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American Morning
Obama Orders Major Changes in Security Measures; AIG Scandal; Airport Security; Catching Terrorism
Aired January 08, 2010 - 08:00 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 thank you for being with us on this Friday, the 8th of January, on the Most News on the Morning. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
Here are the stories we'll be bringing you in the next 15 minutes.
President Obama is saying we failed, the buck stops with him, and make no mistake, we are at war. Those are some of the things he said after ordering intel agencies to make some changes and to make them fast, after releasing a report on what we missed before the attempted Christmas Day attack -- changes that could impact your next trip.
ROBERTS: The Labor Department releases its December jobs report in 30 minutes. The president is expected to speak about the economy later on today. The nation has been shedding jobs for 20 months in a row. Unemployment rate is at 10 percent right now.
CHETRY: And NBC News and NBC, in general, reportedly considering a late night shake-up, ready to give up on its primetime experiment of Jay Leno at 10:00, bringing back to its old timeslot. We're going to tell you where this could lead current "Tonight Show" host, Conan O'Brien.
First, though, President Obama is ordering his intelligence agencies to work better and faster in the wake of the attempted terror bombing and mere air disaster on Christmas Day. Top administration officials, including the president were all on message yesterday.
Here's a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This incident was not a fault of a single individual or organization, but rather a systemic failure across organizations and agencies, a failure of connect the dots of intelligence.
JANET NAPOLITANO, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: A systemic failure.
JOHN BRENNAN, COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISOR: A failure to connect and integrate and understand the intelligence we had.
OBAMA: Across our intelligence community...
BRENNAN: ... that could have revealed the plot...
OBAMA: ... that would have prevented a known terrorists from boarding a plane.
BRENNAN: Intelligence fell to the cracks.
OBAMA: When the system fails, it is my responsibility.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: As you have heard, the president say, the buck stops with him.
BRENNAN: I told the president today, I let him down. I am the president's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism. I told him that I will do better and we will do better as a machine.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
CHETRY: White House -- senior White House correspondent Ed Henry joins us live right now.
And, Ed, so, a lot of the things that they're talking about and this is what has -- a lot of people nervous is that all of this was supposed to be fixed after 9/11?
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right, kind of a reflective of a pre-9/11 mentality failure to connect the dots. We've heard that many, many times before. It was supposed to be fixed, post-9/11.
Yes, here we are again, a new administration is saying the system is not working even as they're trying to reassure the public that they're going to be safe and secure. And I think that's why people are wondering about accountability, where do these mistakes come from, who's responsible for them.
At the lower and mid-levels of this administration we have not seen people held accountable, either be fired or reassigned, you named it. But at the top level of this government, the president himself did step forward and say he's putting it on his own shoulders.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: I am less interested in passing on blame that I am in learning from and correcting these mistakes to make us safer. For ultimately, the buck stops with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, the president laid out several steps. He says the administration will take moving forward, including identifying exactly which agency will be responsible for following up on the leads they get in terms of intelligence, also, beefing up their analysis of that intelligence, also making sure it gets shared with other agencies quickly.
The CIA, for example, is saying when they get this kind of intelligence reports such as the suspect's father going to the embassy in Nigeria. They'll try to share that within 48 hours with other agencies. And then also strengthen this terror watch lists that we've heard so much about how this eventual suspect was basically on a wide database, more than half a million people on it, but he was not on a more select no-fly list that could have kept him off the plane.
Again, as you noted, Kiran, things that were supposed to have been fixed but have not been yet, Kiran.
CHETRY: So, well, let's leave the terror aside for a minute and talk a little bit about another big, big, big challenge for this administration, the continuing double-digit unemployment. We're expecting the December job numbers to be out in less than 30 minutes now. And the president is going to speak about the economy today.
What are your sources telling you the president may say?
HENRY: Well, there's a lot of speculation that maybe these numbers are going to be somewhat positive, maybe it's going in a better direction. We won't know for sure, of course, until those numbers come in.
But the expectation is the president is going to do what he's been doing for several weeks, which is to carefully calibrate, even though there have been some positive signs that look, we're not quite out of the woods yet. But he's going to focus on sort of some of these clean energy jobs he's been trying to push -- pushing forward and say that there's going to basically some stimulus money being spent on those jobs.
And the administration is saying, look, he's going to pivot towards the economy here in 2010, and focus on a lot more, you could say pivot or you could also say, maybe change the subject from some of these intelligence failures that have been more negative news for this administration, maybe economy is picking up a little bit, Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. We'll wait and see, as we said, just 25 minutes now and those numbers are due to come out.
Ed Henry, this morning, outside, braving the cold this morning in Washington -- thank you.
