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American Morning
ACORN "Pimp" Gets Busted For Spying on Senator; Looking Ahead to Tonight's State of the Union Address; How the Stimulus Money Helped; Haiti Earthquake Story
Aired January 27, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good Wednesday morning to you. It's January the 27th.
Thanks for joining us on the Most News in the Morning. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
We have some big stories we're telling you about in the next 15 minutes.
First, the man who posed as a pimp to catch the community organizing group ACORN in the act of breaking the law is now in some trouble of his own. He's accused of a plot to tamper with the phone lines in a senator's office, a federal building and a possible felony.
We're live in Washington with details and reaction.
ROBERTS: The president's first State of the Union Address is a high-stakes affair, and the success depends largely on how well he reconnects with an increasingly skeptical public.
Our White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux will be here to preview tonight's speech.
CHETRY: And all this week, we're looking at how billions of dollars in stimulus money is being spent. After all, it's your money and we found millions going to build a resort town's boardwalk. There's a split in the community, is it the best way to stimulate the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It doesn't make sense to me, the concept of using money to build this boardwalk when it was already functional.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God, no. I think it's the best thing that could have happened to not only for me but other residents that's living here in the community.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Our Christine Romans gets some answers and the facts. But, first, we have some new developments in an alleged scheme to infiltrate a senator's office and to tap her phone lines. It's the same man from the ACORN videos, the one who played the pimp, may have been also trying to spy on Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu along with three other men with conservative ties. And he may have went too far. He's now facing felony charges. Both the suspect and the senator are responding this morning.
Brianna Keilar is live in Washington. So explain what happened. It's pretty intriguing. Walk us through what happened.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You really can't make this stuff up, Kiran.
Two of the four men who were charged, according to the FBI, went in to the senator's office, in New Orleans, and they were posing as basically phone company repair technicians. They were dressed, according to an affidavit, as phone technicians, wearing work pants, work shirts. They even had reflective vests. They were holding hardhats. They held tool belts.
You can see them here in some video from one of our affiliates.
And they said there was something the matter with the phone. They were actually given access to the phone at the front desk of the office and they kind of fiddled with the phone. According to the FBI, they, quote, "manipulated" the phone and said that something was the matter with the overall office phone system.
During this time, there was a third man, James O'Keefe, who you see there, three over from the right, who was apparently videotaping or recording some of what was going on with the camera on his cell phone. He and a fourth man, Stan Dai, on the very right there, have been charged basically with assisting this operation, Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. So, walk us back through James O'Keefe and who exactly he is. We first heard from him when he shot the ACORN videos. He posed as a pimp. His girlfriend posed as a prostitute. They were asking for tax advice about running a brothel, among other things.
KEILAR: Yes. And they became really darlings of some conservatives who had long said that ACORN was a corrupt organization, because these videos really seem to make that point. They asked, and seemed to receive from ACORN employees, tax advice about running a brothel. That was last year.
And let's listen to what James O'Keefe said yesterday when a reporter from our affiliate WWL caught up with him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, WWL)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you have anything to say about the charges against you? Why were you in Senator Landrieu's office?
JAMES O'KEEFE, CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST: The truth shall set me free.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: And what's interesting, Kiran, is, he's not the only person really that seems to be of note involved in this. One of the men, Robert Flanagan, who was actually dressed as, according to the FBI, a phone company technician -- he is the son of an acting U.S. attorney from the western district of Louisiana.
CHETRY: And how did they get caught?
KEILAR: It seems that -- you know, you can't tell whether or not from the affidavit the senator's office staff was suspicious, but it seems they were told that they need to talk to the building staff. Because remember, this is a federal building where the senator has her office. It's not just her office.
And while these guys were talking to the building staff, that's when they were asked for their credentials. It seems their story unraveled from there. The FBI got involved. And now, they're facing some pretty serious felony charges.
CHETRY: Right. And so, you heard him say, "The truth will set me free," James O'Keefe. But is anybody else talking or speculating about what the motivation was here, why Senator Landrieu's office?
KEILAR: We don't know what the motive is. And, you know, it's kind of interesting because she's not up for re-election. This is going to be, of course, a very hotly-contested mid-term election year. She's not up for re-election until 2014.
We just don't know the answer but we do want to know, of course, Kiran.
CHETRY: Yes. Certainly, an intriguing story.
Brianna Keilar for us this morning -- thanks.
ROBERTS: Also new this morning, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies conducting secret joint operations with Yemen's military to root out suspected terrorists. "The Washington Post" reports that six of the top 15 al Qaeda leaders in the region have been killed in operations that started six weeks ago. American advisors are reportedly helping plan missions and providing highly sensitive intelligence.
And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will miss President Obama's State of the Union address tonight. Today, she's in London meeting with leaders about the threat of al Qaeda in Yemen, then tomorrow, a conference on Afghanistan. Leaders are trying to help Afghan forces take over security in their country. Then on Friday, Secretary Clinton heads to Paris to give a speech on European security and to discuss relief efforts in Haiti.
