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Rick's List
Haiti's Unrest; NBC's Late-Night War
Aired January 18, 2010 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: By the way, Mr. Glover's representatives have just sent us a statement, literally while we were in commercial, getting ready to read you this story, since we have been trying to reach out to them today.
It says this: "He is aware that earthquakes, per se, are not caused by climate change. What he meant was that the effects of climate change are making countries like Haiti more and more vulnerable to the effects of such natural disasters. The devastation that we are seeing is also, of course, a direct result of poverty linked to the debt- servicing structures" -- wow, this reaction is longer than the story -- "adjustment policies that have resulted in the total lack of infrastructure in the country. I'm sure Danny will clarify further, if necessary."
OK.
Here's number two. Maybe you don't know his face, but you do know what he did. Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II in 1981. The pope forgave, but the court didn't. They locked him up for 19 years. Agca not only tried to kill the pope. He was also convicted of killing a journalist.
And now he's a free man. Why? Mehmet Ali Agca, the second entry on "The List That You Don't Want To Be On."
Stay with this program. There's one more person on my list, this list you don't want to be on. And I'm going to reveal that name for you in our next hour right here.
Straight to Haiti, Port-au-Prince. That man that I'm going to be talking to is Captain Louie Fernandez of the Miami-Dade Emergency Management Service. He and his team, incredibly, are still rescuing people. Think about that, people that are still trapped underneath rubble, hoping that someone will find them, hoping that somebody will hear their voice.
Captain Fernandez and I have known each other for many years working together down in Miami-Dade.
Captain, are you there?
CAPTAIN LOUIE FERNANDEZ, MIAMI-DADE COUNTY OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: I'm here, Rick.
SANCHEZ: Listen, I want to know, after seeing some of the stories this weekend, what it's like for these people who you have come across, what stories you can tell of these people who have been trapped for days underneath this rubble in tiny little holes. Any one of us who is claustrophobic can only begin to imagine. But help us -- help us independent their plight.
FERNANDEZ: Rick, this -- with all the years that, you know, I have been as a firefighter and seeing this stuff on the streets and throughout the years in search-and-rescue, this, my friend, is the most catastrophic event my eyes have ever seen.
The sights, the sounds, the smells, the conditions are really, really bad. But, as you have been showcasing on your network, yesterday was an unbelievable day for us rescuers out here. At least with Miami- Dade Fire Rescue and Florida 1 Urban Search and Rescue, we had three lives saved, all of whom young children.
And how we're finding these is, we're seeing that most of the collapses that have occurred here are what we call pancake-style collapse. So, if you will, each floor falls directly on the floor below and then on the floor below and on the floor below all the way down to the ground.
But, when that happens, on the corners of those floors, there are voids anywhere -- a triangular shape, mostly, about 12 inches to 36 inches possibly in there. And in those voids, we are finding in these dark little voids, dust-covered with tons of debris sometimes, we're finding the smallest of survivors.
SANCHEZ: How do you hear them?
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: How do you know -- how do you know they're there, Louie?
FERNANDEZ: Well, you know, there's a lot of experience and a lot of training going on with our team and the other teams that are here, too, from Fairfax and L.A. County.
But what happens is, sometimes, we're alerted by a bystander or a family member says, hey, in this building, my son is there. We then have a process to bring in a search dog.
SANCHEZ: Uh-huh.
FERNANDEZ: We bring in acoustical listening devices.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: How does -- how does...
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Well, hold on. Let me stop you for a minute. How does the dog know the difference between a live person and a dead person?
FERNANDEZ: These dogs are only trained to detect live people. SANCHEZ: Wow.
FERNANDEZ: That's the only training that they go through. On the urban search-and-rescue teams, that's our mission, find live victims. So, the dogs will alert and we will use the acoustical listening devices. And then we will even use search cameras, highly, highly technical search cameras that we drop 30 feet into the rubble by -- first, we bore a hole.
And then we literally drop -- it's almost like sonar down. And we look and we listen. These things are so delicate that we could hear the trapped survivors using their fingernails to scratch on the concrete...
(CROSSTALK)
Can you speak to them through...
FERNANDEZ: We then...
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Is there -- is there some kind of...
FERNANDEZ: Yes.
SANCHEZ: ... speaker on there...
FERNANDEZ: Yes.
SANCHEZ: ... where you can talk to them, too? Tell us about that.
FERNANDEZ: Yes.
