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American Morning
Obama to Ask Congress for Federal Spending Freeze; Rebuilding Haiti's Broken Government; Karzai Says U.S. and Europe Open to Talks With the Taliban; From the Treasury to Your Plate; Passion for Haiti
Aired January 26, 2010 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good Tuesday morning for you, it's January 26th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. Thanks for being with us. Here are the big stories we'll be telling you about in the next 15 minutes.
President Obama now one day away from his first official State of the Union address. He'll be asking Congress to OK a three-year freeze on federal spending and he's hoping to press the reset button with the American people. Suzanne Malveaux is live for us at the White House.
CHETRY: There are stunning new pictures of what it was like immediately after the earthquake hit Haiti. Exclusive video obtained by CNN capturing the chaotic scene on the ground in Port-au-Prince with crumbled concrete all around and terrified people wandering the streets.
ROBERTS: And CNN's special focus on President Obama's economic stimulus program. Our stimulus desk is working long hours, poring over reports on tens of thousands of projects, and we found pork. Only it's not an earmark this time but from a can, and it's helping to feed those less fortunate. Is it money well spent on?
CHETRY: Our top story this morning, President Obama is preparing to deliver his first State of the Union address. It's tomorrow night and he's hoping that it can change the course of the country and perhaps his presidency.
He's asking Congress to approve a three-year freeze on discretionary federal spending. One Republican compared that to going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest. He's also going to be trying to convince middle class America that he really does feel their pain.
Suzanne Malveaux joins us live at the White House. So when we talk about a freeze on discretionary spending, explain what part of the federal government we're talking about and the budget.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Sure, it's interesting, the pie-eating contest and the diet analogy there. But what the Obama administration is saying it's going to be a freeze on discretionary spending for three years, and that does not include departments like Homeland Security, Defense and Veterans Affairs. And what the administration is hoping on doing is saving $250 billion in that time period.
Now, Kiran, this is a very controversial proposal. We heard from the former labor secretary under President Clinton, Robert Reich, who says this is exactly the wrong thing to do, that the government should be spending money at least in the short term to try to stimulate the economy when nobody else is. There are some Republicans who are saying this doesn't go far enough. There's some liberal left who are saying this is going to cut into valuable programs.
So clearly, the one thing that this is going to do, Kiran, is that it's going to move this White House closer to the right. That is those fiscally-conservative Democrats, independents, even some Republicans, and that is exactly what the administration and what this president wants to do.
If they want to get anything done legislatively, they have got to have bipartisan support. We heard the president last night admitting that that was part of the reason why, the main reason why health care reform did not get passed. Here's the president talking to Diane Sawyer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had to make so many decisions quickly in a very difficult set of circumstances. That, after a while, we started worrying more about getting the policy right than getting the process right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: So, Kiran, he is talking about -- more about getting the final product done than actually how to get this legislation passed, just trying to ram it through and essentially that that was a mistake on the administration's part, they're going to try to do better. He's also going to be focusing very seriously on how to help the middle class. We're going to be hearing more about it in the State of the Union address -- Kiran.
CHETRY: And another, obviously, big, big agenda item is health care. It's in limbo right now, but what is the president's plan moving forward on this?
MALVEAUX: There are some very specific things that he wants to do, once again addressing the middle class, essentially helping them out. But first and foremost, a child care tax credit would be part of the plan. Limits on federal student loan payments, another bid, about 10 percent or so, limiting to 10 percent. New IRA requirements, and also additional funds to help care for elderly relatives. These are just some of the things that he's going to be proposing at the State of the Union address and obviously trying once again to get bipartisan support for the health care reform -- Kiran.
CHETRY: Suzanne Malveaux for us this morning at the White House. Thanks so much. Coming up in less than 20 minutes, we're going to be taking a closer look at where your stimulus dollars are going with Christine Romans. She's uncovered one surprising pork project. It's not what you think, though. It's actually helping families put food on the table.
ROBERTS: Two weeks ago today, Haiti was devastated by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake and then dozens of aftershocks. This morning, we are seeing new evidence of what happened just moments after the earthquake hit.
This amateur video exclusive to CNN shows the panic in Port-au- Prince. Watch.
People running and screaming in the street, dazed and terrified. Many thousands as we know at this moment dead or either dying. The air is thick with dust from the concrete rubble. One man is heard on the tape saying, this is chaos in Haiti.
CHETRY: Well, everything in Haiti it seems is broken, and that includes the seat of government. When the presidential palace crumbled, officials basically lost their base and entire infrastructure.
ROBERTS: And many confidential documents are now buried beneath the rubble. Our Gary Tuchman takes a look at the challenges of trying to rebuild Haiti's broken government.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Of all the damage in the nation of Haiti, this is in many ways the most striking, the presidential palace. In a country that's been a challenge to govern in the best of times, that challenge is now much harder.
Now the president of Haiti has to work out of this rundown police station, trying to govern the country in its moment of greatest need. All that now is that governing in this chaotic situation has made worse because the nation's leaders have nowhere better to work.
(on camera): Imagine if the White House in Washington were destroyed in an earthquake. The horrors of that are exactly what the Haitian people are now going through. The physical and symbolic devastation is very raw.