CHETRY: Speaking of Haiti, it's a tragedy on top of the tragedy. Heartbreaking scenes of chaos on the streets where starving survivors were crushed and trampled yesterday in a desperate battle to get food. You can see U.N. peacekeepers firing pepper spray to hold back thousands. People are trying to shield their eyes but still pushing forward because they're starving.
They charged a barrier at a food distribution center in downtown Port-au-Prince where thousands of people left hungry, many of them saying they've only eaten about once every three days since the quake struck over two weeks ago. And these scenes, of course, are in stark contrast with the millions and millions of dollars being put into the country, food aid and others. And still, we see obvious problems with distribution.
ROBERTS: Toyota is ordering dealerships across the country to stop selling eight of its models immediately. That includes the Camry, the top-selling car in America. A problem with sticking gas pedals means that these vehicles are not for sale right now: the RAV4, the Corolla, some Camrys, Avalon, Matrix, Highlander, Tundra and Sequoia. Halting sales at this level is unprecedented in the auto industry.
Many analysts say Toyota could take a very big hit if it doesn't carefully navigate this troubling safety issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now that they have basically acknowledged this problem that sort of been festering for about six months, publicly, anyway, going back to last fall. Will he solve it once and for all and take care of everybody affected by it? Or will this just continue to be a problem that percolates a long time? And I think, how they handle it from here on out is going to determine whether this is a total unmitigated disaster or whether they recover from it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The eight models affected make up 57 percent of Toyota's total sales. The carmaker has also ordered several of its plants to halt production next week while it searches for a fix.
CHETRY: And our Jacqui Jeras has been following extreme weather for us this morning. At 6 1/2 minutes past the hour, we check in with her now.
And, boy, temperatures are certainly dipping in many parts of the country.
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I know. We've kind of been getting spoiled with the latest pacific storms because they've been so warm and we've had temperatures above average, even though it's been lousy and wet. But this time around, we're looking at a real winter wallop. Arctic air is coming in from the north and that's going to meet up with a lot of moisture that's in the southwest right now, and that's going to be one big mess in the southern plain states by tomorrow.
Today, the Four Corners is getting the worst of the weather. We'll also have that cold air moving through the Great Lakes, which means we'll have those lake effect snow showers for today. The rest of the country is going to be pretty benign, but by late tonight, into tomorrow, we'll watch the stage here being set for a major ice storm across parts of Oklahoma City through Tulsa and Fayetteville, Arkansas, we think will be hit the worse.
We'll have more on this latest winter storm heading for the southern plains coming up before the end of the hour.
John and Kiran, back to you.
ROBERTS: All right, Jacqui, looking forward to it. We'll see you soon.
Well, this is the video that you've just got to see today. A high school basketball coach at Kansas figured that he was about to be the butt of some kind of a joke. He was blindfolded at a pep rally and told that he'd win tickets to the final four if he could sink a half-court shot. But, boy, did he have the last laugh.
Watch this.
(VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: And the crowd goes wild. Wow, blindfolded. He spun around, too, before he got the shot off. And then, boom, there it is, swish. Everybody, obviously, was caught off-guard you see, because there were no tickets to the final four.
Now, his team says they're going to come up with something.
CHETRY: When they were planning on tricking him, cheering even after he missed to make him think he made it. Then he really made it and the kids just went crazy.
ROBERTS: Well, you know, they didn't have the tickets. Maybe -- I don't know -- maybe the NCAA will step up here and give him a pair of tickets.
CHETRY: They should, right?
ROBERTS: Maybe CBS, that carries the tournament, could find him a couple of tickets somewhere. I'm just saying.
CHETRY: I mean, it was an amazing shot. Maybe they should think about trying to get him to play in the final four? Forget just going.
Good job. Well, pretty amazing.
All right. Well, still ahead, President Obama's State of the Union address, what does he need to say to ease the fears of a jittery nation as we look at the economic turmoil continuing? We're going to talk about that coming up.
It's nine minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
Checking the big political headlines before the president's State of the Union address tonight. CNN has learned that during the speech, President Obama will announce a salary freeze for top White House officials and other political appointees in his administration. Senior officials also say the president will announce that he is ending bonuses for all his political appointees, and that a major theme of tonight's speech is going to be fiscal discipline.
CHETRY: There you go. Well, South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson is promising that he's going to be on his best behavior tonight. You may recall that he shouted "You lie" during the president's last speech to Congress in September. Wilson says he assured colleagues that there won't be another outburst. The Republican, though, will be giving his own video response to the State of the Union on Facebook.
ROBERTS: The political stakes, certainly, could not be any higher tonight for President Obama as he tries to regain the support of frustrated voters. Our Suzanne Malveaux spoke to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs this morning about the State of the Union address and she's here now to tell us more about that.