The ends of the listening devices literally have a two-way device on there, so we can hear. And, then, if we do hear something, we communicate. They can pick up not only our voices of assurance, but we can hear from them as well.
And, as you said earlier, just yesterday -- it's -- it's such a lifting experience, you know, being in this environment, under these conditions. These rescuers, they're -- they're rescuers. They're here to rescue. So, after days and days of seeing what we're seeing, the littlest of survivors brings tears to everyone's eyes.
Everyone here is a parent, is a daughter. To know that -- that the smallest folks -- that we're making a difference, these are images that will stay in our minds for the rest of our life.
SANCHEZ: Oh, my goodness. And we're looking at some of these pictures. We're looking at some of your teams down there and the remarkable work that you have been doing.
You know, getting the inside story of what exactly it's like is phenomenal.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: You wanted to add something, Louie?
FERNANDEZ: Yes. And, you know, Rick, it's amazing, some of the -- some of the teams that we're working with.
It's not -- you know, even international teams, some of the teams that we work with, we don't even speak the same language, but there's the same language that's known to each other is, get the person out of the building. The tools are somewhat the same with the international groups, but, you know, on the 3-year-old rescue that we had the other day, a French team was there.
And we do have -- you know, from Miami-Dade County, we have some Creole members of our fire department that we bring with us as well...
SANCHEZ: Right.
FERNANDEZ: ... that are specialized. We communicate back and forth. But, if not, you know, hey, we dig here, we point there. They help us there. They use their dogs. Rick, this is -- it's an amazing, amazing moment when, you know, you -- you -- it's almost like having a start and a finish to a very dramatic story.
The start is...
SANCHEZ: I got to tell you something. I just got to tell you, listening to you, I am so proud to be able to say that Miami-Dade County is my hometown, seeing and hearing the work that you guys have done, not just there, but in all the other disasters where you have been called.
Captain Louie Fernandez, we're out of time. Thanks for being here, my friend. We will catch up again.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ (voice-over): This is what is making THE LIST right now:
Trapped -- interviews now coming in of what it's like to be trapped under the rubble.
RICK SANTOS, SURVIVED 50 HOURS BURIED IN RUBBLE: It was very difficult. We were in a space that was five foot by eight foot, three foot high, rubble, concrete all around us, pitch-dark.
SANCHEZ: Rush Limbaugh does not relent after implying that President Obama would steal Haitian relief funds.
An all-out assault on Kabul, you will see it.
And who is this guy? This will freak you out.
And we debut the lists you need to know about, which include the most intriguing person of the day and "The List You Don't Want to Be On". Who's on it? You will find out as our national conversation on Twitter and on the air starts right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez, where, every day about this time, we're going to be dealing in lists.
We told you that we would be curating lists every day of relevant newsmakers. Is there anyone more relevant to the news today than President Barack Obama and the U.S. Red Cross?
Last hour, we showed you the comments that he made at the Red Cross headquarters. You heard him. Well, it turns out the tweet that we had gotten from the Red Cross -- well, let me show you what's going on.
First of all, let me show you the tweets that we have been receiving. The first one was from the Red Cross, where they told us that the president had just arrived there. But then we got another one telling us this, that President Obama had pushed the button on that very last tweet. It was his first ever tweet. He used to tweet before he was president. Since then, he said he hadn't. Well, they say he actually pushed the button on that tweet before he sent it out. Interesting side note to share with you.
And this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Senator O'Biden, you've said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis that we're in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: "Senator O'Biden"? Who's that? We're going to talk to the members of "Game Change," who tell us why the slip-up was more than just a slip-up.
Also, our list of the most intriguing people unveiled right after the break. George Clooney was number three for his work in Haiti. Who's number two? THE LIST continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back to THE LIST.
Incest is not something that you would expect people to talk about, until they do. And then it's hard not to listen.
It's on that note that we reveal who is number two of CNN's most intriguing person of the day. This very funny lady got her start when her brother dared her to go on stage during open mike night at a Baltimore comedy club. Before hitting it big, she worked as a supervisor for a phone sex line, monitoring the conversations.
And she recently revealed that she was sexually abused by a family member when she was a child. Number two on the most intriguing persons list, comedian and actress Mo'Nique, who won a Golden Globe award last night for her role as an abusive mother in the movie "Precious." She used her acceptance speech to send a message to other victims of sexual abuse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MO'NIQUE, ACTRESS: I celebrate this award with all of the preciouses, with all of the Marys. I celebrate this award with every person that's ever been touched. It's now time to tell. And it's OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Wow. Goose bumps. Who's number one on our most intriguing person list? Stick around, and you will find out.
