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American Morning
China Rising; NASA's Future
Aired April 15, 2010 - 7:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome. Glad you're with us on this AMERICAN MORNING. It's Thursday, April 15th, Tax Day. I'm Kiran Gentry.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. You got until midnight tonight to get it in.
CHETRY: There you go.
ROBERTS: Like sure you do or file for an extension as long as you don't owe money. Here are the big stories we'll be telling you about coming up in the next 15 minutes.
Huge tax day Tea Party scheduled across the country today. What started as a protest against big government bailouts has grown into a serious political movement. Will the party in power be the one paying in November?
CHETRY: Toyota conducting safety tests on the stability control systems in every SUV it makes. That comes on the heels of some of the concerns about the Lexus. The company says it wants to ease the minds of customers after halting sales of the 2010 luxury SUV GX-460.
"Consumer Reports" magazine gave it a "do not buy" rating after uncovering what they called unacceptable rollover risks in tight turns.
ROBERTS: President Obama looks to America's future in space, outlining NASA's new mission today. With the shuttle program being retired, what's next for the space agency? We are live at the Kennedy Space Center.
CHETRY: Also, our live blog is up and running. Join the conversation. Head to CNN.com/amfix.
ROBERTS: First up, though, it's the tea party's big day. It's tax day. Today, there were more than 600 protests against big government spending scheduled across the country. The big one takes place in the nation's capital.
The Tea Party Express wrapping up its cross country tour there after a stop at the site of the original tea party, Boston. The first lady of the movement, Sarah Palin, was at that party and they appear to be getting more organized with their sights increasingly set on the mid-term elections in November. Jim Acosta joins us now live from Washington. Jim, this is undeniably a political force gaining a lot of ground, and 14 months ago nobody had heard of this.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And now it is a force to be reckoned with. You are right. In a few hours from now, there are going to be tea party activists down here in Washington sounding off on everything from big government to President Obama.
And you can see some of the scaffolding and some of the other stagecraft that's going up behind me for the rally that's going to happen here just a couple of blocks from the White House.
There is talk these days inside this political movement of joining forces with the Republican Party, and that could have big implications on the fall elections.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARAH PALIN, (R) FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Boston, if anyone knows how to throw a tea party, it is you.
ACOSTA: At the stop along the tea party express bus tour in Boston, Sarah Palin called for a political revolution. She wants Americans to party like it is 1776 and send the Democrats packing in 2010.
PALIN: Come November, that big government, big debt Obama/Pelosi/Reid spending spree, that there, there little children, we are here to take care of you, that agenda is over. We are voting them out. We are going to tell them, you're fired.
(APPLAUSE)
ACOSTA: In other words, vote Republican in upcoming Congressional elections. Other conservative leaders are going further, touting the benefits of merging the tea party with the GOP.
PALIN: It is really merging into one single solitary unit.
ACOSTA: Some tea party organizers say that's fine so long as they first cleanse the GOP of its moderates, what some conservatives call RINOs, or "Republicans in name only."
MARK WILLIAMS, TEA PARTY EXPRESS CHAIRMAN: The Republican party is in place as the party of the people. And after we are done chasing the RINOs out of the party, it will again be the party off the people. And if that's what people mean by merging with the Republican Party, great. I'll take that.
ACOSTA: CNN political contributor John Avlon points out many tea-partiers are conservatives who felt abandoned Republicans under George W. Bush.
JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Right now it's important to understand tea partiers, their natural home is and always was the Republican Party. They form a conservative populist protest wing. They are trying to move the Republican Party to the right.
ACOSTA: But for some tea-partiers, a merger would be too much too fast.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If one person thinks they are going to get control of this movement, I think they don't really understand it.
ACOSTA: Even along the tea party bus tour, there were skeptics.
ROBERT BRAVO, TEA PARTY SUPPORTER: The whole point of this is that we are Americans, Republicans, Democrats, independents.
ACOSTA: Still, a new CNN poll finds nearly 80 percent of tea- partiers plan to vote Republican in the fall. Democrats insist they are not sweating it. Check out this Democratic congressional campaign committee website mocking upcoming Republican primaries as "Palin primaries."
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, (D) MARYLAND: To the extent that the Republican candidates move way far to the right in these primaries to try and capture the more extreme elements of the tea party support, they are going to lose the support of independent and moderate voters.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: Democrats say they are going to focus on the issues like Wall Street reform which they hope will drive a wedge between Republicans that might oppose that legislation and tea party activists who not only don't like the bankers, John, they really hate the bailouts.
