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American Morning
Senate Moves Forward Health Care Passage; BlackBerry Blacks out in North America For Second Time in a Week; Cyber Crime ID Theft Becoming More Sophisticated; Bad Credit Terms: Lenders Will Have to Explain Why; One-on-One With Madonna on Her Malawi Mission
Aired December 23, 2009 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. Good morning on this Christmas Eve eve, December 23rd. I'm T.J. Holmes sitting in today for John Roberts.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Carol Costello sitting in for Kiran Chetry. Here are the big stories we'll tell you about in the next 15 minutes.
Developing this morning, one of the world's most popular smart phones, Blackberry, rendered useless for hours, leaving people across the globe without access to their e-mail. This is the second time in a week an outage has crippled the network. We're live with what the device maker is saying.
HOLMES: It's going to be a white Christmas in parts of the west and Midwest. That's the good news. The bad news, it's going to be a white Christmas, actually. We're going to have a major winter storm spreading snow, ice, and misery right through the Christmas weekend.
That means extensive delays for you holiday travelers. A foot of snow expected in some places. Our Rob Marciano is keeping an eye on it all for us.
COSTELLO: And Madonna giving back. After adopting two children from Malawi, the superstar is putting her money where her mouth is. She's building a $15 million school for girls there. She's talking about it for the first time and only to our Alina Cho.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MADONNA, SINGER: My biggest asset as a human being is I would say my resiliency and my survival skills, you know? I'm like a cockroach. You can't get rid of me.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So you want to talk about -- so -- but that's helpful in philanthropy.
MADONNA: It is. You have to -- have you to be pretty tireless.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Alina Cho's exclusive one-on-one with Madonna, coming up. HOLMES: But first, a terrifying landing for some passengers on an American Airline jet. Their plane overshot a runway while trying to land in Jamaica. Some bad weather was happening there when they were trying to land.
The flight, 331, first took off in Washington then stopped in Miami before heading to the airport near Kingston. The plane skidded off the runway and slammed into a fence. Here are some of the first pictures of it -- 154 passengers and crew were onboard. More than 90 were taken to the hospital.
For the most part, broken bones, bumps, and bruises. Four people however, were treated overnight for some serious injuries.
COSTELLO: And to that developing story right now, for the second time in less than a week, Blackberry's wireless Internet service was down for users in the United States and beyond. And this morning, service is slowly coming back online.
HOLMES: Our senior correspondent Allan Chernoff joins us now live. I guess a lot of people, including Carol over here, owe IT and apology for yelling at them about the Blackberry.
COSTELLO: I was on the phone like, what's with my blackberry?
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: It's tough for you crackberry types.
(LAUGHTER)
And you know what the company is saying, come on down from the mountain tops, you can stop sending your smoke signals. Service is back. These things are buzzing once again and the addiction is back on.
But for eight hours, North America was without Blackberry service, an e-mail blackout. Just imagine, people had to resort to using their computers, perhaps even consider writing a letter?
HOLMES: No.
CHERNOFF: Carol, you wouldn't do it.
The outage started at 6:30 eastern time last night, and at one point Research in Motion, the maker of the blackberry, estimates that none of its U.S. customers had Internet access. They were also unable to send or receive e-mails regardless of which phone company they use with their Blackberry.
It's especially frustrating to customers, and there are 32 million of them, the fact that the outage is the second in the past six days. It happened on Thursday as well.
Still no details on what exactly caused the outage or this morning's disruption. Research in motion says it apologizes for any inconvenience experienced by customers. And the service actually did start coming back at 2:45 this morning, and that's a very meaningful time to me, because, you know what? That's the time I was woken up to deliver this story on the air.
(LAUGHTER)
Some coincidence, huh?
HOLMES: A lot of folks, people were asleep overnight, maybe it didn't disrupt them too much.
CHERNOFF: Obviously it's frustrating for many, but if you put it in perspective, this actually might be a healthy thing, because...
HOLMES: Good point.
CHERNOFF: Maybe some of these people who are addicted to this thing can step back and relax for a few moments. Carol, did you?
COSTELLO: No, I almost had a nervous breakdown.
CHERNOFF: As my Blackberry buzzes. Did you just send me an e- mail?
COSTELLO: No I'm going to send you one right now for making fun of me, and it's going to be a nasty one. No, I'm kidding.
HOLMES: That's a good way to put things in perspective, though. Allan, thanks so much, buddy.
COSTELLO: In the meantime in Washington this morning, Democrats are ready for a victory lap. At 8:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow, the Senate is scheduled to have that final vote on its health care bill. And Democrats appear to have the 60 votes they need.
But Republicans say Democrats could pay a price during next year's midterm election if that bill passes.