HENRY: Thanks, Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, meantime, there are more than a dozen agencies that make up the intel community. How can the president get all of them in line? We're going to talk about that with former senior CIA analyst, Paul Pillar, and also, CNN national security contributor, Fran Townsend -- coming up in just five minutes.
ROBERTS: Two more men in Queens, New York, have been arrested by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force as part of the ongoing investigation of alleged al Qaeda terrorist suspect Najibullah Zazi. One of suspect was taken into custody after crashing his car near the Whitestone Bridge in New York yesterday. Zazi, as you remember, was arrested back in September. The FBI says he planned to carry out terror attacks in the U.S. after training with al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Also this morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is staying on the job. The Pentagon says Gates met with President Obama just before Christmas and agreed to stick around for at least one more year. The president asked him to come over from the Bush administration for stability during a time of two wars.
CHETRY: Also developing this morning, NBC's "Kings of Comedy" reportedly on the move. There are reports out this morning that NBC has a plan to shake up its late night schedule, and that would include moving Jay Leno back to the 11:35 timeslot, and pushing current "Tonight Show" host Conan O'Brien back to midnight. In fact, Leno joked about the reports last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY LENO, TALK SHOW HOST: As you might have heard, there's a rumor floating around that we were cancelled. I've heard it coming in this morning on the radio. Yes. So far, nobody said anything to me, but Kev, you know, if we did get cancelled, give us time to maybe do some traveling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be wonderful, man.
LENO: In fact, I understand fox is beautiful this time of year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really is.
(LAUGHTER)
LENO: Beautiful this time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: There you go. Well, so far, Conan has not commented on this reported late night shuffle.
ROBERTS: Well, a dangerous winter system moving east is about to get worse than it is right now. Rob Marciano is covering the deep freeze. It's across the midsection of the country. He's live in Memphis this morning for us.
Hi, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, John.
A colder day today than it was yesterday for sure. That front well through, and now, temperatures are hovering around the 10 degree mark here in Memphis. Wind chills are well below zero; last checked, minus five. They are taking the precautions to make people survive.
We had fatalities earlier in the week. We checked with authorities early this morning. No word back yet, but I can assure you, if they were out, anybody was out in this, these elements last night, they'd likely had a hard time surviving.
One solution -- yesterday, we told you a story about Jacqueline Mosley (ph), one of several hundred people that couldn't pay their bills because of the economy, well, the city went around and turned coming back on and their lights on. So, she, along with about 500 other customers were warmed last night. But that's not necessarily the case for everybody.
All right. Let's talk Oklahoma where in Oklahoma City, and in some of the surrounding counties, winds gusting over 40 miles an hour, dramatic pictures here showing transformers blowing up all over the place, thousands of people without power, and with temperatures well below the freezing mark, that means trouble for them. So, utility crews certainly up quickly there trying to restore power.
Fargo, minus 52, in and around that area. So, that was the wind chill. Snow combining with that today, and in Chicago, seeing some snow as well. That's creating some problems. And this front itself, the storm itself is moving quickly off towards the north and east, maybe a couple of inches in New York City. But that should be about it.
The big story continues to be the cold, the biting cold I can tell you that. It will be driving south into the Gulf of Mexico and central Florida throughout the weekend. Temperatures here tomorrow morning could easily touch the zero mark. Unprecedented -- well, not unprecedented, but certainly cold we haven't seen in at least a decade, maybe two in some spots.
John, Kiran, back up to you.
CHETRY: All right. Rob Marciano for us this morning in Memphis -- thanks.
Still ahead, we're going to be talking about what we learned about the intelligence failure and what we learned from it moving forward. We're going to be speaking with former CIA analyst, Paul Pillar and our own Fran Townsend, national security contributor here at CNN.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Eleven minutes after the hour right now.
President Obama is saying yesterday that the buck stops with him. He's taking the blame for the system-wide failure that allowed a man with a bomb to board a flight Christmas Day. A report that he released yesterday said the government did have all the information that it needed to stop this plot, but that that information was not put together.
Joining me now from Washington this morning's "Security Watch," to dig a little bit deeper on this is former senior CIA analyst, Paul Pillar, and also, our CNN national security contributor, Fran Townsend.
Great to see both of you this morning. Thanks for being here.
Paul, let me start with you about this startling revelation and the report, this underestimation of the threat of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. One of the president's biggest advisers, John Brennan, said that we knew they had aspirations, but we were focused on what they were doing regionally there, not necessarily here.
How big of a mistake is that?
PAUL PILLAR, FMR. SENIOR CIA ANALYST: Well, I don't think it was a strategic mistake. As John Brennan made fairly clear, the significance of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was understood. What we are hearing, again, after this incident is basically the same as what we've heard in the past, particularly after 9/11 -- all this business of connecting dots and putting information together.