So Democrats do have a bit of a playbook here for tea party activists. It is unclear, though, whether or not any of that will pay off in the fall.
ROBERTS: Things are certainly rolling on for the tea party. Thanks Jim Acosta for us in Washington this morning.
We are getting a better idea of who is going to be in the crowd today, and likely lining up to vote in November. More now on the tea party in an "A.M." extra. A new "New York Times"-CBS News poll says tea party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public. Here's the demographics -- 59 percent are men, 89 percent are white, and fully 70 percent of them are married.
And although they do have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin, 47 percent say she would not make an effective president.
In just a few minutes, we will be speaking with Darla Dawald, a grassroots conservative activist who will be speaking at the tea party in D.C. today. What is she hearing? Does she think the tea party will be able to speak with one voice in November, and are they, as Michele Bachman suggested, merging with the Republican Party?
CHETRY: New developments out of South Hadley, Massachusetts this morning as the school chairman announces he will step down. At last night's board meeting, Edward Boiselle once again he faced intense criticism over the way the school handled the bullying that prosecutors say led to Phoebe Prince's death.
Boiselle says his decision is not related to that. Rather, he feels the chairmanship should rotate every year. Boiselle has served on the board for the last decade and will continue to serve on the committee. The parents are demanding action, and some actually were thrown out of last night's meeting when things got out of hand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB CRACK, SOUTH HADLEY RESIDENT: I don't know who you guys, why you are trying to cover up this. Everybody knows.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on, hold on. Hold on, cover up what?
CRACK: They know they dropped the ball. They blew it. And everybody knows they blew it, all right. You've got to get rid of them. All they are is just a noose on the neck of this town.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on. You are done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Sixteen age teenagers were formally charged for their roles in Prince's death.
ROBERTS: Other stories new this morning -- Russia is suspending all adoption to American families until the countries can reach agreement on procedures. That announcement comes after a Tennessee woman sent her seven-year-old adopted son back to Moscow on a plane by himself with a note. She claims the Russian orphanage misled her about the boy's severe psychological problems.
Senate Democrats are taking the fight to airlines over new fees for carry-on bags. New York Senator Charles Schumer says that the fees crossed the line and is a slap in the face of travelers. He has actually introduced legislation to block fees for carry on bags. We are going to be talking with him about it in the next hour.
ROBERTS: And when was the last time your flight was delayed by a volcano? Certainly enough, a volcano spewing ash over the sky in Iceland is wreaking havoc on flights around the U.K. and northing Europe. Hundreds of flights were canceled at London's airports.
This is the second time that Iceland's glacier volcano has erupted in the last month. There you see water flowing down the glacier because it melts so quickly with all the heat. It's that ash spewing thousands of feet into the air, tens of thousands of feet into the air causing a real problem.
(WEATHER BREAK)
CHETRY: Toyota is tackling yet another public relations nightmare today. The potential safety issue Toyota hopes it doesn't find and what it means for every single SUV the company makes. ROBERTS: At 7:25, hundreds of miles from the hustle and bustle of Beijing, it's a side of China rarely seen. We will take you inside the Sichuan province and show you how hundreds of millions of Chinese really live in our "A.M." original.
CHETRY: Also at 7:40, new adventure ns space. President Obama flies to the Kennedy Space Center to talk about the future of the space program. We'll tell you what' next for NASA and why some space veterans are not over the moon about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. Thousands are expected for a tax day tea party rally in Washington later this morning and it's one of as many as 600 scheduled across the country. The tea-partiers say they are fighting against skyrocketing government spending, against higher taxes, and against the health care legislation.
Well, in some parts of the country, it has almost been like the buildup to an outdoor music festival. Our iReporters are sharing some of the sights and sounds.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't want any more bailouts, no more stimulus deals. We are taxed enough already. We are out here fighting for everybody else to take our message and your message to Washington, D.C.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Well, Darla Dawald, who is the national director of resistnet.com, a grassroots conservative movement, she will be speaking at the Washington rally. She joins us live from Washington. Darla, thanks so much for coming in.
DARLA DAWALD, NATIONAL DIRECTOR, RESISTNET.COM: Thank you for having me.
