Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Senate Committee to Vote on Health Care Reform Bill; Debate Continues on Afghanistan Troop Levels; Health Care and Politics: Bipartisan Approach to Reform Fails; Is the Recession Over? Woman Survives in Subzero Temperatures
Aired October 13, 2009 - 06:58 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Once again, two minutes before the top of the hour. On this Tuesday, October 13th. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. Thanks very much for being with us. And here are the big stories that we'll be telling you all about the next 15 minutes here in the Most News of the Morning.
A big test for health care reform today. The Senate Finance Committee just hours away from voting on a bill that promises to cover most Americans without running up the deficit. And there is no government-run insurance option in this one. But the insurance industry is rushing in at the 11th hour slamming the measure calling it too costly for most American families.
CHETRY: The president, the Pentagon, and congress all debating how many troops we need on the ground in Afghanistan. And our Chris Lawrence is looking at the options on the table and why some say 40,000 is the right answer.
ROBERTS: And cheating death. She slipped and fell through ice water. Her heart stopped for three straight hours. Three straight hours. But she lived to tell this incredible story. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigates. The fine line between life and death and how it is possible for some people to truly go to the brink and back.
But, we begin with a story that you want to keep your eyes on today. A major test in the fight for health care reform. The Senate Finance Committee set to vote on a measure that is designed to provide coverage for 94 percent of Americans without adding to the deficit and without a government-run public option. Our Jim Acosta is live in Washington to break it all down for us this morning. Hi, Jim.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. You know, the health insurance company's chief lobbyist in Washington insists the industry still wants reform but just would like to make some last- minute changes to lower costs. But democrats on Capitol Hill don't see it that way. They are calling a new report from the industry just moments from the key vote on the reform bill in congress a hatchet job.
On the eve of a critical vote in the Senate Finance Committee on health care reform, the nation's health insurance industry offered up a big dose of skepticism. Unleashing a report commission with the accounting firm, Price Waterhouse Coopers, the industry predicts the finance committee bill will drive up premiums 111% in ten years versus 79% under the current system.
The industry blames the bills taxes targeting insurers, telling reporters in a conference call those taxes would be passed on to consumers.
KAREN IGNAGNI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AHIP: Imposing new taxes and fees on health care services depend on insurance flies in the face of the goal of reducing health care costs.
ACOSTA: A spokesman for Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus called the report "a health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple."
BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Karen represents America's health insurance plans.
ACOSTA: The report came as a surprise to the White House, which invited them to craft health care reform earlier this year.
LINDA DOUGLASS, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF HEALTH REFORM: What they did here was exclude all of the features of the Senate finance committee bill that lower costs for all Americans.
ACOSTA: So what are the facts? Last month the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said quantifying the bill's effects on premiums would be difficult. But the CBO added overall premiums would be higher because future policies would cover preexisting conditions.
The budget office also pointed a finger at the industry, noting that 23 percent of some premiums go to administrative costs.
RICHARD KIRSCH, HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA NOW: The idea the insurance industry would complain about high premiums is like the Yankees complaining they are hitting too many home runs. It is totally preposterous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think they are showing their cards?
KIRSCH: They are showing their cards.
ACOSTA: Not surprisingly, the insurance industry's report also takes a swipe at the public option, the idea giving the uninsured a choice of a government health care plan, something now backed by the nonprofit group behind Consumer Reports.
JAMES GUEST, CONSUMERS UNION: We are very strongly in support of the public insurance option as an option because we think that you can't get health care costs down unless there really is true competition in the health insurance marketplace.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: The insurance companies argue the Baucus bill simply weakens the requirements that Americans get insurance, hurting the nation's overall ability to lower costs.
But critics of the insurance companies say the industry's report has become a rallying cry for the public option, and they are asking if the insurance companies are so concerned about having universal coverage, John, why didn't they bring it on a long time ago?
ROBERTS: You know, Jim, even if it doesn't prove to be a rallying cry for the public option, what do you think it will do for the vote this morning in the Senate finance committee?
ACOSTA: You know, a lot of people are saying that this is all aimed at what happens after the finance committee votes.
It is assumed, or at least a lot of Democrats on Washington think that the way the finance committee is shaping up right now, 13 Democrats, 10 Republicans, this vote will fall on party lines with the exception of Olympia Snowe, that one hold-out moderate Republican that may vote with the Democrats.
But this is -- this is a play for what happens next. And the insurance industry has not promised not to run attack ads against health insurance reform. It's something they have not done up until this point, John. Yesterday may have been a game changer in how all of this is playing out now.
ROBERTS: Jim Acosta for us this morning. Jim, thanks.
By the way, in less than ten minutes we're going to be joined by Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa. He's voting against the finance committee bill and he is going to tell us why he thinks health care reform in this country is still a long way off.
CHETRY: Three minutes past the hour.
