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American Morning
Obama Declares Swine Flu a National Emergency; Reid Moves Closer to Decision on Public Option; NORAD was Notified about Wayward Northwest Plane; Jane Doe Finally Identified; Brighter Days Ahead; Going to Battle for Health Insurance
Aired October 26, 2009 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and thanks very much for being with us on this Monday, the 26th of October. Hope you had a great weekend. Now we're back to starting the workweek again. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us. Here's a look at the big stories we're going to be telling you about in the next 15 minutes.
First, there are some new concerns about swine flu from coast to coast now that President Obama has declared a national emergency. We'll go live to the White House for what that really means to you and also see what the government is saying about delays with the production of the H1N1 vaccine.
ROBERTS: More questions this morning after Northwest Airlines Flight 188 overshot Minneapolis by 150 miles last week. Fighter jets were prepared to chase the airliner, but CNN is learning that the jets were not ready to go for quite some time after air traffic control lost contact with the plane. In a post-9/11 world, did the feds drop the ball? We're live at the Pentagon this morning.
CHETRY: Plus, a major break in a missing persons case. A CNN viewer helped police identify a teenager found more than three weeks ago wondering around New York City. Kacie Peterson claimed to have lost her memory, so how did she end up thousands of miles away from her home in Washington State? Some answers just ahead.
ROBERTS: But we begin this morning with the story sure to have people talking as you head out to work or school this morning, the swine flu with the death toll in this country now topping 1,000. It's been declared a national emergency by the president.
The H1N1 virus now confirmed in 46 states, 100 children already killed by it and the Centers for Disease Control says 20,000 people have been hospitalized. Those sobering statistics sending thousands of Americans to long lines in search of hard to find vaccines.
Our Kate Bolduan live at the White House with more on the emergency declaration and what it actually means.
Good morning, Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there. Good morning, John. Well, President Obama declared it a national emergency but the White House stresses it's not yet an emergency situation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN (voice-over): Long lines and long waits.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We thought it was the end. It goes all the way around the parking lot.
BOLDUAN: The scene in Fairfax, Virginia this weekend as people young and old searched for H1N1 flu vaccinations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that we're just all a little scared about this whole thing.
BOLDUAN: In a move described as preemptive, President Obama late Friday declared H1N1 a national emergency. "The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities," Mr. Obama said in a statement.
The declaration allows hospitals to cut through bureaucratic red tape in the event of a surge of H1N1 patients, reducing paperwork requirement, relaxing rules for setting up medical tents near hospitals where patients could be treated, also making it easier to transfer patients from one facility to another. According to one administration official the move is meant to essentially free more doctors and nurses from administrative burdens so they can focus on patients. It comes as the government admits vaccine production is way behind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're nowhere near where we thought we would be by now. We're not near where the vaccine manufacturers predicted we would be.
BOLDUAN: Despite the delay, rare bipartisan agreement Sunday, lawmakers saying they're pleased with the federal response so far.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the government is doing everything they possibly can and the Centers for Disease Control.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thing they're making every move possible. I think it's a better indication that this is a monumental challenge and the monumental challenge is being met.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BOLDUAN: Now, when asked about the timing of the declaration, an administration official told CNN that it's not tied to any current number of H1N1 cases. Another official saying that this actually was a proactive measure that was not in reaction to any new development on the situation with H1N1.
John, clearly, the goal here is to continue to ramp up vaccine production so the White House, the country, the federal government does not have to move in to disaster mode at all.
ROBERTS: All right. Kate Bolduan for us this morning. Kate, thanks so much.
Coming at 7:10 Eastern, by the way, we're going to be talking with the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat about all of that and how production of the H1N1 vaccine is coming along.
CHETRY: We're also following breaking news just in to CNN this morning. The U.S. military saying that seven U.S. troops in Afghanistan as well as three civilians all died when their helicopter went down following a battle with insurgents in the western part of the country. Also in the south, four U.S. troops were killed after two helicopters collided in midair. The cause of the crash is under investigation, but the military says that the choppers were not shot done by enemy fire.
ROBERTS: We could find out today if the public option makes it into the Senate health care bill, a modified version at least. An aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid telling CNN he's close to a decision that would allow states to opt out of participating in the government-run option. Both supporters and critics were fired up about it on the Sunday talk shows.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: The only real way or one of the best real ways to bring costs down is a new entity competing. The insurance company industry will not do it on its own and the one other thing I'd say and this is really important, you're not required to take the government option. It's not a government plan being forced on people. That was the rhetoric in August. It's an option.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: We had the first vote in the health care debate last week, and there was a bipartisan majority. A hundred percent of Republicans and 13 Democrats agreeing that we should not borrow a quarter of a trillion dollars at the outset. In other words, not send the bill to our grandchildren and the very first voters of the health care debate. So, we'll see how it unfolds.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Senator Schumer, by the way, also said the Democrats are close to having the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.
