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American Morning

Second Snowstorm Hits Mid-Atlantic; American, Afghan Forces Prepare Offensive in Afghanistan; Second Guessing: Former Treasury Secretary Paulson on Bailouts; Obama Talks About Bipartisanship

Aired February 10, 2010 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. Glad you're with us on Wednesday. It is February 10th. I'm Kiran Chetry.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes. We are bracing for what son of Snowmageddon that's both to be coming.

CHETRY: Snowmageddon two.

HOLMES: Number two, we're told. Ten to six is going to be the primetime here in New York, so as the snow continues to pile up, what we're going to see as the pile up of passengers at the airports.

Again, the second major storm we've seen in a week's time. Thousands of flights already canceled from D.C. to New York, a blanket of snow making it tough for commuters this morning as well. We are live with what you can expect before you head out.

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, the president still promising real change, real bipartisanship and cooperation. So why is his press secretary taking a shot at the member of the GOP from the podium? We're live at the White House with some answers from our Suzanne Malveaux.

HOLMES: Suzanne was in the room yesterday when that happened, an odd scene, kind of. We're going to get into that.

Also did Toyota see trouble and just let it go? A new report saying the company had chances to fix gas pedal problems before they affected six million drivers in the U.S. We'll talk to the man about the report before he tells it to Congress.

CHETRY: But first, they're shoveling and plowing all over the east coast this morning, a mega-snowstorm rolling through right now causing a flurry of travel problems. You're looking at Newark Liberty in New Jersey. Pretty quiet after the largest carrier there, Continental, canceled every flight yesterday -- rather, today.

In all, more than 6,000 flights have been canceled at major airports in the northeast.

HOLMES: And it's coming at a really bad time here, hitting right at the morning's commute is what it's doing. High winds blowing that snow sideways. We've got whiteout conditions in some spots, slick roads have drivers skidding from New Jersey to Chicago.

CHETRY: And if you head further south, in Washington the snow is coming down hard and fast. The city still crippled by the storm that hit days ago could be buried under another foot of snow.

So we have it covered for you all over the place. We have Reynolds Wolf live in Washington D.C., our Rob Marciano is live in New York Central Park, and Jacqui Jeras in the Weather Center tracking the storm, and also taking a look at how it's affecting air travel.

(WEATHER BREAK)

HOLMES: The federal government is closed once again, third straight day for that. And again, D.C. is getting hit by another storm. Reynolds Wolf has been in Washington for the past several days. He's on the national mall for us again. Good morning to you, Reynolds.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: T.J., tough guy, we've had about I'd say two-and-a-half inches of snowfall around last night, we could see another four to eight inches I'm told in this area.

From my vantage point, I'm right along third street, you can see the capitol rotunda back there. We're going to walk over this way, and you can tell on the ground we still have a lot of that fresh snow, some stuff that's been here actually for a couple of days.

What's interesting is really before yesterday afternoon we had roughly 72 hours without any snowfall whatsoever, and still many of the roadways have a big layer of crust you'll see right here in the middle. And of course you have the fresh snow on either side.

We did see about 20 minutes ago the first plows we've seen in quite a while come right through here right along Third Street, so that is certainly some welcome news.

The problem is in Washington, D.C., they have a lot of the plows out of commission at this point, anywhere from 25 percent of the force of the snow plows broken down, they've had mechanical issues. And unfortunately they won't be able to get new supplies in to fix them up.

That's a wrap on what's happening here. The snow continues to fall. We're going to give you updated reports coming up very soon. Let's pitch it back to you in New York.

HOLMES: All right, Reynolds, appreciate you, buddy, we'll see you again soon.

CHETRY: Speaking of New York, here we are, and the snow days are quite rare. City schools, though, are closed for just the third time in eight years. Our Rob Marciano is live in Central Park this morning. It looks cold out there.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is cold. It's already starting to blow sideways and we're not even into the blizzard conditions. We got hardly got any snow from the last storm that just clobbered the D.C. and Baltimore and Philly area, which, by the way, they're going to set records for all time snow year records today. New York is just about on par, but I think we'll double that today.

We're live in Central Park. This is Columbus Circle. Remember the AccuWeather guy that went viral talking about how it was kind of warm to start, which meant it was slushy to start. And then the cold air comes in, and that means a layer of ice then a foot of snow on top of that. That's what we expect to see here in New York City.