This area has been the site of Haitian leaders since the 1700s. But this particular palace wasn't built until the early 1900s. Construction began in 1914, but it's been destroyed before. The construction site was burned down in 1915 by mobs who assassinated the president.
It's been the home of many scoundrels. The two most infamous, Papa Doc Duvalier and Jean-Claude Duvalier. The current president is Rene Preval. He wasn't here when the earthquake happened, but it's unknown how many people died inside. (voice-over): To make things even worse, the parliament building was also destroyed. And the equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court, the palace of justice, also flattened.
RENE PREVAL, PRESIDENT OF HAITI: It's a catastrophe. But we are working with the help of the international community to rebuild the country.
TUCHMAN: In addition, the palace is home to sensitive as well as classified material. It's too dangerous to search for in this building right now. Fritz Longchamps is the secretary general to the president, the equivalent of the chief of staff.
(on camera): Is there concern for the confidential information that is in the palace?
FRITZ LONGCHAMPS, SECRETARY GENERAL: We're working on it.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): The secretary general says he was away from the palace in the chaotic moments after the collapse. It was impossible for him to get there and remarkably he had no official word about devastation at the palace.
LONGCHAMPS: I saw on CNN the picture. I was shocked.
TUCHMAN: The president hopes to leave the police station and run the government out of this less damaged security building on the palace grounds. The plan is to rebuild this palace. But the government knows its own future is in peril if it doesn't help its citizens first.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: And coming up at the bottom of the hour, we're going to talk with Dr. Mark Hyman. He just returned from Haiti where he worked under extreme conditions to save lives.
CHETRY: Other stories new this morning. The brother of Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan has now been charged with assaulting their 70-year-old father. Daniel Kerrigan died over the weekend at the family's Massachusetts home.
Prosecutors say his son, Mark, grabbed him by the throat during an argument about using the phone. Mark Kerrigan pleaded not guilty in an arraignment yesterday. Kerrigan's mother says that her husband died of a massive heart attack. Authorities are still investigating the incident.
ROBERTS: New road rules for drivers of big rigs. No texting. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is issuing new federal guidelines today. Effective immediately commercial truck and bus drivers who text while driving could face civil or criminal penalties of more than $2,700. The transportation secretary says it's an important step in reducing the danger from distracted drivers. CHETRY: A winter storm is moving across the Midwest and the plains, and is bringing with it dangerously high winds and bitter cold. Blowing snow in fact creating whiteout conditions in parts of the Dakotas, in Iowa, in Nebraska, as well as Minnesota. An ice buildup on power lines also proving to be a problem in some areas.
ROBERTS: So what's it going to be like today? Rob Marciano has got a quick check of this morning's weather headlines and he's at the weather -- he's not at the weather center in Atlanta.
Rob, where are you?
CHETRY: He's in Steamboat Springs?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Weather center in Steamboat Springs, Colorado this morning. Why not? The 21st annual weather summit out here for this conference that I attend every year. A great group of meteorologists convene with some of the world's top scientists to discuss many issues involving weather and climate. We'll talk more about that in about 30 minutes.
First off, though, let's talk about the storm that's moving across the northeast. Boy, it was a doozy with heavy rainfall. Still some flood warnings in effect for parts of northern New England. The rainfall beginning to taper off. Not a tremendous amount of cold air behind this, but it is colder. You do see the snow turning from rain to snow there across parts of the Midwest and the Ohio River Valley.
A little bit of snow heading into the intermountain west. That's not the best news actually. Avalanche warnings are up for the sierra and also for the Wasatch. So too much of a good thing certainly for the high country and more rain heading into Southern California. They're not looking forward to that. That may cause some problems later on today.
Breezy conditions driving down into the mid-Atlantic which may see another snow storm later in the week. And we'll talk more about. Jacqui Jeras also at work this morning. She's in the CNN weather center in Atlanta.
We'll see you guys in about 30 minutes. It's a brisk, I don't know, five, six, maybe seven degrees in Steamboat, but it's a dry cold.
ROBERTS: Wow. Well, I'll tell you it's a nice little doggle you've got there. Is that a boondoggle (ph)?
MARCIANO: Hey, listen. That's what some would call, but it works. So I'm not asking any questions.
ROBERTS: God bless you, Rob. Thanks, we'll see you soon.
CHETRY: Still ahead on the Most News in the Morning, a new plan for dealing with the Taliban. What Afghanistan's president said would be the most effective way to end the fighting.
Nine and a half minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Twelve minutes after the hour now, and a quick check of stories new this morning.
A suicide car bomber in Baghdad has killed at least 18 people and injured at least 80. Iraqi officials say the attacker drove through a checkpoint before the blast went off near a government building. It's the second deadly attack in the capital city in two days. Yesterday three vehicles exploded at hotels in central Baghdad, killing at least 36 people.
CHETRY: Meanwhile in Afghanistan, could talking to the enemy actually bring peace? Afghan President Hamid Karzai says that the U.S. and Europe are warming up to the idea of talking with Taliban fighters. The goal? Convincing them to stop fighting and to rejoin Afghan society.