CHETRY: There are some new questions after a Northwest Airlines jet flew 150 miles past its destination last week. The two pilots have now been interviewed by federal authorities, but it's not just what may or may not have happened inside the cockpit that's under review. CNN is also learning that fighter jets were ready to scramble if needed, but not until after air traffic controllers had been out of contact with that plane for quite some time.
Our Barbara Starr is live at the Pentagon. And, Barbara, we're talking about 78 minutes of radio silence. Obviously, a lot of concern. What are you learning about the possibility of what they were prepping to do?
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Kiran. CNN has learned that it was approximately an hour when the plane went radio silent one hour before NORAD, the North American Air (ph) Defense Command, was notified there might be a problem with Flight 188.
Let's put up the timeline and have everybody take a look. It will show you exactly what we're talking about.
We translated all of this into East Coast time so people could look at it more easily. 7:56 p.m., basically the flight goes radio silent. 8:58, it overshoots Minneapolis, continues on. 9:14, communications are reestablished. But let's leave that out and look at that.
8:58, overshoots Minneapolis. It was not until that happened, until the plane was past Minneapolis that NORAD was notified there was a problem in the skies. That's when they scrambled jets at two bases in the United States. Those jets were on the runway, armed, pilots in the cockpit ready to go. But NORAD was very quickly told that it was all resolved. Clearly not because, of course, we now know that the FAA made the pilots of flight 188 do some maneuvers on their way back to Minneapolis to prove they were in control of the plane, that it wasn't a hijacking.
So even though the FAA was plenty concerned about what was going on with flight 188, the military, which regularly deploys fighters when there are questions in the sky, wasn't notified for one hour that there was a problem -- Kiran.
CHETRY: And how unusual is that? Is there a protocol for how long or, I mean, is it a case by case basis when deciding when to scramble fighter jets?
STARR: Well, you know, to some extent it may well be case by case but it is supposed to be quick in the post 9/11 world. You know, we have seen this dozens of times where the military has very quickly scrambled fighters, gone up into the skies and escorted planes under question to their landing. That did not happen here. That we are told by a senior U.S. official very familiar with the timeline, very involved in what happened that day. He says that's not the way we like to do business, meaning not to wait one hour.
All of this now under review at both NORAD and the FAA, their notification procedures to see why it took so long and whether or not there was a problem in waiting one hour to find out what was really going on in this situation -- Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Well, all of this under review right now. Maybe we'll get some answers and maybe it will lead to changes. We'll have to see.
Barbara Starr, thanks so much.
Also, stay with us because coming up at 7:30 Eastern, we're going to be digging deeper into why national security forces were slow to react when we talk to Fran Townsend, CNN's national security contributor, as well as Peter Goelz, former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board.
ROBERTS: And it's eight and a half minutes after the hour. Also new this morning, the cereals being advertised to your children have 85 percent more sugar and 65 percent less fiber than the ones you're probably eating. That's according to researchers out of Yale University. And according to the report, companies are spending more than $150 million a year in advertising. The food industry says children who eat cereal regularly, including the presweetened kinds, tend to weigh less.
CHETRY: Gas prices are up. The average price for a gallon of regular, $2.66. It jumped almost 18 cents in the past two weeks, the first two-week rise since late July. The increase being driven by a rise in the price of crude oil, not by higher demand.
ROBERTS: And yes she can. President Obama's first coed golf game. Chief Domestic policy adviser Melanie Barnes was part of a group of four who hit the lengths with the president yesterday. The president catching some flak recently for playing basketball with just male cabinet members and lawmakers.
CHETRY: Also, the New York Yankees are going to the World Series. It's the 40th time in their history. The Yankees ended up beating the L.A. Angels 5-2 to win the American League championship series and six games.
So up next, they're taking on the National League champions and World Series champions, Philadelphia Phillies. Game one of the World Series, Wednesday night at Yankee stadium. The Yankees, congrats to them, by the way.
It's really dragged out. First they thought they could have ended it and they lost. They had to come back to Yankees stadium and they got rained out on Saturday. So boom, yesterday.
ROBERTS: Didn't I tell you they just wanted to win it on a beautiful day in the new stadium?
CHETRY: They wanted to make it right for the fans.
ROBERTS: That's how good they are. That's how good those Yankees are.
Well, here's an interesting story out of New York City. On October the 9th, an 18-year-old woman shows up outside of a shelter, has no idea who she is or where she's from, what her back story is.
