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President to Unveil New Health Care Legislation; Toyota May Have Covered Up Vehicle Malfunctions; CPAC Winds Up; Credit Card Changes; Middle Class Frustrated by Broken Government; Broken Government; Texas Church Fires; Cady-Cam in Japan; Avandia Heart Attack Risk; Obama's Health Care Fix
Aired February 22, 2010 - 06:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thanks very much for being with us on the Most News in the Morning. It's coming up to 7:00 Eastern Standard Time on this Monday, the 22nd of February. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us. Here are the big stories we'll be telling you about in the next 15 minutes.
First, it's a make or break week for health care. This morning President Obama unveils his plans for reform. And our Suzanne Malveaux is working her sources. In just a few minutes we'll have brand new details about the president's proposals.
ROBERTS: Damning evidence against Toyota this morning that it chose to save $100 million over the safety of its customers, and even bragged about that fact. We'll show you the new documents surfacing just two days before the company's president goes to Washington.
CHETRY: And no health care reform, no jobs bill, no bipartisan tone in Washington is leading many to believe the government's broken. All this week, CNN is focusing on how we got here and how to fix it.
ROBERTS: But first this morning, just in to CNN, new details coming in about President Obama's make or break push for health care. His personal plan will be unveiled in just a few hours' time. We told you a little about it in the last hour in the Most News in the Morning.
Our Suzanne Malveaux has been working her sources since then and has even more information for us now. She joins us live from the White House. Suzanne, what more do we know about this plan?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, this is really the first time that the president is releasing his own comprehensive health care plan. We've heard a lot about what he's endorsed before, but this is going to put his signature, his blueprint, if you will on it.
And we've been keeping a close eye on the White House website here. This is where they're going to be releasing all of the details at 10:00 so that we can get that information, our viewers can get that information.
But we're already learning some things from White House official early on about what this is going to look like. Obviously it is largely an endorsement of the Democratic plan on the Senate side requiring almost everybody to get health care insurance from subsidies to help people pay for it.
But also there are going to be differences, as well. The president is going to say no more of those sweetheart deals for these senators. That left a really bad taste in people's mouths. And so he says we're not going to endorse that. That's not a part of my plan.
Secondly, he's going to call to embrace some Republican proposals to eliminate waste and to bring down health care costs.
And the third thing that he's going to do is he's going to endorse an idea, a provision if you will, to allow the federal government more power to go up against insurance companies when they decide to jack up those premiums excessively, really big hikes that are unnecessary.
He is going to give the federal government more power, he says, through the secretary of Health and Human Services and a seven-member board to take a look at some of those insurance companies and try to essentially make sure that they don't hike up those rates like we've seen some examples, like, say in California, a very controversial case of a -- a case with Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
So those are some of the things that we're going to see coming out of the website from the White House later today. And all of this, John, as you know, a big push to set the table if you will for that showdown -- or show me what you got, I should say, meeting that is going to happen, that health care summit that's going to be live and televised on Thursday involving the president sitting down with Republicans, Democrats, to move forward this health care legislation. John?
ROBERTS: Suzanne Malveaux for us at the White House this morning with the latest on health care reform. Suzanne, thanks so much.
CHETRY: And now to some of the most damaging information yet against Toyota. The internal company document that is now just surfacing shows that Toyota boasted for saving the company $100 million instead of facing its sudden acceleration problem head on. Allan Chernoff is here with disturbing new developments on this story this morning. Hi, Allan.
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. This document gets to the core of the very issue. Was Toyota more concerned about profits than safety? The document talks about a Toyota executive essentially bragging that he was able to save more than $100 million by limiting the scope of a recall.
Let's look at this precise document, and this seems to be a power point display from last year. "Wins for Toyota" within the safety group, and it does talk about negotiated equipment, quote unquote, "equipment" recall on Camry E.S., the Lexus E.S., in reference to sudden acceleration, saved more than $100 million with no defect found.
That is all referring to the fact that Toyota recalled 55,000 floor mats instead of a full recall of its vehicles. And this, of course, all tied to that problem that the company seemed to have been facing for quite a few years.
It had heard complaints for many years about sudden acceleration. Toyota was claiming that the floor mat was the problem. That people were getting the gas pedals stuck underneath the floor mat. We now know that doesn't seem to have been the problem in many instances.
NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, has put out a statement in response to all this. "Safety is everybody's responsibility," it says, "it's not just the federal government's job to catch safety defects. It's the responsibility of automakers to come forward when there is a problem. Unfortunately, this document is very telling."
Kiran, John, we are going to have some fireworks on Capitol Hill this week. The president of Toyota coming to speak, and many other safety experts will be testifying. It's going to be very interesting viewing.
