcement, because all of those hours and hours of negotiations in a small group, a small bipartisan group of senators that included Senator Snowe, that meant for him that it wasn't a total loss.
So, now Democrats can say, look, we do have some Republican support. Granted, yes, it is one vote. But Snowe voting, saying that she's going to vote yes here, also saying, Kyra, this doesn't mean that if the bill changes she will...
PHILLIPS: And Brianna, reaction from the president to Senator Olympia Snowe. Let's listen in.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want to thank the Senate Finance Committee for plowing forward on what we all acknowledge is an extraordinarily complicated issue. I think they have done excellent work.
And I think not only Chairman Baucus and others, but in particular Senator Snowe has been extraordinarily diligent in working together so that we can reduce costs of health care, make sure that people who don't have it are covered, make sure that people who do have insurance have more security and stability, and that over the long term, we're saving families, businesses and our government money.
So, I never count chickens before they're hatched, but this is obviously another step forward in bringing about a better deal for the American people.
All right?
Thanks, guys.
PHILLIPS: Brianna Keilar on the Hill.
Brianna, sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off, but the president meeting with the president of Spain and just reacted to Olympia Snowe, as she came forward just moments ago saying that she was going to vote yes. So, pick up where you left off. I apologize for that. It kind of adds to the dynamic here.
KEILAR: No, it definitely adds to it, because you know what really struck me there, Kyra? Was how President Obama said, "I'm not counting my chickens before they have hatched." And that actually leads right into the point that I was going to make about Senator Snowe saying that, I am voting yes today in this key committee vote, but she essentially warned that if this bill changes much, or if it changes into something she doesn't like, there are other important votes ahead, votes on the Senate floor. And she's saying just because I'm voting yes today doesn't mean I am going to be voting yes on this bill if it changes.
PHILLIPS: Brianna Keilar, thanks so much.
And as for the finish line that I mentioned, it's kind of hard to see it from here. Assuming that the Baucus bill passes, it will still have to merge with the other Senate bill, and the full Senate will vote on that.
The same process is already underway in the House, with three bills. There, too, the final product goes to the floor, except it's not really the final product.
Stay with me. If bills pass the full House and Senate, then those will have to be merged, reconciled, as they say. Then each chamber votes again.
Where's Schoolhouse Rock when we need it, right?
And this hasn't happened since 2004, a Spanish president invited to the White House. President Obama is meeting with Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for a kind of fence-mending exercise. Spain and the U.S. haven't really gotten along since Zapatero declared the Iraq war illegal and pulled Spanish troops out early.
This evening, the president and first lady host Fiesta Latina, a celebration of Hispanic musical heritage. If your invite got lost in the mail, you can relive the party Thursday night on the PBS series "In Performance at the White House."
We're down to the last few days of Hispanic Heritage Month, and the last week before CNN's two-day special report, "Latina in America." Just moments ago on Capitol Hill, a group led by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a push forward on a National Museum of the American Latino.
A blue-ribbon commission will work out the details of a plan authorized by President Bush in May of last year. Its members include actor and activist Eva Longoria Parker. And we're going to actually hear from her a little later this hour, right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Looking to modify your mortgage and hopefully keep your home? Unfortunately, you better get in line. Lots of folks need help, and the White House says lots are going to get it.
Oh yes? We're going to take a hard look.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Straight to the White House briefing, Robert Gibbs.
QUESTION: ... Senator Reid and other senators behind closed doors. What will his marching orders from the president be? Is the president wanting Rahm to help bring the public option back in, or how hard will he push for that?
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president will tell anybody involved, whether they work here or whether they're in the Senate or the House, that we need a bill that has choice and competition. That's what has been the focus of this White House in ensuring that reform works, and that will continue to be the case.
QUESTION: Which is more important to the president, that the bill -- the final vote of the bill be bipartisan or that it include a public option?
GIBBS: Well, let me go back to what I just said to Ed. The president is focused on ensuring that whatever passes, whatever reform comes to his desk, have choice and competition in it.
QUESTION: It's increasingly clear that there's no way you're going to be able to get a Republican vote if there's a public option. So which is more important?