She's suffering from amnesia. She still is. Her father is on his way, by the way, from Seattle to pick her up. But it's a little bit of a medical mystery as to how this all happened. Did she bump her head? Did she have some other form of amnesia? Was she really telling the truth about it all?
We're going to run that by a psychiatrist who knows all about this stuff, coming right up. The case of Jane Doe in New York City solved. But how did she get here? Ten and a half minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning at 13 minutes after the hour. It was a CNN viewer who finally helped New York City police identify this teenager. She is 18-year-old Kacie Aleece Peterson from Hansville, Washington. She was found here in Manhattan more than three weeks ago. So how could someone black out and turn up thousands of miles away from home?
Joining me now this morning is Dr. Matthew Fink. He's the chief of neurology at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. So here we had this 18 year old. She shows up. She's got tattered clothing on. She's got no idea, suffering from amnesia. Is it a blow to the head that could have caused this or something else? Typically, what causes amnesia in people?
DR. MATTHEW E. FINK, CHIEF OF NEUROLOGY, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: There are many causes for amnesia. The most common are a blow to the head, athletes who fall and have concussions or even slip on the street and bump your head, I mean, that can do it. In a situation like this though where someone has lost their sense of self, they don't know who they are, that's an extremely rare situation and almost is never related to a physical injury. It's usually related to some kind of emotional event that causes someone to sort of forget who they really are.
ROBERTS: According to children's services here in New York City, when she was interviewed, she said, "I just want to know who I am. I want to know who I am and what happened to me." You talk about this idea of a complete loss of self. You know, it's not a traumatic type of amnesia. What sort of event could cause that type of psychiatric break?
FINK: Well, psychiatrists would call this a dissociative state, where there are certain memories which are so upsetting to someone that you separate them out and you sort of compartmentalize these memories in your brain and you can sort of block things out. So if there was some emotional trauma that was so severe for her that she did this, and that might explain it.
ROBERTS: How bad would that have to be? I guess it's a matter of degree. Different people react differently.
FINK: Yes. I think different people do react differently. Also, a young woman and adolescent can react in a much more extreme way than someone who is older and more mature. So these types of things actually would be more common in a younger person. I think the good news is that the prognosis and recovery from something like this is very good, that her long-term outlook would be really very excellent and we'd expect her to make a very good recovery.
ROBERTS: Do those memories come back all of a sudden or do they come back over a long period of time? Can she be expected to regain all of those memories? Might she lose some permanently? FINK: Well, it usually occurs in bits and pieces, that all of a sudden, you know, one day she'll remember a little bit more about herself and the next day some more will come back. It isn't a smooth recovery. It's a choppy type of recovery.
ROBERTS: What I was fascinated by was apparently Child Protection Services gave her a GED exam. I guess they wanted to see where she was cognitively. She did very well in math but couldn't remember history, she couldn't remember sciences. Now, these are all things that we learn. Why would she remember math and not the others?
FINK: Right. Well, that's, again an example of where there's a selective failure to recall certain things. And, again, it's compartmentalizing certain memories so that she doesn't remember some things and does remember others.
ROBERTS: Could this be that math operates in a different area of the brain than - that other stored memories do?
FINK: Well, yes, but in a situation like this, the memory is not really the same. The memory structures would be the same whether you're remembering math or history or literature. The same part of the brain is involved in that, and if there were a physical injury causing this, then all of those areas would have been lost.
ROBERTS: So if you're a neurologist, if you're a psychiatrist, whoever would be working with her, how do you work with her on getting those memories back?
FINK: Well, the first thing is you want to make sure she's had a very thorough and careful medical neurological evaluation, and I'm assuming that that was already done before they let her go back to her family. But then it takes time. There has to be a very sensitive period of psycho therapy with here and, again, the long-term prognosis and recovery should be very good for her.
ROBERTS: Well, we certainly wish you the best. Dr. Fink, it's great to talk to you think morning. Thanks so much for dropping by.
FINK: Thanks for inviting me.
ROBERTS: Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Still ahead, Christine Romans here, "Minding Your Business" this morning. Companies are expecting to hire and invest more. Could this be a bright spot in what's been an economic downturn? We're going to take a look.
It's 17 1/2 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: And welcome back. It's 20 minutes past the hour.
Christine Romans is here "Minding Your Business." She's got some good news for us this morning when it comes to hopefully turning the corner on unemployment.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: OK. So some employers, many more employers than just a month ago, are thinking of hiring now and in the next few months and they're thinking of spending money on equipment and on technology. It's the first time in a year - in a year - that I've been able to tell you that companies are starting to think about moving forward and playing offense instead of playing defense, and that's really critical at this time.
This is a - a quarterly survey from the National Association of Business Economics and it finds that businesses are hiring better today than they were in July. In October, about 12 percent of companies expect or are adding jobs. July was an all-time low of 6 percent, so those numbers are still small but it's incredibly important that they're moving in this direction.