HOLMES: The Senate's plan still has to be reconciled with the bill already pass the over in the House. That's no easy feat, but the Obama administration's already looking ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: In all honesty, health care is not a matter of -- health care reform is not a matter of if. Healthcare reform now is a matter of when. And I think the president is enormously encouraged by that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: President Obama planned to be in Hawaii for the Christmas break, he's planned to be there by now. But he says now, and I'm quoting here, "I will not leave until my friends in the Senate have completed their work." COSTELLO: And we'll have live coverage of tomorrow's crucial vote right here on CNN. Our Washington team will bring you live updates all morning leading to that vote at 8:00 a.m. eastern time. That's right here on the most news in the morning.
HOLMES: Also new this morning, Major General Anthony Cucolo dialing back his new policy making pregnancy in the war zone a punishable offense, now saying he would not jail a soldier for getting pregnant or getting another soldier pregnant. Four women disciplined under his command so far have actually received letters of reprimand.
COSTELLO: Nearly five million doses of H1N1 nasal vaccine are being recalled because the spray appears to lose strength over time. Federal health officials say the majority of the affected vaccine has already been used, but they say the nasal spray was strong enough when it was distributed in October and November, and people don't need to get revaccinated.
HOLMES: We've got another H1N1 first, a canine case of swine flu. This is a dog in suburban New York, 13-year-old mixed breed male recovering from the illness, apparently got the virus from his owner. Federal health officials say there's no cause for concern about pets spreading the swine flu, however.
COSTELLO: That is very interesting, because there's a veterinary service in Baltimore where I live that's offering vaccines for dogs.
HOLMES: So they clearly they get some kind of an issue.
COSTELLO: I thought it was a rip off, but apparently not.
HOLMES: How does he give it to the dog? How does that work?
COSTELLO: I don't know.
(WEATHER BREAK)
HOLMES: Well, you spent a lifetime building up your credit and your identity. How much is that identity worth out there in cyberspace? About ten bucks.
(LAUGHTER)
Coming up, we'll explain the new cyber crimes in the underground cyber world. It's eight minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's ten minutes past the hour, and that means it's time for an "A.M. Original."
But first, new this morning, with most of the east coast snowed in over the weekend, online shopping saw a huge bump. But one false click and someone else could be in control of your life. HOLMES: Yes. Our Mary Snow found a guy who found that out the hard way. And then went inside the belly of the black market to see what happens next.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SNOW: When Matt Marquess recently checked his Twitter account he keeps for work, he was surprised to find messages written about him.
MATT MARQUESS, VICTIM OF CYBER HACKING: And here's a tweet from one of my friend that says "Wondering why Matt Marquess is tweeting about ladies underwear," which I thought was pretty funny.
SNOW: But he quickly learned it wasn't a joke. His account had been hacked and he was inadvertently sending out a link to a $500 coupon for lingerie.
MARQUESS: It made me uneasy a little upset and concerned that somebody was going to get some sort of malicious software or something downloaded onto their machine.
SNOW: Once links like that are clicked, the door is opened for identity theft, and those cyber criminals, say law enforcement officials, are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
To make that point, secretary software maker Symantec recently constructed a mockup of the underground cyber world. It includes what a black market channel looks like where identities are bought and sold.
SNOW (on camera): How much is an identity worth?
ROWAN TROLLOPE, VICE PRESIDENT SYMANTEC: Typically a full identity is available online for sale for $10.
SNOW: $10? And that includes Social Security.
TROLLOPE: Full Social Security number, billing address, current credit card information, and bank account data. So everything you need to fully steal someone's identity is available for $10.
SNOW: $10 for an identity theft that can cost victims thousands of dollars each. Combating that growing black market is a nonstop job. Austin Berglas is head of the FBI cyber crime unit in New York.
AUSTIN BERGLAS, FBI CYBER CRIME UNIT: When we feel safe and secure that everything's locked down, there's someone out there who is spending 24 hours a day seven days a week looking for that next hole.
SNOW: Berglas says one of the biggest trends right now involves ATM fraud with many of the scams originating in Eastern Europe.
He gives this example. Let's say 1,000 scam e-mails are sent out with bogus links promising gifts or money. Of that, maybe ten people click on those links. As soon as they click on the link, a key log is installed to record key strokes, capturing information such as passwords from online banking.
That information is sent back to the cyber criminal, who puts it's up for sale on the black market.
Once information is sold, it's distributed. And here's where law enforcement officials say the next phase of the scam returns to the U.S. Money mules are given fake bank and credit cards with the stolen information and then the mules cash out those accounts.
While the mule keeps some of that money, the rest is sent back to the original hacker, in many cases, to Eastern Europe. But those mules open a door for law enforcement.
BERGLAS: The lowest hanging fruit for us is the money mules. So when they get picked up at the ATM machine, you know, we'll interview them, we'll tell them how much jail time they're looking at, and they'll wind up working for the FBI and then giving up their sources.