For more on this, let's bring in our Atia Abawi live in Kabul this morning. This is something that has critics on some sides and proponents on the other. What's the latest?
ATIA ABAWI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, critics and proponents just as you said. This isn't nothing -- this isn't anything new when it comes to the Afghan government. President Karzai himself has been pushing for it for the last several years. In fact, he has a department here, a reconciliation department where they've been reaching out to various members of the Taliban and different insurgency groups throughout the country.
I actually spoke to two former Taliban fighters and government officials during the Taliban regime, and they say that the reason that they're coming to the side of the Afghan government is because they want the fighting to stop. They want peace in Afghanistan. But we also have to look back at last Monday's attack that we saw here in the capital city. It was just going on for hours on end. Gunfire, explosions, that was caused by the Taliban. And their message to us was the mere fact that they had this attack was to make sure that the Afghan government and the international community know that they are not willing to negotiate and that they can't be bought.
And although this has been going on in the Afghan government for some time reaching out to the Taliban, it is something fairly new when it comes to the international community, and we do expect more talks about this at the January 28th conference in London where they're going to meet with over 60 leaders from different nations all over the world and paving a way forward in Afghanistan -- Kiran.
CHETRY: But if all these nations are on board and the Taliban isn't, where do you go from there? How do you make any progress?
ABAWI: Well, that's -- that is a main question that's going on at the moment because this isn't the Taliban of 10 years ago. This isn't just one group with one leader. These are various groups throughout the country and even across the border in Pakistan, with various different leaders and ideologies. And the international community as well as President Karzai, they know that they can reach out to certain Taliban, but there are others that just won't give up.
As we saw with that spokesperson, Jabilal Mujahid (ph), who told us that they can't be bought, there are very strong ideologies with some Taliban groups, and they say that they will fight until the end -- Kiran.
CHETRY: Atia Abawi for us this morning with the latest on this. Thank you.
ROBERTS: Coming up on the Most News in the Morning, our stimulus project continues in day two, a closer look at the effects of the federal stimulus plan. Our Christine Romans found a lot of pork in the stimulus bill. We'll explain coming right up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. It's 18 minutes past the hour.
We're "Minding Your Business" right now, and we're in the midst of a week-long undertaking here at CNN to find out where all of the stimulus money is going.
There's a brand-new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll showing that most of you think it really isn't doing much of anything. This poll basically asked if the stimulus has made you better off than you were a year ago, and only 7 percent of people said it actually improved their own financial situations. Close to half of the people said it had no effect at all, and a fifth of them said that the stimulus made things worse.
ROBERTS: Here at CNN, we wanted to see for ourselves where your tax dollars were going. Our Christine Romans joins us now. And -- and Christine, you found one stimulus pork project that, unlike most other pork coming out of Washington, might not stick in our craw?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: This is pork. This is real pork. This is literally canned pork. This is going on the table of Americans.
We know the stimulus money is going to obvious things like fixing roads, saving teacher jobs, but it's also helping to put food on the plates of struggling Americans. Hundreds of millions, billions of your stimulus money. In fact, the biggest single food project is $19.6 billion for food stamps over the next five years, and when you think of that, 38 million people right now are being fed with food stamps. That's a record high. That's more than one in 10 Americans are getting food stamps right now.
The next biggest on here, $100 million to update school lunch equipment, so that is your child, quite probably, getting some indirect benefit from stimulus money in the school lunch room or cafeteria. And then, finally, $100 million for food banks. Some of the biggest names of the food industry got big cash contracts to stock food banks across the country.
So we followed that money -- your money, from the Treasury to the plates of struggling Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERT CARLUCCI, FOOD BANK CLIENT: We OK (ph)?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
CARLUCCI: Thank you so much.
ROMANS (voice-over): Robert Carlucci never thought he'd carry home his groceries in a box from a food pantry.
This single father of two from rural Franklin, North Carolina lost his job as a carpenter more than a year ago. And now, like 18 million other unemployed Americans, he struggles to make ends meet.
CARLUCCI: I can't believe I'm here. I mean, I'm the one that's usually donating around Thanksgiving time and Christmas time, and now here I am. I'm needing that. And it was just surreal.
ROMANS: Carlucci's dinners are now paid for in part with $100 million of stimulus money, awarded by the government to food companies you've heard of, like Del Monte, Jennie-O and Tyson to make food for over-burdened food banks.
But the biggest influx of cash went to little-known Lakeside Foods, one of Wisconsin's largest companies. It received more than $21 million to make, among other things, canned pork.
Lakeside declined to talk to CNN, so we went to their factory in Plainview, Minnesota, to find out how employees feel about the lucrative contract.
STEVE KOHN, LAKESIDE FOOD EMPLOYEE: It's great. It helps the company out a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard they received some money, but I didn't -- had no idea of how much it was.
ROMANS: It was enough, according to our government sources, to create 52 new jobs. Overall, the Department of Agriculture tells CNN, the entire $100 million for food companies created 195 jobs.
For Kitty Schaller, head of the Manna Food Bank in Asheville, North Carolina, her priority is feeding people.
KITTY SCHALLER, MANNA FOOD BANK: It is not a waste of taxpayer money. The economic stimulus package has helped us to provide for the most basic needs for people who are truly in need.