In terms of cutting jobs, 31 percent of companies say they're cutting jobs, so that's down from July. Now, are they spending money? The outlook for spending money is improving and when companies are spending money, it means they're getting more confident and they're talking about growing, which means you need to hire people as well.
In October, 26 percent of companies said they were increasing their spending. Look at that compared with July, in the quarter, how - how different that scenario is. Cutting spending, 22 percent compared to 32 percent in July.
And now, what about the tight credit, the lack of availability of - of credit and loans? In October 42 percent said it was having a negative impact on their business, but compare that with July again. The direction here, you guys, is the direction we want to be seeing, and it's the first time in a year that we've seen this direction starting to move in this way. We're looking at six months, and their outlook as well. Looking at six months, they're seeing a day of hiring and spending a little bit of money.
So we have a long way to go, but I just want to say the direction has turned.
ROBERTS: Certainly the hiring part of that is good news.
ROMANS: That's right.
ROBERTS: You got a "Romans' Numeral" for us this morning?
ROMANS: I do. The number is 7,000, and it's a number they have to us (ph) every day, 7,000. Every single day, this number.
CHETRY: Seven thousand new jobs are added?
ROMANS: I wish. No. We're still losing a lot of jobs every day. But this is the number of people each day losing their jobless benefits. Every day 7,000...
CHETRY: I thought you said brighter days ahead. Now we're just losing jobless benefits (ph)... ROMANS: This is brighter days. What I'm saying is you have 7,000 people every day who are rolling off and they're not getting their jobless benefits any more, right? This is why it's incredibly important that business joins in the hiring and the spending, not just the government, because we have to absorb those 7,000 people, and if you've got the business outlook starting to turn, you've got businesses starting to talk about hiring, it comes at a very important and critical time here.
ROBERTS: It still sounds somewhat like a bucket of cold water to be thrown on...
CHETRY: All right. So, may I just end on this, Christine...
ROMANS: Come on, you guys. I - I only tell it like it is. I can't make it sound like it's too overly (INAUDIBLE).
CHETRY: I got - you didn't (ph) get e-mails, Bed Bath and Beyond, Bath and Body Works, who on their little holiday e-mail, saying we have all this great stuff. I open it up, and right on the homepage it says we're now hiring for the holidays.
ROMANS: Really?
CHETRY: Send your online applications, so I thought, wow! I mean, that's at least a little bit of good news.
ROMANS: I've seen a little bit of retail hiring too.
CHETRY: Yes!
ROMANS: I think that's going to be - that's going to be good if they think - I mean, retail spending is supposed to be down a little bit, but they have cut to the bone. So many of these places have cut to the bone.
ROBERTS: I'll tell you the places you go into these days that are really jammed - Filene's, TJ Maxx, places like that. You can't move in those stores.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROMANS: You spend a lot of time in Filene's Basement, John?
ROBERTS: Where do you think I got this tie?
CHETRY: It's beautiful. See? (INAUDIBLE) things are turning around. I have a good feeling.
ROBERTS: All right.
CHETRY: (INAUDIBLE) Christine. Thanks.
ROBERTS: So people hurting in the job market are also hurting when it comes to health care, you know, losing their jobs, whatever (ph). In fact, some people are going - you know, they're resorting to enlisting in the military simply to get health benefits. We'll tell you more about that coming up.
Twenty-four minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-seven minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
You know, one reason the health care debate has become so emotional is that for many people it's very personal. Something like a preexisting condition can mean the only way to get medical coverage is through your job.
ROBERTS: And in this economy, that's put some families in a very tough spot because if you lose your job, what can you do?
Well, one man joined the army to make sure that his wife would have insurance. Our Jason Carroll has got their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHELLE CAUDEL, CANCER PATIENT: Well, that's the wedding album there.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Michelle Caudel was living the life she had always dreamed of. A stay-at-home mom, happily married to her high school sweetheart. The couple had three children, and for 21 years her husband worked at a plastics company called PolyOne, not far from their home in Sussex, Wisconsin.
Then, this past February, Bill Caudel lost his job.
CAUDEL: Technically, the economy put me in this situation. You know, if his plant wouldn't have closed, I wouldn't be here right now.
CARROLL: Their situation is this. Three years ago, doctors diagnosed Caudel with ovarian cancer.
CAUDEL: You know, with ovarian cancer, it's so quiet. It just kind of creeps up on you.
CARROLL: Surgery has not worked, neither so far has chemotherapy. This past May, the cancer returned. No job meant the Caudels had no insurance and few options.
CAUDEL: Kind of in May we knew that the cancer was probably coming back, and when it came to him finding employment, insurance would be a key factor.