SNOW (on camera): And experts say the economy both here and the U.S. and in Eastern Europe is one of the reasons behind the rise in these thefts, with more people turning to cyber crime to make quick money.
Mary Snow, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Thanks, Mary.
A lot of people have been complaining about credit cards and how credit cards companies can just jack up your interest rate with no warning.
Well, not anymore. There are new credit card rules put into place. Christine Romans will be along to tell us what they are.
It's 13 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH CONAN O'BRIEN": Well, anyway, people need to get out there. Yes. Everyone's getting their Christmas shopping done. This is the latest.
President Obama says this year for Christmas his daughters want an iPod, video games and some books. That's what he said. But boy, you should have seen the looks on their faces when he told them instead they're both getting universal health care. Huh? Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Whether they want that or not. While the president waits for the Senate to put that big red bow on health care, everyone is actually wondering what else he's getting for Christmas. The first lady was this close to giving it away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you get the president for Christmas?
MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh, I can't tell. They're going to --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're going to tell.
OBAMA: They're going to tell.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's something good, though.
OBAMA: It's good. You know, we got him sports -- I got him sports stuff.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
T.J. HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sports stuff.
COSTELLO: Sports stuff, like a basketball?
HOLMES: Basketball? He's a big sports guy. All sports, actually.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: What do you get the leader of the free world?
HOLMES: I don't know.
ROMANS: I mean, somebody who has already got everything?
COSTELLO: Socks or a tie.
ROMANS: I don't know. That's hard.
ROMANS: Make a gingerbread house. I mean, seriously. I don't know what you could possibly do.
HOLMES: I guess.
ROMANS: Look, if you're borrowing money to buy that gift -- look, new rules from the FTC and the Fed are going to make it easier for you to understand why you're getting a different interest rate than your neighbor when you borrow money. Every time you go to borrow money for a credit card, or mortgage, to buy a car, you get an interest rate based on what the lender thinks is your risk. Right? But you don't really know why you got 19.2 percent when someone else got 9.1. You don't know why.
Now these new rules are going to make the lender has to tell you why you're getting higher interest rates than normal. What it is about your credit history that is the problem that's making you have to pay more. A lot of people for years haven't known really that they were paying higher rates than other people and why. It also means a free credit report, maybe through the lender you can get a free credit report. There are ways you can get a credit report, but it's the lender would have to provide you with the credit report saying this is why you're getting higher interest rates.
Now, this is what kind of is irritating. This goes into effect January 1st, 2011. It gives the lenders a very, very long time, so it could be a very -- it could be a while before you get some of the answers that you need. But it's important for people who take out credit cards, important for people who take out mortgages and car loans. I think for years people didn't realize they were paying higher interest rates because of their credit history. And it's just knowledge is so important. You need to know why you're paying more.
If your credit score is lower, if you've had problems in the past, if you've missed a couple of payments, it could mean you're paying more over the course of that loan. So this would give consumers a little more power.
This is different than that credit card -- the credit card rules we're talking about. This is the fed and the FTC saying that in a year now, one year from now, one year from January, people will have more information about why they're getting higher interest rates, higher interest rates.
HOLMES: OK. Well, we might have the same question here. You get more information about it, but still you can't do anything that can still set it however they want to set it.
COSTELLO: That's exactly what I was going to ask.
ROMANS: But you can say no.
HOLMES: They can get you --
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: You can say no, I'm not going to borrow the money from you. You can go somewhere else and try. But most of these lenders use very similar kind of risk pricing. That's what they call it, risk pricing. Then they take a look, especially now they're being much tougher on this. They're saying if you've missed some payments, if you've had trouble paying back a loan in the past, if you've had a lot of late fees, you're going to pay a higher rate. But it's all mysterious, and so consumers -- consumers should be able to know why they're paying higher interest rates.
COSTELLO: OK. I guess that's --
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: And it gives the banks to comply.
HOLMES: Why is that? Why do they get a year?
ROMANS: Because they need -- apparently they need a year.
COSTELLO: The paperwork.
HOLMES: Yes.
ROMANS: They can process our credit transactions in a heartbeat, but it takes a year to put in place these new rules. Just saying.
COSTELLO: Any who --
HOLMES: I understand.
COSTELLO: Christine has a numeral for us.
ROMANS: I do. And the number is 720. And this is sort of like the -- this is a number you all want.
HOLMES: The credit score.
COSTELLO: The credit score.
ROMANS: It was too easy. You want 720 or higher. If you have 720 or higher, you're going to probably get the best interest rates out there. If you're below -- and some people I'm telling you after the last couple of years have had a lot of trouble with their credit scores dropping quite quickly. Then you close out one credit card account that you've had trouble with or something, your credit score can drop 20 points in a heartbeat and it can take two or three years to climb back up.
So just a reminder that people with a lower credit score, 720 and above, pretty much the gold standard. But below that, this will give them more information about why they're paying higher interest rates.