ROMANS (on camera): Her food bank gladly took that canned pork, where demand is up 40 percent. So did thousands of other food banks across the country. But is this stimulus? ROBERT RECTOR, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: This is clearly a type of welfare. It's a welfare expansion.
ROMANS (voice-over): Robert Rector, a Senior Fellow at the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, approves of using federal money for food banks. But, he argues, the entire stimulus bill merely expands welfare.
RECTOR: It does help support people who've lost their jobs, and that's a good thing, but it's not going to put more jobs back into the economy.
ROMANS: Steven Kyle, a professor of Economics at Cornell University disagrees, saying there's also a ripple effect.
STEVEN KYLE, ECONOMIST, CORNELL UNIVERSITY: Sure it's stimulating the economy. That food is produced here in the United States. That stimulates the US economy. Those farmers then end up with more money and they turn around and buy more equipment, hire more laborers, maybe they buy themselves a new Caterpillar tractor. Who knows?
CARLUCCI: I'm barely making it.
ROMANS: As for Robert Carlucci, the stimulus bill may not have given him a job, but it did keep him and his daughters, Samantha and Allison, from going hungry.
CARLUCCI: My kids have to eat. We all have to eat.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: And that's exactly what it was meant to do. $100 million of stimulus dollars for food companies helped, according to the government, create 195 jobs. That's according to the Department of Agriculture.
And a great update from Robert. After 13 months of looking for work, he got a new job. He, as we said, is a carpenter. He'll be working building log cabins. So, congratulations, Robert.
ROBERTS: Good for him!
ROMANS: We hope that's a sign that other people, after a long drought, are starting to find some work.
ROBERTS: You tried to talk to the food companies?
ROMANS: They did not want to talk to us, and I -- and I can't even tell you why. They wouldn't even give us reasons why. They just all said -- and these are household names. They said we are not going to comment about contracts for the food.
We talked to their employees, though, who said, yes, we heard -- we heard that there were -- there were some contracts, but they said that, you know, they'd been working on these -- on these contracts. Many of these things were done in the summer and the fall, quickly, to get the money into the food banks.
CHETRY: Still a shocking number, one in 10 families are this...
ROMANS: At least. Right. Yes. Thirty-eight million Americans on food stamps. That's right.
ROBERTS: Christine, thanks so much.
ROMANS: Sure.
ROBERTS: Great piece.
Tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, can a $5.5 million resort town restoration project be a good use of stimulus money? Find out why one woman is grateful that the government is spending that cash.
CHETRY: And also, coming up on "CAMPBELL BROWN," 8:00, is the stimulus working for average Americans? An exclusive interview with the man the president picked to oversee the stimulus.
ROBERTS: And then later, at 10:00, "AC 360" investigates why stimulus money is being wasted on unnecessary road signs.
"The Stimulus Project" all this week, only on CNN and at cnn.com/stimulus.
CHETRY: Well, next on the Most News in the Morning, he's best known for movie blockbusters. Now director Jonathan Demme wants to use his talents to help the people of Haiti.
Alina Cho had a chance to sit down with him. We're going to hear what he has to say about it.
Twenty-four minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Time now for an "AM Original", something that you'll see only on CNN.
Two weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the scenes of devastation are especially hard for one Hollywood filmmaker.
CHETRY: That's right. The people and the spirit of Haiti has been Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme's driving passion for more than 20 years. Our Alina Cho is here this morning with an "AM Original".
And, you know, people might not know of his deep connection to Haiti and how devastated he was after this earthquake.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. For more than two decades, you know, he's been to Haiti several times. Guys, Jonathan Demme says he does -- is best known for blockbusters like "Silence of the Lambs", "Philadelphia", but would you believe that he's also the man behind not one but two documentaries on Haiti? He has been to the country several times, and two weeks after the quake, Demme tells me he is still stunned.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHO (voice-over): Jonathan Demme has had a love affair with Haiti for more than 20 years, so when he heard about the earthquake, he wanted to help.
JONATHAN DEMME, ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR: I almost went last weekend. I almost -- I've got my shots, I've got -- get on a plane and going to go down. I'm going to help. What am I going to do?
CHO: The Academy Award-winning director's passion for Haiti came first through art, walking by a gallery in the mid-1980s.
DEMME: I was really kind of overwhelmed with the creativity of these paintings, the excitement of the music, and I thought, wow! Haiti! This is very interesting.
I bought a painting.
CHO: That eventually led him on a trip to Haiti to find more paintings. What he discovered was a country full of people as vibrant as their art.
It was 1986.
DEMME: It was an extraordinary moment in Haitian history because Jean-Claude Duvalier, the dictator for life, had been overthrown by a popular revolt, and I was so excited about the -- about this kind of this fervor for democracy.
CHO: So Demme made two documentaries on Haiti for the rest of the world to see what he saw as the Haitian spirit, including "The Agronomist", a story about Haiti's most famous journalist, founder of Radio Haiti International.
JEAN DOMINIQUE, HAITIAN JOURNALIST AND FOUNDER OF RADIO INTER: (SPEAKING IN HAITIAN).