Turning to the war in Afghanistan and the debate about sending in more troops. There has been a focus on one number -- 40,000. But why 40,000? Our Pentagon correspondent Chris Lawrence breaks it down.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: John, Kiran, we came at this asking why not 20,000 troops, or 200,000? Why has 40,000 specifically been brought up as the right amount of additional troops?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE (voice-over): So 100,000 American and allied troops are already fighting in Afghanistan. To understand why it is believed General Stanley McChrystal wants 40,000 more, you need to look at a map the way military strategists see it.
KIMBERLEY KAGAN, ADVISER TO GENERAL STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: What 40,000 does is fill in the gaps around Kandahar, around Helmand province. It does not, however, cover the entire country.
LAWRENCE: Kimberly Kagan is an adviser to McChrystal. She says that 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 may take well over a half a million troops to secure Afghanistan's 33 million people.
LAWRENCE (on camera): But General McChrystal is not applying this ratio to all of Afghanistan. He feels that 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: 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: Kagan says McChrystal would use the 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 is 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 and 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.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: So when 30,000 American troops surged into Baghdad, that's where one out of every four Iraqis live. 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 -- John, Kiran?
CHETRY: That just underscores the challenge there. Thanks, Chris Lawrence.
Also stay with us. At the half hour we're going to be talking more about this with Craig Jaffe. He's the co-author of "The Fourth Star." It's an in depth look at four star generals, and he's a military reporter also for "The Washington Post."
ROBERTS: It is coming up now on six minutes after the hour. And also new this morning, the White House announcing President Obama will visit New Orleans on Thursday. It is going to be his first trip there since taking office.
The president plans to review federal building and recovery efforts more than four years after hurricane Katrina hit. He is expected to tour a charter school and hold a town hall meeting in New Orleans.
CHETRY: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is signing a bill that would require people in his state to recognize same-sex marriages that were performed in other states while gay marriage was legal in California.
Schwarzenegger says the action is consistent with the state's Supreme Court ruling that upholds the marriage of same-sex couples who tied the knot in California before Proposition 8 which banned same-sex marriage.
ROBERTS: And in its search for criminals, the FBI may have inspected your driver's license photo. Agents have started using facial recognition technology on millions of drivers comparing their photos licenses from the driver's licenses with pictures of convicts.
The pilot project in North Carolina has led to the capture of one suspect so far, and the FBI is looking to expand its use of the technology to track fugitives nationwide.
Privacy advocates say it amounts to a virtual lineup of anyone who has a driver's lines.
CHETRY: In just a couple of minutes we will be joined by Senator Charles Grassley. He is on that key Senate finance committee that will be taking up the health care reform bill voting on it today.
Senator Grassley is voting against it. We are going to talk about why he is doing that and why he thinks health care reform in this country is still a long way off.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
And we are talking about today's big vote on health care reform. It is happening in the Senate finance committee.
You might recall earlier this summer that there was hope that the "gang of six," three Democrats and three Republicans who were working on this could hammer out a bipartisan bill. That never happened, and today the political divide seems as wide as ever when it comes to reforming health care.
Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa was a member of the gang of six but is voting against the finance committee bill and he joins us this morning from Capitol Hill to talk about what's next.
Senator Grassley, thanks for being with us this morning.
SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY, (R-IOWA) RANKING MEMBER, FINANCE COMMITTEE: Glad to be with you, Kiran.
CHETRY: So just give us an update, because after months of working to try to hammer out this bill that Republicans could support you are going to vote against the measure coming out of your own committee today. What has changed?
GRASSLEY: I think what has changed basically we have a plan where the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation says that people's premiums are going to go up, and one of the things that people have been crying for to grassroots is cap the cost of insurance to some extent. But for sure it will go up.
And then we are going to mandate that everybody has to have health insurance. And if you don't have health insurance, a family will pay $1,500 more to the internal revenue service for not doing it.
And then another reason, and maybe a bigger reason, is it is going to affect senior citizens, particularly those that have Medicare Advantage, with either a reduction of benefits or an increase in premiums, and it is going to take $444 billion out of Medicaid -- out of Medicare, I should say.
CHETRY: Let me ask you about this, because the sticking point seems to have changed along the way. You also said that you don't like the individual mandate anymore, right, to requiring people to buy insurance or face penalties? You don't like that in this bill.
GRASSLEY: No.
CHETRY: But back in June you said there was bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates. So what's changed with that?
GRASSLEY: You know, I think that I misread our caucus. There were people that talked about individual responsibility. And at the grassroots of America, I'm telling you, when I was home for my July Fourth break, not the raucous ones we had in August, but just very quietly, when people found out that the House of Representatives had put out a bill that was going to charge people $1,000 penalty if they didn't have a health insurance, there was a tremendous reaction against that at the grassroots of America.
And maybe I was reading it as a lot of states require automobile drivers to have insurance, that personal responsibility like that maybe was good thing. But when it comes to health insurance, health insurance is a much more personal thing. It's almost something you have to have.
And there's a tremendous reaction to it a negative reaction to it at the grassroots.