HOLMES: In a year.
COSTELLO: Of course these days even people with 720 or higher aren't getting nothing.
ROMANS: I know. Well, 720 or higher, if you get a mortgage at 720, you got to have 30 percent down still. It's a whole new world. Wait, it's the old world is back.
COSTELLO: Maybe.
ROMANS: The way we used to do it.
COSTELLO: Thanks, Christine.
HOLMES: Christine, thank you.
COSTELLO: Let's talk Madonna, shall we?
HOLMES: Go ahead. You love this, don't you? COSTELLO: Christine loves Madonna. Don't you love Madonna?
ROMANS: Sure.
COSTELLO: Exactly. She is putting her money where her mouth in is Malawi. Her philanthropy efforts are just amazing. Alina Cho got an exclusive one-on-one interview with Madonna, and she'll tell you all about it.
HOLMES: And we're going to go from Madonna to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we're talking about here. Same old story, same old song, not doing what they said they would do. What are the options now for the U.S. as Iran once again defies the world. That's coming up.
It's 21 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: I wonder where we're going with this one. 7:24 right now, 24 minutes past the hour. That means it's time now for an "A.M. Original, something you will only see on AMERICAN MORNING. All week we're spotlighting celebrities who are giving back in a major way using their fame to help the less fortunate. Not just this time of year, the gift-giving time and time to get back, but these folks do it year-round.
COSTELLO: They sure do. This morning, we're talking Madonna. After adopting two children from Malawi, many predicted the global superstar would never return. Well, she has, to build a $15 million school for girls and she's talking about it for the first time with Alina Cho for Alina's special series, "Big Stars, Big Giving."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's a woman who only needs one name.
(on camera): So you're Madonna.
MADONNA, FOUNDER, "RAISING MALAWI": No, I'm not.
CHO: Yes, you are.
(voice-over): Madonna has spent most of her life being provocative. But these days, nothing is more important than her children. Two of them, adopted from Malawi, a small African nation where more than a half million children are orphaned by AIDS.
CHO (on camera): All of those orphans, I mean, a million --
MADONNA: I would love to take them all home. Yes. If I could.
CHO (voice-over): Because she can't and because she's Madonna, she made a documentary about the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "I AM BECAUSE WE ARE") VOICE OF MADONNA: People always ask me why I chose Malawi. And I tell them, I didn't. It chose me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: She also founded the charity raising Malawi, to help the orphans she can't bring home.
MADONNA: We found and met a lot of people who were sick and dying of HIV with no medical help. And it just felt like a death camp. And it was astonishing. And so on the other hand, though, everybody that I met was also incredibly brave. So it's a very confusing paradox.
CHO (on camera): It's an interesting dichotomy because I know that Malawi is known as the warm heart of Africa. As much suffering as there is there, there's a certain spirit to the people.
MADONNA: Yes, there is. Because on the one hand, I went there and I thought, I have to help. I have to save these people. And then I thought, wait a minute, I think it's the other way around. I think they might be saving me.
CHO: Why do you say that?
MADONNA: Because they help you to get a sense of appreciation for -- for life. For -- for what you have. I mean --
CHO (voice-over): A new appreciation for life and a new sense of responsibility. Her latest project, breaking ground on a $15 million boarding school. The raising Malawi academy for girls slated to open in 2012.
MADONNA: I never intended to go to Malawi and just sort of, you know, dump a bunch of, like, aid on people and flee the country. It -- it's always been about partnership.
CHO: And she's putting her money where her mouth is. Every dollar donated to raisingmalawi.org, Madonna will match.
(on camera): So you just said, hey.
MADONNA: Match my dollar.
CHO: I'll keep going?
MADONNA: Match my hundred grand. Yes.
CHO (voice-over): Make that 300 grand and counting.
MADONNA: My biggest asset as a human being is, I would say, my resiliency and my survival skills. You know, I'm like a cockroach. You can't get rid of me.
CHO (on camera): But that's helpful in philanthropy.
MADONNA: It is.
CHO: Yes, right?
MADONNA: It is. I mean, you have to -- you have to be pretty tireless.
CHO (voice-over): Her tenacity was on display back in 2006, when many people, both in Malawi and around the world, accused her of using her celebrity and her money to buy an adoption. She won. David, now 4, calls Madonna mom.
MADONNA: It seems that a lot of the things I do end up being controversial even when I don't mean them to be.
CHO (on camera): Right. Does it hurt your feelings?
MADONNA: Hurt my feelings. I don't know if it hurts my feelings. I think sometimes I'm pretty prepared often for some of the things I say and do. I go, I know this is going to freak some people out. But the other things I do, like documenting a child who's about to die, I don't think I'm going to get a hard time for it, and I do.
CHO (voice-over): Yet, Madonna says she'll take the criticism if it means one more child in Malawi gets to go to school, survive and thrive.