CHETRY: And also remind people because last week Akida Toyoda said he was not going to come, that he would leave it up to people that were closer to the ground, and now he is coming.
CHERNOFF: That shows the pressure the company is under. For so many years we've all thought of Toyota and the Japanese automakers has having the highest quality -- and all of a sudden, my goodness, we're looking at documents here that seem to imply that the company was more concerned about profits than the quality of its vehicles, the safety of its actual passengers.
ROBERTS: Going to be a big story this week. Glad we've got you on it. Allan Chernoff, thank you very much.
Other stories new this morning -- firefighters have finally put out sky-high flames from a toxic train derailment near Bakersfield, California. Two trains carrying alcohol and plastic pellets jumped the tracks. The dangerous smoke forced some resident to evacuate. They were given the all clear today.
CHETRY: This fiery plane crash near St. Louis has crews searching for a missing pilot as well as a passenger. The small plane was on its way to a downtown airport yesterday when officials say it crashed into a house in suburban Belleville, Illinois. No one on the ground was hurt. The house was empty at the time. No sign this morning though of the two people on board.
ROBERTS: A flying tire killed a female spectator at a drag race outside of Phoenix yesterday. Take a look at this. The car rolls upside down, it already lost the tire there. The driver was not hurt in the accident even though it looks like it would be difficult to escape that without injury. Officials believe it's the first death of its kind since the mid-1970s.
CHETRY: Friends and family of actor Andrew Coning say that he has gone missing. He's best known for playing the best friend of Mike Seaver in the ABC sitcom "Growing Pains." Several celebrities have put up messages of concern on Twitter. Tony was last seen in Vancouver just over a week ago.
ROBERTS: The space shuttle Endeavour and its six astronaut crew are back home this morning. Endeavour landed at Cape Canaveral around 10:20 eastern last night. The crew delivered and installed the new Tranquility module on board the International Space Station and opened its seven-window outlook providing incredible views of earth.
CHETRY: And American Olympic skier Bode Miller with his first gold medal. He won the men's super combined at whistler outside of Vancouver yesterday. The gold gives him a full set. He took home the silver in the men's Super G and bronze in the downhill event.
ROBERTS: It's seven and a half minutes after the hour.
(WEATHER BREAK)
CHETRY: Conservative commentator Glenn Beck took on the president, Democrats, and even Republicans at the CPAC convention in D.C. Find out why he thinks an "economic holocaust" is coming.
And it's our all access pass to astronaut Katie Coleman's upcoming journey into space. This morning Katie Cam takes us to Japan for her training. We'll have our latest installment in our CNN exclusive.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 11 minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
Conservative commentator Glenn Beck has a warning for the GOP. He says an economic holocaust is coming. Beck was the keynote speaker closing out the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this weekend. And our Jim Acosta has his eye on the meeting and also this "A.M." original for us this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, CONSERVATIVE TALK SHOW HOST: It is still morning in America.
(APPLAUSE)
It just happens to be kind of a head pounding, hung over, vomiting for four hours kind of morning in America.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's no mystery where the Conservative Political Action Conference elected Glenn Beck as its keynote speaker.
BECK: Is this cold? Yes. I'm turning into a televangelist.
ACOSTA: With his off-the-wall outbursts on all things Obama, Beck is a conservative household name. But at the conference the conservative talk show host surprised the room with a rant against Republicans.
BECK: All they're talking about is we need a big tent. We need a big tent. Can we get a bigger tent? How can we get a big tent? What is this, a circus?
ACOSTA: At times sounding like a self-help guru, a Dr. Phil to the GOP, Beck ordered the Republican Party to take the first step toward redemption.
BECK: Hello, my name is the Republican Party, and I got a problem. I'm addicted to spending and big government.
ACOSTA: It was a battle cry for conservative purity right out of the tea party movement. Even presidential hopefuls were getting in on the act, as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty reflected on the saga surrounding a certain American golfer.
GOV. TIM PAWLENTI, (R) MINNESOTA: I think we should take a page out of her playbook and take a nine-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country.
ACOSTA: But before you think this is a sign that the Republican Party to come --
REP. RON PAUL, (R) FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE: It sounds to me like the revolution is alive and well.
(APPLAUSE)
ACOSTA: When Texas congressman Ron Paul was named the winner in the conference straw poll on the 2012 presidential race...
(BOOS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now. The winner of this year's CPAC straw poll is Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
(BOOS)
ACOSTA: There were boos. Some Republicans worry their party is sending the wrong message for the upcoming midterm elections.