CARROLL: So, at the age of 39, Bill Caudel decided he would get insurance and a job by doing something he had always thought about - joining the Army.
CAUDEL: I just kind of laughed, you know, and then all of a sudden he was down there at the recruiter's office and, you know, and I decided because I've been through this cancer and he's been there for me, that I would support him. He's been there for me. Cleaning the house - I mean, he would go to work, he'd come home, he'd clean the house, he'd make supper. He would take care of the house for me. And that's what I said. I said, when he left, who's going to be there to baby me?
CARROLL: A few weeks ago, Caudel left for boot camp at Fort Knox, Tennessee. We wanted to speak to him about his family's story, but he says he wants to focus on training and let his wife do the talking.
CAUDEL: How little you looked.
CARROLL: For her part, there is frustration the economy has turned on the family, but Caudel also feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
CAUDEL: I'm proud of him (ph).
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Wow! That's so tough.
CARROLL: Yes. It really, really is. You know, a bit of an update there as well. Bill Caudel will complete his basic training sometime in December, and at this point, it's just not clear, you know, what his assignment will be after that, but obviously his wife worries about him everyday.
CHETRY: And how's she doing?
CARROLL: Well, you know, her prognosis, I mean, in terms of the ovarian cancer, it's come back twice. She beat it twice, then it came back a third time. She's just going to go, keep going to the chemotherapy and hope for the best. That's all she can really do at this point.
ROBERTS: Amazing story. Jason, thanks for bringing that story to us.
Well, just about half past the hour now. And checking our top stories this Monday morning. The head of the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission is in China pushing the government for help on the problem of defective Chinese-made drywall. It's a story that we've been following closely here on AMERICAN MORNING. As many as 100,000 homes across the country may have been built with that drywall. And homeowners say it's releasing fumes and making them sick. Also corroding the wiring and plumbing in their homes.
CHETRY: In Iraq, there are new concerns about security after the worst attack in more than two years. The government saying 160 people were killed when two car bombs exploded yesterday outside of government buildings in central Baghdad. More than 500 people were injured. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki says the attacks will not disrupt the country's parliamentary election schedule for January.
ROBERTS: And ESPN has fired baseball analyst Steve Phillips after he admitted to an affair with a production assistant. The network says Phillips' ability to be ineffective analyst was irreparably damage by the sex scandal. The 22-year-old woman allegedly stalked Phillips' wife and son and send a letter describing a relationship with Phillips in graphic detail.
CHETRY: Now to politics, and a war of words between former Vice President Dick Cheney and the Obama administration.
Bill Adair has been running some of the claims through the Truth- O-Meter so who is telling the truth and who is stretching it?
Bill is founder and editor of PolitiFact.com, and joins me this morning from Washington.
CHETRY: Good to see you this Monday morning, Bill.
BILL ADAIR, EDITOR, POLITIFACT.COM: Good morning, Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, let's start with former Vice President Dick Cheney. He criticized the Obama administration's foreign policy approach, specifically he was criticizing the handling of the decision to add more troops to Afghanistan. Cheney said that the White House has to, quote, "stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger." So after he said that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded, calling Cheney's comments curious. And then here's what you're putting through the Truth-O-Meter today.
Robert Gibbs's assertion that a request for an increase in troops sat on desks in the White House during the presidency of George W. Bush, including the vice president's for more than eight months.
How did that statement rate on the Truth-O-Meter, Bill?
ADAIR: We checked into that, and gave it a true on the Truth-O- Meter. Indeed when you go back and looked at what Pentagon officials said, General David McKiernan who was the top leader, top commander in Afghanistan talked to reporters about what he called an urgent need for troops in September of 2008, and said he had made the request actually four months earlier when he took command. So that works out to about eight months. And so we gave Gibbs' statement a true on the Truth-O-Meter.
CHETRY: All right. We're also fact checking Vice President Cheney himself. He also criticized President Obama's decision to abandoned the Bush era plan for a long-range missile defense program in Europe calling it a strategic blunder and also a breach of good faith.
So here's what the former vice president said. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY (R), FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is certainly not a model of diplomacy when the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic are informed of such a decision at the last minute in midnight phone calls. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: So he's basically making the claim that the Polish leaders, the Czech leaders are basically told at the 11th hour, a midnight phone call. How did that statement rate?
ADAIR: He's right. That one also got a true on the Truth-O- Meter. When you look at the press reports, the Czech leader has said that he first heard about it from a phone call from the White House shortly after midnight. And it's a little less clear on the call to the polish leader, but it does appear the White House at least tried in that same time frame that the actual call may not have taken place until the next day. But Cheney is right. So he also gets a true on the Truth-O-Meter.