ROBERTS: I was really intrigued by this CBS News-"New York Times" poll about the tea party that found that 18 percent, fully 18 percent of Americans identify themselves as tea party supporters. That's one in five Americans, and 14 months ago there was no tea party movement. Why has this thing caught fire so quickly, and what is planned for today?
DAWALD: I think it has caught fire so quickly that because basically what's happened is the problem with the conservatives is that government spending is out of control. People are hurting. People have lost their homes, jobs. It is just a bad situation out there, and it is not anything that's getting better.
Normally, when costs are skyrocketing and things are going bad, people tend to cut back, not spend more money. And so the conservatives in this movement are saying that basically they are not happy with what's happening. They are not happy with the continual spending.
CHETRY: It is interesting. A discussion is going on among many of the groups that identify with the loosely organized tea party movement in general about whether it is best to work within the two- party established system, meaning support those Republicans, or whether it makes sense to break off into more of an outside the whole establishment, a separate tea party itself.
Which area do you fall under? What do you think makes the most sense politically speaking?
DAWALD: Well, Kiran, I think that to establish another party is not the right direction to go. And I don't think the majority of the people in this tea party movement are not about another party.
What they are about is taking our systems, our parties that are already in existence and bringing them back to being parties that are based on the people, not on politicians and career politicians in the system, but parties that truly reflect the people again. And that's what we are all about is taking those parties back to the people.
ROBERTS: Darla, it has been talked about. How broad is the Tea Party tent. There were some interesting facts found in this CBS News "New York Times" poll, 59 percent of Tea Party supporters are men, 89 percent of them are white, 20 percent identify themselves as moderates, 36 percent as independents. So just how big a tent is the Tea Party?
DAWALD: Well, first of all, those numbers are a little different than some of the numbers I have heard. I think the polls are subjective to really who is providing that information. What I have found is that the movement is really and largely is women. There are a lot of women in the movement.
That's been infused a lot by -- these are things that are affecting people's families and women get involved when it affects their families. As far as the parties and that, we don't really care about what party you belong to. What we care about is taking our government back to fiscal responsibility, limited government, that's what our republic is based on, limited government. That's what we are about.
CHETRY: You know, it's interesting because when I asked before about whether or not it makes sense to have a separate party, you said it makes more sense to work within the two-party system. A political science professor Tom Daluka and others have said this that if there is a larger impact on the Republican party.
It could be that basically what happens is Tea Party people push Republicans further to the right. We saw the signs "Rino, Republicans in name only" wanting to vote them out of office. It could hurt them with centrist voters who would likely favor a Democrat over a far right Republican candidate could it end up having the opposite impact at the polls?
DAWALD: Well, it is hard to say at this point exactly, you know, how that will impact it at the polls. But, our goal has been from the very beginning that we want our elected officials to represent us. We want them to represent the parties based on the conservative values or the fiscal values that are important to us.
So whether you are a Democrat or whether you are a conservative, what we are saying is we want people to get back to the basics of what makes sense for our country. What makes sense now is that we cut back on spending, cut back on this out-of-control freight train we have going right now.
And really begin to, I don't know, focus on what is good for the whole of America. Right now, what's good for the whole of America is making sure our candidates are representing the people, not the parties, that they represent us. That's what it comes down to.
ROBERTS: I have got to say that regardless of your political affiliation, Tea Party, Republican or Democrat, the size of these deficits of debt is kind of getting frightening.
Darla Dawald, great to talk to you this morning. Thanks so much and we'll be watching for the events today.
DAWALD: Thank you. We're looking forward to it.
ROBERTS: Appreciate it. It's true what she said, we had another poll about a month ago and it showed that the majority of people in the Tea Party Movement were women. This one finding completely the opposite.
CHETRY: The funny thing that you talked about is just this was nothing a year ago and now it is.
ROBERTS: Yes, February, 2009, was the first event.
CHETRY: Right and now, 18 percent and some of the polls as high as 28 percent people say they identify with the Tea Party Movement so that's astounding.
ROBERTS: That's pretty incredible.
CHETRY: We're taking a quick break, when we come back. Deb Feyerick has been following the saga of Toyota. The latest of course is this 2010 Lexus, now, they are looking at all the SUVs that Toyota manufactures trying to make sure that there aren't problems. It is 18 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Toyota is in full damage control this morning. They ordering safety test on the stability control systems in every SUV the company makes, insisting that it simply wants to put customers' minds at ease.