So, what will the president say?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think we'll all be looking for those moments, those unexpected moments at the State of the Union address.
But one of the things that is quite expected is -- obviously, he's going to be talking about fiscal discipline. He is also going to be relating some -- not controversial proposals about how do you help with tax credits for child care, student loan payments, even a $4 billion boost for education programs. These are the kinds of things that he's going to highlight.
But one thing that was refreshing during the campaign was that a campaign Obama, as a candidate, talked about, if he made mistakes, that he would acknowledge them. And I asked Robert Gibbs were there some lessons learned from this first year that the president will address.
Here's how he responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: If the president acknowledged and this team acknowledged all the mistakes we've made in the first year, we'd have to ask you guys for far more time than we've asked you for to deliver this speech. What I think the president is going to spend about two-thirds of his time on the speech tonight is walking the American people through his plans to get our economy further back on track, to outline plans for small businesses, to begin hiring workers again, to make retirements more secure and college more affordable. I think those are the topic that the president will spend the most time on tonight.
I think he will talk about the fact that he wishes that we could get two political parties to work better with each other, to solve the problems of the American people. We don't have a choice, Suzanne, but to do that. We now have 59 votes in the Senate, the Democrats do, which means the Republicans are part of the -- they are responsible now for part of governing this country in a way they might not have been before. And I think we'll see how that changes some actions on Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: So, it's really going to be a balance when you listen to Robert Gibbs. He's talking about -- obviously, the president is going to be humble in his message. He is going to take responsibility for some missteps.
But he's clearly -- squarely putting part of the blame -- or the credit, if you will -- on the Republicans, saying, "This is your responsibility now. Democrats don't have a supermajority, so you guys have to be involved in the business of governing here. If you say you want Americans to do better economically, then join in the debate, we're willing to listen."
CHETRY: The other thing he has to straddle as well, as you said, he's going to talk about programs that are not necessarily controversial, spending more money for college, tax credits, and for helping Wall Street -- I mean, Main Street, not Wall Street. But at the same time, he has to look like he's being fiscally conservative, because, you know, a lot of people are upset about the spending.
So, how does he do both?
MALVEAUX: Sure. And obviously, he's going to be talking about the spending freeze and we know that he's going to be talking about the highest levels, top advisors. You guys are not going to be getting raises necessarily. You know, we're all in this thing together.
But one of the main messages here -- because they look at those poll numbers and they see the inspiration, the hope, many of his approval rating dipping by 20 point -- is that they want people to get the sense that not only can you believe in this president, but you can believe in the government. That the government has a role, a very significant role, and that despite the fact that there are big, big problems ahead, that the president understands and knows this.
I want you to take a listen on how Gibbs responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: when the President outlines what he inherited when he came into office, that's not blame. Unfortunately, that's reality. If you were unemployed when the President came in to office, your situation doesn't change just because one different man puts his hand on the bible. The actions of this President, we believe, are putting people back to work and getting our economy moving again. That's what the focus of this speech will be tonight. That's what the President has been focused on each and every day he's been in office.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: So don't be surprised if you hear him talking about, look, I inherited these problems, these two wars, this bad economy, but I still get it and we still have to move forward, we still have to come up with some solutions.
ROBERTS: The polls show that the public is certainly skeptical. You know we've got a new CNN/opinion research corporation poll 50 percent say they disapprove of the President's job rating. But you've learned something new the white house may be trying this year?
MALVEAUX: Well you think Joe Wilson is going to weigh in on Facebook? The White House is doing something completely different. They are offering, they are inviting people after you take a listen to the State of the Union address, go to YouTube, post some questions ask the President questions about the State of the Union address and that the President, they say will get back to them next week, in about a week or so. He's going to respond. It's going to be a special live event from the White House, an online kind of chat. They will select those questions they decide to answer but people can get directly involved in what they want to know that this President is doing.
CHETRY: Very interesting. It will be interesting how they decide.
MALVEAUX: Oh yes.
CHETRY: Which one do you think?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Just one other point. Where Gibbs said we've made so many mistakes it would take more than the time we have for the State of the Union to talk about them all, was he just being flip?
MALVEAUX: You know, I don't think he was just being flip. I think the President is going to acknowledge one thing he's said before, look, I could have done a better job in bringing Republicans and Democrats together, but this is not a bipartisan town, change is not happening in Washington. He's been very frustrated that it hasn't happened at the pace he would like to and that he is partly responsible for that.
ROBERTS: Suzanne thanks.
MALVEAUX: Sure.
CHETRY: CNN of course will be carrying the President's State of the Union address live tonight. Prime time coverage starts 8:00 eastern with the best political team on television. ROBERTS: With your tax dollars put to work in the stimulus plan, but to repair a boardwalk? Will that really help? our Christine Romans digging deeper on this. She's got that report coming right up. Coming up on 18 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Its 20 minutes past the hour right now. You know this week we are devoting much of our air time to the stimulus project; it's a plan that's a whole lot more expensive this morning in fact.