And I think if we reflect on that, we can draw the lesson, which is politically improper to state and, of course, he president would not state it, that these sorts of incidents will occur despite the best efforts to reform bureaucracies and despite having people in those bureaucracies who may be quite diligent and quite skilled. Some of these are simply unavoidable.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Let me just ask you a quick question, though, Paul. You said that you don't think it was a strategic error, but one of the things that Brennan said was that they knew about the threat of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, did not know that they have progressed to the point of actually launching individuals here. And they say, now, they're on top of it.
So, what about that missing key element?
PILLAR: When you get into the subject of launching individuals, then you've gone from the strategic to the tactical. That's a fact of life in this particular business of counterterrorism, that you may have a very sound strategic understanding but the inherent difficulty, you're always going to have, no matter how many fixes you attempt to make or how many heads you roll on the bureaucracy, is when you get down to the tactical specific, plot specific information, that is extremely hard to get.
CHETRY: All right. And one of the other breakdowns, Fran, that was mentioned is this failure to assign anybody to follow-up the lead on the high priority threats. It may shock a lot of people to learn that in the wake of 9/11 that still wasn't happening. What's your take?
FRAN TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: Kiran, that's actually one of the more interesting observations that John Brennan made yesterday, because, of course, there's the National Counterterrorism Center, which going back to immediately after September 11th, had this thing called the terrorists threat matrix. We heard a lot about it publicly, and I had seen it when I was in the White House.
And one of the things that NCTC does is, have multiple video conferences every day, goes through the interagency community and does assign responsibility and follow leads on this threat until they're closed. And so, whether that's not worked effectively, that's the suggestion here...
CHETRY: Right.
TOWNSEND: ... that they're going to strengthen that and make sure that actually, those leads are followed, they are assigned and threats are closed before they're -- before they move on to the next thing.
CHETRY: And that's the other thing we're going to, Paul, as well, that, you know, tactically speaking -- I mean, they went on to say that NCTC that Fran has mentioned was an intentional redundancy, but it appears it didn't work the way it should have. So, what do they change moving forward, Paul?
PILLAR: It's hard to think of things to change. And there's editorial comment in the papers this morning to the effect that the supposed changes in reform that the president announced last night sound, you know, rather bland and more of the same, improve analysis, make sure people are accountable for following up leads. I think people are entitled to ask what's new about this. The answer is, you can only try to fix so many things.
CHETRY: Right.
PILLAR: And as the president also correctly said yesterday, you can't catch them all.
CHETRY: Right and that's the other interesting thing Fran, when we talk about the changes, one of them though seems to be now in hindsight pretty obvious, about trying to meld those lists, those watch list. I mean from the 500,000, the biggest one called tie to the selectee list, to the no fly list, and change in the criteria. How do you think they need to improve the change that moving forward?
TOWNSEND: Well there's no question both Janet Napolitano, who was in the briefing room yesterday with John Brennan working with the Interagency community needs to take that intelligence that we do have. Of course we've increased our man of collection. We've increased the number of that, which makes it a greater challenge.
And so now what they're going to do is I think what you would call lower the criteria from movement from one list to the next to make sure that those who pose a real tactical threat as Paul mentioned, are actually on the selectee and no-fly list, and not just a great mass of information in the tied database.
CHETRY: One of the other things we were curious about here Paul is also is what they do in terms of collecting intelligence, not necessarily intelligence on the ground in certain countries, but because of the internet. And we have seen some of these links being connected right now with a radical cleric Jihad who is very popular online and some of the key suspects in the terror attacks including Abdu Matulub, how do you get your arms around that as an agency?
PILLAR: Well the bigger challenges, I think the president and John Brennan made clear yesterday is not so much the collection of information, but somehow discerning in the sea of information, whether it's human intelligence or technically collected stuff, or things off of the internet identifying the terrorists' needles in the huge haystack of reporting. The great majority of which has nothing to do with terrorist threats.
We are all indulging in hindsight on these things of course. We know something that occurred, so it's easy looking in retrospect to pick out the particular strands of information that were related. But in the real time task, the people at the National Counter Terrorism Center and the Department of Homeland Security, and others face, it's the needle in the haystack problem.
CHETRY: Yes, and bottom line Fran, are we wishing too much or we expecting too much to say we are going to catch every threat?
TOWNSEND: Well I think no one would say Kiran that we are going to catch every threat. But you've seen the administration is not exactly made that argument and tried to get the American people to focus on that right now because you cannot say that unless you made your best effort to stop it. And the President having called this a failure, this is not the time really to be saying well we are not going to catch every one, when they can't make a good argument that they did a good job in this particular case.