GIBBS: Choice and competition.
QUESTION: That's not the choice that I gave you.
GIBBS: I know it's not the choice you gave me, but I'm not playing the box game. I'm telling you...
QUESTION: It's not a box game.
GIBBS: But it is.
QUESTION: Robert, it's very clear from following what's going on on Capitol Hill that you're not going to get...
(CROSSTALK)
GIBBS: I'm following (ph) what's going on, on Capitol Hill, as well as both what Americans want. They want an insurance market, if they enter the private insurance market, where they have choices and where those choices generate competition that drive down costs and increase the quality of care. That's the test for the president. The president obviously hopes that...
QUESTION: And that could mean without a public option?
GIBBS: We will evaluate as these two bills on the Senate side get merged and those other bills get merged to see if they meet the president's standard for doing so.
QUESTION: Did somebody want to follow up?
QUESTION: Yes. Would state-based public option meet your definition?
GIBBS: Obviously, during -- as I said, during the merging of this, we'll begin to evaluate what happens.
QUESTION: On Thursday, the states are expected to give some reports on the stimulus funds and how many jobs they have created. I know that you don't have the final numbers and all that, but are you guys -- as the numbers are starting to be released, what's the feeling in the White House on the stimulus package, how it has affected job creation?
GIBBS: Well, look, I think if you look at the reports today, you see that literally tens of thousands of jobs in the classroom have been saved alone by the recovery plan. I think you'll see projects that we'll talk about, both saving jobs as well as creating them. As we have talked about here in the last several weeks and really dating back to the very beginning of this, the recovery plan was intended to cushion the deep downturn in our economy.
We think that the plan has done that. I think we certainly are hopeful that in the growth numbers that will be coming out later this month, you'll see positive economic growth. Again, as the president has said many times, there's still a long way to go, and we need to make sure that those that are looking for work can find it.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
GIBBS: Say it again?
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
GIBBS: Well, again, the stimulus plan gave an unprecedented amount of money to state and local governments in order to preserve as many of those jobs as we could. Obviously, just as we have experienced an economic downturn that has affected the budget deficits, so too has it happened for state and local governments. That's what led in many ways for a big part of the recovery plan to include direct aid to state and local governments in order to cushion that blow.
QUESTION: Now that all five committees looking at this have passed it, can you envision a scenario where health care reform would not become law this year?
GIBBS: I think the president believes that he will sign health care reform into law this year.
QUESTION: It's a sure thing?
(CROSSTALK) GIBBS: I know you are, and that's why I'm grinning and nodding my head and saying -- repeating again that the president believes he's going to sign health care reform this year.
QUESTION: If I could follow up on the state-based public option question -- and I know it's early, but has the president been talking to people like Senator Carper? Has he been studying these other options, state-based public options, other things like that?
GIBBS: I'm sure his staff has looked through, as they have throughout this process, looked at different proposals. I don't know in particular whether that one has been evaluated. Obviously, we're going to get to this process of merging legislation, and there will be a better chance to look at what's out there.
QUESTION: Was the president himself deeply involved in this to the point where he's actually looking at options like that?
GIBBS: Well, obviously, he's been involved with staff from the very beginning and looking at different options that ensure choice and competition.
QUESTION: One in the discussion in the Senate Finance Committee today -- one of the things that Senator Wyden kept coming back to, one of his concerns, that even though he's a supporter, he voted -- did both actually happen?
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: All expectations are that he'll vote for it. But he says that after seven years, something on the order of 90 percent of people will not be able to get into the exchange.
That seems an extraordinarily long time. Is the White House doing anything to make this move more quickly?
GIBBS: I would have to look at the basis for what he's talking about. Obviously, the implementation of this is obviously not going to happen overnight, but I would have to look at the exact reasoning for what he's coming up with. Obviously, putting people into an exchange that provides options will drive down costs.
QUESTION: And finally, on Jennifer's (ph) question of, once the president is done with all these meetings, and you're saying there may be another -- this is another one next week, and then it's several weeks -- does there come a point where the president just has thinking time where all the meetings are over, and is that what a lot of the time is?