What incredible video we're going to be sharing with you. We saw this today as we were preparing this newscast. A fireball erupts in Kabul, just one of the many explosions that rocked Afghanistan's capital today.
And we're going to have another blast, one that probably turned out to be a lifesaver.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back.
I'm about to show you a terrorist's bomb. This thing explodes in the street in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the blast is captured on television. You're going to see that picture right there. That's what the cameraman recorded as he ran from the scene.
All right, I want you to watch this now. We're all going to watch it together. It's a journalist from an Iranian English-language news service. He's recording his report. You will hear him speak at first, and then, right behind him, there's a vehicle that drives up and the bomb goes off.
Roger, go ahead. Let's roll this. Watch it together.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Afghan forces are facing fierce resistance.
(SIREN BLARING)
(EXPLOSION)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Can you believe that? This is Kabul. Men are running away from something when that happens. There were attacks today on another part of the city as well, huge attacks, many deaths. All right, watch and listen.
All right, now we're listening to some of the actions and reactions taking place there on the street. This is just one, as I indicated, of several explosions, at least four this morning in Kabul, bombs, gun battles spread out over about two hours, we're told.
As many as five people so far dead. Seventy people are hurt. Of course, those numbers will likely change.
The Iranian news service is reporting that that reporter was not killed, but we're told he was injured. The Taliban put out a statement afterward. They're saying that they were responsible. No surprise there. An Afghan government official says that the attackers were deliberately going after civilians.
All right, take a good look at this picture. The FBI wanted you to pay attention to it, until it pulled that picture from its Web site. We're going to tell you who that is supposed to be, if you haven't figured it out yet by yourself and why it caused a bit of a problem for the agency.
THE LIST continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back to THE LIST. I'm Rick Sanchez.
You heard on our air Sanjay Gupta, who had just done an interview with the former President of the United States Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton is very troubled by the fact that a lot of the people who have died in Haiti were United Nations workers who were there trying to help the Haitian people. They were people the president said he knew very well.
We have been trying to nail down, as have many other news sources, exactly how many people died from the United Nations in that U.N. building you have seen pictures of.
Our Christiane Amanpour has just done an interview with Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations. And, for the first time, we're starting to get a clearer picture of what actually happened to that building.
If we have got that, Roger, let's go ahead and roll it now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAN KI-MOON, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL: The United Nations has been playing a primary coordinating role, and we will continue to do in close coordination with the major international community, including particularly the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: I think the number that we heard there, by the way, was -- Angie, correct me if I'm wrong -- you had told me earlier he said 46, 46 people -- he fears the number may go higher -- died in the U.N. building there in Port-au-Prince trying to help the Haitian people.
As a matter of fact, you know, we have got this big show tonight from 8:00 to 10:00. Larry King called in just a little while ago. You heard him and his conversation that we had.
Here's Nicole Richie, who just sent me a tweet a moment ago. She says: "Joel and I will be on 'LARRY KING' tonight on behalf of UNICEF to discuss how we can help Haiti in the most effective way possible, please."
Now, interestingly enough, she's just one of many, many guests that are going to be there tonight with Larry. It's a huge show, 8:00 to -- 8:00 to 10:00, specifically addressing the situation in Haiti, with obvious cooperation from many of our correspondents who are there now on the scene, and breaking news as it happens.
Also, this -- has the countdown clock officially started for Conan O'Brien? There is word that he could be gone by Friday -- rich, but gone. And get this. His "Tonight Show" has never been hotter.
What gives, folks? THE LIST continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Well, the tweets are coming in fast and furious about Larry King's show tonight. As a matter of fact, we just got a little while ago.
We got one from Russell Simmons, I think.
Eric, in Washington, if you can hear me, you got that one up? There it is, UncleRUSH: "Going to be on Larry King's Haiti show now. How you can help tonight between 8:00 and 10:00 Eastern on CNN. Hope you will tune in."
There you go, Russell Simmons and a lot of other very famous people who are going to be along with Larry King tonight.
Boy, I will tell you, talk about famous. The late-night wars could be about to finally claim a casualties -- or a casualty, singular, I should say. There are reports now that Conan O'Brien could be out as "Tonight Show" host before the Olympics.
The question is, exactly when and where will he go?