CHETRY: Fran Townsend and Paul Pillar thank you to both of you for being with us this morning. And BY the way, we are going to have much more about this. Don't miss "State of the Union" with John King on Sunday. He's going to be talking to center with John McCain and Joe Leverman; they're going to be weighing in on the intelligence failures leading to the attempt of the attack on Christmas Day. That starts 9:00 a.m. eastern, John.
ROBERTS: More heat for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Was AIG the insurance giant not to publically disclose payments that have been made to entities like Goldman Sachs, our Christine Romans is "Minding Your Business" and she'll have her full report coming up next. Its 18 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETTERMAN: The New York Jets, the surprising New York Jets have been studying game film all week. The New York Giants went to see "Avatar."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: I need to correct myself, because we were asked if we were going to go and see "Avatar" last week and we both said no.
ROBERTS: Oh no, no this isn't correcting yourself.
CHETRY: Well this is, expanding my horizon I guess. Hubby asked me, hey, I'm going to see "Avatar." in 3D, I said, how long is it? He said 2 hours and 40 minutes and I said, okay, I'll go. And it was pretty good.
ROBERTS: You enjoyed it?
CHETRY: It was fascinating, it's amazing, the technology.
ROBERTS: So you were able to deal with the 3D thing for almost three hours?
CHETRY: You start to feel like you are getting old, because it used to be so cool when we were teenagers, oh little nauseous, little nauseous. But still amazing.
ROBERTS: 21 minutes now after the hour, Christine Romans "Minding Your Business" she joins us and Tim Geithner probably back in the hot sit on Capitol Hill again.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know the bailout drama over AIG just doesn't go away. And this is just a head ache for the treasury secretary because of the fact that he was the federal reserve bank of New York President at a time when the federal reserve bank of New York apparently was trying to - to let's say to push back on AIG revealing some important details about counterparties. Banks who are receiving billions of dollars in bailout money to what many people say was a backdoor bailout.
Here's what we know, new emails reveal that The New York fed pushed AIG lawyers to hold back information about counterparties from the public late last year.
This is information on what critics say is a backdoor bailout, your money, and my money, and AIG money going to pay big banks, European banks, Goldman Sachs, Francis (INAUDIBLE), and the like. It shows a terrifying chaotic time when the SCC, the fed of New York, many other regulators were trying to figure out how to handle this AIG bailout. And at the time the treasury, today's treasury secretary was the President of the New York fed. Now, Republican Darrell Issa got all these emails. His emails were released yesterday, this is what he says.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DARRELL ISSA, (R) CALIFORNIA (via telephone): Ultimately, this was money that didn't need to be spent and didn't go towards stabilizing the market. It went towards stabilizing a financial communities key executives in and around New York that were friends of the people making the decision to pay 100 cents on the dollar.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
ROMANS: Now the critics of Timothy Geithner and the Timothy Geithner treasury are pointing out that Timothy Geithner was the head of the New York fed at the time this controversy was happening. The New York fed says that there was no wrong doing here that it did not make AIG keep quiet. That all information that was disclosed was required to be disclosed by the company. There was no effort to mislead the public and the treasury just releasing another statement to me saying that Secretary Geithner played no role in these decisions and indeed by November 24th, he was recussed from working on issues involving specific companies including AIG.
Look there were three people involved in the AIG bailout right? Besides AIG, Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, and Timothy Geithner. A lot of people are saying it's simply, it just simply shows how crazy it was at that time. The public wanted to know who those counterparties were.
ROBERTS: Yes so basically AIG was negotiating cents on the dollars on their insurance obligations, $0.40, $0.20, whatever...
ROMANS: Yes.
ROBERTS: Fed came in and said no, you pay at 100 percent.
ROMANS: Yes.
ROBERTS: We'll give you the money and the allegation is they said don't tell anybody.
ROMANS: Yes, they didn't tell them. They told them the amounts were disclosed, but not who the banks were. They did not want - this is the time they didn't want to single out any of these banks for the public to think, you know, there's some kind of a problem with so and so or so and so. So they did not want those names disclosed. That's the way it appears at least. And now of course we know all who the banks are. And a lot of people feel like this was taxpayer money going to get people who had already got taxpayer money.
CHETRY: Right, the double bailout.
ROMANS: The double bailout, yes, that's right.
CHETRY: All right, Christine Romans for us this morning thanks so much. Meanwhile still ahead, the transportation security administration says wearing a Hejaz equals a full body pat down in some cases. And one woman in particular saying it's religious profiling. We're going to have more of that with our Alina Cho, 24 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 27 minutes past the hour that means it's time for an "A.M." Original, it's something you'll see only on American Morning, and we know that airport security has been around ever since the Nigerian man tried to blow up a commercial airline on Christmas Day.