Right now traffic it flowing all right. The salt trucks, they have about 365 of them in place ready to go, 1,600 plows ready to go as well. Basically they cost the city about $1 million bucks for every inch they get. They'll probably get a foot of snow, so that's $12 million in cleanup fees at this point.

But traffic and life right now in New York is flowing smoothly. That's the dangerous thing, is because this thing started right around the rush hour, we don't have a whole lot going on right now. So a sloppy morning rush, but the afternoon rush, Kiran and T.J., is just going to be a mess, because by then we'll see at least a half a foot of snow on the ground, and it will be coming down sideways.

And with winds gusting up to 50 miles an hour, we will see some power outages across the New York metropolitan area with this storm coming through today. Back over to you.

CHETRY: Wow. It is going to be a tough one. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is saying, if you can, take public transportation, don't try to drive in this stuff. Rob Marciano for us this morning in Central Park, thanks.

HOLMES: Also new this morning, more than 500 homes near Los Angeles under mandatory evacuation orders, police are going door to door telling people their lives could be in danger. A new storm is threatening to send another wall of rocks, mud, and debris down the hills.

Mudslides on Saturday carried away cars and busted through walls, damaging more than three dozen homes.

CHETRY: Some important news for parents this morning, the Consumer Products Safety Commission is recalling more than half a million generation two Worldwide and Child Designs drop-side cribs. The agency has received three reports of children who died after getting trapped in gaps between the drop-sides of the cribs and the mattresses.

They're urging parents to stop using the cribs immediately. They were sold at major retailers like Bye-Bye Baby, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and others.

HOLMES: The shuttle Endeavour has arrived at the International Space Station. Endeavor is carrying the last major additions for the orbiting lab, a new room and a dome shaped observation deck supposed to give astronauts a great view of the earth. The first of the three planned space walks to install all the equipment is scheduled for tomorrow night.

CHETRY: And a new poll showing that Republicans have gained a stunning amount of political ground on President Obama. "The Washington Post/ABC survey showing that the president's lead over the GOP on dealing with the economy plunged from 35 points at the one- month mark of his presidency now just to five points.

HOLMES: We go from President Obama to President Bush. Not sure how many people out there may be missing the former president in some way, form, or fashion. But look at this, some people are expressing it.

This is a billboard that has the question next to the former president's picture saying, "Miss me yet?" It popped up along Interstate 35 north of Minneapolis about a month ago, but just this week the blogs went crazy with this billboard.

CHETRY: Yesterday it got more than a million hits on Google. It was linked to "Drudge Report" for awhile earlier in the week and over the weekend, so according to the manager that leases the space, it was paid for by anonymous small business owners, some of them, interestingly enough, were Obama supporters.

HOLMES: That's interesting.

CHETRY: On a big major highway, I-35.

HOLMES: "Miss me yet." But, you know, maybe some people out there maybe do miss the former president. We don't think he put that up himself. We want to make that clear.

CHETRY: No.

All right, well, with Palin palm-gate, is the era of bipartisanship done and done? Suzanne Malveaux is live in 15 minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning, 11 minutes past the hour now.

It is the largest military operation since the war in Afghanistan started. We're talking about the battle to seize Marjah, the Taliban's last major strong hold in the country. The mission is to establish security and then gain the trust of 80,000 Afghani citizens, and it's a daunting challenge.

CNN's Atia Abawi has an exclusive look now at how commanders are getting their troops ready for battle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIA ABAWI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At a fire base in Helmand province, they first battalion, sixth marine regiment prepares for combat. This regiment has fought in two world wars, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Today it has a new ally on the battlefield. Brigadier General Mohayedin Ghori of the Afghan army wishes his soldiers luck and says thanks to the marines who will be fighting alongside his men.

"You've made the best live for yourselves," General Mohayedin says, "you've built the best country, your people depend on you. You're the pride of your country, and now you've come from many miles away to help us."

Although his soldiers say they are ready to fight, they also say they don't have proper equipment. "We don't have things like night vision," Commander Gholam Rasoul Takan says, "and it leaves us unprepared."

General Mohayedin and Brigadier General Larry Nicholson are going from base to base, explaining the importance of the Marjah offensive and the importance of distinguishing civilians from the Taliban.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The population is looking for you. The enemy is not the population. We do have an enemy who will try to hide in the population. That's why we've got to be very careful and we've got to be very disciplined and we've got to be very accurate.