GIBBS: Well, look, I'm not going to get ahead of what the president may do with his time in three weeks, except to say, that, Chip (ph), this is a question that he's spent time thinking about throughout each day probably in office. I think what the president's charge is and what his team is focusing on is getting a policy that works best for this country. I mentioned this before, Secretary Gates mentioned this. I repeated what Secretary Gates said on a new show a few weeks ago that -- and Secretary Gates is somebody who has been involved in a number of administrations dating back to the early 1980s. When he says we're in the midst of developing a strategy for the country of Afghanistan for the first time since then, I think the president wants to ensure that we get this right and that we do this in the right way.
QUESTION: And will it be him alone in a room thinking about all the input?
GIBBS: Well, obviously he's going to get a chance to take all of the recommendations and advice. He's the commander-in-chief and he'll make that decision. But I think anybody that's been involved in this process will tell you that the outcome of this will be better based on the fact that they have -- they have done a lot of thinking on this and gone through a lot of different scenarios and options in a way that I think the American people will ultimately be quite proud of.
QUESTION: Robert, I actually want to follow up on that.
Can you describe -- I mean, the first meeting -- this will be the fifth meeting of this group. In the first one, you talked about how 17 people spoke.
GIBBS: Well, let me go back...
QUESTION: And I understand that not everybody speaks at each meeting.
GIBBS: Let me go back to the ordering of this.
The first meeting was on a Sunday morning here. It was a small meeting. I was not in that meeting. I think you're referring to the way I did the accounting on the second one. But, yes, right, in that one 17 people speaking.
QUESTION: Is it a lot of Q&A? Do people -- do members say, you know what, boy, under this scenario, these are three potential outcomes? I mean, can you at least give us some sort of like...
(CROSSTALK)
GIBBS: Sure. I mean, look...
QUESTION: How did the back and forth go?
GIBBS: Well, I think everybody thinks that there's a lot of people that pick different sides of the table and go back and forth at each other. And I have been in now three of these three-hour meetings. That's not what happens.
What we go through is an assessment in many of these meetings, starting with the intelligence, the latest situational updates. And then, obviously, there are a number of factors that go into our policy in the region, individually with Pakistan, with Afghanistan, and we talk about all the different aspects and how they are brought together and what that does for the policy.
QUESTION: Is it more reporting on facts from everybody, or how much of it has been -- are half of each meeting reporting out facts and then the other half debating potential scenarios?
GIBBS: I think a lot of this stuff is just sort of done in -- there's not time set aside for that. There's just, I think, a pretty wide-ranging discussion of all aspects, from the intelligence standpoint, from the military standpoint, from our diplomatic and civilian standpoint, all of which have to go in on a continuum into making that decision.
QUESTION: This is part two. But Afghanistan, I mean, does this -- will there be things on there that says, OK, that was almost like a homework assignment for any of the members that they had to go, look, we need to have more information about X? Can you give me X, Y and Z for this?
GIBBS: Well, certainly there are questions that are asked throughout the meeting that people want to have a larger conversation about.
QUESTION: We're still in this question-and-answer mode.
GIBBS: Well, that happens, but that happens as a matter of routine. There's not a Q&A period.
QUESTION: It's the question that Jennifer (ph) asked, which is, what piece of information is missing that the president doesn't have?
GIBBS: Well, guys, there's not -- this is larger than that. There's -- there are many pieces that all have to fit together. As I said, militarily, civilian, diplomatically, all of which have to work together to ensure a policy that works for our allies and for our goal of destroying al Qaeda.
QUESTION: When is the last time the president talked to Senator Snowe?
GIBBS: Sometime I believe last week, but I don't know the answer to that.
QUESTION: And you guys are getting a lot of criticism in New Orleans for the short stop that you're making down there that, the president's not spending enough time, and that he's immediately leaving for San Francisco.
Do you have any response to this criticism?
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
GIBBS: Look, the president -- I think you can be judged on what you have said you're going to do for New Orleans and for the Gulf, or you can be judged on what you've done and what you're continuing to do. I think if people just judge us on the latter, which is what matters to people that live in that region, I think they know the difference.