ROBERTS: The Muslims in the United States and in Canada claim they are being singled out by security screeners. Is it religious profiling? Our Alina Cho has got the story this morning with two women who say it happened to them, and she's here to talk about it. Good morning Alina.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Good morning you guys, yes, I think it depends on who you ask, right? If you know you took to the skies around the holidays, certainly, you know that security has been tighter, but two Muslim women we found say their head scarfs are the reason they were targeted for special treatment.
(BEING VIDEOTAPE)
CHO (voice-over): Nadia Hassan is a frequent flyer, so imagine her surprise when she arrived at the security check point at Washington's Dulles International Airport Tuesday.
NADIA HASSAN, VICTIM OF RELIGIOUS PROFILING: Racial religious profiling. I am being singled out as a security threat.
CHO: The 40-year-old Michigan born Muslim American headed to Los Angeles said she was singled out for she calls a humiliating full body search. When she asked why this was happening...
HASSAN: The gentleman who was working there specifically told me the reason why I am being put through this type of search is because I am wearing a head scarf. He actually told me that that's the reason why you are being targeted.
CHO: She is not alone. On Monday, a Muslim Canadian woman said she was made to feel like a terrorists because she was wearing a head scarf, berated and banned from boarding a flight to United States all because of her faith. The council on American Islamic relations calls these textbook cases of profiling.
NIHAD AWAD, CAIR NATL. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: It's unconstitutional and un-American to single out people because of their religion.
CHO: U.S. customs who handled the Canadian case would not comment specifically on it. But in a statement to CNN the TSA says current screening procedures for bulky clothing and head wear have been in place since 2007. That wearing a head scarf doesn't automatically trigger a search.
And quote, "In instances where passengers choose not to remove bulky clothing, including head wear; our officers are trained to offer a private screening area, and may conduct a pat down search to clear the individual." Hassan says her pat down search happen in public in front of her 5 year old daughter and several male TSA agents.
She expresses she favors strict security but not when the screening is selective.
HASSAN: Do they even know what they are looking for? You are targeting the innocent people but yet the bad guys are getting away. So it just makes me wonder.
(END OF VIDEOTAPE)
CHO (on camera): And a council on American Islamic relations if the TSA is going to flag women who wear head scarfs, what about nuns who wear habits or seethe who wear turbans? What about them? Well one question that I had guys about this woman that we profiled from California Nadia Hassan, you know, is that when she was going through security, why not take off the head scarf. She was asked to.
And had I been asked, she says, to go into a private screening area into a private room, I would have been more than happy to do it, but she claims that's not what happened.
ROBERTS: For some people that would be like taking off one of your garments. You have to be respectful.
CHETRY: Yes, and this is going to get even more difficult, I imagine, if they do these full body scans. Technically there is somebody seeing you underneath your clothes.
ROBERTS: Alina Cho this morning. Alina, thanks.
Crossing the half hour and checking the top store this morning. Two more men in Queens, New York have been arrested by the FBI's joint terrorism task force. The feds say they are part of the ongoing investigation of Al Qaeda terror suspect Najibullah Zazi.
CHETRY: Bitter cold temperatures are driving up demand for oil, and that has crude oil and gas prices spiking right now. A gallon of regular unleaded now averaging $2.72 nationwide. And many analysts are predicting three bucks a gallon come spring.
ROBERTS: And safety experts are slamming Ford's new media center technology that can actually read tweets and e-mails out loud to drivers. The automaker is insisting the technology will not be a dangerous distraction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED CADIGAN, FORD MOTOR COMPANY: I think it's wrongheaded. Interactive technology does focus attention away from the major task, which is maneuvering the automobile in a safe prudent manner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The system also features a web browser. Ford says it will be automatically disabled while the car is in motion and there are no plans to allow outgoing tweets.
Just in to CNN, new numbers on the state of economy have job losses finally starting turning around after 23 straight months of declines. Our Christine Romans is here with the details this morning.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: This is what we know -- the unemployment was 10 percent, that's pretty even, and 85,000 jobs were lost. It's a little more than some folks I had been talking to were expecting. But still 85,000 folks lost their jobs in December.
For the full year of 2009, 4.2 million people lost their jobs, and for the recession, 7.2 million. A big problem in these numbers are long terms unemployed. There are still 6.1 million people who have been out of work for 12 weeks or longer.
And when you look at the numbers rounding out last year, you can see that 40 percent of the people who were out of work in December had been out of work for more than 27 weeks. So that shows you, it's the real fingerprints of the recession people have had a hard time getting another job.
Temporary and professional workers added jobs. You will hear economists say that when you start to add temporarily workers, it shows companies are dipping their toe back in the water.
One thing we know so far about the temporary workers, these have not been translating back into full time jobs yet as you normally see, and we are still waiting for that happen.