ABAWI: Marjah, a town of 80,000, is considered the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand province.

ABAWI (on camera): Both the U.S. marines and the Afghan soldiers have been preparing for battle of Marjah for months now, but today a visit from the commanding general is proof that the battle is about to commence.

ABAWI (voice-over): This isn't first time many of these men have fought in Helmand. The marines cleared the Taliban out of another area in 2008. But the enemy has changed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it will be a little harder. They actually know how to fight this year. Last year they kind of -- used a lot of guerilla tactics, shoot and run. This year I think they'll try and stay around.

ABAWI: General Nicholson agrees.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of our units will go into some pretty heavy contact, and I think some of our units may have less contact. We don't know. All I know is we've done everything we can to prepare, and on the eve of this big operation, I think we're ready.

ABAWI: Ready, but there are still some light hearted moments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is our secret weapon. You don't want to mess with this guy, I tell you that.

ABAWI: Ahead of these soldiers, many unknowns -- will the Taliban fight or melt away? How many roadside bombs await them? And can they help turn the tide of this eight-year war? Atia Abawi, CNN, Fire Base Fiddler's Green, Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: And coming up at 8:30 eastern this morning, we'll talk with two experts of Afghanistan. They'll talk about the strategy in Marjah, how to win over the locals there, and what taking back this Taliban stronghold could mean for the war.

HOLMES: Also coming up, we're Minding your Business. Christine Romans sits down with a former treasury secretary who will explain what exactly kept him up at night during the financial crisis and why it still keeps him up at night now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: The crew. The more they see, the less they know.

CHETRY: They're all (INAUDIBLE) today because of the snow. You know?

HOLMES: Yes.

CHETRY: We all made it here safe and sound.

HOLMES: Yes, it was tough to walk through that millimeter of snow that was on the ground out there this morning.

CHETRY: Just you wait.

HOLMES: All right, it's 18 minutes past the hour. It means it's time to mind your business.

Honda expanding its recall to replace the driver's airbag inflator in 2001, 2002 models. Models affected include Accords, Civics, CRVs, Odyssey mini vans and some Acuras as well. The problem, the airbag can inflate with so much force that metal fragments are sent flying into the car which sounds bad.

CHETRY: Just every day we are --

HOLMES: Something else.

CHETRY: There is a new concern from the auto industry. Very, very troubling. But anyway, experts say that lawsuits linked to Toyota's massive recalls could end up costing the world's automaker, the largest automaker more than $2 billion. There are already more than 30 suits filed against Toyota. The company is also facing at least one class action lawsuit involving problems with brakes on their hybrid vehicles.

HOLMES: My goodness.

CHETRY: Well, Henry Paulson, one of the principal architects of the massive bailouts says he doesn't get concerned with second guessing himself. The former head of the Treasury just published a new book on the near collapse of the global financial system aptly called "On the Brink." He also sat down with our Christine Romans. She's "Minding Your Business" this morning, joins us with part two of her interview with Henry Paulson.

You got about -- you got more than 30 minutes to talk with him. What did he say about those quick decisions that were made, you know, when there was so much concern about whether we were just going to lose everything.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: He says look, they're complicated. A lot of it was technical market stuff. He understands the justifiable anger of the American people but they averted a collapse. And so he will wear the mantel of being the architect of the bailouts because the alternative was much worse. I asked him, you know, how does it feel to be a free market guy and here you are, you are the man behind the bailouts?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Ironically from your ideological perspective, you did not come to the office, expected to be the guy who was going to be the architect of the biggest govern intervention in capital market history?

HENRY PAULSON, AUTHOR, "ON THE BRINK": Christine, you said it better than I have. And the president's State of the Union address captured the mood of the country, where he said Republicans hate these, the Democrats hate these, I hate them. And let me tell you, I hated them. But they were much better than the alternative. And you know what, they worked. Because we needed working with imperfect tools and authorities, we were able to cobble together enough to prevent the system from collapsing and avoid disaster.

ROMANS: You mentioned the president in the State of the Union. He also said, we hate them like you hate a root canal. And I said this to Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary. So that means Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and Tim Geithner are the dentists, because you guys were the architects. How does that make you feel that the thing that everyone hates is the thing that you actually had to do?

PAULSON: Well, let me tell you, I felt like I was having a root canal.