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, (R) CALIFORNIA: They have to do everything they can in order to win in November. So they're going to say no to everything, they're going to say it is not good what Obama is doing. It's natural -- they're the party of no.
ACOSTA: As for Glenn Beck's call for Republicans to admit they have a problem with conservatives... SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R) MINORITY LEADER: Everybody in this country's got a right to their opinion. I think the American people are very open to our proposals, and if the election were held tomorrow, would be very inclined to vote for us in large numbers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: Mitch McConnell not buying what Glenn Beck is selling. Anyway, there was one surprising outcome at the CPAC conference -- two percent of those surveyed at the event approved of President Obama's performance. One Republican pollster said he'd like to know who they are. Kiran?
CHETRY: All right, Jim Acosta for us this morning, thanks.
ROBERTS: We've got some added protection this morning from the tricks of the credit card trade. Our Christine Romans will join us with the new rules and loopholes that you need to know about.
CHETRY: Also, drug maker Glaxo-Smith-Kline accused of trying to hide heart attack risks linked to its diabetes drug Avandia. The Food and Drug Administration also getting some criticism. Our Elizabeth Cohen will join us to talk more about what you should do if you're a diabetic patient taking this drug. It's 15 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Boy, it was a blast from the past in that song.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: "Hey Soul Sister," ain't that Mister Mister on the radio. I remember them.
CHETRY: Of course, what's old is new again.
ROBERTS: Britney, you remember that? No, I was only three at the time.
CHETRY: That's what we always say. Hey, did you see that movie? No, you were three.
ROBERTS: Eighteen and a half minutes after the hour. That means it is time for "Minding Your Business."
CHETRY: And our Christine Romans joins us now. She remembers. She remembers the good old days of easy credit, right?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, times are changing. Remember when you went to college and you got your books at the campus bookstore and each page was full of another credit card offer?
CHETRY: Oh, that's where I got my first credit card.
ROMANS: I know. CHETRY: Oh, cool, you get a free T-shirt. Sure, I'll have one.
ROMANS: Yes, no more. That's not going to happen anymore.
Look, these new credit card rules are pretty important to shut down some of the practices that many said frankly kept people in debt, kept them deep in debt because of fees and because high interest rates and all these trips and traps. Tricks and traps. But these new credit card rules are on balance, very important for you. But I want to be very clear about some loopholes you need to watch out for to protect your own money.
Shut out of these new card rules are company cards. If you're a small business owner and you've a small business card, you're not going to have some of these protections. Your company cards that you use for work are not going to have some of these protections.
Late payers, if you are late two times, they can raise your interest rates sharply. And you should be prepared for that because as soon as you slip up, they're going to try to be able to get more fees out of you. And risky borrowers could have a hard time getting credit. Also, not covered in any of this, foreign purchases. If you're the kind of person that does a lot of travel overseas or business travel overseas, you're going to expect some big, big payments, transaction costs for changing to buying things overseas on your credit cards.
Now, here is the important stuff if you're under 21, you got a kid under 21 or you've got a grandchild under 21. No more of those campus inducements. They're not going to have tables at the quad anymore where they're going to be able to give you the free squeeze bottle and the T-shirt like Kiran was pointing out. You're going to need a co-signer maybe who has good credit.
Think of this. I'm a little worried about this. If you're a kid whose parents don't have a lot of money because they've had their own money problems, you need a credit card maybe to help you get through college. You're going to have a harder time getting a credit card. You're going to have to a grandparent perhaps or you're going to have to get a credit card, a card, a debit, or a card that's already got a fixed amount of money on it. It could be harder for you to get a card.
ROBERTS: You know, kids have to establish good credit ratings somewhere along the line.
ROMANS: Right. So it's going to be tricky balance...
ROBERTS: But way back when we used to do it the old-fashioned way -- bank accounts.
ROMANS: You know, we used to go to the bank and I would get these green things that would come out. The person would actually hand them to me.
ROBERTS: Yes. ROMANS: And then I would count them and I would put them in something called a wallet in my pocket. It's very old fashioned.
ROBERTS: What's your "Numeral" this morning?
ROMANS: $3,173 and this is why they're trying to shut down some of the feeding frenzy on college students because college kids have a lot of debt.
ROBERTS: Average credit card debt of the average college student?
ROMANS: This is the average college -- the average college student is walking around with $3,100 in a balance on their credit card. They don't have an income, so you know that's racking up interest and fees all along the way. So they're trying to make it harder for kids who graduate from school with $20,000 of student loan debt and then $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 in credit card debt, it's a hard way to start out life. But it is the American way of starting out life frankly right now.
CHETRY: Yes, sure is. All right. Christine Romans for us, thanks.
ROMANS: Yes.