Yesterday the congressional budget office actually revised the cost of the stimulus from $787 billion to $862 billion. The main reason is because it increased spending on food stamps and unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, a sign of the times right now with more people relying on them to get by. Well now the plan is designed to help put Americans most deserving back to work but a lot of you are skeptical when it comes to the stimulus. There is a new CNN/opinion research poll finding a majority, 54 percent, say it is actually helping bankers and investors. 23 percent feel that it has hurt them, and 22 percent saying it had no effect.
ROBERTS: And for the White House, there is clearly a problem of perception. Christine Romans joins us now. Christine, you are looking at where some of the money is going this morning. Three areas in particular?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know there's just massive amount of money going out the door. And we found many, many even small towns you guys that had multiple stimulus projects. Sometimes a very big project right next door to a very small one. Here's Grands, New Mexico, this is about 75 miles from Albuquerque. Here's their big project, $3.91 million to clean up some waste water. An environmental clean up there in grants, New Mexico. Here's the little one also in this town, 20 grand about $20,500 for early intervention programs for babies and children, toddlers with learning disabilities.
You look at Rhinelander, learning delays. If you look at Rhinelander, Wisconsin, also a very big project here, $16 million for a waste water treatment plan for a city, a brand new one going to build that. And then just shy of $200,000 to renovate a U.S. forest service office. So $196,000 for that one right there in the same town.
And then here in Rehoboth beach in Delaware. We found one multi- million dollar project and another more modest program both making a difference for one woman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: How long have you lived here?
ELEANOR WHALEY, WEST REHOBOTH RESIDENT: About 20 -- about 20, 25 years. ROMANS (voice-over): Eleanor Whaley lives in West Rehoboth, Delaware where most people make less than $20,000 a year and some homes have no running water. Whaley thankfully does, but after her bathtub cracked a couple years ago it leaked water and ruined her insulation.
WHALEY: And my husband tried to fix it up, paint it up or whatever. But as the water came down it ruined all of that.
ROMANS (on camera): So the hot air in the house just goes out.
(voice-over): It took $230 a month to heat her small home but today her bathroom has been repaired and her bill is down $40, all thanks to your stimulus money. Whaley is vice president of the West Rehoboth community land trust and helped get a $130,000 stimulus grant to weatherize homes here. It's also training residents to do the work themselves.
RICHARD LEGATSKI, WEST REHOBOTH COMMUNITY LAND TRUST: A stimulus in the terms of giving people a better standard of living and hopefully it will actually put some people into the economy on long- term basis.
ROMANS: But this isn't the only stimulus program helping out Whaley and her neighbors. Just two miles down the road, Rehoboth beach, a summer resort for Washington's elite. It may be the dead of winter but the beach is hopping with construction workers rebuilding the town's boardwalk with $5.5 million of stimulus dollars.
ROMANS (on camera): This project wouldn't be happening right now without the federal stimulus dollars.
STAN MILLS, COMMISSIONER, CITY OF REHOBOTH BEACH: Absolutely, meaning there would be no workers here, there would be no workers potentially even getting paychecks.
ROMANS (voice over): City commissioner Stan Mills says the boardwalk, parts of it more than 50 years old, was in bad shape.
(on camera): So when you heard about the stimulus project you immediately thought, we have a shovel-ready project just waiting for federal dollars. We can put people to work right away.
MILLS: Absolutely.
ROMANS (voice-over): Mills says besides creating jobs now, a new boardwalk will mean more tourists this summer. But stimulus dollars for tourism? The project landed on a Republican list of wasteful projects and a local citizen, a Democrat, staged a small protest.
ANGEL CLARK, REHOBOTH BEACH RESORT: It doesn't make sense to me. The concept of using money to build this boardwalk when it was already functional.
ROMANS: But back across town, Eleanor Whaley says the boardwalk project is important for her livelihood. She works in the resort town, like many of her neighbors, and depends on tourism.
(on camera): Some people say this whole stimulus thing is a waste. This isn't a waste for you.
WHALEY: Oh, God, no. I think it is the best thing that could have happened not only for me but other residents that's living here in the community.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: Eleanor Whaley has been benefiting from both of these projects, the big one and the small one. Her home is about to get new windows. She's getting job experience and she works summers on the boardwalk.
Now the cost to rebuild this boardwalk in Rehoboth beach, over $5.5 million. The Delaware department of transportation tells us that will create the equivalent of 31 full-time jobs. And the west Rehoboth weatherization and training project costs $130,000 and created one full-time job.
ROBERTS: Interesting, we were talking while your piece was running about the fact that she probably wouldn't have qualified for this weatherization money if a church hadn't stepped in to help her.