ROBERTS: After being forced to halt sales of their high-end SUV, the Lexus GX-460. Consumer Reports warns its readers not to buy the GX-460 this week after test uncovered a high-risk of, there it is, that spin out, which can lead to rollovers. Our Deborah Feyerick is tracking this developing this story for us and she's got the latest.
Good morning, Deb.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, everybody. Well, you know, the hits really do just keep coming. Clearly, Toyota has learned a very tough lesson from recent PR disaster. The auto giant moving quickly after the highly respected non-profit group, Consumer Reports warned not to buy the Toyota-made Lexus GX-460.
Now, tests conducted by the magazine uncovering a potential stability problem with the $52,000 SUV. Take a look there, the vehicle's rear end repeatedly slides out in tight turns, posing a risk for rollovers, especially for example, when you're exiting a highway or driving along curvy roads.
Toyota now is ordering tests on all of its SUVs to determine potential problems in the electronic stability control systems. The company is denying, though, published reports in Japan that is recalling the 2010 Lexus GX-460 though it has stopped sales in the U.S. and elsewhere.
If you own one of these cars and you are nervous about driving it, well, Toyota is offering a free loaner car until the problem is identified and fixed. The company claims, quote, "there is no way of recalling a car voluntarily or otherwise unless we find something wrong with the car and we haven't done that yet. It is premature to talk about any recall steps at this point."
Now as for the safety checks being ordered for all Toyota-made SUVs, the automaker insists that the reason for that, the foremost reason for doing the extra tests is to put customer minds at ease. So really there is a big focus on making sure that the public gets what's going on and that they are keeping everybody in the loop.
That's one of the big things they did in terms of bringing quality control people. In terms of wanting to make sure that they are on top of this. Boy, you know, you scratch the surface. You're getting a little bit deeper.
ROBERTS: We should remind folks at home that this is only the 2010 model year. There was a redesign.
FEYERICK: That's exactly right and they are determining whether in fact it is structural or whether it's the electronic software, whether they just have to basically type it in, do the software fix and then roll that out.
ROBERTS: Deb Feyerick for us this morning. Good advice. Thanks, Deb.
The future of NASA. How do you have a space program when you are stuck on the ground? Our Suzanne Malveaux reports. Coming up next, 24 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: Twenty six minutes past the hour. Your top stories just 4 minutes away. First, an AM Original. Something you will see only on American Morning.
When you think of China, a few things come to mind, a big economic force, big booming cities, a Mecca of manufacturing. But in more remote locations like the Sichuan Province, the people only hope to live like Americans someday.
China is no doubt rising, but as John Vause shows us, it is not without growing pains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE (voice-over): To find out what some would call the real China, how hundreds of millions of Chinese live, we left the big cities behind and headed for the heartland. A1,000 miles into the center of the country, the Sichuan Province, but China is facing some of its biggest challenges on its way to being an economic super power.
(on camera): Because really there seems to be two Chinas, the China on the coast with the big rich moving cities like Beijing and Shanghai and then there is this China, which is very different.
(voice-over): More than half of China's 1.3 billion population live in the country in small villages and towns like this one where farmers on average earn less than $1,000 a year.
Our journey brings us to the Wong family. We met them simply by knocking on doors and they were happy to talk. The eldest of three brothers, five generations of his family live here, more than a dozen people.
A lot of people in America are worried about China. They see Chinese people are a threat in at least some regards.
WANG ZHENGLIANG (through translator): It is impossible for us to challenge them now. This is a big country with lots of small families, he says. The reality is China these days we still don't dare compare ourselves with developed countries.
VAUS (on camera): What do you want out of life?
(voice-over): I sure hope we can have a car, say Mr. Wang's sister-in-law and for our son to get a good education. To pay for that, her husband works in far-away Beijing as a landscaper. Two other family members also have jobs in the city. The rest of the family lives here in Sichuan Province, growing and selling oranges. The combining (inaudible) relatively good home which they are happy to show me.
(on camera): Through here is the kitchen. It looks pretty basic, especially by western standards. For rural China, this is actually pretty good. What makes it special in particular is running water. Just through here is the bathroom, shower, and toilet facilities, again, with running water. A lot of homes in the smaller villages, especially in the poorer parts of this country won't have access to bathroom facilities like that.
(voice-over): It might not look like much, but Li Dongyun, the family matriarch remembers when everyone had so much less.