CHETRY: And Senator Grassley, that has led some of your critics to say that this is a political calculation, that you are up for reelection in 2010 and that you don't want to put yourself out there in terms of appearing on the side of the Democrats took to pass health care reform. What do you say to that?
GRASSLEY: Well, that's pretty easy to speak to, because what is democracy all about? It's all about communication between the grassroots of America and what goes on here in Washington. If you don't have that, you don't have representative government.
So, you know, I hold town hall meetings and in every one of Iowa's 99 counties in Iowa every year, and I will tell you, you will get feedback. And if you want to represent that view, and I'm telling you, the people of our state were reacting negatively to the individual mandate. CHETRY: All right, well, I want to ask you about the other thing you brought up as well, the cost. The Congressional Budget Office has said that this will come in under the $900 billion mark. That's what they had been hoping for and it will actually not add to the deficit.
But just on Monday, this week, a lot of controversy over this report that came you on from the insurance industry saying that the Baucus proposal would cost more over 20 years than doing nothing.
And Democrats are very unhappy with this. They say that this bill was paid for by the -- the study paid for by the insurance industry and insurance lobby and it actually is a, quote, "hatchet job" is what people in your committee, the Democrats and your committee have said. What do you think about this coming out in the 11th hour?
GRASSLEY: Well, I'm a little surprised at it coming out, because, quite frankly, we don't need a report from the industry to tell us that, because the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the Congressional Budget Office -- and these are not political people, these are professional people that have to be intellectually honest.
They are saying that there's going to be a pass-through of these taxes to premium holders and premiums are going to go up. And then the other thing that surprises me is because the insurance industry from way back in November has been pushing for this reform. They've been pushing hard.
Do you know why they've been pushing hard? Because with the individual mandate and you have the government forcing people to buy health insurance, they're going to have 50 million people buying health insurance that didn't have health insurance before. And, of course, that gets back to the individual mandate and the philosophical problems with it. But more important the practical problems that people that don't want to buy health insurance are going to be taxed $1,500 for a family with additional payments to the Internal Revenue Service if you don't want to do that.
CHETRY: You know, there have been some -- and I know that people in the House, Anthony Weiner, that we've spoken to before say, you know, this is basically a moral issue. The bottom line is, is that people need to be able to get basic health care services.
Where do the Republicans stand right now? As all of these bills go back and forth, they're going to go in conference, they're going to go in committee, are you guys giving up on taking part in health care reform?
GRASSLEY: Oh, not at all. You know, we don't get much credit for it. But over the -- since January, there's been four very major Republican bills put in. And you can get a lot of Republicans at the table if we could just have one thing that would bring down health care costs tremendously. And that's tort reform. Medical malpractice liability reform so that the lawyers aren't taking a bunch of money out of the health care system and that -- and so that we don't have the practice of defensive medicine. CHETRY: Right.
GRASSLEY: You know, about 10 percent of the cost of medicine is from the sensing...
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Then let me just ask you, so you're saying that they would take up the issue of tort reform, that that's the one sticking point? If they would take up tort reform then much more -- many more Republican would come to the table and pass health care reform.
GRASSLEY: It's not only at the grassroots of America but within -- but within the Congress as a whole, among at least 50 percent of the Congress. Tort reform is a very major thing and why.
I started to say because 10 percent of the cost of medicine is a practice of defensive medicine because doctors give you a bunch of tests that maybe you don't need because they think you're going to sue them so they give you every test under the sun so they've got a defense if you do sue them. And if we could get tort reform under control, and do away with these frivolous lawsuits, it would cut down on the cost of medicine.
But you know, the Democrats don't want to do that because they get all of their campaign funds from the tort attorneys. Ninety-seven percent of that money and check with the FEC, it goes to Democrats.
CHETRY: All right. Well, we're going to have to leave it there today. Senator Grassley, I know that your committee is taking up this issue. It's likely to pass but not with any support from Republicans.
Senator Charles Grassley, thanks for joining us this morning.
GRASSLEY: Glad to be with you.
CHETRY: Eighteen minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Well, some people might think it is cause for celebration. But don't pop the champagne just yet because there are still a large number of people in this country out of work. But growing evidence that the recession may, in fact, be over.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And by the time that NBER, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the people who are the arbiters of this, by the time they tell us for sure, it will be so behind.
Because remember the NBER told us the recession began a year after it started. So all we can really do is talk to economists about what they think is happening and a group of high-level economists say the recession is likely over. Eighty-one percent say the recession is over. Nine percent say no, it's still happening. Ten percent -- about 10 percent say that they are simply uncertain here. All the economists expect the recovery to be slow and painful. Why? It's exactly what John just said. It's the jobs situation. You can have the recovery over but if we're not getting jobs, it really -- it really slows things down in terms of how strong that recovery is going to be.
Eight percent say jobs will return before 2012. Fifty-four percent say 2012. Thirty-three percent all the way 2013. Oh, and even longer. Five percent, they also say home prices won't bottom until 2010 or later.