ROBERTS: Breaking the investigation of a string of church arson fires in east Texas. Two men now under arrest. We'll have the story coming right up. You're watching the Most News in the Morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-four minutes past the hour right now. Top stories just five minutes, six minutes away. But first an "A.M. Original," something you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING.
Is our government broken? It's a question CNN is focusing on all this week. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 86 percent of Americans think the answer is yes. So what happened to the politics of hope and change, and is there a fix? We're breaking it down this morning.
In a moment, we'll be talking to presidential historian Douglas Brinkley and "Time" magazine White House correspondent Michael Scherer. But first, our Carol Costello is live in Washington. And, Carol, you had a chance to talk to a lot of middle-class Americans out there. And tell us about the prevailing sentiment right now when it comes to the way they view their prospects for the future and our governments.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You want the clean version?
CHETRY: Unfortunately, you have to deliver that.
COSTELLO: OK, I will. Middle-class Americans are seething -- I don't need to tell you that. The president says he gets it. Republicans say they get it. Maybe they do, but there are plenty of Americans who don't believe that. They believe government didn't just break. As far as some middle-class Americans are concerned, government has long been broken and hasn't been honest with them for decades.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO (voice-over): The American dream, 1950s style. Middle- class America seemed to have it all then.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we'll have the living room right in here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: A nice home, a car, economic security.
MOIRA BINDNER, ALEXANDRIA, VA: You and your chocolate brownies...
COSTELLO: Sixty years later, the Bindners and much of the middle class think thanks to Uncle Sam, all of that is disappearing.
(on camera): Do you think the government is broken?
MOIRA BINDNER: No, but I think it's bruised.
MICHAEL BINDNER, ALEXANDRIA, VA: Yes. That's a good term.
MOIRA BINDNER: I think it's bruised.
COSTELLO (voice-over): And not exactly working for Moira and Michael Bindner. Like many Americans, their one financial from falling out of the middle class. Both had to find new jobs which shrunk their income by $30,000 a year.
MOIRA BINDNER, ALEXANDRIA, VA: You don't go to the dentist. You don't get the car repaired until it's desperate. You know, we've got 165,000 miles on the Ford Focus and every repair is $600. The retirement plan went out the window.
COSTELLO (on camera): President Obama says he gets it now. He's talking about job creation. He's talking about giving tax credits to small businesses. Do any of these things make you feel hopeful?
MOIRA BINDNER: I'm not sure because over the last year I've got -- the only thing that I think has come out of Washington is more and more gridlock and more and more game playing.
COSTELLO (voice-over): The Bindners say Washington has lost its moral compass and hasn't really cared about the middle-class pocketbook for decades. Commerce Department statistics show from 1990 to 2008 middle-class incomes rose just 20 percent, and most of that happened in the first decade. Income stagnated after 2000. Yet home prices shots up 56 percent. College costs 60 percent, and health care costs shot up 155 percent.
So how did it happen when president after president after president after president went to great lengths to show middle-class Americans they got it?
JACOB HACKER, AUTHOR, "THE GREAT RISK SHIFT": Money matters a lot more in American politics than it used to.
COSTELLO: Jacob Hacker is a political scientist who wrote "The Great Risk Shift."
HACKER: There's a lot of pressure for politicians to appease those who have the most money in the system.
COSTELLO: As in big political donors and lobbyists.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Democrats aren't listening.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republicans are ramping up their attack machine.
COSTELLO: Hacker also says partisanship has hurt the middle class.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Democrats chose to go it alone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republicans' role in this is all about slow down, stop, and no.
ISABEL SAWHILL, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: None of them are willing to do the unpopular things which means they're not willing to raise taxes and they're not willing to cut spending. We're at an impasse.
COSTELLO: And until Washington comes together, the Bindners say they keep hanging in there, hoping that financial catastrophe doesn't happen.
MOIRA BINDNER: It just feels like the rug has been totally pulled out. And it's really challenging on a day-to-day basis to accomplish everything with the paychecks coming in the door.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Experts say the traditional protectors of the middle class have lost enormous clout. Unions are not as powerful as they once were. Many companies don't provide guaranteed pensions anymore. 401(k)s are in, but employer contributions are getting smaller. All of this, Kiran, affecting the middle-class pocketbook.
CHETRY: Yes, it really is. It's astounding when you take a look at the changes and how little we've seen the incomes go up, cost of living, and it's more expensive to pretty much do everything.
COSTELLO: Everything that really matters. I mean, you can buy -- you can go out and buy a cheap television, but you can't afford health care. Something wrong there.
CHETRY: Really. All right, Carol Costello for us.