LI DONGYUN, MOTHER (through translator): In those years, we had trouble getting food and clothes, she says.
VAUSE (voice-over): Over dinner, clearly, food is no longer a problem. It may be the communist propaganda talking. This older generation seems content.
ZHENGLIANG (through translator): If the country continues to be ruled in this way, life will get better and better. That's for sure. Every household will have a car, he said.
VAUSE (voice-over): That will be a long time coming for the 200 million Chinese who the World Bank says still live in poverty and even today, the most rural families, like the Wongs, health care and social security are almost nonexistent. And they scrimp to put their children through university. And it's that generation who want a lot more, bigger houses, bigger cars, more stuff, in other words, to live like Americans.
John Vause, CNN, Szechuan province, China.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Well, clearly, China's status as an economic super power comes as news to hundreds and millions of Chinese who struggle to get by every day, many on as little as $1 a day.
Here to give us an insight into the hopes and dreams of the Chinese people, "New York Times" columnist, Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl Wudunn, co-authors of the best-seller "Half the Sky." It's great to see you this morning. Thanks so much for coming in.
John pointed this out, Sheryl, at the beginning of his story there about this idea of two China's. You got the cities in the east, Beijing, Shanghai, all of those and growing affluence and then out in the countryside, you got this vast swath of poverty. You still have relatives living in China. How have things changed for them?
SHERYL WUDUNN, EXECUTIVE AT SOCIAL INVESTING & INVESTMENT BANKING FIRMS: Well, they actually are on the good side of the country. I mean, the tale of two countries really is very true. They started off very, very poor. But now, because they are in the coastal area and they were very close to Hong Kong, they were able to rise with the rising country. So now they have got everything, internet, they got cell phones, everything that 700 million people in China have. 700 million people in China have cell phones.
ROBERTS: They do. That's incredible.
WUDUNN: Yes. And there are more internet users in China than there are people in the U.S.. ROBERTS: Right. So the 20th century and I think you can say this about a large part of the 19th century as well, really the American centuries. Many people thinking that this is going to be China's century, the 21st. But when you have that many people who are still living in poverty, as John Vause was pointing out, can you really be an economic super power or to some degree, does that help you become a super power? Because you've got this enormous cheap labor pool.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yes, I think one of the reasons to be optimistic about China is that it is not only investing in cell phones and bigger houses, but also above all, in education. And the degree to which China has transformed education, even in rural areas, even in poor areas, is astonishing.
We used to go out to these rural schools and I mean, it was appalling what was going on 15, 20 years ago. Those teachers have moved out. These days, we often take our kids to these rural schools. And the kids in rural areas are at a math level higher than that of our kids in, you know, excellent suburban school here. It is really impressive the way they are investing in the future.
ROBERTS: And how is all this changing the aspirations of every day Chinese people?
WUDUNN: Oh, that's one thing that keeps me very optimistic about China, the aspirations. You give them a little bit, a taste of what it is like to be wealthy and that will last more than a lifetime, generations.
ROBERTS: Right. OK. So you have a growing middle class in China, growing affluence. You have a greater focus, as you said, Nick, on education. But at the same time, you have a government there that is looking certainly not at world domination but improving China's place in the world. And then you've got America on the other side of the Pacific. Are these two things going to create an inherent clash in culture and in power?
KRISTOF: Traditionally, the source of international conflict has been a rising power, a new power. And that was (INAUDIBLE) wrote about more than 2000 years ago. It is exactly what is happening right now, in the case of China.
Historically, China has not been particularly aggressive but it does want to have a blue water navy, for example. It does aspire to some kind of greater involvement in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
ROBERTS: Protecting its interests.
KRISTOF: Protecting its interests and you know, we think of China as this emerging power. From the Chinese point of view, it is not emerging. It is re-emerging. For most of history, China was the most important country in the world and then it had a bad few centuries. And I think that, you know, China feels it is quite natural for it to play a much greater role internationally. ROBERTS: And Sheryl, when you look at what China is doing, you know, securing access to resources, oil, other raw materials, these so called string of pearls, alliances with governments and certain economic spots like the Panama Canal. They've got ports that they control here in the United States, I mean, this is a global strategy.
WUDUNN: Well, it would be great to think of it as a very unified strategy. I mean, the Chinese find themselves struggling and really battling against these big challenges. But in fact, yes. Look at them right now. There are opportunities for not only the U.S. but other countries as well because China now is the largest auto market.