CHO: Jean Dominique, a man who fought and gave his life in the pursuit of democracy.
DOMINIQUE: Risky business, because every information, even about the garbage in the street, was seen by the power as opposition.
DEMME: And he was brilliant at the microphone, and I thought, well, I can see why this guy is so popular, and in fact I would love to cast him in a movie.
DOMINIQUE: I am sure now that things will be better. CHO: While Demme reels at scenes of sheer devastation from Haiti, he also sees what he says is their true character.
DEMME: The resiliency of the Haitian people are going to keep them going, going to keep the country going, and I -- you know, I still absurdly have this -- this great belief that it's just not over for the Haitians.
CHO: Even in the midst of this tragedy, every night on the streets people are singing.
DEMME: Yes.
CHO: Were you surprised by that?
DEMME: I wasn't -- there's a moment of, my -- my God! They're -- they're singing! And then the next thing is, of course they're singing. That's -- again, that's the Haitian spirit. That's the beauty, the creativity, the spirituality, the depth of the Haitian spirit.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHO: Yes, it is. Jonathan Demme says he plans to go back to Haiti within the next six months to a year. His hope is to do another documentary on Haiti, and this time, it would be about how the Haitian people, guys, are recovering and rebuilding after the earthquake. You know, the one thing that he says as a filmmaker, the one thing he can do is bear witness.
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: Right.
CHO: And give a voice to people who don't normally have one.
ROBERTS: Interesting perspective. Alina, thanks so much.
CHO: You bet.
ROBERTS: We're crossing the half hour now. And that means it's time for this morning's top stories.
President Obama is telling ABC News that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has done a good job and has his strongest support. The president defended his pick amid concerns over whether Bernanke has enough Senate support to be confirmed to a second term. Bernanke supported the $787 billion stimulus last year.
And in just a few moments, we're going to check in with our T.J. Holmes. He's at the stimulus desk in Atlanta this morning to find out whether your tax dollars are helping Americans get jobs.
CHETRY: Thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder could soon get larger disability checks. The decision comes after a class action lawsuit claims that thousands of veterans were improperly denied benefits. Under the law, if a veteran is diagnosed with PTSD and discharged, the government must consider them at least 50 percent disabled and give them disability payments accordingly.
ROBERTS: Al Qaeda's leadership is patiently working to acquire weapons of mass destruction that could inflict widespread damage to the United States. That is the conclusion of a new report written by a former senior CIA official. He says the terrorist organization's top priority right now is to bring economic ruin to America.
CHETRY: Well, despite a massive response to help earthquake victims in Haiti, it is still not enough, and there still needs to be much more help to the people there.
Our next guest says the situation has gone from, quote, "pure catastrophe to simple chaos."
Dr. Mark Hyman just returned from Haiti. He's a volunteer for Partners in Health.
Dr. Hyman, great to talk to you this morning. You're in Chicopee, Massachusetts, now, back from Haiti.
But we talked to you last Thursday morning and you described a very difficult situation on the ground where you had few supplies, you were overwhelmed with patients, and then you talked about things seeming to turn around a bit.
Tell us how things improve and what the rest of your time in Haiti was like.
DR. MARK HYMAN, PARTNERS IN HEALTH: Well, it was really extraordinary to see the coming together of organizations and infrastructure. Within one week, we went from having a hospital that was completely shut down, to gathering together NGOs and volunteers from Partners in Health and other groups to build nine ORs, to get a supply chain going, to get food, water, electricity all up and running within a week, which is really a miracle.
But it's really just the tip of the iceberg because there are so many thousands out there in the communities, in the tent cities, who haven't made it yet to the hospitals, who are dying of gangrene, who are now getting tetanus now. It's two weeks out, and we're seeing the consequences of lack of care and lack of coordination community out there in the diaspora. The hospitals are all full, they're overflowing. There's nowhere to go them out of a hospitals in order for them to go, because there's no homes anymore. Their homes are piles of dust and rust and they have no food, they have no water, and they have no sanitation where they're going. If they go back to -- with dirty wounds to live in the tent cities, they're basically at risk for death and it's a very difficult situation.
CHETRY: Stinging op-eds out today, in particular, about this situation. A few of the doctors that went there, most specifically this New York Presbyterian Hospital group of trauma surgeons went with all of their equipment, everything. They talk about the delays being able to get on the ground. They talk about getting rerouted through the Dominican Republic, and once they were there, they said that the infrastructure was nonexistent.
Not only that, after finally treating some of these patients, they came back to, you know, check on them to find that many of them had sepsis because of the insanitary conditions there. And what they really called the travesty was no prioritization at the airport in terms of who needed to get where and why. In fact, one of the op-eds went as far as to call this Obama's Katrina.
What do you say about all the criticism being leveled at the coordination efforts in Haiti?
HYMAN: Well, I'm not sure it's President Obama's fault.
I think there was a lack of Haitian infrastructure to start with. So, this was a catastrophe upon a disaster upon a catastrophe. And so, we saw, really, the consequences of the lack of the infrastructure that was existing there in the first place. And the supply chains were not there. The transportation was not there, the fuel was not there, the coordination was not there, and this was a disaster of unimaginable proportions, that people were doing their best.