We have -- it's been one of the most highly visited areas by senior White House officials and cabinet folks. The president has been down there over the past several years. I think this is his fifth stop.
This isn't something new to him. This isn't -- I think the criticism -- I don't think the president is worried about that as much as he's worried about making sure that we're doing what has to be done to ensure that the Gulf is rebuilt and revitalized. That's -- and I think, quite frankly, if you look at what different people have said, I mean the governor of Louisiana last week was quite complementary of our efforts in ensuring that that region gets what they need. And we're immensely proud of that.
Yes, ma'am?
QUESTION: Robert, two weeks ago in a conference call with the nation's governors, Vice President Biden mentioned that he was concerned, and they expressed their concerns, that the job figures that they'll report on the stimulus will be significantly lower than what the administration has already said was created.
GIBBS: Well, I think part of that is -- as I understand it, the reports themselves do not count a multiplier effect for jobs.
QUESTION: I think they have to report auditable jobs only.
GIBBS: Right, when we obviously know that in order to pave a road, it's not just the person paving the road. Somebody's got to make the pavement. Somebody makes those orange cones so we don't crash into the people paving the road. So, you know, we feel comfortable with our estimates.
PHILLIPS: We'll still monitor the White House briefing there with Robert Gibbs, but you can also see in the lower corner there, still awaiting the vote there on health care.
As you know, health care reform advocates got a major boost within the last hour as Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, a key GOP moderate, by the way, came forward and announced that she would vote yet for the Senate Finance Committee's health care reform bill, $829 billion health care reform bill. The Finance Committee's upcoming vote right here expected today.
As you know, it represents a very important step, not a final step, but a very important step in this health care debate. The committee is split right now, 13 Democrats, 10 Republicans. And it's the last of five congressional panels that still have to consider health care legislation before the debate even begins in the full House and Senate.
So, bottom line, this is just one vote toward many more. Hopefully, we're being told, by Christmas we might have some type of decision on health care reform.
We're going the take a quick break. More from the CNN NEWSROOM straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: A 15-year-old boy is doused with gasoline and deliberately set on fire. It's horrific. And what makes it even worse, the attack apparently happened because the boy snitched.
Right now, Michael Brewer is in a Florida hospital with burns over 75 percent of his body. His family says this boy was just trying to avoid a group of teens after he tried to prevent them from stealing a bike. Was that why he was attacked as he sat by an apartment complex pool? Broward County Police want to know. The boy's sister and a family friend spoke out about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the worst thing you can possibly do to a 15-year-old kid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To anybody, even an animal, you don't do this. You cannot put fire -- I mean, you feel every single bit of pain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Broward police have arrested three juveniles for this crime. Brewer faces months in a hospital now.
So, what's wrong with our kids? Dousing somebody with gasoline and setting them on fire? How can kids even think about doing this? Psychologist Jeff Gardere joins me live from New York, hopefully with some insight, Jeff, to that very question.
JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Yes. It's a horrible, horrible situation.
We usually find that kids who get involved in these heinous sorts of crimes usually have a background of having poor academics, poor acting out, poor impulse control, and a lot of them come from troubled homes. Kids don't operate in a vacuum. So, I think what's going on with these three juveniles that are being charged, you will find that they do have a lot of issues at home.
PHILLIPS: Well, and, you know, we have been talking so much about Chicago, and the high profile case there of Derrion Albert being beaten to death by kids right there on the street with railroad ties. We focused a lot on Chicago and teens dying at an unusually high rate there, and now we're seeing this case in Florida. It goes to show it's not just kids involved in gangs on the South Side of Chicago.
GARDERE: That's right. Too often we do stereotype and we say that these kids come from very poor backgrounds or come from difficult neighborhoods. Again, the research has shown, and I have seen it in my own practice, that many of these kids do have their own interpersonal issues. They do have problems at home. They have had chronic problems at school, but yet no one has been able to address them.
These kids are not monsters. These are kids with emotional problems that have not been properly addressed, and so they continue to act out and regretfully, other children are the objects of a lot of that hate and anger that they have from their emotional issues.
PHILLIPS: Where are they learning such extreme acts of violence, though?