CHETRY: And why is it significant that he's pointing out the timing of this notification when it comes to changing the strategy for missile defense?
ADAIR: Well, I think it's key in that he is accusing President Obama of sloppy diplomacy. The idea that there wasn't the usual -- the protocols were not followed and that the countries didn't get enough advance notice and that it came in the middle of the night. It appears based on some congressional testimony that the White House may have rushed it because the news was about to leak out.
CHETRY: I got you.
All right, well, let's move on to health care. This, of course, is something that we talk about it seems every week here when we do the Truth-O-Meter. Just how expensive is it to buy your own insurance. And Florida governor Charlie Crist in a recent interview boasted about the Cover Florida health care program, which is an effort to provide some low cost health care coverage to the nearly 4 million uninsured in his state is working.
Let's listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHARLIE CRIST (R), FLORIDA: Usually it's about $900 a month to get health coverage. We've reduced that on average to about $150 a month.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Hey, that sounds great, you know. Something that you would normally pay nearly a $1000 for, you can get for about $150. How did that rate?
ADAIR: It does sound great. You're thinking, let's put Florida in charge of our health care. This one actually got a false on the Truth-O-Meter.
This is a classic case of political slight of hand. What Governor Crist has done here is use a number for family coverage. The average the family would pay per month. Actually, in the number he uses is a little bit old. But the latest number about $1100 per month for private health coverage for a family. And then compare it to what the state pays for individual coverage. Indeed, $150 is about the average for the state plan that the uninsured can pay into. But a classic apples and oranges slight of hand here so that one gets a false on the Truth-O-Meter.
CHETRY: All right. Bill Adair as always, thank you. Bill is editor of PolitiFact.com. And if you want to check out some of the other claims on the Truth-O-Meter, head to our blog, CNN.com/AmFix.
ROBERTS: Well, there's an extraordinary movie event that begins on Wednesday. Michael Jackson's rehearsals for his "This is It" tour comes out movie form on Wednesday in theaters, not only here in the United States, but around the world as well. We had a chance to see some of the clips from this, too.
CHETRY: Yes. They basically distilled down some 80 hours of rehearsal footage. I mean, full dress rehearsal, amazing stuff and made it into a documentary pretty much. We're going to be speaking with the director. It's a real personal project for him. Kenny Ortega on "This is It" coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Thirty-nine minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
Michael Jackson's new CD goes on sale today. And also there's a new film with footage compiled from all of his final rehearsals and it kicks off a worldwide two-week run, Wednesday.
ROBERTS: Both are called "This is It." The film will be seen in 90 countries. And Kiran and I recently sat down with Kenny Ortega. I asked him about his initial reaction to reports that Michael had died.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KENNY ORTEGA, DIRECTOR, "THIS IS IT": You know, it's like something inside of me just faded away, collapsed, you know. And it was a reality that I wasn't ready for, wasn't expecting, you know. It is like the most sudden and unexpected shocking news for everyone. I mean, people were just sort of, you know, collapsing, wandering the halls. I mean, thank God, we were together, you know? Thank God all of us were there expecting Michael to join us for rehearsals, which in the end helped us, because, you know, we could come together and kind of comfort one another. It was a lonely feeling.
ROBERTS: Any indication that he wasn't well?
ORTEGA: No, no. Michael was nourished by this. Michael loved coming to work. Michael was excited about the family of artists that he had assembled. And we were on our way. I mean, we felt it in our heart and knew it in our minds. We were going to London in eight days, you know, and the show was coming together. He was so happy about it, you know. And the way that it was forming. CHETRY: And so many questions were swirling about his health. Was he able to do it? There were some who questioned, you know -- did he really want to do this? And then when you take a look at the video. I mean, his dance moves look the same as they did 20 years ago. He's singing. It's not a recording or he's not lip singing, he's actually singing. And then when you think about what happened, this most likely what they say he overdosed on in anesthesia that he was using to sleep.
He had told you how much trouble he had sleeping, right? He would come to you and be up all night with visions and ideas to improve the show. Were you guys concerned about the fact that he wasn't getting enough rest?
ORTEGA: We were concerned, but Michael never presented it as troubled. Michael presented it as, you know, I didn't sleep last night, you know. I was getting ideas and they were coming to me and I had to act on it because they were wonderful, and we need to put Victoria Falls on the stage.
And I would say, Victoria Falls? And I said, Michael, you just want the whole world on that stage with you. When are we going to stop? And he'd say that's right. I want my fans to see themselves. I want them to recognize themselves. And so he was just inspired. He was excited. He couldn't turn it off, you know. This meant so much to him.
You know, he was also a dad and raising a family and had business and he was creating new music for a future album. And so, you know, he was just -- he couldn't turn himself off.