ROMANS: Because the federal stimulus dollars couldn't buy the tubs to replace her -- bathtubs that were leaking and destroying the insulation and making her home basically just pump out the hot air. So a church stepped in and said we'll buy the tub - a church group. We'll buy the tubs so the federal stimulus dollar can do the renovation and the construction and buy the insulation and do all that. It was a public-private partnership in the end.
CHETRY: That's right, very interesting, a lot of creativity at work finding a way to make that happen so that the improvements could happen. Good for her.
ROMANS: Well it was the rules too to make sure...
ROBERTS: Yes.
ROMANS: That we don't take advantage.
ROBERTS: Lot of fine print there.
ROMANS: And if there wasn't we would be saying, look, someone remodeled...
CHETRY: Exactly. Exactly.
ROMANS: Their kitchen with what was supposed to be a weatherization project.
CHETRY: Christine thank you.
ROBERTS: Tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, a bridge built to make residents safe but why are folks in one small town calling that complete waste of their money? And you can get more in-depth information on everything we have uncovered by going to cnn.com/stimulus.
On the stimulus, the White House responds. Jared Bernstein, the chief economist and economic policy advisor to Vice President Joe Biden coming up next. We'll ask him about the budget freeze the president will propose tonight. 26 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It's 28 1/2 minutes after the hour. That means it is time for an "A.M. Original" something that you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING.
Two weeks ago when the earthquake struck in Port-Au-Prince crumbled, an accomplished violinist and Juilliard graduate named Romel Joseph found himself trapped beneath tons of concrete rubble. The school where he taught music to the children in Haiti had collapsed all around him.
CHETRY: And Joseph is blind but on that devastating morning - ever more clear John Zarrella has a story of his symphony in the rubble.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: Middle school students came to the hospital to play. They sensed music could ease his pain.
Romel Joseph's fingers on his left hand are shattered, his legs crushed. His grave is what he calls the rubble where he was entombed. When the quake hit he was on the third floor. Suddenly, there was no floor.
ROMEL JOSEPH, MUSIC TEACHER: I was just lying there very peacefully down there and like what happened? Okay. I always have bad dreams, let me wake up. And then I was trying to wake up and I couldn't wake up. I said it's real life.
ZARRELLA: Almost completely blind, Joseph a renowned violinist laid buried here in the fractured concrete, all that is left of his new Victorian school where Haitian children learned the joy of classical music.
None were there that day but for 18 hours Joseph lay pinned. He talked first to god.
JOSEPH: If you're really here, I really hot. I need some cool air. And believe it, the next thing I knew some cool air got in.
ZARRELLA: Then he turned to music. As if detaching his mind from his broken body, Joseph began recounting every violin concerto he had ever performed. He could see the moment -- every symphony hall, every auditorium.
ROMEL JOSEPH: Walking on stage, everyone there, full hall, and you start playing.
ZARRELLA: First Tchaikovsky. Each hour he picked another, the longer the better.
ROMEL JOSEPH: I know I picked the Brahm's, I picked several.
ZARRELLA: I guess it is a good thing you knew a lot.
ROMEL JOSEPH: Yes, I know a lot of concertos for a violin. I look for the long one.
ZARRELLA: It's a good thing.
His spirits are just unbelievably high.
VICTORIA JOSEPH, DAUGHTER: Surprisingly considering what he's been through.
ZARRELLA: It was Thursday after the quake when Victoria found out her dad was alive. Victoria's stepmother has not been found.
VICTORIA JOSEPH: He's definitely not dealing with it until he sees firsthand whether or not because part of him truly believes she still might be out there.
ZARRELLA: Doctors are not sure Joseph will ever be able to play his violin again. He says he will.
ROMEL JOSEPH: I have to play so that they can hear what I want them to play.
ZARRELLA: How else can he teach the children when he rebuilds?
John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Just amazing. And keep it right here because later on this morning in the 10:00 hour we're going to have Renal Joseph on live from his hospital bed in Haiti. We're going to check in on him and see how he's doing only on CNN.
ROBERTS: Looking forward to what.
Crossing the half-hour, checking our top stories -- tensions running high on the Korean peninsula. South Korea on high military alert after trading artillery fire with North Korea near their disputed sea border earlier today. The tense standoff comes a day after North Korea declared a no-sail zone in the disputed area of the Yellow Sea.
CHETRY: And four men have been charged with attempting to tap the phones in Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu's district office. The most well-known of the suspects is James O'Keefe. He's the same man who posed as a pimp in the undercover ACORN videos. If convicted, the men could each face a fine of $250,000 and up to ten years in prison. ROBERTS: And weeks after the White House complained about it, today outerwear company Weatherproof is finally taking down this billboard in Times Square. Weatherproof bought this picture of the president from the Associated Press but never got the White House's permission to use it in an advertisement.