We can no longer say that we had 23 straight months of job losses, by the way. There was a revision back in November of last year, we actually created 4,000 jobs. So the Department of Labor has made a little revision saying in November we created 4,000 jobs, the unemployment, the revised that one to 10.1 percent.
So the peak for this recession is the 10.1 percent unemployment rate. But still for the year we lost an awful lot of jobs.
ROBERTS: Yes, 85,000, jobs lost, that's a lot, but it's better than 525,000.
ROMANS: Right. And if you look at the beginning of last year, we had more than 700,000 jobs in January. You can see how the pace has slowed over the year. We went from horrific job losses from the beginning of last year to now we are talking about these little -- much smaller amounts.
CHETRY: Analysts were saying they only expected to be under 10,000, about 8,000, and it's 85,000. So what about that differential?
ROMANS: Here's the problem. When you're talking about 10 percent unemployment rate, the margin of error here is pretty difficult.
Another thing I want to look at are the unemployment rates for major worker groups. For blacks it's now 16.2 percent. So even though the overall unemployment rate stayed steady at 10 percent, the unemployment rate for blacks and Hispanics went up, and the unemployment rate for teenagers also went up.
These are three groups that have been hit hard. All three of those groups still had a really tough time in December.
CHETRY: Christine, thank you.
And meanwhile, we bring in Gerri Willis right now. Is there anybody out there hiring? You have timely advice for job seekers right now.
GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Yes, I wanted to look at the sectors that are actually growing here. One of the fastest growing jobs over the next decade, so there is demand today and there will be demand in ten years, and here are the top occupations -- biomedical engineer, up 72 percent over the decade, home health aids up 50 percent, athletic trainers up 37 percent.
Vets -- lots of demands for vets, 33 percent, and personal finance advisers, I guess Christine and I can get another job if we want to.
(LAUGHTER)
What is interesting about the list is if you actually took the top ten jobs and looked at it, we did not pull them out from the very top because they are all health care jobs. Health care is a juggernaut and really going quickly, engineering, technology.
One thing you need to know if you are looking for one of these jobs, the 30 fastest growing occupations, half of those require a bachelor's degrees to get them.
Biggest declines of course are telemarketers and postal workers, that's where we are seeing big declines. Telemarketers have been outsourced overseas, so you definitely won't be getting those kinds of jobs which were so easy to get with absolutely no education.
ROBERTS: In the job market last year we have seen multiple numbers of people applying for one job. So how do you get the job you want?
WILLIS: Job number one is to take the language in the job description and drop it in your resume. A lot of employers they use software programs to look for the language in their own ad. You sound like you are on target.
ROBERTS: Really?
WILLIS: Yes, so you definitely want to do that.
Also, you want to meet other people. Get off the couch. Some of these people have been unemployed for six months, a year or longer. You have to get out, join professional groups.
One number for some inspiration, we heard this yesterday from the folks at Yahoo! One in three hiring managers who were interviewed recently said I am going to be hiring in the next year. I'm getting ready to bring people onboard.
ROBERTS: That's some good news at the very least. Maybe things are beginning to look up just a little bit.
WILLIS: There is a hiring war going on for the cream of the crop in some industries.
ROBERTS: Does it extend beyond the financial services industry?
WILLIS: Yes, it does.
ROBERTS: Thanks, folks.
The deep freeze prompting school closings and airport delays. Stay with us. it's 38 minutes after the hour.
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CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": Next week, everybody that was onboard on Captain Sully Sullenberger's Miracle on the Hudson flight is getting together to commemorate the flight's one-year history. Isn't that nice? Yes.
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Not surprisingly, they plan to all take Amtrak.
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ROBERTS: As long as they don't try to recreate the incident, they will all be fine.
Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. For three years now we have been proud to introduce you to CNN heroes, everyday people who are changing the world. Today meet the first CNN hero of 2010 Wynona Ward, a trucker turned attorney whose mission is to help victims of domestic violence.
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WYNONA WARD, PROTECTING THE POWERLESS: When I was growing up to a rural back road, family violence was an accepted way of life.
This is my mother and I am the baby, and my father and brother, Richard, and sister.
WARD: My father would commonly abuse all of us. He raped me and beat my mother and my other siblings. When the neighbors heard screaming coming from our home, they just turned their heads.
For domestic violence victims in rural areas, it can be very devastating. They're out there on the back roads with no access to in town services. Many of them do not have telephones. Some of them do not have a driver's license or an automobile, so we go to them.
My name is Wynona Ward. The turning point for me was when a child in my family revealed she had been abused by my father and my brother. I just said, this has to stop.
When I graduated from law school, I was 48 years old.
Good morning, my dear.