(on camera): Do you ever get overwhelmed by all of the work that needs to be done? Because it seems like you help one kid and there's like a thousand more standing in line.
MADONNA: Yes.
CHO: And it can be overwhelming.
MADONNA: Yes, it can. I mean, sometimes you just -- it stops you dead in your tracks and you think, my God, I can't do this. But then I see the success rate. I talk to the people in Malawi whose lives have been changed, and that just helps me and keeps me going.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHO: I asked Madonna after being in the spotlight for more than three decades how aware is she today of her celebrity. Is it something she thinks about all the time?
Well, she told me I'm aware of it when I'm on the red carpet. I'm aware of it when the paparazzi is waiting outside my door, and I'm aware of it when I have an opportunity like this to talk about my work.
And certainly it's something she doesn't do often. But, you know, I asked her why an academy for girls? And she said, listen, when I went to Malawi, one of the first things I noticed is that women were doing all the work.
COSTELLO: Men always the case. CHO: Oh, yes. Women have the babies strapped to their -- sorry, T.J. -- women have the babies strapped to their back. They were raking the dirt. And yet they didn't have any opportunities for education. And that really struck her and she wanted to do something about it.
COSTELLO: Oh, that's really -- you know, when you asked her if this stuff hurt her feelings when people made fun of her for doing this charitable work, it seems to me as if it really did hurt her feelings. You don't think of Madonna as that kind of person.
CHO: You don't. You don't. And I think it did. It's something that she still thinks about now.
I didn't ask her about the adoption. She actually talked about it on her own, which I thought was really interesting, because I didn't think that she would. The other thing is as I asked her, you know, 30 years later, I mean, how aware are you of the fact that you are Madonna.
And she said, listen, you know, I am very involved in my day-to- day struggles. You know, I get up and put my feet on the ground like everybody else. I worry about sleep deprivation, I worry about my 13- year-old daughter wanting to pierce her nose. I worry about cellulite. I said, you don't worry about cellulite, she said, yes, I do.
(LAUGHTER)
CHO: Take her word or if.
She does a lot of yoga.
HOLMES: OK.
COSTELLO: So what are you doing tomorrow?
CHO: Well, tomorrow I'll be showing you my interview with Martha Stewart. You know, Martha Stewart, as you guys know, is a one-woman empire, and she's really using her celebrity to make a difference in the world of aging Americans. You know, she has an empire, as I mentioned, TV show, magazines, 69 books.
Now she is talking about this medical center for aging Americans, and she built it for her 93-year-old mother who died two years ago. It's one of those things where, you know, you don't often see a softer side of Martha, but this is a softer side of Martha, and it's great. And that interview will be on tomorrow morning at 6:00.
HOLMES: Looking forward to it. It's been a good week so far.
CHO: Thank you.
HOLMES: All right. Thank you so much, Alina. It is the bottom of the hour now, time for us to check our top stories. Blackberry service being restored this morning after a massive outage that lasted about eight hours. At one point, Blackberry estimated 100 percent, that's all of us in North America, were affected. So far, no word on exactly what caused this glitch. This is the second drop in Blackberry service we've seen in less than a week.
COSTELLO: The Taliban planning its own surge, a top Taliban commander in Pakistan telling the "AP" he's sending thousands of troops over the border to counter additional U.S. forces. It's not clear if they're going by choice or they're being pushed out by the Pakistan Army's on-going offensive.
HOLMES: Hundreds of people showing up at a hearing in western Illinois about the plan to bring alleged terrorists to their town. The governor plans to sell a nearly empty super max prison to the federal government so we can start moving Gitmo detainees there. Supporters of the plan say it could put thousands of people to work, but they faced many people afraid of the coming terror targets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My concern is not the prisoners getting out. It's, you're making us a target for foreigners to attack on American soil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Because of many planned security upgrades, officials say the prison won't be ready to go until 2011.
There's a new round of clashes this morning between Iran's security forces and protesters mourning the death of an anti- government cleric. 50 people were reportedly arrested. Meantime Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remains defiant toward the U.S. and the world. He's dismissing a year-end deadline to swap its stockpile of enriched uranium which could be used to build a bomb in exchange for nuclear fuel intended for peaceful purposes.
Joining us now from Washington to help break this down, ambassador Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state. Mr. Ambassador, always good to see you, sir. Thank you.
NICHOLAS BURNS, FMR. UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE: Good morning.
HOLMES: It seems like the same old story, the same old song from Iran and from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So this particular time saying he's going to ignore this deadline, this year-end deadline. How does this stand out to you at least as anything different or anything more significant about this round of defiance from Iran?