They say that maybe you could see the economy grow probably three percent in the end of this year. Three percent economic growth. That's really not bad considering where we've come from but that's economic growth that's not coming with jobs growth. And they also say, you know, have a Christmas, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, 10 percent unemployment rate by the end of the year.
ROBERTS: So, just for full disclosure purposes, how accurate are these folks been?
ROMANS: No one has been accurate for three years. So I guess that could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing depending what you're hoping this is. But remember, economists have been so wrong for the past -- few of them have been right. But in general, even the top economist Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, the treasury secretary, a lot of people for a couple of years have not -- have just been a step behind this -- the magnitude of this recession.
ROBERTS: Our guide Nouriel Roubini, he was right.
ROMANS: He was right. Now, he's famous. Dr. Doom.
ROBERTS: Hey, you've got a "Romans' Numeral"?
ROMANS: I do, 1983. And this is -- this is my number to show why it's still going to be painful even if the recovery is here and in charge. Why it would...1
CHETRY: Last time you had double digit unemployment?
ROMANS: Yes. 1983 was the last time we had unemployment rate this high. It underscores, I think the challenge for the administration especially heading into mid-term election. It really underscores the challenge of this administration to try to ease the pain for people when we are talking about unemployment rates at 10 percent.
ROBERTS: Christine, thanks so much.
ROMANS: Sure.
ROBERTS: Christine Romans "Minding Your Business" this morning.
CHETRY: Still ahead, Sanjay Gupta takes the plunge. He's doing a special series called "Cheating Death." One woman fell through the ice and managed to stay alive for hours. Sanjay takes a look at just how bitter cold it is in those frigid temperatures.
ROBERTS: Wait a minute. He's in an insulated suit.
CHETRY: That's just his outfit that day. It's very popular right now. He wears it on the air all the time.
Twenty-three minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. A woman slips into icy waters. She falls there. She's tapped. No heartbeat for three hours straight. But somehow after all that time miraculously she survived.
ROBERTS: It's an amazing story. He has written a new book about it. Here it is. And all this week, our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is looking at the fine line between life and death with stories of medical miracles, people who truly cheated death. And Sanjay is here with us this morning.
Good morning, Doc.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. There are some remarkable stories. It would be easy to sort of call them miracles or outliers. But I think what sort of point was what can we learn from people like the woman you're about to meet, Anna Bagenholm.
She's the woman that is the coldest ever that went on to survive. And there's a lot of lessons that doctors are learning from her. One of them is that you're not dead until you're warm and dead. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNA BAGENHOLM, SURVIVED FALL INTO FRIGID WATER: We first worked with three doctors. And then we -- we went for -- (INAUDIBLE) tour. The problem is that when it comes down to this frozen alps (ph), I hit some fence and then I turned on my back and started to slide down the ice on my back and then turned. It was a bit lower and Mario (ph) was a bit higher. And then they kind of got rid of their equipment and ran to me because what I actually did was that I kind of hit a hole in the ice so that the head went under.
GUPTA (voice-over): In fact, this is the exact spot where this all happened. Two of the men involved in Anna's rescue showed us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was where the water was there. Over the cliff here.
GUPTA: At the time, most of the stream was covered with this thick layer of ice. You can only imagine the desperation her friends must have felt the moments started to tick by. She struggled for a while. And then she stopped. It took more than an hour and this point and shovel to free Anna from the ice. Mario Turban (ph) immediately began CPR. As the clock was ticking, a helicopter flew Anna to the university hospital of North Norway. It's an hour away in Tromso (ph) where she was taken straight to the operating room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She has completely dilated pupils. She is actually waxy (ph) white. She is wet. She's ice cold when I touched her skin, and she looks absolutely dead.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Well, doctors didn't give up on her in part because that same cold that was killing her could also save her as well. This idea that cold can somehow stimulate someone to go into a state of hibernation is becoming more and more defined. And I'll sort of cut to the chase a little bit with Anna Bagenholm. She is now a physician at that same hospital where she was once declared dead.
And again, it would be too easy to just say that's a miracle or an outlier. But now that whole idea of hypothermia, how it can be applied to other situations other places around the world, that's what doctors are working on.
ROBERTS: Yes. We've heard a number of these stories that never one that's lasted this long. OK. So you spent some time with Anna and her remarkable doctors. You also got to go inside those arctic waters yourself, right?
GUPTA: Yes, we were north of the Arctic Circle. So this is about as cold as water gets. And it's interesting because they do training exercises basically to show doctors and paramedics and other people in the health care team just exactly what happens during hypothermia. They want them to experience it, to give them a sense of urgency.
And I am wearing the suit here which is -- water gets in there, though, it's still very cold. I tell you. And just to give you -- I got my hands out of the water because your hands immediately start to freeze if you just even put them in the water even with those gloves on.
CHETRY: Even with the gloves -- oh, wow.