ROMANS: Without anesthesia.

PAULSON: I was a dentist having a root canal without anesthesia at the same time. But you know, there is a scene in the book, my book "On the Brink." And this was a day or two before we were going to need to step in and rescue Citigroup. And what really hit me was that I was forever going to be associated with these bailouts and going to be the treasury secretary that did all these interventions. And then I said, that will be the good news. The bad news will be if we can't cobble together something that works for Citigroup and it goes down, I'll be the treasury secretary who presides over another Great Depression. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: And it wasn't just Citigroup. Remember it was Fannie and Freddie. It was Bear Stearns, it was Lehman Brothers. It was Citigroup. It was a whole host of other banks that they pushed through mergers or helped with mergers or encouraged people on Wall Street to find out ways to try to fix this without public intervention. He talks about that -- that realization that he was going to be forever known as the guy behind the bailouts and how shocking it was.

And it came to him as he walking through the Reagan library in Santa Barbara as they were working through the Citigroup stuff, the temple of free market thinking. And he sort of shakes his head out of it, but he says there was just no other alternative. He also says, I asked him many times about the criticism about his ties to Wall Street and Goldman Sachs, the number of phone calls. We have the logs of all the phone calls he made frantically with these CEOs during his darkest last year.

CHETRY: He worked with Goldman, you said, for more than three decades?

ROMANS: He worked with Goldman for 32 years, and eventually run that company. And he said, no, no, no, those ties, those helps, they were a huge help, because he knew the personalities, the motives, the intentions. He knew what people were saying and what they really meant, and he knew the technical parts of the market. And he said that people who criticize those Goldman ties today, he says no, no, it was a huge, huge help and I was always working for the best interest of this country and taxpayers.

HOLMES: Hard to convince taxpayers of that.

ROMANS: It really is. It really is. And he says they're right to be angry. So that's where he stands.

HOLMES: Christine, thank you.

ROMANS: Sure.

CHETRY: By the way, you'll be able to see more of the interview coming up in the next hour. We also have clips of the full interview on our blog, CNN.com/amFIX. You can also read an excerpt, by the way, of Paulson's new book "On the Brink."

HOLMES: Also, Toyota under a lot of criticism these days. They're in a lot of trouble, and some are wondering if they saw the trouble and let it all go. New reports saying the company had chances to fix those gas pedal problems before it affected six million drivers in the U.S. We're talking to the man behind the report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Why can they not be friends in Washington, D.C.? It's 25 minutes past the hour. We're going to get to the top stories in just a few minutes. But first, we have an "A.M. Original" here, something you'll only see on AMERICAN MORNING. And something you really won't see in Washington, D.C., real bipartisanship, something that the president has promised to bring to D.C. And even though bipartisanship has become kind of a buzz word once again this week, some members of the president's staff seemed to have missed the memo, didn't get the call, missed the e-mail, didn't see the text.

Let's go to Suzanne Malveaux at the White House. Suzanne, you've got the smile on your face but man, we were all shaking our heads just perplexed at this moment we saw yesterday out of Robert Gibbs.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, T.J., a lot of people here in Washington, they talk about bipartisanship but they want what they want essentially. And what happened was yesterday, the president had his first monthly bipartisan meeting with the leadership of Republicans, Democrats here in the White House. And but the tone, T.J., was really interesting coming out of this meeting, and coming from here it really suggested that bipartisanship is quite a bit of ways away.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Keeping in mind what's best for the American people.

MALVEAUX (voice-over): On the one hand, the White House boasts they're all about bipartisanship.

OBAMA: The people who sent us here expect a seriousness of purpose that transcends petty politics.

MALVEAUX: On the other hand, the president's spokesman panned Republican Sarah Palin, mocking her apparent crib notes with scribbles of his own.

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I wrote a few things down. I wrote eggs, milk and bread. I crossed out bread just so I can make pancakes for Ethan if it snows. And then I wrote down hope and change just in case I forgot.

MALVEAUX: Palin dissed the president this past weekend.

SARAH PALIN (R), FMR. ALASKA GOVERNOR: I got to ask some supporters of all that. How is that hopey changey (ph) stuff working out for you?

MALVEAUX: Gibbs evened the score. So much for changing the tone in Washington.

OBAMA: Hello, hello, hello.

MALVEAUX: The jab came just minutes after President Obama made a surprise appearance in the briefing room to tout his own bipartisan creds.