We invite people to weigh in, by the way, on your blog CNN.com/amFIX. Tell us what you think about Carol's report this morning. Thanks.
Also, it's coming up on the bottom of the hour. And we have our top stories now.
In a newly discovered company document, a Toyota executive boasted last year about saving the carmaker $100 million with a limited recall. The reference apparently to a 2007 recall that involved the floor mats on the Camrys and the Lexus ES models. Toyota responded saying our first priority is the safety of our customers and to conclude otherwise on the basis of one internal presentation is wrong. The CEOs of Toyota will testify before Congress on Wednesday.
ROBERTS: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is defending President Obama's stimulus plan saying it has helped create jobs. He told ABC News that other Republicans trashing the program are being hypocritical. Schwarzenegger's press secretary says the governor will meet privately with President Obama today at the White House. He's expected to ask for more federal cash for California.
CHETRY: And using bulldozers and other heavy equipment, rescuers are frantically digging this morning to try to find any survivors of huge landslides and flooding that took place on the Portuguese island, Madeira. At least four people are still missing under tons of mud, boulders, downed trees. Officials also say 42 people have been killed. The flooding started after a month's worth of rain fell in just eight hours.
ROBERTS: Well, Democrats and Republicans may not agree on much these days, but one thing is clear to both -- voters are angry about gridlock in Washington. You've seen how the vast majority of Americans think the government is broken. And that fracture may be hurting the middle class more than anyone else.
Joining us now from Austin, Texas, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. And from Washington "Time" magazine White House correspondent, Michael Sherer. Michael, great to be with you. Doug, as well.
Michael, let's start with you. Just reiterating that figure, the latest polling, 86 percent of Americans think the government is broken. That's up from 78 percent in 2006, in our CNN Research Opinion Corporation poll. Michael, how broken is government, and what kind of impact is that having on the middle class?
MICHAEL SHERER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT FOR "TIME": There are a number of trends that have happened. They are all coinciding to let this happen. I think it's notable that 78 percent is still an astronomical number when it comes to polls.
So it's more broken, people think, now than it was a couple of years ago. This problem is nothing new. You know, the saying that you just had mentioned the campaign finance issues is often more profitable for politicians who are in close re-election fights to keep an issue out there, to not resolve problems because then they can keep fundraising on it.
You also have a change in sort of the way people are consuming information about politics which means that a lot of ideologues on both sides of the spectrum kind of dominate the political discussion right now. So that anybody who compromises, anybody who crosses the aisle is seen as somehow weak. You know, if a Republican's working with a Democrat, it's not a sign of strength, it's a sign of weakness.
ROBERTS: You know, Doug, the constitution was set up to promote compromise. That's why, you know, Congress operates the way it does, the Senate went a step further with the filibuster rule. But is no one in a mood to compromise these days?
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT RICE UNIVERSITY: Particularly not during a midterm election year when President Obama's been, not just pummeled by the right and the right's scoring point for doing it. Clearly this spring is not going to be the high season of compromise.
But I think we need to reverse that poll. I think about 87 percent of the middle class is broken. And by that we can consider people middle class, not poor. Poor people live hand to mouth. Middle-class people are supposed to have discretionary funding. A third of their money that they can use for other things besides food and shelter.
That extra money is not there anymore. And the problem is that the middle class is broken, and you're starting to have people who have grown up thinking they're middle class. Maybe in the last decade have been suddenly realizing they're poor and they're faking it at middle class, and they're angry about this and they're angry at government.
ROBERTS: You know, Michael, President Obama was supposed to be the great hope for the middle class. What happened?
SHERER: You know, he went for broke. He came into office and he's had this large majorities, historic majorities in recent years in both Houses of Congress. And he decided as a strategic matter that he was going to try and do a lot of stuff very quickly. And in order to do that he couldn't really walk hand in hand with Republicans.
His strategy called for peeling off one or two Republicans here or there. On health care, it backfired pretty badly. You know, earlier this year. So he's been frustrated in accomplishing that. Once health care went, a lot of his other legislative priorities went, as well.
ROBERTS: You know, Colin Powell was on with Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation" yesterday on CBS, Doug. He said in that interview that he thinks that President Obama has put too much on the plate. Is that hampering his ability to get things done?
BRINKLEY: Too much on the plate or not packaged it enough. If you think about, you know, FDR coming in and saying it's going to be a new deal or Harry Truman with the fair deal. John Kennedy's new frontier. On and on. What is the Obama's policies? So economic stimulus, people don't get really excited, riled up. I'm going to fight for an economic stimulus package. So I think they have to do a better way of exciting people about the future of America on large projects.