GUPTA: Even with those gloves on. So I was in about ten minutes before they actually got a helicopter to come in there and rescue me and within just that period of time, my body temperature dropped around four or five degrees.
ROBERTS: Could it really?
GUPTA: Yes. So you just get an idea of just how quickly hypothermia can set in and that's sort of the point.
CHETRY: So if you didn't have that suit on, what would have happened? GUPTA: If I didn't have that suit, I don't think I could have survived. I mean, just the initial sting of the water was so profound it just completely lose your breath. Your heart rate starts to fall immediately. It's just very hard to tolerate. And fishermen, skiers, that's who they're taking care of in Norway all the time that have injuries like that.
ROBERTS: Pretty amazing.
CHETRY: All right. Well, we want to let people know because I know a lot of people want to see this. It is a prime-time debut with his special - Dr. Gupta's special series, "CHEATING DEATH." It's this Saturday and Sunday, 8:00 p.m., only on CNN.
ROBERTS: Didn't we interview a guy who swam in Arctic waters with a regular bathing suit on? Didn't we talk to him?
CHETRY: He dove in. Right?
ROBERTS: He swam for a while.
CHETRY: He said it was mind over matter.
DR. GUPTA: Perhaps, yes.
ROBERTS: Next time Doc, you got to lose the suit.
CHETRY: We could lose him.
ROBERTS: Thanks, Doc. Great to see you this morning.
ROBERTS: It is across in the half hour now. Here are this morning's top stories. Has President Obama and his war council decided a future plan for Afghanistan? A senior Treasury Department official says the Taliban is in much better shape than al Qaeda is. He says financing from extortion of the drug trade pave the way for insurgents who acts on U.S. and coalition forces of Afghanistan. As for Al Qaeda the terrorists - the official says the terror organization is strapped for cash, and it is also losing clout.
CHETRY: Well, adding insult to injury in southern California, forecasters were now saying that heavy rains could trigger mudslides in areas burned out by wildfires this summer. Flash flood watch is in effect through tomorrow. A Pacific storm is expected to dump as much as 8 inches of rain in the region. The so-called station wildfire destroyed some 80 homes, burned more than 160,000 acres in Los Angeles County back in August and September.
ROBERTS: And just a few hours, a criminal hearing begins in Los Angeles in the drug overdose death of Anna Nicole Smith. Howard K. Stern, Smith's former attorney and boyfriend, and two doctors are accused of conspiring to illegally provide Smith with 44 different prescription medications. At the end of the two-week hearing, the judge will decide if there is enough evidence for the three men to stand trial. CHETRY: Security (ph) says Hillary Clinton is in Moscow this morning. She is meeting with Russian leaders on a range of issues including Iran's nuclear ambitions that will top the agenda. And Clinton has been making the case for Tehran to come clean. Russia's foreign minister says Washington and Moscow are on the same page to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
Jill Dougherty is traveling with Secretary Clinton. She joins us on the phone from Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Secretary Clinton and Foreign Minister Lavrov came back to a news conference and one of the key questions was Iran, and the question is to whether Russia would support increased sanctions.
And although some back and forth on this, they clarified. In fact, Hillary Clinton clarified what President Medvedev had said previously. The U.S. was pointing to those comments by Medvedev but sometimes sanctions might be inevitable.
But here is the punch line, Hillary Clinton explaining that yes, he said that. They might be inevitable, but we are not at that point yet with Iran. That's what president Medvedev's opinion is. So the foreign minister essentially said thank you, secretary for explaining what our president said.
And it is true. We are not at that stage yet with Iran. And that theoretically you could view sanctions. But right now the foreign minister of Russia is saying that the threat of sanctions against Iran is counterproductive.
Jill Dougherty, CNN, Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: President Obama's war council meets again tomorrow to hash out a strategy for Afghanistan but as far as his top commander there is concerned, there is not much to debate.
He said he wants a minimum of 40,000 more troops. Joining me now to take a closer look at General Stanley McChrystal's recommendations and the challenges that he faces is Greg Jaffe. He is the co-author of "The Fourth Star."
He is also a military reporter at "The Washington Post" and he recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan. Greg it is good to have you with us. Thanks very much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.
GREG JAFFE, MILITARY REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Thanks very much.
ROBERTS: So we should point out that your new book looks at four generals. David Petraeus among them. He became sort of the guy to, you know, rock star, if you will, when he took charge in Iraq. You wrote in a "Washington Post" op-ed on Sunday that you compared General McChrystal to General Petraeus to some degree. When you look at General McChrystal, is he the go-to guy for Afghanistan strategy?
JAFFE: You know, I don't think he is in the same way that General Petraeus was. You know, General Petraeus was like the kind of a perfect marriage between a wounded president and a political general in sort of the best sense of the word who had been preparing for kind of this moment for his entire career.
He really understood Washington. I don't think the Obama administration wants General McChrystal to play the same role. In other words, I don't think they want him to be the dominant voice on Afghanistan war policy.