I go to peoples' homes and give them in home consultations, provide them with free legal services and transportation to and from court hearings. I don't want children to have to go through what I did as a child. I want to see my clients become empowers. I can understand them, and they know that I will be there to protect them.
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CHETRY: Amazing woman.
ROBERTS: We're going to be hearing about a lot of people just like her over the course of the next ten months. So looking forward to all of that.
CHETRY: Me too.
Still ahead, arctic air carrying bitter chills, wind chills, cold, snow. Two-thirds of the country seeing temperatures they haven't seen in a quarter of a decade.
It's 43 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Did I say temperatures we haven't seen in a quarter of a decade, I meant a century.
ROBERTS: Two and a half years.
CHETRY: A quarter of a century. It is cold, it's so cold, it's actually -- it's making me not be able to add. Jacqui Jeras is joining us this morning with more on this temperatures and when they're going to let up. I meant a quart of a century.
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's true though, you know, Kiran it's more -- it's been two years, it's been ten years, right?
ROBERTS: It's been a few days.
JERAS: Whatever number you want as long as it's within that range. You're good.
Yes, it's going to continue to stay cold, unfortunately, for the weekend. So you know, it's the weekend go ahead and make your indoor plans now because it's just too cold to be outside in many, many places. And while our arctic front had made its way all the way down into central Florida now, we're going to continue to see some travel problems because of it. We've got windy conditions on the backside of the system and some areas just trying to catch up from some of the delays from yesterday. Hundreds of flights were cancelled at Chicago O'Hare yesterday.
Today you're still looking at some ground delays. And ground delays in Atlanta, more than two hours. Most of those are all Delta Flights. So call your carrier if you have travel plans, especially coming into the ATL.
There you can see the precipitation along the Eastern Seaboard, relatively light; snowfall accumulations well under two inches into the northeast. Arctic air keeps it below freezing in the southeast. So even though the snow is gone or stopped falling, it's still on some of those roadways.
Kiran and John, back to you.
ROBERTS: Yes, I'm just looking at the Delta Airlines Web site, they have so many cancellations going out of La Guardia headed for Atlanta this morning so...
CHETRY: Yes. Expect a big travel mess today unfortunately.
ROBERTS: Cancel, cancel, cancel.
CHETRY: Thanks Jacqui.
ROBERTS: Thanks.
Dean Kamen, the guy that invented the Segway. He's not only inventing transportation for some people, he's also invented some amazing medical devices. He gives some creative solutions for the health care debate coming up and shows our Dr. Sanjay Gupta some of the great stuff that he's been tinkering with in his workshop.
Forty-eight minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning.
Dean Kamen has been called the new Thomas Edison. He has invented more than 400 medical devices.
CHETRY: That's right and our Sanjay Gupta recently traveled to Kamen's idea factory -- it's his home in New England -- to check out his latest inventions and also to hear some interesting ideas about health care reform.
We're paging Dr. Gupta this morning, CNN's chief medical correspondent live in Atlanta this morning. So if he's known for the Segway, but he's done much more than that. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: He has. And you know, having interviews with him is exactly why I love this job so much. The guy is absolutely amazing and he had some really distinctive views on health care as well.
Specifically, he thinks that it's not a question that we're spending too much on health care. He actually thinks in many ways we're not spending enough. And here's how he talked about that and here's how he defended it.
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DEAN KAMEN, INVENTOR OF THE SEGWAY: Sir, how are you?
GUPTA: How are you doing?
KAMEN: Terrific, come on in.
GUPTA: Well, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Dean Kamen is an inventor. On a bitter cold day I went to visit him at his home in New Hampshire.
KAMEN: Well, actually just to give you a sense of how things are going to go today, I thought that I'd light the situation up. So are we ready?
GUPTA: This is how you start an interview with Dean Kamen.
You probably have seen his most famous invention, the Segway. It was all built on medical breakthroughs. He started building what became the first insulin pump when he was still in high school.
He and his company, Decka have developed more than 400 patents. Here's a home dialysis machine and this wheelchair, the i-Bot where you can dance, you can spin, you can stand six feet tall.
KAMEN: When you fight with somebody in one of this, you're going to be the one that goes down.
GUPTA: What do you think of what's going on with health care right now? The whole health care debate?
KAMEN: Well, sadly, I think it's a debate that has so polarized two sides that there's not a lot of common sense being said by anybody.
GUPTA: There does seem to be this, this inherent skepticism or cynicism even about big companies and big government to some extent as well. If you had a moment with President Obama and he was collecting all these opinions on health care now, you just have a couple of moments, what would you say to him? Because he wants to spend less and get more that's what he's saying.
KAMEN: I would say, Mr. President, I think that there is no investment, no stimulus package, nothing you could do that would have a better return collectively to the country, to our companies and to our citizens than to put more resources into finding really good sustainable solutions to our medical problems.