Now Weatherproof says they want to replace the billboard using one with an image of Sarah Palin. No word on whether Palin is going to agree to that.
All this week our stimulus project is keeping tabs on where all that money is going. In his state of the union speech tonight, President Obama will address voter anger about run-away spending, proposing a federal budget freeze for three hours -- for three years, rather. Three hours wouldn't do a whole lot, would it?
The idea is drawing sharp criticism. Joining us now from the White House to talk about that and more, Jared Bernstein, he's the chief economist and economic policy advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. Jared, good to see you this morning. Thanks for joining us.
JARED BERNSTEIN, CHIEF ECONOMIST AND ECONOMIC ADVISER TO V.P. BIDEN: Thank you.
ROBERTS: I just want to rewind a couple of moments from the 2008 campaign. When Senator John McCain posed a very similar freeze, and run with the then-candidate Barack Obama had to say about it. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.
That's an example of an unfair burden-share. That's using a hatchet to cut the federal budget. I want to use a scalpel.
An across the board spending freeze is a hatchet, and we do need a scalpel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So Jared, has the president decided he might have a scalpel somewhere in his office, but he also needs to employ a hatchet here?
BERNSTEIN: Not at all. The key words there, John, are "across the board." The freeze that they were arguing about back in the campaign was one where the president's opponent proposed an across- the-board freeze, meaning everything gets cut by the same percentage -- three percent or four percent, no programs go up, everything goes down.
That's not what this president is talking about. Remember, his key, number one agenda right now for this economy are jobs for the middle class. And everything that compliments that agenda, along with energy, education, health care, those parts of the discretionary budget will be held neutral, many may even come up. Others will go down.
And the point of a scalpel approach is that you can go after the special interests, the dollars in the budget that are impenetrable because lobbyists surround them and protect them. This president is going to finally go after those while boosting the parts that help the middle class and jobs.
ROBERTS: Obviously you're getting a lot of political reaction from this, but let's take a look at what some noted economists are saying.
Jeff Sachs from Columbia University says "The freeze is a terrible idea," suggests that the administration is swinging wildly between opening the spigot of stimulus money then drying up the budget. Basically he told yesterday, it looks like you don't know what the heck you're doing.
Paul Krugman, who is a Nobel Prize winning economist, said "It's appalling on every level." And Robert Reich, former labor secretary, said "Chalk up another win for Wall Street, another loss for Main Street." What do you say about that?
BERNSTEIN: I think you have to appreciate the dual imperatives that this White House faces. It's easy to cast aspersions from the outside. But you know as well as I do, and I suspect all of your viewers do as well, there are two things we have to focus on -- there are a lot of things, but two in this particular debate.
One is the immediate imperative, what Krugman, by the way, would call the "Keynesian imperative," of making sure that we are focused with great urgency on bringing that unemployment rate down. And that's something that's you'll hear the president talk about tonight. He's going to urge the Congress to make sure a jobs package gets to his desk quickly.
In the longer term, we have to make sure that we get this budget deficit down to a sustainable level. Now, this freeze, by the way, doesn't start until 2011. It's only on a portion of the budget. And it exempts, by the way, emergency spending targeted at the first problem I mentioned, that is, spending that's temporary, geared at boosting jobs and incomes for America's middle class. That's not part of this freeze.
So I think some of those folks need to take a closer look at the weeds of what we're talking about here.
ROBERTS: All right, Jared Bernstein, good to talk to you this morning. Thanks for joining us.
BERNSTEIN: My pleasure, John.
ROBERTS: Kiran?
CHETRY: Well, it was great to hear from him, the White House weighing in now. But have they done enough to get the economy back on track?
Let's bring in our money panel to go over some of what was just outlined, Chrystia Freeland, managing editor of the "Financial Times" for the U.S., also Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, and also our own Christine Romans. Thanks to all of you being here.
Christine, first, let's get a handle on what exactly we are talking about when we talk about that small chunk of the budget, cutting the discretionary spending.
ROMANS: We are talking about one-sixth of the federal budget. If you look at the big pie chart which is how much money we spend, you can see just what size those programs are. It is about $447 billion of spending.
A key to point out here, that it's not an across-the-board cap on the discretionary spending part of it. It's jobs, education, just as Jared Bernstein said. Those could go up, spending in those would go up, but that would mean that spending somewhere else would have to come down.
CHETRY: But so that's interesting, Chrystia, because that's sort of a mixed message, saying that we understand that Americans have to live within their budget. We're going to try to rein in our budget.
But he's going to outline federal programs tonight that cost money. Even if they help the middle class or even if there is a tax credit for somebody going to school, it still costs money.
CHRYSTIA FREELAND, MANAGING EDITOR, "FINANCIAL TIMES": Right. But I do think that does speak to the scalpel point which candidate Obama was making ahead of the election which we just saw those great clips. He was saying then I don't believe in an across-the-board cut. I believe in taking a scalpel. So he's being consistent with that.