Brooke Baldwin, is back with the very latest on this late-show smackdown.
Today may be the day that a deal goes down between NBC and Conan O'Brien.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Right.
SANCHEZ: That will make him wealthy, but jobless.
BALDWIN: We don't know yet. SANCHEZ: All right.
BALDWIN: Because FOX is out there saying, hey, maybe we're interested, but we don't really want to talk to you until the situation is resolved. Maybe even FX has been throwing some names out there as well.
But wait a minute, we don't know. But today -- like you said, today is the day this guy may be doing the deal with NBC. In fact, there are these reports that NBC is offering him and his crew, we're hearing, somewhere between $30 million and $40 million to leave...
SANCHEZ: Wow.
BALDWIN: ... and allowing them to go to another network.
Keep in mind, he still has something like three-and-a-half years on this NBC contract. So -- so, they're making changes, obviously, there, but the whole late-night thing, obviously...
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Well, that's odd. They -- they would pay him $30 million, $40 million to leave, and then he can get a job and get paid on top of that? Or will they stop...
BALDWIN: That's what I'm reading.
SANCHEZ: Wow.
BALDWIN: That's what I'm reading, right. You would think there would be a penalty against his contract.
SANCHEZ: That makes it sound -- well, that makes it sound like they really want him to leave, like this is getting so ugly, it's costing them that much.
BALDWIN: I mean, look at what this whole thing has been doing. In a sense, it's been great for ratings. In fact, Friday night, I think they were up something like 50 percent on "The Late Show" -- on "The Tonight Show," rather, with Conan. It was doing great. It even beat "Leno"'s show...
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: Yes, but -- yes, but -- yes, but that's because of this scandal, this -- this controversy...
BALDWIN: This whole thing.
SANCHEZ: ... this situation, right?
BALDWIN: I know. I know. And I realize that.
SANCHEZ: That goes away...
BALDWIN: And it's all about the...
SANCHEZ: ... and the ratings go back down.
BALDWIN: It's all about to go away. And who knows who will sort of leave this thing looking a little bit better. And that's a whole other question.
But let me toss you some sound...
SANCHEZ: All right.
BALDWIN: ... from Friday night from both of their monologues, just because it's fun to watch. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH CONAN O'BRIEN")
CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH CONAN O'BRIEN": In the press this week, NBC has been calling me every name in the book. Yes.
(BOOING)
O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.
(BOOING)
O'BRIEN: In fact, they think I'm such an idiot, they now want me to run the network.
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: I couldn't believe it.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
O'BRIEN: I couldn't...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE JAY LENO SHOW")
JAY LENO, HOST, "THE JAY LENO SHOW": Are you excited about the Winter Olympics next month in Vancouver, Winter Olympics next month in Vancouver?
KEVIN EUBANKS, BAND LEADER: Very cool. Very cool.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
LENO: Now, if you can't wait until next month, stay on this channel between 10:00 and midnight, and you will see NBC's coverage of two hosts skating on thin ice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: And NBC also has a bit of sense of humor. If you stayed up late, you watched "Saturday Night Live," some comedic genius on that show. Take a look at this snippet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I want to get to the bottom of this. So, you moved to 10:00 p.m., and that was a colossal failure. Is that right?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Come on, Larry, I don't know if that's true or not.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: It's true. And that's where Conan comes in.
Conan, you were doing great at 12:30.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: That's right, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You had loads of fans, great ratings. Then they moved you to 11:30, and it was a colossal failure. Is that right?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: No, Larry. I didn't really have a chance to...
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: But that might have been because of your lead-in, which was Jay, which was, again, a colossal failure.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, come on. That is not fair.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So they were going to move Conan to midnight and Jimmy Fallon to 1:00 a.m., which is six hours after I go to bed. Is that all right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
So now everything's a mess, you're all mad at a each other, all because of a bad decision made in 2003.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uh-huh. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it seems like there's a very obvious solution here -- time machine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: You like that?
SANCHEZ: Oh, I love the Larry King impersonation.
BALDWIN: I love the -- I think, honestly, that was kind of the funniest part. Maybe we're biased. Maybe one day there'll be a Rick Sanchez parody on "SNL." Now, that I will look forward to.
SANCHEZ: There already has been.
BALDWIN: That I will look forward to.
SANCHEZ: There already has been.