And some of them might be public works projects. The small train in Florida is not enough. We need to create a green grid of wind turbines or solar panel farms, et cetera something large that people somehow can start fighting for together.
ROBERTS: Which brings me to another point, Michael. Do you see that there's a lot of fear out there in the middle class? People are losing their jobs, Washington is on a spending spree. Deficits are soaring. The infrastructure is falling apart. America's position in the world is at risk. You know, we're getting outbid, you know, the competition is strong out there. Are people legitimately worried about our position in the world?
SHERER: Yes. This is not just a perceived threat. This is very real. 2008 median income in America was lower than it was slightly than in 1998. You know, the first time the census has tracked lower median income over the decade. So you know, these are very real concerns. You know, I would just respond to Doug's point, you know, one of the most amazing things that have happened over the last year is you had this massive stimulus by any measure.
I mean, there are huge investments all across the map. It did create millions of jobs or a million and a half to two million jobs. And yet, the middle class, the American people don't feel it. Don't acknowledge it. I mean, the stimulus remains incredibly unpopular. So even when you had a piece of legislation, it was clearly responding to this need, there just wasn't the credibility in Washington to sell it.
ROBERTS: So, Doug, let's go to you for solutions here. If government is broken. If we've got gridlock in Congress, hyper partisanship, the blame game going on all the time, the constant campaign, the never ending campaign, how do you fix it?
BRINKLEY: Well, the one thing that might happen -- I'm not sure it's going to fix it -- is you might have a third party movement this year. Back in history I could find conditions that led in 1912 to the bull moose party which was fairly successful. In 1968, George Wallace with the American Party. People are sick of both parties. They're tired of Washington as the poll shows. And I think it's going to really be about President Obama using executive power and rallying the country behind some great cause.
It's tough because we've been talking on the economic side. But people I think have a fear of the globe today. The internet, global economics, global warming, global meltdowns, China beating us. So people are in a fearful mode. They're retreating into a home that they can barely pay for, and it's going to take a lot of vision to figure out how to get everybody back on the same page together.
War has sometimes done that in American history. That's certainly not a solution we want to put on the table.
ROBERTS: We've already got two of those going on. But Michael, I take it that all of these members of Congress will realize what's going on. The gridlock, the hyper partisanship, and they'll get it all fixed by the midterm elections, right?
SHERER: No. There's an irony here because what happens is it becomes sort of a vicious circle. The politicians in Washington see that the country's angry at them, see that they're too partisan. They respond with tactical moves like we're going to have later this week, a healthcare summit. That is -- sort of more of a show. The American people see right through that. Their cynicism deepens, and it repeat itself. And we're in this -- we're trapped in this cycle at least through November.
ROBERTS: All right. Michael Sherer, Douglas Brinkley, not great news this morning. But thanks for joining us. Good analysis and perspective on all of that.
Our network's focus on broken government continues this evening. Tonight at 8:00 Eastern, Campbell Brown breaks down the 10 greatest hits of congressional incompetence. And on "Anderson Cooper 360," are lobbyists running Washington? An investigation reveals how beltway lobby shops are really just waiting rooms for incoming politicians.
CHETRY: Two men are in custody this morning for a string of arsons at Texas churches. 19-year-old Jason Bourque and 21-year-old Daniel McAllister charged with setting fire to the Dover Baptist Church in Tyler, Texas, the beginning of this month. Authorities saying more charges will follow. In all, 10 churches across east Texas have been torched since the beginning of the year. One law enforcement official calls the acts despicable and cowardly. They're not saying what drove the two to allegedly burn down the churches. They're each being held now on $10 million bail.
ROBERTS: Our ongoing look at Cady Coleman, astronaut, who is going to be going into space in the not-too-distant future. We're following her on AMERICAN MORNING. Our John Zarrella tracks her every move, including this time around, her trip to Japan. Cady took a camera herself and brings it back for us this morning.
Thirty-nine minutes after the hour. Stay with us.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. It's 41 minutes past the hour right now. American astronaut Cady Coleman is getting ready for a six-month stay on board the International Space Station. ROBERTS: And CNN is getting exclusive behind the scenes look as she trains for the mission. It's courtesy of the Cady-cam, which takes us to Japan this morning. Our John Zarrella is following her year-long journey. He's live in Miami with the latest installment. All we can say this morning is c-Cady, come on.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, John, Kiran, I've lost track of her. I'm supposed to know exactly where she is at all times and I don't know where she is right now today. But she's continuing her training for that trip to the International Space Station next December on a Russian Soyuz rocket.
The shuttle program will be gone by then. And you know, her training takes her all across the world. And to document some of that we gave her a camera and we call it Cady-cam.