As I mentioned before, it has the largest number of cell phone users. It has more internet users than we can imagine. It has got $2.4 million in foreign exchange reserves. $900 billion in Treasuries. It's the largest of Treasuries. So there is a lot of opportunity for countries all around. But yes, China is going to make waves every time it does something.
And you know, so we shouldn't rock the boat and disrupt any kind of relations that we have with them, which I think is the area where we do have vulnerabilities.
ROBERTS: Although, you know, you got to consider, Nick, when you talk about an economic super power and want to have a blue water navy, does it follow that they will want to become a military super power as well. And we saw what happened with the last military super power and U.S. relations with Russia where Russia wasn't billions of dollars of our debt.
So can you see at some point down the road that China does want to become a military super power and is there going to be a clash with the U.S. over that?
KRISTOF: I think -- there was a book some years ago, "The Coming Conflict with China." I think that scenario is entirely plausible. I don't think it is inevitable. And I think whether that comes to pass will depend in a large part on how we and China manage to resolve these issues.
For me, one of the issues that is troubling is there is a lot of nationalism among young Chinese. Ideology collapse and to some degree, nationalism has become the new glue holding together the country. People are very justifiably proud of their extraordinary accomplishments. But I find that troubling.
ROBERTS: All right. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. Good to see you this morning. Thanks so much.
KRISTOF: Great to be on.
WUDUNN: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Kiran.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Very interesting stuff. Meanwhile, coming up in our 8:00 hour, a tax scam where dozens of checks and thousands of dollars are winding up in the hands of criminals. They are behind bars and collecting refunds from Uncle Sam.
John Zarrella with a fascinating look at what's going on. 36 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. 39 minutes past the hour right now.
In just a few hours, President Obama will be flying to the Kennedy Space Center to lay out future plans for America's space program. And he is going to be facing an audience that's been critical for this plan to scrub NASA's moon mission and also people concerned about what it could mean for their own future.
Suzanne Malveaux is live for us at the Kennedy Space Center this morning with more on our future of space exploration and what people that are in it think about this new plan. Hey, Suzanne.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kiran. Good morning, Kiran. Well, obviously, the president is going to come here and try to allay the fears of thousands of people who fear that their jobs may be on the chopping block because of this. Because of the Obama plan, the president is going to announce $40 million and try to help those part of the space program to get back on their feet.
He is also going to make the case that under his plan, there will be more jobs created than under President Bush's moon mission plan. But obviously there has been a lot of criticism already. We have heard it from Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk the moon. The entire Florida congressional delegation, Democrats, Republicans are against this, as well as some hard-working folks that we met here at Kennedy Space Center who are quite frankly, Kiran, anxious about their futures. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): The moon mission under President Obama is scrapped, at least for now. A devastating blow to Kennedy Space Center employees.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I should have a plan "b" but I don't have a good plan b. I want to stay here as long as I can but after that we may have to relocate and try to find another job in aerospace, to go back to being an aircraft mechanic or maybe I'll stick around here and I'll drive a truck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is just kind of a cliff out there and we are not sure what's on the other side of the cliff.
MALVEAUX: The anxiety began with the announcement under President George W. Bush that NASA's aging space shuttles will retire in 2010, eliminating nearly 7,000 jobs at Kennedy Space Center and tens of thousands elsewhere. Families at least took comfort in President Bush's plan to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020.
But in February of this year, the Obama announced it was killing the moon mission called Constellation. After having spent $9 billion on the program.
(on camera): This $500 million steel tower stands at 355 feet. It's brand new, never been used before. And it was built to launch rockets into space. But under President Obama's new space program, it will now sit dormant.
(voice-over): But White House officials say that President Bush's mission to the moon was doomed from the start, over budgeted and behind schedule.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Bush articulated a beautiful policy back in 2004. But there wasn't a follow-through. There wasn't a follow-up. They kind of drifted. NASA lost some of the money it was supposed to have gotten --
MALVEAUX: But the Obama administration is worried that it is losing the public relations battle. 48 hours before the President's visit here, White House officials announced changes to Obama's new space policy, including bringing back some components they were going to moth ball.