BURNS: Well, I think what's significant about this is that President Obama has given the Iranian government ample time to consider a peaceful negotiated way forward. I think the president's done the right thing by trying to negotiate. He's actually I think increased the capital of the United States by showing other countries that we're willing to talk with the Iranians, but the Iranians have rejected all negotiations. So I think now the president and other countries have no alternative but to turn toward sanctions, a tougher policy towards Iran, to increase the pressure on the Iranian government, and hope that the Iranians will see that they really are quite isolated internationally. And there's really no alternative to coming back to negotiations at some point.
HOLMES: Well, ambassador, you sounded like -- you said that President Obama has done so many things, it sounds like you think all the right moves, but at the same time he's getting the same result as we've gotten before. No results essentially. So I guess were there missed opportunities here? Did we drop the ball in some ways that we could have moved this along? It seems we're in the same old spot.
BURNS: Actually, I actually disagree. You know, for about 30 years every administration from Jimmy Carter forward had not had sustained negotiations with the Iranian government. President Obama was the first American president to offer to negotiate without preconditions. He gave it a very good try. And I think it was necessary for him to do that. I don't think he missed an opportunity, I think he actually did the right thing.
And he did the right thing because we'll be stronger now, the United States, in going back to countries like Russia and China, and some of the other European countries to say we tried negotiations, now we have to go for sanctions and you, other countries, need to join us in those sanctions. That's what's been missing. So I actually think that the president has been on the right course. It's going to get more difficult however in 2010.
HOLMES: So this is the only way forward, now you believe possible sanctions, but again you mentioned China and Russia, which are going to be a little resistant to this. Can you move forward with sanctions, serious sanctions if Russia and China are not on board?
BURNS: I don't think so. China's a leading trade partner with Iran. Russia is the leading exporter of arms to Iran. If either of those countries does not engage in meaningful sanctions against the Iranian government, then the international sanctions are not likely to be effective.
So a lot is riding on the ability of the United States and other countries to convince the Russians and the Chinese to do the right thing here. I suspect they're going to be resistant to sanctions and that's what's going to make 2010 a quite difficult for our Iran policy.
HOLMES: So what is the motive this time around -- President Ahmadinejad there and in that speech we were talking about we just saw the other day, he actually said the international community can give Iran, "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care." That kind of rhetoric, I mean, what is the point now?
Do they really want a nuclear program as some people think to possibly build a nuclear bomb? Is this just for peaceful purposes? Is President Ahmadinejad just trying to rally the troops, if you will, the people of Iran, to appeal to this sense of nationalism, to make himself look better within his own country? What's the point now?
BURNS: Well, I think that President Ahmadinejad's in a very difficult position himself. Because after the June 12th elections, you remember that, the stolen elections, there's been quite a bit of internal turmoil in Iran. The country's divided. The people were in the streets just two days ago over the death, the funeral of the Ayatollah Montazeri. There are a lot of infighting in the government, in Tehran.
So Ahmadinejad' in a weak position, he may be appealing to his base, as it were, in Iranian politics. I think he's also increasingly isolated. A lot of countries around the world are tired of these -- the games that the Iranian government is playing, the refusal to negotiate. So I actually think that the United States probably has gotten the upper hand over the Iranian government this year.
Now we just need to move forward, try for those sanctions that we talked about, and try to lure the Iranian government back to negotiations so that this problem can be resolved peacefully. No one wants to see a third war in the Middle East in which the U.S. is engaged.
HOLMES: Nobody wants to see that, nobody thinks we could probably handle another one right about now. And in the midst of all this, we got those three hikers right now who are still detained in Iran. That's another issue to deal with.
Ambassador Nicholas Burns. Sir, always good to have you. Good to see you. Thank you so much for coming in and Merry Christmas to you. You have a good one.
BURNS: Thank you. Thank you very much. Merry Christmas.
COSTELLO: More now on the terrifying landing of an American Airlines jet that we've been telling you about. We just got these pictures in to CNN from the site. It paints a much clearer picture of just how scary this accident was. You can see there, there definitely is some damage to the plane, in particular, look on top of the plane. There's a crack on top of the fuselage.
The plane skidding off the end of the runway, slamming into a fence. 154 passengers and crew were on board. More than 90 people went to the hospital, some with broken bones and back pains and bumps and bruises. But so far, no fatalities.
Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, the health care reform bill will pass the Senate tomorrow, some time mid afternoon, we think at least.
HOLMES: Barring something strange, some kind of surprise, yes, it's going to go through.
COSTELLO: Exactly. But of course it's not over yet and I know that you guys have a lot of questions. That's why we're "Paging Doctor Gupta" this morning, he will answer your questions on health care reform. It's 38 minutes past the hour.
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(MUSIC PLAYING)
HOLMES: Learning to fly, and I'm learning to apologize this morning. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. We're getting an all-access look at astronaut mom Cady Coleman as she is getting ready for her launch next year, right about a year from now.