BALDWIN: But let me briefly mention -- you know, a lot of people are saying -- a lot of people are on team Conan after this whole thing, but some of Leno's crew, they're really coming to his defense. In fact, in this one report I read -- I just want to read this.
"In his defense," a longtime staffer is quoting, "the network asked him to make a compromise. He's being a good soldier and he's being trashed."
So...
SANCHEZ: Well, and let's explain to people what really has happened here.
Jay Leno's 10:00 ratings were so bad that the affiliates, NBC affiliates all over the country, went to NBC and said, get him off, he's killing us, which set their ratings down, which then caused Conan to say, well, my lead-ins are down too because the affiliates aren't doing well.
BALDWIN: Right. It's all because of ratings, but...
SANCHEZ: I mean, this thing is -- it's circular.
BALDWIN: ... at the same time, Conan signed this contract with NBC saying, yes, in the year 2009, after the last five years that Jay Leno will have his top spot, at 11:35, I will get the big chair. And he got the big chair, and seven months later, see you later.
SANCHEZ: A lot of management decisions here that are somewhat questionable at this point.
BALDWIN: You could say that.
SANCHEZ: I just did.
By the way, don't go. I want you to watch this.
Turn that around, if you would, Robert.
We just got this a little moment ago from Mediaite, one of the writers there, Steve Krakauer. He says, "If Conan's final 'Tonight Show' really is Friday, he'll be up against Catherine Zeta-Jones on Letterman. No word on Conan's Wednesday-through-Friday guests."
These guys in the entertainment business are wanting us to know exactly what's going on with these wars.
BALDWIN: I like that. SANCHEZ: Because it skyrockets their ratings.
BALDWIN: Catherine Zeta-Jones.
SANCHEZ: My thanks to you for that report. You're on the list.
BALDWIN: Hey, thank you.
SANCHEZ: Also this...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN (R), FMR. ALASKA GOVERNOR: Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: "Can I call you Joe?" Such a simple sentence, but is there more to it than that? The authors of "Game Change" tell us about that and a lot more behind the scenes of the campaign.
"Game Change," by the way, is the most talked about book in Washington and in many circles around the country. This is can't miss stuff, folks. Stay right there. The list continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back to THE LIST. I'm Rick Sanchez.
You know what they say about the best intentions -- the road to hell is paved with them on paper or in pictures. This must have sounded like a great plan at some point for the FBI.
What am I talking about? Let's do "Fotos Del Dia."
All right. Who is this guy?
All right. Everybody at home now, take a really good look at him. Have you figured it out yet?
Here's a hint -- the FBI was looking at him, so they tweaked his original photo to reveal what he might look like today. That's it, that's what he might look like today.
Have you figured it out? Well, here, let me help you out with a side- by-side comparison of his old picture.
That is what the FBI believes Osama bin Laden may have looked like today, the guy on the right. There he is on the left, the picture that's imprinted in our brain, as Marshall McLuhan would say, as a visual script.
One problem. The guy who made the picture used the forehead of a real guy, a Spanish lawmaker. Oops. Now he's upset and the FBI has had to pull that picture. We all know IEDs have been the terrorists' weapon of choice, so it's pretty satisfying to see a whole IED factory taken down by British troops. Watch. Who knows how many lives have been saved with just this one "Foto Del Dia?"
Also this -- we love this and wanted to share it with you. What's a guy to do to get away from the police these days? He can trying, but that has its limits, especially when both ends of the hallway are blocked by police officers.
How about the window? Let's try the window, just one more time. Guess not.
Well, let's look at the rebound. Can we look at that one more time? Because it's just too fun to -- bang, bounce, reinforced glass. Does he get an assist in the police report?
We're following a lot of stories, including some of the tweets that have been sent to us making news on this day. And this -- we're going to tell you right now what Mark Preston is saying.
He just sent me this, to me. He's watching the show.
"Growing up in Massachusetts," he tweets, "it's a misperception to say that voters are liberal. Issues, health care, economy -- Coakley hopes Obama energizes the base."
He's speaking about the fact that the president went there and has been talking about this today. So did President Clinton.
Folks, this is a very important race, and we're going to be following it for you.
And we're also going to be following this...
We told you about our list that you don't want to be on. The man who shot Pope John Paul II made that list today. But we still haven't reached who's number one on the list. We're going to tell you who tops him and why in 10 minutes.
Plus, Monique made the most intriguing person list from CNN's list. Who's number one on that one? We'll tell you after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Let me bring you up to date on something that we're following for you right now.