I think the bigger inconsistence, which can be hard for people to grapple with, is this notion that right now today the government is still focused on trying to stimulate the economy, on trying to create more jobs, but it's still signaling for the future, because discretionary spending cut that it's talking about isn't for right now, it is for the future. It's signaling for the future that it is going to be focused on the deficit.
And that is a very complicated message, but it is a necessary message, because right now while the economy is still not growing robustly, the government does need to stimulate it, but it needs to be conscious, and that if the debt isn't reined in by 2020, interest payments alone will be higher than all spending apart from defense.
LAKSHMAN ACHUTHAN, ECONOMIC ANALYST: It is really a perception thing. As we are all agreeing, even if you get numbers they're saying, it is infinitesimal compared to other numbers. It really doesn't mean anything. So this is really something about perceptions here and trying to carve these perceptions, do a little bit of a pivot on these perceptions. But the bigger problem was set up at the beginning of all this effort to fix the -- "fix" the economy, because that's an illusion. Fiscal policy is not going to be able to make the economy better, turn it around on a dime. The economy is really running to the tune of the business cycle.
These fiscal packages, anything that's announced today or tomorrow, will not impact this economy any time soon. Fiscal ideas can lay the playing field in five or ten years. They're not going to do anything here and now.
And already, by the way, this economy is shooting up. We've had a 10 percent increase in the growth rate of GDP since a year ago. It was minus six. Now it is plus four or five. Jobs are coming in behind that anyway.
CHETRY: We're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about why there is still is a disconnect. The economy's growing, so is unemployment, unfortunately. We're going to take a quick break and be back with our panel. It's 40 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 42 minutes past the hour. We're back with our economics panel right now, Chrystia Freeland, Christine Romans, and Lakshman Achuthan with us.
And one final point I would like all of you to make as we head to talking more about what we expect out of the state of the union. And Christine, your point was, you got to start somewhere. You're not going to please everybody.
ROMANS: On a spending freeze. And he's going to get nailed by liberals who will say how dare you talk about a spending freeze when we need to stimulate the economy and he's going to get nailed by conservatives who are going to say we're spending like drunken sailors and this president has spent more than how many presidents ahead of him.
Christine had a statistic that frankly makes my blood run cold. That's for the year 20 we'll spend more to service our debt than on domestic programs. That means we lose control of our destiny. The president knows this, the Democrats know this. It is not far away. It is out there.
FREELAND: It is like you let your credit card bill get out of control and you find you're paying more to your credit card company for nothing, just for those interest payments.
CHETRY: And You say you see a national sales tax in our future.
FREELAND: What the president is not talking about right now and what I think America will be politically allergic to but what a lot of economists think is inevitable to deal with this mounting debt is going to be a national sales tax. CHETRY: And the other interesting thing that we've been talking about as we try to find solutions to all of this and figure out where we are is how much control does one man have, meaning the president? How much control does very to create jobs and to rescue the economy?
ACHUTHAN: He doesn't have very much, in the short term in particular. Over the longer term, say three, four, five years and the out years, the president can set the agenda and try to work with Congress to set a playing field for the country that far out.
Right here, right now, if you're looking for something in 2010 or 2011, forget it. Washington's not going to give it to you, unless it is like a bailout to get you through the next month. They're not going to change the direction of the economy or the pace of growth. They cannot do that. The business cycle is gargantuan. It dwarves the power of Washington.
I think we'd like to think Washington has some control. It makes us feel better. But the truth is, on this count, they really don't.
CHETRY: We'll all be watching tonight to see what the president says. Thanks all of you for being here.
And tomorrow on AMERICA MORNING, a bridge built to make residents safer but some folks in one small town are saying it's a complete waste of their money. It's more in-depth information on everything stimulus that we've uncovered. You can go to CNN.com/stimulus -- John.
ROBERTS: A messy winter storm in the south of the country. Some travel delays expected there as well. We've got a lot of cold weather moving in to the plains and the Midwest.
Forty-five minutes after the hour.
Jacqui Jeras has got your weather forecast coming right up.
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ROBERTS: There is a lovely picture this morning; the sun coming up over the mile-high city, Denver, where it's partly cloudy and 27 right now. Later on today, though, unfortunately, the clouds are going to move in, it's going to be mostly cloudy with a high of 44.
CHETRY: One of my favorite songs, by the way...
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: ...by good old Ozzie.
ROBERTS: That's nice yes. We'll talk to him later on today and we'll be airing that for you on Friday. Ozzy Osbourne has got a new autobiography that's out; a very colorful one in fact.
CHETRY: I was going to say, that thing's probably this big. And he has a lot to talk about. ROBERTS: We'll also show you a surprise too when I interviewed Ozzy Osbourne in 1985 in Rio de Janeiro.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: Meantime though, Jacqui Jeras is checking on the weather forecast. She joins us now from Atlanta.