OBAMA: A little while ago I had a meeting with the Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and it went well. In fact, I understand that McConnell and Reid are out doing snow angels in the South Lawn together.

MALVEAUX: Well, the Democratic Leader Harry Reid did not make an appearance after the meeting. His Republican counterpart did to insist any truly bipartisan health care summit hosted by the president could not include the Democrats' failed health care bill.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: What we need to do is start over, go step by step on a truly bipartisan basis and try to reach an agreement.

MALVEAUX: But could an agreement be hashed out at a summit in two weeks on live TV?

OBAMA: My hope is that this doesn't end up being political theater as I think some of you have phrased it. I want a substantive discussion.

MALVEAUX: There appears to be a bipartisan hope for substance. Then again, we don't know what's written on the other hand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: So, T.J., you know, you've got this kind of talk to the hand moments that are going on here in Washington. Some people see it as a joke, settling political scores. But clearly, these are -- there are people who are saying, look, we're tired of all of this. We want to see people in Washington get something done and it all depends on how bipartisanship is defined.

I had a chance to talk to the Republican leaders who emerged from that meeting with President Obama and some of them were encouraging, saying, look, you know, we have found some common ground when it comes to nuclear energy, free trade, these type of things. But this is going to take a lot of work and a lot of time to change the tone on both sides.

HOLMES: And, Suzanne, just quickly, I have to ask you this question, and put this in perspective for people. Of course, you all kind of groaned in the room when this happened. And some can see it as a bad joke and some might have thought it was funny. But this man is standing there in that room speaking for the president of the United States.

Now, is he at all, do we know or think it's possible he's going to get in any kind of trouble for this? Be scolded for this. Because this was an ugly moment on the day we're supposed to be talking about bipartisanship.

MALVEAUX: Well, certainly, I don't think there is a sense that is coming that he's scolded at all for this. I mean, White House aides, they say, look, lighten up. This was a moment that was really kind of a joke, that Sarah Palin spent a good deal of time over the weekend putting down the president and that this is kind of a back and forth banter, if you will. But I think you bring up a very good point, which is the fact that podium, Robert Gibbs does speak for the president. And so, you know, anything that comes out of his mouth supposedly sanctioned by the president and by this administration.

So kind of this tit for tat back and forth, somewhat surprising, but they feel like the president came out and he was very serious in his delivery and his message. It seemed in some ways it undermined that message when you had his spokesman come out later and kind of do this back and forth type of joke.

HOLMES: Sanctioned by the president. I don't know if the president would have sanctioned that moment. You know, that's something else. Suzanne, we appreciate you and we appreciate the perspective as well. We'll talk to you again soon.

CHETRY: All right. Well, it's 30 minutes past the hour right now. It's time for our top stories. And we start with Toyota, the lawsuits already piling up for the world's largest automaker. Drivers want answers, understandably and so does Washington.

Our next guest has been called to testify before the House oversight committee on the Toyota recall. His group authored a report that says that Toyota may have dropped the ball years ago and still hasn't fully addressed the sudden acceleration issues.

Sean Kane, the founder of Safety Research and Strategies Incorporated, he joins us live from Providence this morning. Sean, thanks for being with us.

SEAN KANE, FOUNDER, SAFETY RESEARCH AND STRATEGIES INC.: Good morning, thank you.

CHETRY: First of all, your report says Toyota first started getting these complaints about acceleration issues, these unwanted accelerations back in 2002. That's when their 2002 Camrys hit the road. And they even saw these unwanted acceleration issues during a first-hand testing, I believe, of the Sienna back in 2003. So why wasn't it until the past year that we started seeing the recalls?

KANE: Well, you know, I think we have to look back and take a look at the context of what was going on. In 2002, there was the widespread introduction of electronic throttle controls in the Toyota Camry. Shortly after their introduction, we see a spike in the complaint rates for unintended acceleration in the cars.

And interestingly, this company did address the problem but rather secretly. They issued what's called a technical service bulletin to their dealers addressing surges in these cars. And if consumer complained about the problem, they had a fix that was to reflash the electronic control module, in other words reprogram the car to take care of this problem in a limited basis.

CHETRY: OK. So that's what's confusing, I think, for some people. Because if it's a widespread problem and there's been reporting on it and there's been surveys sent out and a fair number of people wrote back saying they have experienced something like this. They recalled the 2007 to 2010 Camry models, but why not a larger recall that would encompass some of the earlier model cars since there's been complaints about those dating all the way back to 2002?