ROBERTS: And you look at the stage set, and it was fairly elaborate. You wanted to do even more. We want to take a look at the clip from the film, "Human Nature," and we'll talk about it on the back side. Let's take a look.
MICHAEL JACKSON (singing): Reaching out to the night time. Electric eyes are everywhere. See that girl she knows I'm watching. She likes the way I stare.
ROBERTS: We looked in that clip when somebody brought in a screening copy of it. And the thing that Kiran and I were struck with was, you know, he looks thin and maybe at times he was frail, but he still looks fairly vital. And there was all this speculation that he was trying to get out of doing this 50 shows at the O2 Arena. But when you look at that clip, what kind of physical shape was he in?
ORTEGA: He was at the shape that he wanted to be in, you know. It was a 50-year-old man that in charge of his life that had been doing this the whole of his life. The stage was like a second home. Michael Jackson was born in the truck, and he was doing what he has been doing since he was like 4 years old, right? And this is where he wanted to be, you know.
You have to also think he was doing this, and he puts it out, fully, and in front of 18,000 empty chairs in an arena. You know, I mean, this was for but for a few eyes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: That's the thing that struck me most about seeing this. 18 hours later he was dead, and there's just nothing that you see on that stage that would indicate that there was anything like that about to happen. Now, I know people can have sudden cardiac arrest, of course. You know, robust, health-looking people, but, wow, he looked so different than he was described.
CHETRY: I couldn't help but think, you know, what a waste because this is the best he looked in years. The concert looked like it was going to be incredible. People were very, very excited to see it happen. And all of this young dancers. I mean, you saw how they had perfected every move. Michael known perfectionist. And they just really wanted to see this through. It might have meant a whole new turn around for him, and then, boom, in one day it ends.
ROBERTS: Well, you know, at least there is the concert footage there.
By the way, Michael's sister, Latoya, has expressed concerns about the film's release. We'll talk to Kenny Ortega about that when we continue our conversation coming up in our 8:00 hour here on the "Most News in the Morning."
But first up, at 7:25 Eastern, we're going to kick off a new series called, "The Legend Lives On," and take a close look at the huge amounts of money that the new documentary is expected to make for Michael's estate.
CHETRY: Also still ahead, flooding in Texas. Storms are on the move. Our Rob Marciano tracking extreme weather for us this Monday morning. It's 44 minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: We're back with the Most News in the Morning. A live look at Nashville right now. Thanks to our friends at WZTV. Thirty- nine degrees in Nashville right now, going up to 71. Should be mostly sunny as well.
CHETRY: Beautiful shot this morning. And we check in with Rob Marciano. It's 47 minutes past the hour. We definitely enjoyed at least half of the weekend, 50/50, but oh, I would be remiss if I didn't say congratulations on your Yankees, first of all. They really stretched it out, didn't they? First off, the game got cancelled. They didn't wrap it up when they could have, and now they won yesterday.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: They could have stretched it out to seven games. But now everybody has a couple of days to recharge. And it's been several years since they've been to the big show, the fall class. Yes, thank you. I'll take those congratulations and congratulations to the Phillies fans as well, enjoy your short-lived success. All right. Let's talk about what's going on around -- actually, this front guy is kind of stalling out and that means the Texas is going to see more heavy rain today. We're already starting to see that on the radar scope here, pretty heavy stuff. In the last couple of minutes, we just have another flood warning pop up for North and East of Dallas, Red River County for some of this heavy rain that streaming off towards the Northeast.
Notice there's not a whole lot of progression to the East. Because of that the same spots, we are going to get anywhere from two to four inches of rainfall on top of what they've already seen. So, San Antonio up to Southern parts of Arkansas is where we're going to see most of the rainfall today. And that will fall on saturated soil.
A little bit of light rain from Chicago to Milwaukee. I know it's been a pretty wet fall for you, but everywhere east of that should be OK today with temperatures in the 60s and 70s. Check out some of this video coming into us out of Tennessee. This is Interstate 40 on the way from Knoxville to Nashville. They had it shut down yesterday, probably shut down for several weeks.
Huge rock boulders falling out a rockslide there. There was one minor injury, certainly could have been a lot worse. You know guys, you see the signs when you drive through some of these mountain terrain, be careful because of rock fall. And you never really think it's going to happen to you, but this is some of the results that can come of that kind of stuff. Scary stuff for sure. But again, only one minor injury and we're certainly thankful for that today.
All right, guys.
ROBERTS: It's pretty dramatic stuff. Hey Rob, speaking of dramatic stuff, what about this? It's the new cnn.com's relaunching this morning with all kinds of new and interesting features.