ROBERTS: So, when General McChrystal asks for 40,000 troops and people like Senator Dianne Feinstein say, this is the guy that you've invested in. He wants the troops. You should probably give him what he wants. If you say he's not the same level as Petraeus was, should he get - should McChrystal get what McChrystal wants?
JAFFE: You know, I don't think that's for me to decide. I think it depends on what you want to do. I mean, I think with the current mission that they've outlined, if that's the mission and that's what he says he needs to accomplish that mission, then yes. Now, if they change the mission, they change the strategy, that's going to change the troop number. It's going to require him to go back to the drawing board.
ROBERTS: Now, he ran slightly afoul of the administration in a question-and-answer session after that recent speech he gave in London, was actually slapped back by the national security adviser, General Jim Jones, and the secretary of defense, Gates, who said, hey, it's much better if we talk about this stuff in private than if you talk about it publicly. Was that seen in some circles, and do you think the intent was to do an end-run around the president to try to publicly campaign for what he wants?
JAFFE: No. I don't think McChrystal's of that mind. I actually think that one of the differences between him and Petraeus, Petraeus had this very acute political sense. You know, he was like a quarterback in the pocket. He could feel the rush coming and step out of the way. I'm not sure McChrystal has that acute political sense. So, I think he was just being frank and honest. I don't think he had an agenda. I think he just spoke his mind, and he didn't quite realize because he doesn't have that sort of same sense, the repercussions it would have back in Washington.
ROBERTS: You know, in Afghanistan, in addition to the security situation, there are big problems with the Afghan government, the level of corruption that runs through the entire government. In "The New York Times" yesterday, an article suggested that the White House is very upset about the state of the Afghan government. Kind of, you know, hearkens back - and you go over this in your book - to around 2005, 2006, when the Bush administration was indicating it was very unhappy with the Maliki government in Iraq. You talk about the lessons learned in Iraq in terms of governance in the book. Can those lessons be applied to Afghanistan?
JAFFE: You know, I think that's the billion-dollar question. It's hard to tell. The one thing we do know from Iraq and from looking back at these wars is that it's all about governance. You think it's about security, and you think it's about troops, but it's really about governance. And in some cases, one of the lessons of Iraq maybe was that as you improve security, you begin to get your senior Afghan or Iraqi government officials begin to change their behavior. They act more the way you would want them to if they're not kind of terrified for their lives or worried that the country's about to fall down around them.
ROBERTS: Mark Thompson, the national security correspondent for "Time" magazine, was with us yesterday, Greg. And he was talking about this idea, which I guess sort of takes the policy in Iraq and Anbar province there with the Sunnis, which created the Sons of Iraq, which then led to the so-called awakening, that you would take the Taliban and you would pay them to not fight against the U.S. military.
They're getting paid right now by the Taliban to be fighters. You pay them a little bit more money, you bring them on to your side. Do you think that that lesson from Iraq would work in Afghanistan, or is the Taliban different than the Sunni tribes, the Sunni militants, the gunmen that we saw?
JAFFE: You know, they're definitely different. But that doesn't mean it won't work at some level. You know, that was - it was a lot more complicated than just paying Sunnis. There were a lot of sort of complex interactions. It was paying the right Sunnis. It was paying them at the right times. And there were other things going on in the background politically in terms of their frustration with al Qaeda.
Now, whether you have all those things lining up with the Taliban, it's hard to know. But it is a different situation.
ROBERTS: You know, during the whole debate over Iraq before things began to get better, the question was asked, what does success look like? General Petraeus helped to define what success would look like. What do you think success is going to look like in Afghanistan?
JAFFE: You know, I think that's really hard to know. I do think one of the interesting things - and we get at this a little bit in the book - is that if you - I think there are kind of conflicting ideas within the military about what you can accomplish in a place like Afghanistan. In other words, what success could look like. General Petraeus, particularly in Iraq, and to a lesser extent in Afghanistan, really believed that if you surged U.S. troops into a place, you could shape it. You could mold it to sort of what you wanted it to look like. I think others are more sort of pessimistic.
General Abizaid, the general who we describe in the book, who spent most of his life in the Arab world, or much of his military career in the Arab world, not most of his life, and was a fluent Arabic speaker, was much more pessimistic. I think he tends to believe, hey, the Iraqis' destiny is in the Iraqis' control. The Afghan destiny belongs to the Afghans.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, the debate continues as well.
Greg Jaffee, co-author of "The Fourth Star," good to have you on this morning. Thanks for being with us. Congratulations, by the way, on the book. It's getting rave reviews.
JAFFE: Thank you very much.