New information coming in to CNN. We told you we had the very first interview on the ground. Dr. Sanjay Gupta did that with former President Bill Clinton as he arrived in Haiti. We also now have the very first interview with Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, sitting down moments ago to explain what happened to his building -- the U.N. building there in Port-au-Prince.
He sat down with our CNN's Christiane Amanpour. This is just now coming in. I want to share it with you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAN KI-MOON, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: We have lost a list at this time of 46 staff. I fear the number may increase in the coming days.
Yesterday, when I came back from Haiti, I brought the remains of my special representative, Hedi Annabi, and his deputy. It was a heartbreaking experience for me.
It is the bravest single loss for the United Nations in its history. However, we are united. We are committed to carry on our duties to help those people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: All right. We're going to be all over that story, as well.
And more information that continues to come in from Haiti, by the way. Stay right there because we're going to have it for you.
And there's usually nothing more routine than the daily commute home. Right? That's about what time the quake hit last Tuesday, as scores of Haitians left work, were on the way home.
One of them managed to capture the chaos as he trudged through his broken city. And when I say "capture," I mean he had his camera on through his phone.
CNN's Ed Lavandera talked to him after he got back. It's amazing to listening to this. Watch as the man starts to break down going through what he saw with his own eyes at first.
Here we go.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The earthquake strikes and Jean Marie Altema is in a car driving home.
(on camera): On your cell phone camera, you started recording video, basically documented your hour-long walk home.
JEAN MARIE ALTEMA, SURVIVED THE EARTHQUAKE: Yes, exactly.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): His wife and one-year-old son were home on the other side of Port-au-Prince. Jean Marie starts recording this video seconds after the shaking ends. The nightmare will quickly unfold before his eyes.
(on camera): At this point you still don't have an understanding of how bad this is.
ALTEMA: No. No. No. Because I wanted to go home.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Emotional cries are the first thing you here in the seconds after the quake.
(on camera): What was she saying?
ALTEMA: She's crying, in Haiti, you say, (INAUDIBLE), my friends in English but it's a cry from the heart. Someone said we are nothing. Nothing. Because around 40 seconds, everything is going away.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The despair, the confusion, the fear is now everywhere. The wounded walk the streets, but then Jean Marie sees the body of a young boy crushed by concrete.
(on camera): At this point is it starting to sink in?
ALTEMA: Yes. Yes. Sink in -- yes. So --
LAVANDERA: Will you ever forget that image?
ALTEMA: No. No. No. That's -- that's the first time that I see something like this.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Jean Marie is now overwhelmed by what he sees.
ALTEMA: No.
LAVANDERA (on camera): It's almost like you couldn't believe what you were seeing.
ALTEMA: Exactly. I couldn't believe. I couldn't believe. I say to myself, is it a dream. (speaking in a foreign language)
LAVANDERA: What were you saying?
ALTEMA: I was saying, thanks, god. Thanks, god. I said, I could be anywhere. I could be anywhere. I could be somewhere in the market. I could be -- I could be in the -- in the streets. I could be anywhere.
LAVANDERA: What do you think the people around you are thinking at this point?
ALTEMA: The end. The end. The end of the end.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): An hour after he started walking, the journey home is over.
(on camera): How happy were you to be home?
ALTEMA: Oh, I saw my wife with my son, the only one that we have. And I kiss her, and I say, praise god. I say, praise god.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Jean Marie Altema is back in the arms of his family.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, Lake Worth, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: When we come back, we are going to be taking you through the hottest book in Washington revealing new information about what really happened that made Barack Obama so popular despite the fact that most of the people who were making him popular, senators, congressmen, Democrats, were saying publicly that they were all for Hillary Clinton. The truth as revealed by these authors, Mark Halperin. They're going to join me next right here.
Stay with -- THE LIST continues, and they're on it.
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SANCHEZ: Well, what a story, what a book. Everyone's talking about it.
Here's a question for you. And don't think too hard. What was the big political story a week ago today, last Monday? Remember? Have you already forgotten? Harry Reid.
Remember the big brouhaha that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said a while back that Barack Obama was electable because of his light skin and because of, Reid's words, he "lacked a Negro dialect." Negro -- interesting word choice. Huh?
As my old professor of journalism school at the University of Minnesota would ask and write on my papers, "W.C., Mr. Sanchez," he would say. Well, that was one of the nuggets contained in his book. And let me tell you what else is gold mine in this book.