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: Well, still ahead, we're talking about how Haitian medical schools were destroyed in the earthquake. And Dr. Gupta talks to one med student in particular about what this means for his future.
It's 50 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 53 minutes past the hour.
Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning. It's time for your "AM House Call" now and in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, it's become painfully clear just how desperate the country is for doctors. In fact, for every physician in the country, there are more than 4,500 potential patients.
ROBERTS: And to make matters worse many medical schools have now been destroyed. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta talked with two medical students who are facing tough choices and an uncertain future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): So you would have been in class that day, but you weren't. If you had been in class, I think everybody probably would have died.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes.
GUPTA (voice-over): But they very much lived and now they have all the vitality of youth. Ricardo and Paul-Robert, they're best friends. They have matching bags, inseparable. Now they're on their way to being Haiti's future healers.
(on camera): The way it works is you go to primary school, then you go to secondary school and then the very best students of all go to medical school for seven years.
Paul Robert was in his fifth year. He was this close to being the first person in his family to ever becoming a doctor when this all happened.
That's where you used to sit?
PAUL-ROBERT DERENONCOURT, MEDICAL STUDENT: Yes.
GUPTA: Right over there? DERENONCOURT: Over there, in the other side.
GUPTA: When you look at your school now, what are you going to do? What is your plan?
DERENONCOURT: When I see my medical school cut up, it's a very bad thing for us.
GUPTA: What type of doctor do you want to be?
DERENONCOURT: I want to be a radiologist.
GUPTA (voice-over): He would be one of fewer than 2,000 doctors in the entire country of nine million people.
(on camera): So that's the only thing that's still standing is the front wall over there.
DERENONCOURT: Yes, the only thing standing.
GUPTA (voice-over): Many would look at Paul Robert and say he's lucky. His mother survived the earth quake, his siblings as well. But now it is his very future that hangs in the balance.
(on camera): So what will you do, what are you going to do next year? What are you going to do the year after that?
DERENONCOURT: First of all I will spend some of my time to search about what can I do for the school in our country.
GUPTA: So you're saying many of the medical schools here in Haiti are destroyed or broken?
DERENONCOURT: Yes.
GUPTA: So you may have to leave your country?
DERENONCOURT: Maybe, I don't know.
GUPTA (voice-over): That's pretty bad news considering how poor medicine was to begin with here in Haiti.
(on camera): And here's a number that sort surprised me. Even under typical circumstances, Haiti only graduates 80 medical doctors a year, every single year. Think about that -- in a country of 9 million people, giving Haiti one of the lowest physician-to-patient ratios anywhere in the world. And with this, obviously those numbers get a lot worse.
(voice-over): But for the time being, there is a lot of compassion here, doctors from all over the world come to help.
(on camera): What happens when they leave?
DERENONCOURT: If they leave, I think it will be very difficult for us. GUPTA (voice-over): But what we know is eventually Haiti's medical care and really Haiti's future will fall squarely on the shoulders of these kids, kids like Ricardo and Paul-Robert.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Sanjay, thanks.
Well, he doesn't have the star power of George Clooney or the connections of Wyclef Jean but you're going to meet 7-year-old Charlie Simpson.
ROBERTS: Charlie raised more than $160,000 by riding his bicycle around his local park in London. The 5-mile ride benefited UNICEF's work in Haiti.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE SIMPSON, RAISED $160,000 FOR HAITI: I saw the pictures on TV and I thought it was really sad so I just wanted to, you know...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You wanted to do something, didn't you?
SIMPSON: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Good for Charlie. He hoped to raise 500 pounds; that's about $800. But his web page was just flooded with donations. Simon Cowell of "American Idol" fame even called him an incredible lad.
CHETRY: He certainly is.
ROBERTS: That's amazing. Fifty-seven minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Don't forget tonight on CNN, full coverage of the president's State of the Union address live. We'll have the speech, analysis, context and perspective for you.
You can also watch the speech live on CNN.com and share your comments with your Facebook friends directly from our Web site. Tonight's prime time coverage begins at 8:00 Eastern with the best political team on television.
CHETRY: Suzanne Malveaux mentioned something pretty interesting that the president's going to allow -- he's going to answer questions that people submit via YouTube after the State of the Union address and sit down in some sort of live interactive chat. That should be interesting.
ROBERTS: Yes, it's a whole new twist on the State of the Union this year. CHETRY: There you go.
All right. Well, continue the conversation on today's stories; head to our blog, CNN.com/amFix.
That's going to do it for us. Thanks so much for being here and we will see you bright and early tomorrow after the State of the Union, breaking it all down for you.
ROBERTS: The news continues right now on CNN with Kyra Phillips in the "CNN NEWSROOM" -- hi, Kyra.