CHETRY: Well, we just talked - excuse me - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meeting with Russian leaders today. They're talking about Iran. But still the question is out there: Is Hillary going to run for president again? No matter how many times she says no, it seems like people don't believe her. Our Candy Crowley breaks it down. Forty minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Good news. The world as we know it will not end in 2025, unlike the premise of the upcoming - did I say 2025? The world will not end in 2012, unlike the premise of the upcoming movie "2012." And even pointed to the Mayan calendar which is supposed to be set to end with catastrophic consequences in just 3 years and 69 days, but an elder tells the Associated Press that "they're fed up with this stuff." The calendar actually goes until the year 4772.
CHETRY: See that? Breathe a sigh of relief at least for now.
Locked your keys in your car? Now there is a new Viper Smart Start iPhone app. It lets you unlock and lock you car doors, start your car, even turn on your ac or heat before you get in. Sounds great but it is a $499 price tag. So, some may just want to continue to use their key.
ROBERTS: And who says that chivalry is dead? Check it out. A couple from Maine won the annual North American wife-carrying championship. Dave Castro carried his wife, Lacey, through the 278- yard course in just 54 seconds. All his hard work paid off. He took home his 97-pound wife's weight in beer which calculates roughly to a little less than six cases and five times her weight in cash, $485.
CHETRY: All right. So there are a couple of tricks. First of all, they perfected the position, with the thighs around the head, running backwards, and holding on around the waist. For a while, they used to do all different types.
ROBERTS: And back in the 1980s when this technology first became available, a friend of mine had a little thing that would start his car by remote. And he told the story of one day he was walking out from going to a movie with his girlfriend. He said, I got this weird thing with my car. Every time I cough it starts. She said come on. He said, OK, watch. Pushed the button and the car starts. She fell down.
CHETRY: Funny. My car -- I can click it remotely. It will start.
ROBERTS: Perfect.
CHETRY: But then the doors lock, you know, so people can't ride away with it. So, I don't know.
You know, iPhone apps, you know the one that you can put up there and it looks like you're drinking a beer, Rob?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I have that one. I've got the lighter one. There's way too many to count. And, you know, the thing about the wife-carrying thing, you know, even though she's being carried, and that's very chivalrous...
CHETRY: Yes.
MARCIANO: ... she kind of got the bad end of that deal as far as the position is concerned, being thrown over the shoulder.
CHETRY: That's the favored position now. They used to do it in a lot of different ways, but they realized that's how - that's how you win.
MARCIANO: Whatever tickles your toenails, you know? That's - it looks interesting, for sure. And some women may like that.
Heavy rain across the south. Hey, I want to talk about this. We had some south - southeastern flooding across Georgia, 2 1/2 inches of rainfall at the Hartsville (ph) there, but that's - that's a record. There are higher amounts in some spots, and, you know, we're still saturated from the floods from two weeks ago, so it's kind of like one of these small cuts you have, it starts to heal and just gets ripped off by accident, and guess what? Another flash flood watch is in effect for parts of the southeast beginning tonight.
Big storm out west. That is going to create some problems. Here's the rain that's starting to formulate across part of Texas. But from San Francisco to Sacramento, up through Eureka, and eventually down to Southern California as well. It's going to bring a tremendous amount of rain and wind and this could cause some mudslides, especially across the burn areas of California. So we'll be keeping an eye on that for the next day and a half.
John, Kiran, back up to you.
John, do you want to carry Kiran off, just to kind of demonstrate that?
ROBERTS: Are you - you could her in your pocket and carry her.
CHETRY: No, no, no.
ROBERTS: She weighs about 92 pounds.
CHETRY: Absolutely not. First of all, the people that win this every year, the girls have to be petite. They have to be around 5-1, 5-3...
ROBERTS: Let's roll the videotape again here.
CHETRY: ... and she's only 97 pounds. Look. That's why - I mean - there you - look how tiny she is!
ROBERTS: Yes, she is. She is tiny.
MARCIANO: But then you only get 97 pounds worth of beer, so, I mean, what's the sense?
CHETRY: There you go. I mean, if can you drink 97 pounds worth of beer - I think it's bragging rights, you know what I mean? It's not necessarily the Bud Light.
ROBERTS: And then - and then they're going to shoot her out of a cannon.
MARCIANO: A bonding experience a couple will never forget.
ROBERTS: Absolutely. Rob, thanks so much.
MARCIANO: See you guys.
CHETRY: All right. Still ahead, we're going to be talking about the "Obama Boys Club." Well, you know, there's a lot of pickup games of basketball going on, a lot going on behind the scenes. But some are asking why aren't any women there?
It's 47 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Hillary Clinton mincing no words when she was asked about her political future. In fact, all it took was actually just one word - two letters seemed to say it all.
Here is Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As declarations go, this one on NBC was pretty darned declarative.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you ever run for president again, yes or no?
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No?
CLINTON: No.
CROWLEY: A couple of weeks shy of her 62nd birthday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on the job, diplomating her way through the British Isles.
BRIAN COWEN, PRIME MINISTER OF IRELAND: I'm delighted that she's taken time to visit us here today. I would of course like to take this opportunity to recognize and congratulate President Obama on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
CROWLEY: The Irish prime minister did say Clinton has been fundamental to Obama foreign policy, but it seems like kind of an "Ouch!" moment given what might have been or almost was. But the former Democratic presidential candidate claims she has never wished she were the decider.