GARDERE: I don't want to blame the media, because that becomes the old scapegoat, but we know that the tolerance for kids as far as violence has gone way up. Kids see all sorts of terrible things through their video games, through television, movies and so on. So, they up the standard a little bit more by doing something that's even more terrible than what they see.
But I think with a lot of these kids, that they do hate themselves. They have a lot of self-esteem issues, so when they get together with other kids who have a lot of these emotional problems, then there tends to be a lack of conscience there, and so they act out, again as part of that group. The gang mentality, group mentality if you will.
PHILLIPS: We need other programs kids can get involved with and we need more community policing, Jeff.
GARDERE: Absolutely. All of those things will help in getting those kids what it is that they need, which is more understanding, more love, but a solid background in order for them to be able to grow up healthy individuals, emotionally and certainly physically.
PHILLIPS: Jeff Gardere, great talking to you.
GARDERE: Always a pleasure. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Students at Chicago's Finger High get a high-profile escort today. I mentioned the high school in Chicago there where that violence took place. The Reverend Jesse Jackson riding roundtrip with them on their bus now to highlight what he's calling a state of emergency. The high school and community grabbed national headlines since the beating death of the honor student late last month. Reverend Jackson says the city can improve students' safety by changing a military academy back into a regular high school. He says that would keep some kids from making long, dangerous daily treks to class.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. JESSE JACKSON, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: That's why we brought these kids to school, to guarantee them a safe passage, to appeal to the board to allow them to have access to school right down the street. Why should they get up an hour and a half earlier to go to school, come back an hour later and be bussed out from down the street. The other kids who live on the other side of town are bussed in, that an irrational proposition.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Reverend Jackson also says that Chicago should hire and train parents and other residents for a community safety patrol.
Follow up to a story that really outraged us. Claiming you're a hero is, well, less than heroic. Claiming you're a hero when you're not is totally outrageous and apparently a crime now.
Here's a follow up to our story. The Colorado man who said he was a decorated Marine but isn't, who said he was at the Pentagon on 9/11 but wasn't, who said he survived a roadside bomb in Iraq, but didn't, is now under arrest and charged with a federal crime. Richard Strandoff came clean with CNN's Anderson Cooper in June.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "AC 360": You have said you served two- and-a-half tours in Iraq with the Marines. In fact, you were never a Marine, you were never in Iraq, correct?
RICHARD STRANDOFF, CHARGED FOR ALLEGEDLY LYING ABOUT MILTARY SERVICE: This is correct, Anderson.
COOPER: And you claimed you'd gone to Annapolis, to the Naval Academy. You did not go to Annapolis, correct?
STRANDOFF: That is correct, Anderson.
COOPER: And you claimed you were at the Pentagon on 9/1. You told a very dramatic story about being in the Pentagon on 9/11; you were never there?
STRANDOFF: That is correct as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: So, why did he do it then? The charge is stolen valor, now punishable by a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
It's a city where half the kids never graduate from high school. But a few teachers are adding inspiration by subtracting the obstacles. I'm not kidding. They're actually using math, and the kids love it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Top stories. A key Senate committee is poised to vote on a new health care reform plan. Many wondered if the president's top legislative priority would get any GOP support. Today, Senator Olympia Snowe ended the suspense. The Maine Republican is breaking with her party and says she'll vote yes for the plan. She's the only one so far.
You just know their dad is breathing a sigh of relief. The children of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will spare their family the embarrassment of a public jury trial. Dexter King's siblings accused him of mishandling his father's estate. They reached a settlement last night to avoid a civil trial.
A first for Virginia's Hampton University. The historically black college has crowned the first it's first white Miss H.U. Twenty-two-year-old Nicole Churchill is mindful of her critics and the controversy she's causing. So, the Hawaiian-born nursing student has asked President Obama to visit her school and speak about racial tolerance.
Headlines out of Detroit's public school system. Grim, to say the least. A dismal graduation rate, a massive budget deficit, even a possible bankruptcy filing. But there are places where kids are finding inspiration and excelling. Poppy Harlow visited one of those places for CNNmoney.com's "Assignment Detroit."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM (voice-over): Detroit may be trying to reinvent itself but when it comes to educating its children, the word "struggle" only begins to describe the situation.