And I saw steady progress day after day after day, coordination with the government, coordination with NGOs, improvement, really, moment by moment, hour by hour. So, I think there's movement and progress.
But to me, the real concern is, in the long run, what's going to happen to these patients and the families who have severe injuries, who have trauma, who aren't able to get the care, who need prosthesis, who need rehab, who need treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, which is going to be an epidemic in the society. How are we going to deal with patients flooding out of Port-au-Prince who aren't able to get the care they need because there's a lack of infrastructure for the supply of food and water and medical supplies in these surrounding communities which are bearing the burden of people migrating out of the cities.
So, we're just seeing the beginning and I really want the world's focus to stay on Haiti, to stay on helping them rebuild their country and rebuild the medical care system -- which is really broken down there.
I met a medical student there who was at the general hospital, which is the main educational hospital for Haiti, and he asked President Clinton, who was there to help him, continue his education. I just got an e-mail from him begging me to help him connect with President Clinton and to continue his education so he can go back to Haiti and help his people.
He had nowhere to live. He was living in a hospital. He had no family anymore. Everybody was dead. They were trying to come together and pull this together. But it was very, very difficult.
CHETRY: You know, it's proving to be difficult. There was another op-ed that was written by a trauma surgeon over at Weill Cornell, who also went, and they said that there was just not the basic coordination and support taking place. One of the things they talked about was these warehouse-size quantities of unused medicine and food at the airport, and also, he, eyewitness, said hundreds of U.S. and international soldiers sort of standing around aimlessly while these roads needed to be cleared and sort of this coordination needed to take place.
Have you seen that change on the ground?
HYMAN: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I worked with General Keen and Colonel Gibson and the 82nd Airborne. When they came in to the general hospital, a day or two, they restored order to a chaos. There was no violence, it was just chaotic. They began bringing supply chain of food and water. They were transporting patients, were moving patients off to the USS Comfort.
And we had -- we had tremendous support and they were immensely helpful. And I think it's a basic lack of transportation, of trucks, of fuel, of just logistics, and it's communications -- just even basic communications were very difficult. The cell towers were down. There was -- radio communication was difficult, that occasional text and e- mailing which was very, very difficult communications.
CHETRY: And as you said, these are challenges that lie ahead for months, if not years to come, and hopefully, the focus will stay on improving the situation there for so many other survivors. Dr. Mark Hyman, thanks so much for joining us this morning.
HYMAN: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Still ahead on the Most News in the Morning, we continue our "Stimulus Project." It's day two and our T.J. Holmes is on the stimulus desk in Atlanta, digging deeper into where your money's going.
Good morning, T.J.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, guys.
Digging deep, and there's a lot to dig through, binders upon binders of thousands upon thousands of project that we are looking into to see if your stimulus money is being used for what they said it was going to be used for.
And coming up, we're looking into 58,000 projects, but why is one state in particular getting about 20 percent of those stimulus projects? Is that fair? We'll explain.
We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Forty minutes past the hour now.
And all this week, CNN is looking at the $787 billion stimulus plan. We're trying to track as much of it as we can so that you know where your tax dollars have gone or where they're going.
T.J. Holmes joins me now live. He is at stimulus desk in Atlanta, surrounded by binders, right? I'm sure you've been doing a lot of heavy reading as you try to find out where this money is going.
HOLMES: Well, it's interesting reading, quite frankly. But yes, these binders represent 58,000 projects that are going on around the country with this stimulus bill.
And if you'll notice here, you see these binders, all these little tabs there that you're seeing, you know, Kansas, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Kentucky, another binder here says Maryland through Minnesota. Another one at the bottom says Missouri through New Hampshire.
But if you look at this binder here, I've got one here that simply says "California." California gets its own binder. The reason it does is because California almost has its own stimulus bill, if you will. It's getting about 20 percent of all the stimulus projects. Some 58,000 we're keeping up with, 12,000 are going to the state of California.
Now, some people might scratch your head, why is that, why do they get so many? Well, it is the post populous state, so it kind of makes a little sense.
Let's go over to the map here for a second as well. And we are keeping up. This map, as I told you yesterday when we first started this, this shows all the current investigations, if you will, that we have going on with our stimulus desk. The green dots here show ones that we have actually gotten calls back and we've got answers to some of the questions we had about them.
So, let's talk about California again. I said they're getting most of the projects -- in particular, you'd guess the biggest city in the biggest state, Los Angeles, is getting the majority of those projects. They are getting $4.2 billion worth of stimulus money for about 1,600 projects.
So just this gives you an idea. We're certainly going to be looking more in depth at some of the projects in Los Angeles. But it's -- certainly, you got 50 states, why in the world 20 percent of the project going to one state. Well, it is the most populous by far, Los Angeles, the biggest city. That's just got to how it breaks down.
We're certainly just giving you, an example, just teeing it up for you here this morning, Kiran. We're certainly going to be looking more in depth at these projects in particular and find out exactly where that $787 billion is and also, where all these jobs are.
CHETRY: That's right. You know, the other funny thing -- I love your magic wall. You don't even have to touch it. You just wave your hands around it and it moves for you. How about that one?