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ZARRELLA (voice-over): On occasion, this has been astronaut Cady Coleman's mode of transportation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And liftoff...
ZARRELLA: Other times instead of three main engines and seven million pounds of thrust, it's two wheels and leg power.
CADY COLEMAN, AMERICAN ASTRONAUT: This is the place that we have our classrooms.
ZARRELLA: Biking is the most practical way to get around Japan's Tsukuba Space Center. Cady's been bringing her camera, just call it Cady-cam, with her for her jaunts across the globe. During the past month alone, she's trained in Russia, Houston, and here in Japan. For good reason.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to practice.
ZARRELLA: The International Space Station is just that. International. The components like Vesda, Kibo, Columbus, Destiny, are the result of a 15-nation partnership. When Coleman flies next December for her six-month station stay, she needs to be familiar with every nook and cranny, every valve and pipe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two, low temperature and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Medium.
ZARRELLA: She needs to know how to run experiments for the Europeans, the Japanese, and the U.S.. Think of it this way -- if it was your home, you'd have to know every inch of wiring, every section of plumbing, every faucet washer, every beam and bolt. It's mind numbing how much material station crew members have to absorb.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
ZARRELLA: That of course means staying mentally sharp. Eating well helps, like a local specialty -- seaweed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Try it. Try it. OK.
COLEMAN: Uh-huh. It's delicious.
ZARRELLA: More on the food later. This is not Coleman's first trip to Japan. So she's ahead of the game.
COLEMAN: I come back maybe once or twice before the mission just to make sure I remember all the really important things.
ZARRELLA: The "what isn't important" list is quite a bit shorter. She spends time in what looks like a space warehouse.
COLEMAN: This is the (INAUDIBLE) bay where they actually put space hardware together.
ZARRELLA: Practice with the robotic arm comes in all shapes and sizes. A miniature arm, a full-scale mock-up. And virtual reality.
COLEMAN: Actually, I'll tell you that the way that we're used to thinking of this is actually going to be upside down like that. Our camera is upside down on the space station so they have to learn how to think upside down.
ZARRELLA: OK. Let's go back to the food part.
COLEMAN: Some things I know. Some things look strange to me. How about this guy? About -- that big. See it? Those are big squid. In the end I just went for sushi.
ZARRELLA: Then back to her two-wheeled transportation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have a good one, Cady. See you tomorrow. Watch out for the car.
ZARRELLA: John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: Yes, we -- we certainly didn't want her to run into that car there. That would be terrible.
But, you know, there's that one shot in there, John and Kiran, of her in Russia, cross-country skiing, and that's part of the training that -- you know, to -- to really keep them in shape.
She can't run over there in Russia right now, so they do the cross-country skiing, and she told me that the Russian trainers are really, really tough. So while it looks like fun, not necessarily -- John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: I'll bet. That cross-country skiing is tough aerobic work, no question. CHETRY: Oh, we saw "Rocky." We know how tough the Russians train.
Hey, thanks so much, John.
It's really interesting, though, because it's more than just the science behind it. It's the cultural stuff they have to learn...
ROBERTS: Oh, yes.
CHETRY: ... it's the endurance. It's amazing.
ROBERTS: I -- I love the shopping bit too.
John Zarrella for us this morning with the latest installment in our ongoing look at c-c-Cady Coleman.
CHETRY: All right. You know...
ROBERTS: Beautiful Cady, the -- how does the rest of it go? Is it the g-g-girl that I adore?
CHETRY: I don't know. I was only 3.
ROBERTS: Actually, I was only 3.
CHETRY: OK.
Forty-six minutes past the hour right now. Rob's going to be coming along. He has our travel forecast for us right after the break.
ROBERTS: And -- and in 10 minutes' time, time for an "A.M. House Call." This morning we're focusing on the drug Avandia.
A new Senate report says the diabetes drug is linked to tens of thousands of heart attacks and the drug maker knew of the risks for years but worked to keep them from the public. Those are the charges being thrown around today.
It's 46 and a half minutes after the hour.
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CHETRY: Wasn't this you're favorite movie back in the day?
ROBERTS: Oh, absolutely. I loved Edith Piaf.
CHETRY: There you go.
Well, this is just for you then this morning as we take a look at Paris. How pretty -- OK, maybe not, because it's actually cloudy, with some showers later today. But, hey, it's a heck of a lit warmer than it is here.
Fifty-two degrees in Paris, France this morning. ROBERTS: Hey, you know, a -- a rainy Paris is better than most other places in the world even if they're sunny.
Forty-nine minutes after the hour. Let's get a quick check of this morning's weather headlines. Rob Marciano in Atlanta for us this morning.