KANE: Well, that's the very question we raise in our report. When we analyzed the complaints, we examined complaints related to Toyota vehicles from 1999 to current. And what we're finding is that while the recalls cover approximately half of 2,200 plus complaints we've examined, at least half of those complaints are for vehicles that have had problems that are outside of any recall whatsoever. That's something that really concerns us.

CHETRY: Go ahead.

KANE: That's something that really concerns us and we raise that on the report as a significant issue that we believe that Toyota needs to address.

CHETRY: And so who sort of makes this happen, I guess you could say? Is it up to the customer to go to Toyota or to write to the company and say, here's what I've noticed happening in my vehicles and then physically take their car to go get a reboot? Or is this something the government, the National Transportation Highway Safety Administration should be tackling or the company itself?

KANE: Well, you know, in our report, what we take a look at this is a complex problem. There's no one singular answer to the problems of unintended acceleration in Toyotas. And I think that's part of the reason why consumers are confused. We got a number of problems that are occurring across a number of years, makes and models, and this has happened over a fair amount of time.

And so unwinding this issue, we don't have a simple singular solution. There are very likely multiple root causes, meaning there's more than one problem affecting these cars and the problems may not be the same between say an earlier model Camry and the newer vehicles.

CHETRY: All right. And the other thing that struck me as interesting, I mean, you talked about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration failing to properly address some of these reports. They have 635 people working for them. I mean, you look at the FAA, they have 47,000 employees. I mean, is it unrealistic to think this government agency with 635 workers can really tackle all of these issues with so many makes and models of cars?

KANE: Well, you know, there's no question that Toyota made this problem. Toyota created this problem. It's squarely theirs. But they didn't get here without the abetting from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And we don't say it lightly because we know that this agency is clearly out staffed at every corner.

However, the way they looked at the investigations in a very cursory manner and only examined the mechanical interface problems that will potentially lead to unintended acceleration, left them really wide open to not examining the electronic problems. But again, that was also the way that Toyota handled these investigations because they really control the information flow to the government.

CHETRY: Right. The other thing, I mean, just today alone, talking about Honda expanding a recall right now. This is for air bag inflations on the 2001, 2002 models of Accord, Civic, CRVs, mini vans, Acuras. These are such popular cars, what's going on right now in terms of the auto industry? This is a whole bunch of bad news all at once or is it a larger problem?

KANE: Well, I think we are seeing a lot of bad news at once but also increased scrutiny on the automakers today because of Toyota. You know, recalls happen every day. There's hundreds of recalls each year, but again, because of the increased scrutiny on Toyota and the things that have happened there and these very high profile crashes and so forth, that there is a willingness to look more closely at what the industry is doing.

CHETRY: Right. Especially when you're dealing with accelerator, brakes, steering, air bags. I mean, these are big things - you know, these are big things that affect the safety of people on the road. Sean Kane, founder of Safety Research and Strategies, a consumer advocate. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

KANE: Thank you.

HOLMES: Well, it didn't seem like it was too terribly long ago, Saints fans wore those paper bags over their heads. If you remember this, with the eyes cut out. That was before Drew Brees. We'll take a look at how the Super Bowl champs won the city back and weathered the storm. It's 37 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. 40 minutes past the hour.

More nuclear threats coming from Iran. The international community is firing back with a threat of their own this time. More sanctions, President Obama says the next move is now up to Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They have made their choice so far although the door is still open. And what we are going to be working on over the next several weeks is developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they are from the international community as a whole.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: We want to get more now from our foreign affairs correspondent, Jill Dougherty. She is live at the State Department for us. Jill, good morning to you. It seems like there's never a down time, if you will, it's always a tense time it seems like when we're dealing with Iran but it's especially tense right now.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It is. Tomorrow is going to be the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Remember how important that is. That's when the Shah of Iran was brought down. It was led, the revolution by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It's a very, very important date.

And it's expected that supporters of the government plus anti- government demonstrators could be on the streets again. Just go back to last June, when you had that bloody crackdown on the streets of Tehran. And that is the potential if you have millions of people coming into the streets.

So domestically, in Iran right now, you have a volatile situation. And then internationally, it's bad too. Because Iran is locked in this showdown with the international community over its nuclear program.