CHETRY: Very user-friendly, very easy, and you're able to scroll through, much like you do on an iPhone. pick what you want to know about. It's really cool. We're going to be showing you some of the best parts of this Web site coming up.
MARCIANO: Cool. See you guys.
ROBERTS: All right.
CHETRY: Bye, Rob.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: So here we are at the magic wall showing off the new cnn.com which is just debuting today. It's an amazing change to our Web site.
CHETRY: Yeah, it is relaunched to make it easier to use, to make it more user friendly, and there's a lot more interactive elements of it. This is pretty cool. You can check out editor's choice, scrolls through different videos that our editors have found very interesting. You can also find exactly what you need and where. Basically, stories broken down by topics.
ROBERTS: Yeah. It's sort of like sections of a newspaper if you are right there on the same page. What's really interesting about this too is, typically, when you play video, it opens up a new window and you can always windows up it. It actually plays video in the window that you got open. It expands it across the page and then shrinks it back down.
We also have customizable features. For example, if you're interested in following the news from Afghanistan, terrible tragedy here with 14 Americans killed in helicopter crash. If you want, what you can do is you can follow this topic. You simply hit this little button down here and you can choose whether to follow stories about Afghanistan or stories about NATO. So, you click follow there, and this will put this into your profile.
So, you go to your profile page by clicking that. And here are all the topics that you're following if you want to get a detailed breakdown, and then you just push that button over there. And there's your following NATO, U.S. politics, Iraq, vaccine, swine flu. All of that eminently customizable. And you can pick some of your favorite either non-news topics to follow as well.
CHETRY: That's right. Quick look at the markets if you want. You can just click this button, sure enough the markets come out. This shows all the close for the Dow and NASDAQ SNP from Friday. But then you want your local weather and sports? You have New York. You have your current, your highs and lows for the day, and of course, a lot of people love to check out their sports team. So all at a click of a button, you can pick NFL, college. You can follow major league baseball, of course, and all of the various stories, scoreboards come up. So a lot of neat new features on cnn.com you may watch.
ROBERTS: One of the best things too is we used to have separate Web sites for I-report, cnn money.com, cnn sports. Now, have all of the buttons here right at the top of your screen on a little button bar there where you can get to everything that CNN has to offer. Just with a click of your mouse or touch pad or whatever you got there. So the new cnn.com. Check it out. It's a lot of fun. 54 minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. The CNN viewer's tip finally helped New York City police identify a so-called Jane Doe. She is 18-year-old Kacie Peterson from Washington State.
Peterson was found here in Manhattan nearly three weeks ago. She told police she had no idea who she was, where she was from, any of her back story. And there's our Susan Candiotti reports there are still a lot questions in this case.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, Kiran good morning. Clearly, there's a lot more to learn about this teenager, but police tells CNN affiliate KOMO this is not the first time she disappear from home after losing her memory. Her real name is Kacie Ellis Peterson (ph) of Huntsville, Washington. She is 18 years old. After her ordeal, friends are relieved she's safe. Last week, police asked people all over the country to help identify her.
CNN and other media described the girl's dilemma. The publicity worked. An unidentified CNN viewer from Maryland recognized the girl, called police, and that led them to the teen's family in Washington.
The teenager was found about two and a half weeks ago on the sidewalk outside a home for runaways of New York, but she wasn't a client there. People found her in a fetal position and called police. They described her as disoriented and guessed she was anywhere from 14 to 20 years old. They said she had been missing for more than a month, and doctor said she appeared to have amnesia.
LT. CHRISTOPHER ZIMMERMAN, NYPD MISSING PERSONS BUREAU: Her answers to my detective's questions so far have been, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Very clear and concise what I don't know. So, I mean -- she was disoriented when she was found. She is a 14- year-old girl. She is definitely scared.
CANDIOTTI: This fantasy book might hold some clues. The teenager was said to have mentioned some words from the novel called "Fool's Fate" by Robin Hobb and was apparently also writing her own story. Clinical psychologist, Dr. Judy Kuriansky suggests the teenager may have been lost in that fantasy world.
DR. JUDY KURIANSKY, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: The book she had with her, "Fool's Fate" is about an epic, almost like "Harry Potter" if phantasmagoric where the characters are going on the search to slay a dragon and that fantasy is what she was also looking perhaps to write about, and she was living in her own life.
CANDIOTTI: A local sheriff says Kacie was once found lying by a stream without any memory of who she was or how she got her. A few weeks ago, her father reported her missing. And after that, police were said to be following her bank activity and other evidence and did not issue an Amber alert.
So for now, we do know who Kacie Peterson is, but how she got to New York or why she vanished remains a mystery -- John and Kiran.
ROBERTS: Susan Candiotti this morning. Susan, thanks so much.