It's called "Game Change." Hell of a book -- "Obamas and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime." In terms of how we review the historic campaign, this book is a breakthrough.
I had to get the authors on board. And here they are.
John Heilemann, "New York Magazine." He's the national political correspondent. And then Mark Halperin. You've seen him before. He's a senior political analyst for "TIME" magazine.
Guys, you're on THE LIST. Welcome aboard.
MARK HALPERIN, CO-AUTHOR, "GAME CHANGE": Rick, we're honored to be on the list and to be here with you.
SANCHEZ: I have to ask first about the Massachusetts Senate race, though, before we get into the book, because I imagine you guys probably have some insight as to what's going on out there. This could send shock waves around the country, and it's a bit of a shocker in and of itself right now that the Republican seems to be winning.
HALPERIN: Well, Rick, the press corps often overstates the symbolic and practical significance of special elections. In this case it can't be overstated. Both are hugely important.
I think the White House believes, from talking to people there, that they'll probably lose this race, you'll have huge implications in the short term for President Obama's health care agenda. And over the long term, Democrats are going to be panicked and finger-pointing if they lose this race. And again, most of the Democrats I know expect that they will lose.
SANCHEZ: What are your sources, John, telling you about the possibility she will, in fact -- Coakley, that is -- go down to this fellow Brown?
JOHN HEILEMANN, CO-AUTHOR, "GAME CHANGE": Well, you know, it looks it's going to be -- it's too close to call at this point, Rick. And it's crazy to predict any race this close.
But there's no question that there are two big problems that the race highlights for President Obama and for the Democratic Party generally. One is that President Obama's standing and the party's standing with Independent voters is in trouble. It's been hurting all throughout 2009, and now it's still hurting in 2010. And Independents comprise the biggest chunk of the electorate in Massachusetts.
The other thing that's true is that the base of the Democratic Party, which was so powerfully behind Barack Obama in the 2008 election, seems not that excited about Coakley. And they're not -- they don't seem like they're ready to turn out in the numbers that are required.
Now, it's possible that President Obama's visit to Massachusetts over the weekend will change that. But if it doesn't, and in a dramatic way, it's quite possible that she will, in fact, lose.
SANCHEZ: You know what I was fascinated about in your book? The bit about -- the fact that so many Democrats, top guys in Washington, seem to be lying to Hillary Clinton, telling her that they were kind of backing her when, in fact, they wanted the other guy. And apparently there's an assertion in your book that one of the things that they were concerned about and one of the reasons that they were afraid of backing Hillary Clinton was that her husband would go out and cheat on her publicly again.
Describe that for us. What did you learn, fellows?
HALPERIN: Well, Rick, this is one of the things in "Game Change" that was out there but really didn't get reported very much. We did over 300 interviews for the book, and going back to reconstruct that story and so many others, it turns out what we saw in public was not the true story of the campaign.
The true story of what happened was Hillary Clinton was seen as the establishment candidate. The true story was the establishment, people like Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, other senators, they were behind Barack Obama, as you say, not in public, but in private. They were terrified of Hillary Clinton as a polarizing figure who would bring down other Democrats, and they were worried about Bill Clinton's personal life. They thought she'd become the Democratic nominee, the Republicans would put out information about Bill Clinton, it would devastate her chances and the chance of the Democratic Party.
SANCHEZ: And it would take them down.
But what about, John, when Bill Clinton -- and this is the part that really kind of shocked me. Not the part in the book that you guys write where Bill Clinton talks about that "he could get us coffee," because obviously what he's saying is he has no experience. He's a state senator in Illinois. Why is this guy running for president? I get that.
It's the part where he says, according to your sources in the book, that the only reason Ted Kennedy was going to endorse him was because he was black. Those words came out of Bill Clinton's mouth?
HEILEMANN: Yes, they did, Rick. And I think what they speak to is the fact that President Clinton looked at Ted Kennedy -- and this was at the end of a long period where the Clintons were trying to get Ted Kennedy to endorse Hillary -- they had failed.
Ted Kennedy had called Bill Clinton to inform him that he had come to the decision just before the South Carolina primary, he'd made up his mind that he was going to endorse Obama. And I think what Bill Clinton was pointing to there was that Ted Kennedy was one of the great liberal senators in the history of the country, and he had had a long dream that there would be an African-American president. He saw in Barack Obama someone who could bring that dream to fruition.