HOLMES: Well, it seems like we do this dance all the time. It's always going on. They promise to do this, they don't do it. They continue to move forward with their nuclear program. So what can the U.S., can the international community, hasn't been able to do it yet, so can they really stop the nuclear program in Iran?

DOUGHERTY: Boy, T.J., you know, that's probably the question that they are asking right here at the State Department every single day. Because recently especially there have been a lot of contradictory messages coming out of the Iranian leadership. And so the Obama administration officials are saying they are chalking it up to internal dissension among the leadership in Iran.

But right now, the latest development, you have Iran going ahead and saying it's going to enrich uranium to 20 percent. Why is that important? Because it puts it on the road to greater enrichment that could lead to a nuclear bomb. And the latest development coming from the United States is saying, look, you're saying you want to - you need to do that because you need medical isotopes to treat cancer patients.

If you want to do that, we can get you the medical isotopes right on the world market. You don't have to enrich. So it's a way of calling the bluff of Iran but of course, nobody knows whether Iran would even accept that.

HOLMES: All right. And finally here, and we always hear sanctions, bantered about. I mean, can they really work? What kind of sanctions are we talking about this time around? Again, have they proven to work and deter them one bit in the past?

DOUGHERTY: That's the debate. There is a huge debate about that. But what the United States and other countries that support this are saying is we want to go to crippling sanctions. And what they mean by crippling is they would target the Revolutionary Guard Corps. That's the paramilitary organization.

But it's not just paramilitary. The Revolutionary Guard Corps controls big swaths of the economy of Iran. They also are in charge of the nuclear program and also there are also people who have led the crackdown on the streets. So that's who they want to target without hurting Iranians.

HOLMES: All right. Our Jill Dougherty, good to see you this morning from the State Department, our foreign affairs correspondent. Thank you so much. All right. Kiran.

CHETRY: All right. Right now, 44 minutes past the hour. Rob Marciano is going to be joining us with the travel forecast. He's live in Central Park where the snow is coming down this morning. We're going to have our forecast right after the break.

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CHETRY: Right now we're 46 minutes past the hour. Let me get a check of this morning's weather. All we have to do is look out the window and snow is coming down here for sure.

HOLMES: It is nice now. It was a little delayed; we thought at least, we thought it was going to be worse this morning. But now it's picking up like they said it would. Jacqui Jeras in the Extreme Weather Center, a beautiful shot we have up here Jacqui of Columbus Circle here in New York.

JERAS: I know, I'm glad you think that's pretty because it's going to get real ugly later on today. This is a walk in the park really compared to what we're expecting this afternoon. When those winds start kicking in and we get some of those heavier bands of snow, we could be looking at 1to 2 inches per hour easy so really a quick accumulation and then you add in the winds, you won't be able to see anything. That is what blizzard means; it means three hours or more of 35-mile-per-hour winds and visibility around a quarter of a mile or less. So that is how bad we are expecting conditions to become this afternoon.

The snow real heavy down in Arlington and Washington, D.C., also into Baltimore right now, Philadelphia you're going to be peaking with the storm say midday today. And then New York City, not too bad out there right now, say early to mid afternoon through maybe mid-evening is when the worst of the conditions are going to be.

Snowfall accumulations will be way up there once again. Even though it's coming down light now, we're expecting the storm to just intensify and really ramp up this afternoon, 10 to 20 inches easily in the highlighted red areas. Right along the I-95 corridor is where we expect the worst of those conditions to be. And you know what it looks like they might of just upgraded Washington, D.C. to be under a blizzard warning as opposed to a winter storm warming.

There you can see the New Jersey Turnpike, really sparse traffic out there early this morning. You can see that that wind already starting to blow some of that snow out there. All right, travel on the roadways really not advised later today and the airways, no reports of delays at this hour but that's probably because we had upwards of 6,000 flights which have already been canceled today. If you don't have to travel today, don't do it. We're also going to have problems in Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Charlotte due to the winds. Real ugly day guys, definitely snow maggedon (ph), number two.

CHETRY: I just can't believe how fast those cars were going on the New Jersey Turnpike; I mean it is a blizzard. Look at that, speeding down the road. That guy is passing the other guy. Come on, it's a blizzard.