What better place to focus more and more of our collective genius and innovative capability than on health care. Why is the debate a fight to spend less time, less money, less resources in the thing that we all claim is the most important thing that we want? It's crazy.
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GUPTA: And he says we should be investing in the health care sector overall. It's a good source of jobs; it's a good source of innovation for the future. He also, I mentioned, he help design this insulin pump. And it's not a cure for diabetes, but he says that one simple innovation alone, if implemented more widely could curb overall health care cost by a third, that one simple innovation.
So he says invest more in innovation you'll curve health care cost in the future.
ROBERTS: And he's a fascinating guy, there's no question about that.
GUPTA: He is.
ROBERTS: Doc thanks so much. And by the way...
GUPTA: Thanks guys.
ROBERTS: You can hear more from Dean Kamen this week on the premiere episode of "Sanjay Gupta, M.D.," co-starring James Rollin as Dr. Richard Kyle (ph), no, just kidding. That's Saturday and Sunday, 7:30 in the morning here on CNN.
CHETRY: There you go McDreamy. McSteamy. And Mc...
ROBERTS: McGupta.
CHETRY: There you have it.
Well, and this is something to do with Sanjay. Is nerdy sexy? Peter Orszag, he's the President's budget director, he's the accidental Lothario, I guess.
ROBERTS: Well, Washington, can you become a lothario by accident?
CHETRY: Fifty-five minutes past the hour.
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ROBERTS: I had to check the monitor to see who that was.
CHETRY: Who?
ROBERTS: Gwen Stefani. CHETRY: Oh yes, featuring Eve. But we better get out of there because they say a bad word right now, beep. OK. Sorry. I just -- kids are watching.
Three minutes until the top of the hour. That means it's time for the "Most News in the Morning".
President Obama's budget chief may have learned the value of a dollar by maybe having to deal with some bullies stealing his lunch money.
ROBERTS: But look who is getting the girl or the girls now? Our Jeanne Moos has got more on Washington's accidental heartthrob.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Whoever though...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at you.
MOOS: That the country's budget director would become the poster boy for sexy nerds?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I'm a bit of a nerd myself, so I find that sexy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not to me.
MOOS: Budget director Peter Orszag never budgeted for this brouhaha. Front page by the "New York Post", his former girlfriend, a shipping heiress, just had his baby a few weeks before his new fiance and ABC correspondent went on "Good Morning America".
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's see the rock on that finger.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on. Bianna's engaged.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bianna got engaged yesterday.
MOOS: Did we mention Orszag is divorced with two children from his first marriage? In the words of one blogger, "Frankly, I don't see how Orszag can balance three families and the national budget."
Until now, he's been one of the most eligible bachelors in Washington. On blogs like "The Huffington Post", he is not just Mr. Hot, he's hot with nine Os. He's making nerdy sexy.
Posted one admirer, "I'll take me some Orszag, thank you very much -- delicious.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like the intelligent nerd. My husband is bald.
MOOS: He is considered one the most eligible -- you are shaking your head at me. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. He doesn't look overly masculine to me. He doesn't look like a man. He looks like a boy that was on the chess club.
MOOS: Oh yes? Well, just like in the movie "Revenge of the Nerds"...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are that nerd. You were wonderful.
MOOS: This nerd gets the hot girl. Orszag is considered a brilliant economist. He discussed the budget on "The Daily Show".
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": Department of Commerce.
PETER ORSZAG, PRESIDENT OBAMA'S BUDGET DIRECTOR: There you go.
STEWART: Do we need that?
MOOS: One person posted, "He looks like Stephen Colbert's cousin."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he's sexy nerdy. He looks like Anderson Cooper with dyed hair.
MOOS: Even the president has joked about him.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: TLC has something called "Jon & Kate plus Peter Orszag".
MOOS: The budget director is also a country music fan. Occasionally at congressional hearings, you hear him quoting lyrics.
Referring to the budget...
ORSZAG: But as the country music singer Toby Keith once put it. "There ain't no right way to do the wrong thing."
MOOS: Does quoting a country western singer like Toby Keith make Peter Orszag a nerdy cowboy or a nerdy playboy?
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
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ROBERTS: Although Toby Keith's voice is substantially of a lower register.
CHETRY: Yes, well, you know. Maybe he's the strong, silent type.
ROBERTS: Well, put it this way. He's working what God gave him pretty well.
CHETRY: That's right. Hats off to you.
And that will do it for us, by the way. Hope you have a great weekend. Thanks for being us with. And we'll see you back here on Monday.
ROBERTS: All right. The news continues on CNN in the "CNN NEWSROOM" with Heidi Collins -- hi Heidi.