PROF. LEONARD BOEHM, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, MATH CORPS: Almost every kid has to walk through a metal detector just to walk to school.
GERALD MARTIN, STUDENT TEACHER, MATH CORPS: One of my students said he and his friends mentally prepare themselves for what to do if someone puts a gun in your face.
HARLOW: Only 58 percent of Detroit Public School students graduate from high school and the school system right now is battling a $259 million budget deficit.
BOEHM: Let's start it off.
HARLOW: But as desperate as the situation may be, two Wayne State University professors have found success inspiring Detroit kids...
Of all places, a math camp.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remember, you want to play mathematics up here, you keep it simple. OK.
HARLOW: In 1991, with just a few kids at first, professors Leonard Boehm and Steve Khan started Math Corps, a free six-week program for youngsters grades 7 and up.
What's different? Complex and often scary math problems are transformed into team challenges. The curriculum creates an environment where supporting others is central to learning.
LASHONTE LUKE-OWENS, STUDENT, MATH CORPS: We have a support system. We support people like this. And, like, when they get it right, we agree so it makes them feel happy when they turn around and they see all of these people agreeing with them.
HARLOW: Math Corps now accepts 500 students per year. They come from different backgrounds with different abilities. Not only to learn, but also to teach.
PROFESSOR STEVE KHAN, DIRECTOR, MATH CORPS: Kids teaching kids works unbelievably well because it's not kids teaching kids. It's kids caring about kids.
HARLOW: And the proof is in the numbers. Ninety percent of students who complete Math Corps graduate from high school, and 80 percent go on to college.
PROFESSOR LEONARD BOEHM, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, MATH CORPS: The fact that you have them on a college environment at a young age -- sorry. I'm going to lose it. That plants that seed in them. You are worth something. You're worth 100 points.
KHAN: We believe we can not just change the school system, but change, you know, the city in a fundamental way.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And Poppy Harlow joins us live from New York. So, the founders truly think that the program can change Detroit for the better, even get some folks teary eyed. But how, Poppy?
HARLOW: Kyra, I think it's all about instilling, from what we saw on the campus there, instilling in these kids the idea that "Yes, we can too." Most of the kids in this program come from broken homes across the city. But when they're there, what they told us is that they feel safe, they learn respect.
Lashonte, the girl you saw profiled in the piece, she said, "I open doors for people now." Those little things that this math camp does has a profound effect, I think, on Detroit. Twenty-five hundred kids have gone through the program. You've got 100,000-plus kids in need in Detroit. But they're doing what they can, little by little.
One of those bright stories out of a city where we've reported so many sad stories all the time. So, one of those bright spots. It's part of "Assignment Detroit." You can see more right there on CNNmoney.com/detroit. Kyra.
PHILLIPS: That was a pretty awesome story. Thanks, Poppy.
HARLOW: Thanks, Kyra. Thank you.
PHILLIPS: It's annoying, even silly, but is an online poke criminal? It could mean time behind bars for one woman. What's that? You don't know what an online poke is? Stay with me. I'll tell you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Actress Eva Longoria-Parker is a busy lady. Today, she's in Washington to back a National Museum of the American Latino. Night before last, she walked the red carpet at the L.A. Latino International Film Festival. And still, our Soledad O'brien was able to pin her down for CNN's special report, "LATINO IN AMERICA." Here they talk about strength in numbers. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EVA LONGORIA PARKER, ACTRESS, ACTIVIST: It's important because the data is used not only to determine the number of representatives that you have in Congress and Washington and Sacramento for us, but it also dictates how much state and federal funding your community has.
And where this is so important for us is we have a large Latino population in Los Angeles. Many whom don't fill out the census. Therefore, a lot of ethnic-related programs, whether it's school, whether it's hospital programs like Padres, they either don't get the funding, or their funding is not substantial enough to support the amount of people that we need to serve.
And so our goal for the 2010 census, particularly for Los Angeles, is for people to be accounted for. Just be counted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: We'll have much more of Soledad's interview with Eva in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Wolf Blitzer and team are on the air at 4:00 Eastern. We're in the final countdown to "LATINO IN AMERICA." CNN's special two-night report debuts next Tuesday and Wednesday, October 21st and 22nd.