COSTELLO: Yes, all of that is good news except for T.J. here who made a little joke yesterday because Cady's taking her flute up to the International Space Station. She's going to entertain her fellow astronauts. This morning, though, she has a message for T.J., and your diss, so we want to bring in John Zarrella right now.
HOLMES: That's a strong word, don't you think, John?
COSTELLO: Diss.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, no, it was right on. You dissed her flute playing. This is the backdrop to it, in our piece yesterday, "Counting down Cady," we talked about and she talked about how, when these astronauts leave to go to the space station they're only allowed to take with them two pounds of personal items. So this is what Cady said in the piece.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CADY COLEMAN, ASTRONAUT MOM: I'm probably going to bring my flute.
ZARRELLA (on camera): Bring your flute?
COLEMAN: That's probably about two pounds right there.
ZARRELLA: OK. You'll have to listen to putting up with her playing her flute.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: So then of course coming out of the piece, T.J. had to go and make some remarks about Cady's flute playing, which she took great exception to, because she happened to be watching. So, Cady decided to send a message to T.J.
COSTELLO: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLEMAN: T.J., I was devastated by your comments about my flute playing yesterday.
Actually, not. I was laughing so hard at our local diner that I almost fell off my stool. So I think we should have a truce. And in honor of that truce I'd like to play you a song, for you, and also for your namesake, my fellow astronaut, T.J. Kramer, newly arrived to the International Space Station. T.J. and I did winter survival in Russia together and I think he'll relate to this song.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ZARRELLA: I'm going to be singing and playing, humming "Frosty, the Snowman," I think in my head all day today. But you know, T.J., she's pretty good there. And in fact, in Houston, when she's in Houston, she plays in a band out there.
In one of the pieces that we do down the road we'll definitely get into that band and, you know, in the last hour you guys were talking about the tree behind her, the ficus Christmas tree, and she just told me a little while ago, it is family tradition. Although when her son was born nine years ago they went to a real Christmas tree, but this year her son, Jamie, wanted to decorate something back at Thanksgiving. So her husband Josh told him, well just go ahead and decorate the ficus, and somehow or rather Josh was able to convince Jamie that decorating the ficus was good enough.
And it would suffice as a Christmas tree this year. So they've had Christmas trees the last nine years. So there you go.
HOLMES: OK. A lot of people were curious about it because I've been tweeting and apologizing to Cady all morning. And a lot of people asked, what was that tree? What was that thing? A lot of people were curious.
COSTELLO: People were, what's up with the ficus tree? Can't they go out and get a nice fir?
ZARRELLA: Well, there you have it. There's the explanation.
COSTELLO: Thank you, John.
HOLMES: Well, we appreciate you. And, again, she's a lovely flute player. And, again, I (ph) apologize. It's lovely. It's lovely.
And you can read a whole lot more about Cady's countdown to launch. She's writing blog entries and sending us photos and videos. Hopefully, I am not the target of any of those. It's on our show blog. Don't miss it. The address, cnn.com/amfix.
COSTELLO: She sent me a CD with her flute playing, so you can listen to it on the way home.
HOLMES: Did she, really? Oh, I can put it on my iPod before I go.
COSTELLO: Well, we're all bracing for a big snowstorm once again out west, and how far east will it come? Rob Marciano has the answer.
It's 45 minutes past the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: I think Lady Gaga can warm up Denver, Colorado, because it's mighty cold there. It's 26 degrees. Then they're out there (ph) getting some snow in Wednesday. The big storm is brewing out west.
Rob Marciano has been tracking this storm. Where is it now?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: About to come out of the Rockies, so that's the deal with this thing, and it will roll towards the western Great Lakes. The backside of this, there are some winds, dangerous winds out of parts of Arizona yesterday.
Check out the dust storm picked up just south and west of Phoenix. Big-time travel problems from I-40 to I-10, and there were about 60 cars involved in an accident out here and a couple of fatalities. So dangerous weather there on the West Coast. It would be another windy day for you and to California as well.
All right, this storm moves to the east, and as it does so it brings in snow back behind it. Out ahead of it, we're looking at thunderstorms that could be severe from the Gulf Coast to about Memphis, and some of these thunderstorms will have a decent amount of heavy rain. So, because of that, not only do we have winter storm watches and blizzard watches behind this thing, we've got flood watches out from Chicago back down just east of Dallas. So Chicago, I think, although you may start out as freezing rain, most of the snow stays west of you from Kansas City up to Omaha, but we could see six to 12, maybe 18 inches of snowfall with this thing.
All right, (INAUDIBLE) in the motion (ph), any place you see ice will be mostly across from the bigger cities, maybe some brief ice across the Appalachians until this thing turns to rain. I think for the New York areas, the areas that get hammered with the last snowstorm, Carol and TJ, will be mostly in the form of rain when this thing gets to them on Christmas day. Luckily, though, I think most of the snow will stick around until the rainfall comes.
So, for the most part, a white Christmas, but it will be wet at times as well.