CLINTON: No, not at all. I am part of the team that makes the decisions.
CROWLEY: A debate over whether she's a key team player is one of Washington's 2009 parlor games. There are other foreign policy advisers the president knows better and many who are closer in proximity to the presidential ear. One paper called Clinton "largely invisible" on big ticket items, columnists suggest she's been marginalized. She calls that absurd and a misunderstanding of her nature as a delegator.
CLINTON: I would be irresponsible and negligent were I to say, "Oh, no. Everything must come to me." Now, maybe that is a woman's thing. Maybe I'm totally secure and see absolutely no need to go running around in order for people to see what I'm doing.
CROWLEY: Clinton did make team play a hallmark of her Senate career and routinely won praise as a workhorse, not a show horse, and as one friend insisted recently, Hillary's always been a policy wonk first, a politician second.
Is it possible that the former first lady with the famous last name and a lot of ambition, the senator who came this close and still that far from becoming president looks no further now than where she is? In the unlikely, unpredictable life of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, all things are possible.
CLINTON: This is - this is a great job. It is a 24/7 job and I'm looking forward to retirement at some point.
CROWLEY: Now, she just has to convince everyone else of that.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: And that's the hardest part, isn't it?
CHETRY: But why wouldn't they believe her? She said she likes it, she says, you know, she's happy and...
ROBERTS: Because they don't want to believe her. They did want to think that she'll run for president again. By the way, she is one of three women profiled in Leslie Sanchez's new book, "You've Come a Long Way, Maybe," also Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin in there, and Leslie's going to be joining us tonight next hour to talk about the new book. It's a really interesting one. You're going to want to read it.
Nine minutes now to the top of the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Good morning, Washington, where it's 50 and fair right now. Later on today, it will be 70 degrees and partly cloudy, but pretty breezy as well, with the wind blowing about 10 to 20 miles an hour.
Welcome back to the most news in the morning. One lesson you'd better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the president. The 36th president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, said that.
Our current president has been hitting the course and the court a lot lately, and in a town where access equals influence, some say his teammates are sending a powerful message. Dan Lothian has got the game within the game.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A resolution has been adopted...
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Obama surrounds himself with powerful women: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Top Adviser Valerie Jarrett, UN Ambassador Susan Rice. But on the golf course, on the basketball court or ankle- deep in a Montana river, Mr. Obama surrounds himself with men.
Where are the women?
AMY SISKIND, PRESIDENT, THE NEW AGENDA: Well, they're missing out on not only the ability to (INAUDIBLE) to relationship-build with the president, to relationship-build with others who he surrounds himself with.
LOTHIAN: Based on CNN's review, no woman has been listed as participating in his presidential sports outings, including a recent White House basketball game for cabinet secretaries and members of Congress. Fifteen names on the list, all men.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Did the president invite any women?
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think your appearance on the list appears to be accurate. I would say that the point's well taken.
LOTHIAN: Especially since some of the administration's top women - to borrow a popular slang - "got game." Ambassador Rice played high school ball, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius played in college. And on Jay Leno's show, she seemed eager to join all the president's men.
JAY LENO, NBC HOST, "THE JAY LENO SHOW": Who would win in a game of horse, you or President Obama?
KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: You know, I actually made my college basketball team.
LENO: Oh! Oh!
SEBELIUS: You know? Bring it on.
LOTHIAN: To put all this in perspective, we're not talking about winning a war, insuring Americans or fixing the economy, but what some see as a "boys club mentality" complete with heavy sports images and overused metaphors...
GIBBS: Still got a lot of heat on the fastball.
LOTHIAN: ... gives the perception that women, who voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama, don't always have the all-access pass.
SETH KAPLAN, INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: His kind of gender lines are not created intentionally, but they emerge more naturally, and so I think it's important for everyone at work to be aware of these issues.
LOTHIAN (on camera): While some women's groups say that the president has also been tone deaf to some of their issues, the administration will point out that the very first piece of legislation he signed dealt with equal pay for women and that the White House established the Council on Women and Girls aimed at knocking down barriers.
Dan Lothian, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: You know, I never play sports with women.
CHETRY: Why not?
ROBERTS: Because they beat me all the time. No, actually I do (ph).
CHETRY: I think it's strategy.
ROBERTS: I enjoy playing. My lady could outdrive the president.
CHETRY: (INAUDIBLE) golf? How about tennis?
ROBERTS: If - if "USA Today" is correct, he hits the ball about 235 yards? My lady could outdrive him.
CHETRY: See?
ROBERTS: Yes. CHETRY: You guys are too intimidated to let us out there.
ROBERTS: I'm telling you (ph). There are some good women.
CHETRY: I know.
ROBERTS: There are. He should play with them a little more.