Now, Bill Clinton saw it as him rejecting someone in his wife who had greater experience and greater policy expertise in favor of voting for that dream. And he was angry about that.
He thought, you know, there's another dream here. This is of electing the first woman president, and Hillary's better qualified, why aren't you with her? But that was what he was trying to convey to Kennedy there, that he seemed to be endorsing in a way that reflected a kind of racial tokenism.
SANCHEZ: "Game Change." What a book. Everybody's talking about it.
I mentioned a couple of the things in it, but there are so many more -- the revelations about Sarah Palin, your conversations with the McCain camp. We could go on and on.
Nonetheless, I'm glad you guys had a chance to come on and make THE LIST. Appreciate it.
I grew up following and covering some of the Caribbean's loudest, most corrupt and infamous strongmen. I covered Manuel Noriega, interviewed him in prison; Daniel Ortega. I interviewed Fidel Castro, Papa Doc Duvalier, who was known as a ruthless and corrupt leader, and at least one other.
Time now to reveal who is number one on our list of the "Most Intriguing Person of the Day."
Here we go. He was the world's youngest president, succeeding his father as ruler for life when he was just 19. He kept his father's secret police -- secret police -- the bogeymen known as the Tonton Macoutes, a word that reverberates through even Miami. To stop his opposition, even as he was accused of corruption and mismanagement, in 1986, with his nation in financial shambles, the people revolted and he was tossed not just out of power, but out of the country.
Now our "Most Intriguing Person of the Day," Jean-Claude Duvalier, better known as "Baby Doc." His father was "Papa Doc."
From his home in exile in France, kicked out of his own country, Duvalier has e-mailed "The Daily Beast" to say he is in complete solidarity with the Haitian people. And even though it's not clear if he has control over the money, he is asking Swiss authorities to give all of the funds that are left in his account, all $8 million in a foundation named for his mother, to the American Red Cross for the relief effort.
One good turn. And that's what puts Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier at the top of our list. CNN's "Most Intriguing Person of the Day."
Wow, what a story.
(NEWSBREAK)
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SCHULTZ: All right. I've been awaiting some video that just came into us right now. It's -- look, this video is difficult to watch. If you don't feel comfortable watching it, if there are small children right now in the room, you may want to turn them away from the screen. Your choice.
Anderson Cooper and his team, earlier today, witnessed the looting of a store in Port-au-Prince. Young men, many armed, climbed on the roof of a building, breaking in to remove boxes of candles.
The looters were then selling the candles on the street while the shopkeeper could only look on. At one point, things got ugly, the looters on the roof started throwing concrete blocks and rocks down at the crowd.
Let's watch.
Anderson saw that young boy -- he's 12 or 13 years old -- hit in the head and apparently pass out. To prevent him from being injured any further, Anderson dragged the boy a few yards away from the crowd before the CNN team could arrange medical care.
The boy was led away by others. Not known what happened to the boy at this point, and we're going to have more from Anderson tonight. Obviously, he'll be bringing us this story at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, as will Wolf Blitzer follow it up on "THE SITUATION ROOM," coming up in a couple of minutes.
OK, as promised, big moment here. A little while ago, I teased you with my first-ever "List U Don't Want to Be On." Let me refresh your memory.
Bottom to top, today's list of dubious achievers: Hollywood actor, activist, buddy of President Hugo Chavez, Danny Glover, for his wackadoodle theory about how earthquakes happen in Haiti. He sent us a clarification, an explanation, but it wasn't very clear either.
Shoot the pope, you're not on any good list of mine if you do that. Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II, 1981. Today he's a free man, out of prison in Turkey. He's on our list.
But nobody is higher on my list that you don't want to be on than -- show it, Raj (ph) -- that guy, syndicated radio talk show host/entertainer, as lots of Republicans call him, Rush Limbaugh, for what he said on the air about Haiti, how he appears to feel about aid and relief donations to that country. And that he sees President Obama making political hey out of the disaster.
Oh, and guess who else is fired up about Rush Limbaugh? A pretty nice guy named Roger Ebert.
Read with me. It's an open letter to Rush Limbaugh from Roger Ebert's Web site. "You should be horse-whipped for the insult that you have paid to the highest office of our nation. You are so cynical and so heartless as to explain Obama's action in a way that unpleasantly suggests how your mind works."
Wow. Roger Ebert is mad. What about you? I want to know if you agree with our list.
Let me know.
Here now, "THE SITUATION ROOM" and Wolf Blitzer.