The Obama administration also says it is increasing NASA's budget for long-term projects and further journeys into the solar system while wanting to leave routine space trips for private companies and foreign governments. But the notion of having the Russians, Chinese or others ferry U.S. astronauts disturbs some NASA workers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have always been leaders in space. If you are not flying, it is hard for me to believe you can be the leaders. I think we are going to lose that. It's disappointing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: All right. Kiran, there is a great deal of pride here when you talk to the mechanics, the technicians, the folks who sweep the floors. They all feel like they are all part of something bigger here, this bigger mission, part of history, that is what we are hearing as well, the sense of loss. Now, White House officials would respond and would hear the President make this case that he understands but that all you have to do is just hold on. You will be a part of that. Use the money that we have now to invest in bigger projects, bigger missions like in the future, getting to Mars.
In the meantime, to support investing these private companies to shuttle these U.S. astronauts back and forth in space. Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Suzanne Malveaux for us this morning, thanks so much. We have been getting some comments on the space program on our AMFIX blog this morning. It is up and running right now. If you would like to check it out. Cnn.com/amfix.
ROBERTS: Here is what somebody wrote in. I was saying that, you know, with all of the budgetary pressures we have, can we afford to go into space? Warren writes "John, please stop saying NASA is expensive. The 2009 budget for the space program was $17.6 billion. Compare that to the Defense Department at something like $600 billion. NASA is a bargain for what we get out of it. How about the stunning Hubble images?"
I have to admit the images are stunning and certainly the budget for the Defense Department are a whole lot bigger than NASA. But $17.6 billion is nothing to sneeze at. Although I believe and have since I was this big that there is tremendous value into exploring space. It is expensive.
CHETRY: And there people have very different opinions. Some people say, look, let's spend more money on things that happen here and help out our schools and other people say it is so valuable. We have to continue space exploration.
James H. wrote, "Excellent interview with Kitty Kelley. It should be quite a read, not necessarily an Oprah book recommendation. By the way, I noticed a Band-Aid on your arm. What happened?"
I'm the house klutz here. And I banged it and it started to look a little bit red. So, I put Band-aid. Sorry about that.
ROBERTS: Got to be careful out there.
Be part of the conversation. Go to our blog at cnn.com/amfix. We will be reading your comments throughout the morning. Stay with us. Rob Marciano is going to have the travel forecast right after the break.
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CHETRY: We have breaking news regarding Toyota and the production of the Lexus 2010 model that earlier in the week Consumers Reports magazine warned do not buy it. It is the 2010 GX-460. We have confirmed that Toyota is suspending production of that make and model, the 2010 Lexus GX-460 from April 16th, which will be tomorrow, until the 28th.
We also heard from our own Deb Feyerick that they are now examining the stability control systems in all of its SUVs after the Consumer Reports magazine talked about the unacceptable rollover risk in tight turns of this Lexus SUV model.
ROBERTS: It is 48-and-a-half minutes after the hour. Up for checking this morning's weather headlines, Rob Marciano is in Atlanta as he always is for us this morning.
Good morning, Rob. ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, John. Good morning, Kiran. We are looking at another gorgeous day across parts of the eastern third of the country. Notice this ribbon of moisture kind of arcing up and over the great lakes. That's kind of going up and around a big ridge that has created the pleasant weather.
Warm temperatures in many spots for the past few days, 86 degrees expected in Memphis, 81 degrees in Chicago. On the western side of this ridge, we do expect to see a little bit of rain across parts of Texas. The cool air will begin to shift a little bit farther to the south and east over the next few days. Today we will see some light winds across New York, but some cross winds and maybe some delays there in Detroit.
It is mentioned over in Europe, especially the U.K., where we are dealing with Iceland eruptions and the ash therein. Check it out. The video of this volcano that has been erupting for the second time now over a glacier. The other problem is the ash is in the air. Some of that has been filtering down across parts of Scandinavia and the U.K.
Now we're getting reports of the maybe western parts of Spain will get some of this and this is not good for aviation. So the jet stream kind of not helping things as it is driving everything down a little bit farther to the south than it would more of towards the north and east. So that is creating its fair share of problems.
You don't want to fly an airliner into ash plume. If you are flying over there, definitely call ahead because numerous flights cancelled and air space restricted in some cases. Airports flat out shut down.
John and Kiran, back up to you.
ROBERTS: You don't want to be flying into ash cloud, right, Rob. You know you could fly into rain and maybe smoke to some degree, but ash --
MARCIANO: It just shuts down the engine so they avoid it at all cost no doubt about that.