HOLMES: Yes. No, that's a real --I'm the magic man.
CHETRY: I guess you are.
HOLMES: Some people need a magic wall. I'm just...
CHETRY: I guess you are.
HOLMES: Yes. All right, Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. T.J., we'll be checking with you in the next hour as well. Thanks so much -- John.
HOLMES: All right.
ROBERTS: Millions of federal stimulus dollars are going to community health centers across the country to help the insured, and underinsured get the health care that they can't afford. And in Los Angeles, our Thelma Gutierrez visited one where the money is making a difference.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is St. John's Community Clinic. The doors haven't even opened yet. Already, you can see dozens of people waiting to get in.
(on camera): We're about to show you how federal stimulus dollars will help community clinics like this serve a lot more people while at the same time attract world class physicians to work here.
(voice-over): Dr. Rishi Manchanda sees patients who are usually turned away. They're uninsured -- among some of the poorest in south Los Angeles.
(on camera): It's not easy to recruit doctors to work in community clinics like this. They work long hours, and they see lots of patients -- sometimes upwards of 25 a day. They can make less money, up to 40 percent less than doctors in private practice.
(voice-over): Dr. Manchanda could have gone to work anywhere else. He's a graduate of prestigious Tufts University.
(on camera): Life is a lot more challenging. Why would you do this?
DR. RISHI MANCHANDA, ST. JOHN'S CLINIC: I told myself that I would only go into medicine if I -- in pursue my life's dream. If I knew that it wouldn't, you know, break the bank for my parents, that it wouldn't rob their retirement money, and that it could also do something that was needed.
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): Rishi Manchanda, the son of Indian immigrants, knew he wanted to become a doctor. But his family didn't have the money to pay for medical school.
MANCHANDA: When was the last time we did a physical?
GUTIERREZ: So he signed a contract with the National Health Service Corps.
MANCHANDA: Breathe normal now.
GUTIERREZ: For every year, the government paid for his education, Manchanda is required to give a year back, working at an approved clinic like St. John's.
(on camera): Where would these people go if they couldn't come to see you?
MANCHANDA: The emergency room.
GUTIERREZ: The National Health Service Corps was awarded $300 million in stimulus money to help more than 3400 physicians, and health care professionals pay for their education. The fact that they have to give back to clinics like this makes recruitment of top notch people a whole lot easier.
JIM MANGIA, ST. JOHN'S CLINIC: It makes it more than easier, it makes it possible. It's almost impossible to find doctors.
GUTIERREZ: Dr. Vanessa Neal is one of those doctors. She is a graduate of John Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore. She says the program allowed her to start her career debt-free.
A lot of your colleagues who graduated from medical school, I assumed, were starting their career as $200,000 in debt. Was that a concern of yours?
DR. VANESSA NEAL, ST. JOHN'S CLINIC: Oh, definitely. I was really concerned about taking on that burden to myself as well as my parents.
GUTIERREZ: Now, she's free to work with the patients she feels needs her the most.
If you could not come to this clinic and see Dr. Neal, where would you go?
UNKNOWN FEMALE: I don't know. It's very difficult.
GUTIERREZ: Are you three? Four?
Dr. Neal and Dr. Mangia (ph) say even after they fulfilled their contracts with the government, they will stay on.
UNKNOWN MALE: Thanks.
GUTIERREZ: Half of everyone who goes through the program does.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: And tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, can a $5.5 million resort town restoration project be a good use of stimulus aid? Find out why one woman is grateful that the government is spending the money.
CHETRY: Coming up on Campbell Brown tonight at 8:00, is the stimulus working for average Americans? We get an exclusive interview with the man President Obama picked to oversee the entire stimulus plan.
ROBERTS: And later at 10:00, AC 360 investigates why stimulus money is being wasted on unnecessary road signs. The stimulus project, all this week only on CNN, and at cnn.com/stimulus.
CHETRY: All right. It's 47 minutes past the hour. Our Rob Marciano is in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, today. He is going to have a check of the morning's travel forecast eight after the break.
ROBERTS: And in ten minute's time, bashing their own brand. Jeanne Moos tells us why dominos wants everyone to know their pizza was bad.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 50 minutes past the hour. We get a check of the morning's weather headlines. Rob Marciano live in Steamboat Springs, Colorado this morning. Hey, Rob, you know, we had some wicked weather around this area. You had debris flying off buildings in lower Manhattan, and roads closed down in the outer areas. It was pretty crazy yesterday.
MARCIANO: Yes, I saw that on my way out here. That what kind of weather you, folks, out there across the northeast, so with flooding rains and the damaging winds in some spots. That storm beginning to roll off toward the north and east, so why we're here? The 21st Annual Weather Summit.
It's a conference I attend every winter, and it's a great opportunity to talk one-on-one with some of the leading scientists from around the world, and every year and even more so this year, one of the big topics, of course, is climate change, so that will be discussed today on various aspects of that, but I did track down one of the scientists who is going to speak today, and I asked him, you know, all the things that we're doing or have planned, can we even make a difference to combat climate change.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
A lot of people are wondering what we're doing and what we plan to do to combat climate change. Is it working, will it work?