COSTELLO: Thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: OK.
HOLMES: Yes. Thanks, Rob.
Now, this would have been real embarrassing if this guy didn't get by the call screener. Barry from D.C. called in to Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's final radio show yesterday. This was not a joke. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor, let's get back to the phones... GOV. TIM KAINE (D), VIRGINIA: Great!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and let some callers -- We have Barry from D.C. is calling. Go ahead, Barry.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, Governor Kaine, this is actually the president of the United States calling.
KAINE: No!
OBAMA: I -- I -- You know...
KAINE: Oh, my gosh!
OBAMA: I have some questions about -- about traffic in Northern Virginia.
KAINE: Oh!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Of course, you know who Barry from D.C. is. Only he can call himself Barry from D.C., actually. That was...
COSTELLO: I thought it was going to be Marion Barry, the...
HOLMES: No, that would have been a different story. Don't know who would cover (ph) that.
The president was just messing around with his good friend there. He was calling to congratulate the governor, who's leaving office next month. Governor Kaine was the president's pick for the DNC chair. So, that's a pretty good prank to have the president call in.
COSTELLO: That is a pretty good prank. Merry Christmas, Governor Kaine.
HOLMES: We go from -- yes. Going from Barry in DC to Sanjay in Atlanta. The good doctor is going to be along to answer some questions -- not our questions we have for him, but questions you sent in, viewers, about the health care bill. We know you have a lot of them. He's going to be answering your questions directly right after the break.
It's 51 minutes past the hour.
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HOLMES: Hey, welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
After a lot of wheeling and dealing, a major vote on health care is set for tomorrow, 8:00 AM -- yes, on Christmas Eve.
COSTELLO: Finally! Well, we know a lot of you, though, are wondering how this bill might change the quality of care you receive, if it of course passes and goes through all the machinations it still has to before it becomes, you know, reality.
So we're paging our Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He's answering your questions. Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning! Thanks. I finally read the...
COSTELLO: Are you ready?
GUPTA: I finally read the entire bill. It took me a couple of days in between live shots, but I've read it all now, so...
COSTELLO: Two thousand seven hundred pages?
GUPTA: Just over, 2,000 pages, and then a 386-page amendment as well. So, it was like I was (ph) back in medical school...
HOLMES: Did you understand any of it?
GUPTA: Well, you know -- well, I tell you the main (ph) thing is it -- it's very hard to understand.
HOLMES: Yes.
GUPTA: So, you know, even staffers for the senators have a hard time sort of putting this together. And the reason I wanted to read it, because I wanted to get a sense of if the average person could understand it, and it took me -- it took me a long time, lots of notes that I've made.
HOLMES: That's a resounding "no," I assume. I have tried to read through that thing.
GUPTA: Yes. It's tough.
HOLMES: I got to page 15 and gave up.
COSTELLO: Only 15?
HOLMES: Fifteen. And you just can't make heads or tails out of it if you're not super smart like the good doctor we have here.
COSTELLO: You are super smart!
GUPTA: Well, you know, it's probably the most important domestic policy issue that we will be voting on and, you know, will be covering and, you know, I just think it -- it's really -- that's an important point. It -- it's hard for people to sort of get their arms around this.
COSTELLO: Absolutely. That's why we're doing this segment this morning, because people are wondering what's in there that will affect their lives.
Let's start with Becky, because she writes, "My daughter just turned 25. She's a student. She's getting kicked off her father's health insurance plan. We'll have to pay $415 a month in COBRA. I heard this new plan will cover her until the age of 26. Is that true?"
GUPTA: OK, a couple important points there. First of all, the answer to the question, yes, that is true. When this goes into effect -- if it is signed in January, about six months after that, that is going to be expanded from age 25 right now, where -- where people can be on their parents' insurance to the age of 26. That's the good news.
The bad news is that by the year 2014, she is going to be required to have insurance and no longer be on her parents' plan. There's this group of people out there called the Young Invincibles. You guys have -- we've talked about this. They say they, you know, they don't buy insurance. They don't want to spend their money on that. She's going to have to or face a fine. It's just going to be $95 in the year 2014, but it's going to escalate to about $750 by the year 2016.
One thing about her and -- and a lot of other people is that if -- if they can't find an insurance plan that is at least 8 percent or less of their annual income, she can apply for a hardship exemption. But, again, this -- this is sort of what's going to happen over the next few years. Eventually she's going to have to buy it or -- or face penalties.
HOLMES: All right. Sanjay, we have several of these questions. I think -- I'm not sure. You might be coming back next hour -- yes! You are coming back next hour, so we're going to get a couple more questions in.
We're going to have to leave it there for now, but appreciate you, Sanjay. We will see you again in the next hour.
COSTELLO: So go back to reading the rest of that amendment. (INAUDIBLE).
We're back with the top stories in 90 seconds.
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