Well, Team Sanchez not here in Atlanta, but in Miami, working the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM. What's shaking, Rick?
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: We are at Florida International University. We are talking to the students here, and we're going to be talking as well to the senior senator who happens to be on the Senate Finance Committee. This is important. The Senate Finance Committee is about to come down with its vote.
Now, there going to decide one way or another what they're going to do. We're talking with Brianna Keilar, we're talking to Bill Nelson, we're going to have the latest from here.
And Isaiah Thomas, a guy who left New York after being, well, not exactly treated well by the press there, is going to be sitting down with me during this hour to take me through his story and what he's about to do next. Which, by the way, is probably about as noble a gesture as someone can do, if you think working for free is noble. Well, that might have something to do with what he's about to do. We're going to take you all through that, Kyra, right here, from FIU!
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
PHILLIPS: Is that where you went to school, Rick?
SANCHEZ: No, as a matter of fact.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
SANCHEZ: I knew we would start something, this is great. My son is going to school here now, Kyra. PHILLIPS: There you -- all right, here we go, as Rick talks about his son going to school there at FIU. We also mentioned the Finance Committee here voting on health care reform. Let's go ahead and listen in.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Stabenow (ph).
SEN. DEBORAH STABENOW (D), MICHIGAN: Aye.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Stabenow, aye. Ms. Cantwell.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D), WASHINGTON STATE: Aye.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Cantwell, aye. Mr. Nelson.
SEN. NELSON: Aye.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Nelson, aye. Mr. Menedez?
SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D), NEW JERSEY: Aye.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Menendez, aye. Mr. Carper.
SEN. THOMAS CARPER (D), DELAWARE: Aye.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Carper, aye. Mr. Grassley.
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Grassley, no. Mr. Hatch.
No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Hatch, no. Ms. Snowe.
SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE (R), MAINE: Aye.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Snowe, aye. Mr. Kyl.
SEN. JON KYL (R), ARIZONA: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Kyl, no. Mr. Bunning.
SEN. JIM BUNNING (R), KENTUCKY: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Bunning, no. Mr. Crapo.
SEN. MICHAEL CRAPO (R), IDAHO: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Crapo, no. Mr. Roberts.
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Roberts, no. Mr. Ensign. SEN. JOHN ENSIGN (R), NEVADA: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Ensign, no. Mr. Enzi.
SEN. MIKE ENZI (R), WYOMING: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Enzi, no. Mr. Cornyn.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Cornyn, no. Mr. Chairman.
SEN. MAX BAUCUS, FINANCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN (D-MT): Aye.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chairman votes aye.
BAUCUS: Clerk will tally the vote.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman, the final tally is 14 ayes, nine nays.
BAUCUS: The ayes have it. And the mark is ordered reported (ph). And now as consent that staff be granted authority to make technical (INAUDIBLE), affirming the budgetary changes. Without objection, it is so ordered. I thank all senators.
(APPLAUSE)
PHILLIPS: All right, there you go, the Finance Committee made the vote. We expected it today, we got it. Pivotal step forward, and it's probably fair to say pretty contentious health care debate. It looks like 14-9. Yep, it was, final vote 14-9. We got in just on the last it there.
But this is not it. This is not the final vote. There are going to be five congressional panels now that will have to consider this health care legislation before debate begins in the full House and Senate, so we probably really won't get a final decision until somewhere around Christmas.
Brianna Keilar there, she was listening as well. I think this is pretty much as we expected, expect the surprise yay from Olympia Snowe?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. There were a couple of Democrats we were watching as well, Kyra, who had not committed to voting yes on this. So, this is actually the best-case scenario as the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee can see it going into this vote.
This committee has 13 Democrats, 10 Republicans. So 14 top 9, what you had was just one Republican voting with Democrat. But Senator Max Baucus was able to keep all of his Democrats on board.