So we know what the weather's like in France today, but what's it like where -- where you are? Or where we are?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, clearly not as sophisticated here in the U.S. I mean, we're -- we're really expanding our -- our roles here with that -- that webcam out of Paris. I kind of liked that. Nice touch, (INAUDIBLE), especially with the old school French music.
Got a couple of storms that we're dealing with, one across the East Coast. This has already dropped a fair amount of snow across the Midwest, 12 inches in Chillicothe, Missouri, 8 inches in -- that may be Illinois -- and Liberty, Missouri seeing 8 inches as well.
So we're looking at a decent amount of moisture with this. Most of the snow north of the I-80 corridor and through parts of Lower Michigan, and we could see another 4 to 8 inches of snow in parts. But if you're already being to move out (ph) of Chicago, you get a couple of inches of wrap-around, but, generally speaking, the winter storm warnings are east in through Detroit, which could see 4 to maybe 8 inches of snow there.
Heavy thunderstorm across parts of the south and through Macon, heading east along I-16, these basically just dumping heavy rain and waking you up with some rumbles of thunder. And the next storm coming into the southwest, with some cool rain and high elevation snow, anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of fresh powder from the southern San Juan, and across parts of Northern New Mexico, and this storm will get into Texas where it's going to meet up with some cold air tomorrow.
So we could see a few inches of snow beginning tonight across parts of Northern and Central Texas. Just south, I think, and west of Dallas, but 2 to 6 inches of snow potentially there and heavy rain expected across parts of the upper Texas coastline.
That's the latest from here. Au revoir.
Is that -- is that right? Is it too early in the day to say that?
ROBERTS: Yes. Au revoir -- au revoir, et a la prochaine (ph). Till the next time.
MARCIANO: All right. Love it.
CHETRY: See that?
ROBERTS: Rob, thanks.
It's coming up on 52 minutes after the hour. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
Fifty-four minutes past the hour right now. Time for your "A.M. House Call", stories about your health, and we've been talking this morning about a really surprising and disturbing Senate report that links the diabetes drug Avandia to tens of thousands of heart attacks. Now, the drug's manufacturer and the FDA are taking a lot of heat right now for this.
CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is live in Atlanta to break it down for us.
So explain what this Senate panel and also what the studies found about Avandia.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kiran, what these studies found about Avandia is that, simply put, if you take Avandia, you are more likely to have a heart attack.
Avandia is a drug that is supposed to control your diabetes. And what also the Senate report says is that GlaxoSmithKline, the company that makes Avandia, worked very hard to keep these numbers from the public.
So let's take a look at the numbers here. What the study found is that when -- if people stopped taking Avandia, in other words, if everyone who was taking it stopped taking it, in this country we would avoid more than 500 heart attacks and more than 300 cases of heart failure.
Now, when you look at those numbers today, renewed calls for Avandia to be taken off the market -- Kiran.
CHETRY: I mean, it's surprising for many of us to -- to think that it still is out there. What about the FDA? What do they say about the Senate findings?
COHEN: You know, it's interesting, the FDA is saying that they're going to look at the findings and consider them, but what the Senate report disclosed is that two scientists within the FDA issued an internal report calling for this drug to be taken off the market.
And I spoke with one of these scientists last night, and he said he cannot understand why this drug is still on the market when he and his colleague told their bosses this drug should not be on the market.
CHETRY: What about the drug maker, GlaxoSmithKline? What are they saying about their drug that's now coming under all of this scrutiny?
COHEN: Well, they're saying look, the FDA approved this drug. They saw the data and they approved this drug. And then, again, in 2007, they voted to keep it on the market, and they're saying look, we're just following what the FDA says.
The FDA has also put its stamp on (ph) approval on the Avandia study that is currently going on right now.
So, to use their words -- here's what GlaxoSmithKline has to say. They say the scientific evidence simply does not establish that Avandia increases cardiovascular ischemic risk or causes myocardial ischemic event.
So they're saying that this data, those numbers I just showed you, are incorrect. That's what the drug company's saying.
CHETRY: All right. It sounds like people should talk to their doctor (INAUDIBLE) on Avandia just to figure out what their doctor thinks about the risk. There are other drugs out there that do similar things, right?
COHEN: Kiran, that's right, and that's the bottom line. If you're on Avandia and you're concerned, you can just talk to your doctor because you don't have to be on it. There are other drugs that can do -- that can also control your glucose.
So that's the crucial thing to remember here is that there are several drugs out there for diabetics to take.
CHETRY: Good stuff for us, Elizabeth Cohen, this morning. Thank you -- John.
ROBERT: Top stories coming your way in just 90 seconds. Stay with us here on the Most News in the Morning.
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