HOLMES: We'll digress. All right. Jacqui thank you so much. This morning's top stories just minutes away, including President Obama's press secretary taking in an open handed swipe at Sarah Palin, you are suppose to be reaching out with your hand, not just your stained hand. We will look at whether the White House is practicing what it preaches.

CHETRY: All right. 8:35 Eastern. winning back New Orleans, how a team that almost abandoned the big easy helped saved a little piece of it with that Super Bowl win.

HOLMES: Also coming up at 8:43 Eastern you can buy her a heart shaped box filled with avocados, asparagus, some licorice. Yes, got some tips for you today. A Valentine's Day lesson in aphrodisiac. A bottle of rum works as well. Those stories and more at the top of the hour. Stay with us.

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HOLMES: Before Haiti was leveled by last month's earthquake, it already had the worst tuberculosis problem of any nation in Latin America or the Caribbean. Since the quake hit it's gotten even worse. That's something all of us need to be concerned about. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta goes inside the quarantined tents of Port-au-Prince.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There is something happening here in these blue tents behind me. I can tell you what's happening inside there could impact people all over the world. Think of this as a quarantine tent. People in here have been quarantined since the quake. Many of them have tuberculosis. Which why we're going to wear a mask like this. You will notice the door is open. If you stay about ten feet away from someone with tuberculosis you will be OK. And sunlight kills the bacteria as well. Once we go inside, you will have to wear a mask like this. Let's go and meet some of the patients.

This is Cynthia. She's 20 years old. We've spoken to her already. Take a look at her; she's obviously had a lot of difficulty since the quake. She lost her home; she also lost her medications which puts her at high risk of developing drug-resistant tuberculosis. How are you feeling? There is a lot of things doctors pay attention to. She definitely has some sweating. It's hot outside but sweating is a little bit more than that. Also, those sweats often occur at night. Her lips are so chapped as well, you can see just from the dehydration. Hard to tell that she's breathing quite quickly, seems to have difficulty breathing. Tuberculosis is a disease of the lungs. What brought her in was this dramatic loss of weight. Look at her arms, she has lost so much weight, malnutrition, difficulty eating. That often happens as well. A lot of these patients, including Cynthia, say after the earthquake they lost so many things including her home and also her medication so she couldn't take her medications for a period of time. What's the risk there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's two big risks. One of course we worry about the most is developing multi-drug resistance. She might be taking only one med that's working for TB; she might then develop resistance to all the other meds. Then she might be more infectious because the TB can grow back. Most of these patients here are living in tent cities where they're sleeping nose-to-nose with their families with hundreds of thousands of other people sleeping nose-to-nose with them. It is a chance of this spreading it and spreading it.

GUPTA: People think of Haiti as "over there" someplace else, not here. London, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, do people need to be worried about what's happening in these tents?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Over time this is going to grow and grow if we allow TB to grow in Haiti. People are going to travel, people are going to be infected, and even workers like us here. That can really spread to Miami, New York City and eventually San Francisco and the southeast. And we really do not wish to have multi-drug resistance. It is something that even in the U.S. we can't treat well. So it would be terrible if we had that spread.

GUPTA: Where will you go after you leave here?

CYNTHIA (through translator): She doesn't know, she doesn't have a house to go.

GUPTA: What happens to someone like Cynthia? From a medical standpoint is she going to be?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope so if the right infrastructure is in place. She has totally treatable diseases in the U.S. and right now I know I can treat all of her diseases.

GUPTA: You know, it's tough to see her face Cynthia, when she's thinking about what's next for her. But I think this whole idea that there is a transition happening now, this acute phase, it is a life- saving phase of medicine. We're starting to get to the next phase, what happens to these patients afterwards. Can they keep taking their medications? Will they have some sort of structure or home to go to?

And are they going to be able to get the rehab they need? Those are the big questions sort of moving forward. And I will tell you without thinking about those follow-up sorts of issues; it makes the acute issues less meaningful. So you got to have both. I think that's what a lot of people are focused on now, T.J.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: All right. And you're right, it is so tough to see her face and so tough to hear as well that she has totally treatable diseases in the U.S. But she's there and that's the problem. Sanjay, we appreciate you and you're reporting, as always. We'll see you plenty. If you want to help the people of Haiti out, you can find the highest rated charities and a whole lot more at the CNN.com/impact to impact your world.

CHETRY: All right. We are 57 minutes past the hour. We are going to take a quick break. Your top stories coming your way in just 90 seconds.

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