And as you mentioned, this is not the final vote, obviously, but this vote was a big deal, because this was the fifth and final committee to move its health care reform bill forward, and also the bill that this committee just voted on, the only one of those five that does not have that government-run insurance option, that public option. And because of it, the hallmarks of this bill are really seen as the best chance to getting a health care reform plan through the Senate and perhaps through the Congress, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Okay, so we were talking earlier about possibly Christmastime, where we will get a final decision, a final outcome on health care reform, where exactly it's going to go. Let's -- actually, hold that thought, let's go ahead, we have got Republican reaction.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
KYL: ... help to insure some Americans that need insurance.
Let's make two other quick points now that Senator Grassley is here. I think when the chairman of the committee announced that he was very proud that they produced a bill that's deficit neutral, that sets the bar pretty low, because all you have to do is raise taxes high enough or cut enough in the way of Medicare benefits, and you can have a deficit-neutral bill.
But it's really hard on the American people who have to pay the taxes or suffer the rationing of care through cuts in their Medicare or other rationing of care. And secondly, we heard a defense today of the CBO, but those who defended the CBO neglected to mention that CBO and Villiman (ph)and Pricewaterhouse all agreed that insurance premiums for families in America will go up, not down, as a result of this legislation.
So, since there was a little bit of news made over the weekend about the Pricewaterhouse study, I wanted to confirm the fact that that study was in fact backed up, both by Villiman (ph) and other health care consultants and by the CBO, all of whom agreed that premiums will go up as a result of this legislation.
GRASSLEY: One thing I would like to make really clear for people who observed the vote that just took place. A vote against the bill is not a vote for status quo. Everybody knows that things need to be changed in our health care system. It's -- how do you do it, and I think several things that have been mentioned already that I want to repeat, that if we could do -- if there's one thing you could do about the cost of medical costs. Tort reform, 10 percent of the cost of medicine, defensive medicine, taking care of that would be very, very helpful towards changing the status quo, and that's something that a lot of people in the Senate stand for and we need to get that up.
A lot of people believe that for the first time in the history of our country, 225 years, the federal government saying you've got to buy something. That's never been before. You as an individual can do whatever you want to, buy whatever you want to, when you want to, where you want to get it. But now the federal government is saying you have to buy health insurance.
I think this can be done on a voluntary basis through the reinsurance program that would be very helpful. And I think another thing is that if you want to reduce health care costs, the selling of health insurance across state lines like we do car insurance would be very, very helpful.
So, I'm not going to stand still and let people say that a vote against this bill is a vote for the status quo. There's so many things that we can do, and we're going to do and when we go to the floor, we will be there telling people how we will change the status quo.
SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: I remember just a few years ago in 2005 that we offered to restrain the growth of Medicare spending by $23 billion. The Democrats screamed and shouted and said, "My goodness gracious, you're trying to cut Medicare." They're cutting Medicare almost $500 million in this bill. And that's at a time when they know Medicare is $38 trillion (ph) in unfunded liability.
And it goes down from there. And this is just battle number one. We know that this is a long way from having what they want, which is basically a single-payer system. And frankly I think if we ever go to that system, we'll all rue the day.
This is a very costly bill, as moderate as it is in the eyes of the Democrats, it's not moderate. It's very costly, it's going to cost us an arm and a leg. It's going to disrupt the practice of medicine, it doesn't do anything about tort reform. As Senator Grassley said, unnecessary defensive medicine that is eating us alive and running costs up like mad, and I have to say, the costs of this are astronomical.
PHILLIPS: Yes, I'm just getting some...
HATCH: Be that as it may, this is going to now be merged with a totally partisan bill, the Health Committee bill. I sat on that committee as well and saw that almost every vote was 13-10. And then they're going to have to merge it with whatever the House comes up, and they have a tri-committee bill that's even worse than the Health Committee bill.
So, it's going down from here. And all I can say is I'm very disappointed that we have arrived at this particular status where the best we can come up with is something that basically is going to move us right into a single-payer system. And that's been the goal of the Democrats from day one. And it's one that really, really does bother me.
We are for health care reform, but it ought to be done in a restrained, dignified, good way that will save the taxpayers money and help us all to be able to continue to run this government in a way that means -- means fiscal restraint.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I spent weeks in the markup on the health bill...