UNKNOWN MALE: I think it's a very, very good question. Right now, I would say no, it isn't working. The climate is changing. It will continue to change. We're committed to some increase in temperature, we're committed to a decrease in precipitation. MARCIANO: Can we slow it?
UNKNOWN MALE: Can we slow it? Yes, we can slow it. I think there's always a possibility of slowing down climate change if we slow down the amount of greenhouse gas we put in the atmosphere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIANO (on-camera): Jim, along with other scientists, a little bit disappointed with what came out of Copenhagen, which isn't a whole lot, and also the IPCC of the latest bad PR from that tobacco over with the glaciers in the Himalayas, bad report going into the IPCC report there. We'll talk more about that in the next hour. You know, it was cold this past month, but the decade of the 2000, the first ten years of the 2000s was the warmest that we've ever seen.
All right. You're going to cool down across the northeast after the rains and the winds yesterday. Some snow behind it, but it shouldn't be a whole lot. It will slow down some travel in Chicago and more rain heading into parts of Southern California. They don't need to hear that, but I think, if they get through today, they should be all right, but tense times, there are an avalanche warnings up for the Sierra and for the Wasatch of Utah. That is the latest from here. I did sneak out to do some field research, Kiran, on Sunday, but yesterday was all work and no play.
CHETRY: Field research meaning hitting the slopes?
MARCIANO: Yes. Investigative reporting.
ROBERTS: I wanted to see Rob...
MARCIANO: Seeking the truth.
ROBERTS: I wanted to see a wider shot of the interview you just did there to see if you were wearing boots or ski boots
MARCIANO: No, no. All work yesterday, John, and we'll be here in about another hour.
ROBERTS: Okay, all right.
MARCIANO: I'll find out more about that stuff.
ROBERTS: And I have a sense, too, Rob, that all that snow in the Sierra might require a little closer investigation. What do you think?
MARCIANO: We'll try. You know, as you mentioned the word boondoggle, you can only afford one of those once a year, so we'll see if I can press it, but I'm not hoping for that.
ROBERTS: Thanks, Rob. Seven minutes now to the top of the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: It's four minutes before the top of the hour. That means it's time for the "Moost" News in the Morning. Domino's Pizza delivering a big neocopa (ph) in a new round of ad, but the pizza chain is apologizing for their old pies calling them terrible.
ROBERTS: So why would the company spend money to diss their own pizza? Because their chefs are promising a better slice with a brand new recipe, so our Jeanne Moos wanted to know have they really found pizza perfection. Here's what she found.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It may be the weirdest ad campaign ever. Domino's bashes itself.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Worst excuse for pizza I've ever had.
MOOS: It's either the worst or the best excuse for an ad campaign.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Domino's pizza crust, to me is like cardboard.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: The sauce tastes like ketchup.
MOOS: Domino's is dissing their old pizza; the one they've been selling us from nearly 50 years.
UNKNOWN MALE: There comes a time when you know you've got to make a change.
MOOS: Now Domino's has a new pizza and they say the only thing that's the same?
UNKNOWN MALE: It's still round.
MOOS: All that stuff about their old pizza tasting like cardboard.
UNKNOWN MALE: I mean that hit you right in the heart.
MOOS: Which prompted one critic to post what kills me is why does the guy who was the head chef in the Domino's commercial still have a job?
Stephen Colbert reviewed the new pizza.
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE COLBERT REPORT": Is that pizza? Or did an angel just gave birth in my mouth?
MOOS: Unloading the honesty of the ad campaign.
UNKNOWN MALE: Domino's old pizza's cheese did not taste good, had no aroma, was not cheese.
MOOS: But now they say...
UNKNOWN MALE: We got shredded cheese. Cheese. It's cheese.
MOOS: Imagine saying this about the pizza you've been selling forever.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Totally void of flavor.
MOOS: So how's the new stuff?
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Doesn't taste like cardboard.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: It's not gourmet pizza, but it's good pizza.
UNKNOWN MALE: I like the old one better.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Delicious.
UNKNOWN MALE: Kind of like you sucked, but now you're a little bit better, but you still suck, I think, sorry.
MOOS: Hey, don't tell honey that.
UNKNOWN MALE: An easy cardboard.
MOOS: But then honey likes cardboard.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: No!
MOOS: Wait, where are you going with that?
UNKNOWN FEMALE: I have a friend inside, she's hungry.
MOOS: You don't want the rest of it?
UNKNOWN MALE: No.
MOOS: One more bite. You got have another bite.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Oh, no. Thank you.
(LAUGHING)
UNKNOWN FEMALE: I'm kosher. I can go to hell because of that piece of pizza.
MOOS: Domino's marketing director says the new ad campaign shows...
UNKNOWN MALE: How much America embraces the truth.
MOOS: Yes, remember what they said about the old pizza before calling it cardboard.
And now the totally new and improved pie.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Buttery crust with some garlic.
MOOS: But sure had New Yorkers flocking to try it.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: I'm game. I'll try one if they fire one over here.
CHETRY: I liked it before, but I guess I'm not that picky.
ROBERTS: As long as we don't go to that place for eating it.
CHETRY: There you go. All right. It's two minutes to the top of the hour. We have your top stories in just a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)