ROBERTS: Rob Marciano for us this morning. Rob, thanks so much.
We'll be right back with Dr. Sanjay Gupta coming up with this amazing surgery. A soldier had a round of explosive ammunition. Stay with us.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Time now for "AM House Call" 54 minutes past the hour. Stories about your health. It was supposed to be a routine surgery, as routine surgeries can go. But a recent operation at Balgrim Air Base in Afghanistan was anything but --
ROBERTS: Air Force doctors were removing shrapnel from a soldier's skull when they realized that they found a round of explosive ammunition. CNN's Chief Medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is live in Atlanta for us this morning.
Wow, that's not the thing you want to find when you're doing surgery. How did they get it out?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It was an amazing story, really start to finish. What happened here, I want to tell you how they get it out, but what happened here is that a patient came in with a piece of shrapnel around the brain, that's not unusual. It looked like a cartridge, also not unusual. But it was actually the radiologist who realized there was something unusual about this particular image.
When they looked at it, let me show you, they gave us the actual images here. So you can see with me, I'll explain to you, you're looking at a CT scan of the skull. Obviously, over here is where the problem is. They recognized that this was a cartridge, but it had very abnormal edges around it. It had not exploded.
This was a live round, something the radiologist was able to determine rather quickly. In order to confirm, they got an image, which looked like this and people who never looked at images of cartridges and knows what it looks like, you can see the detonation device still active.
They realized even before they did anything, that in fact that they were dealing with a live round of ammunition, really around someone's brain here and someone's skull. That caused a scourge, you might imagine and lot of things went into motion there.
First of all, they evacuated the room where the patient was. They got the surgeons to put on the Kevlar, the anesthesiologists as well. They called in the bomb team. And they start to methodically turn off all electronic equipment in the room, any kind of monitoring equipment, any kind of anesthesia equipment. For fear this could be detonated even by an energy blast from some of this equipment.
And then they got to the business of simply taking this thing out, which, you know, I'm sure a heart-stopping task for the people that were involved. The way this thing can be exploded is by dropping it, by having a pure frontal sort of impact or by having one of these electronic pieces of equipment set it off.
Eventually, after the operation, they did get it out and I just want to show you real quick, we got a picture of what it looked like ultimately. You can see how big this thing was. Again, an unexploded cartridge sitting in someone's ahead. All of those actions needed to try to get that out safely. The patient is doing fine. They were able to get that out within about 20 minutes or so they told us. Just a remarkable sequence of events.
CHETRY: Yes, it's not every day that you need to call the bomb disposal unit right into the operating room. I mean, just amazing. This is the stuff that they have on TV shows, Grey's Anatomy, I mean, but to do it in real life, but it's very interesting to know that these doctors actually did learn how to do this, right, in part of their schooling?
GUPTA: Yes, it's interesting, it was Dr. John Denney who said, by the way, he didn't breathe a sigh of relief things happened so quickly. They do learn how to do this. I looked through some of the literature last night, I couldn't find any actual write ups if something like this happening.
But you know, it's worth pointing out when you look at an image like this, for the surgeons involved the sequence of events that I just described, turning off all the things in the room, making sure the surgeons were in Kevlar, taking it out subsequently with bare hands because even touching it with a metal instrument or some sort could also detonate it.
But if you notice here something important, if you look at the skull following around, the skull sort of comes down here and ammunition, this live round, is sitting on top of a depression in the skull. So in fact, most of this was sitting outside the brain, which is over here. So they had to make a large incision around this and then scoop it out, so to speak, with bare hands.
Kiran, as you mentioned, drop it immediately into a bomb squad bag. You know, they say they prepare for this sort of thing, and we prepare for a lot of things in medicine, but when it actually happens, obviously, it's a whole different story, it's reality. It's amazing, Dr. John Denney, again, you're literally risking your life because that thing could go off. Who knows exactly what would set it off in order to take it out of somebody else's head, someone else's brain.
CHETRY: He said he taught students to do it at a Waxford Air Force base, but never thought he would actually have to do it in real life himself?
GUPTA: That's right and I don't know if he's watching right now, but I hope you're breathing a sigh of relief now, sir.
ROBERTS: Pretty amazing, Sanjay when you think that they turned off all the instruments in the room for fear of setting this thing off. The guy had just been in a CAT scan, for Pete's sake?
GUPTA: I know, I mean, when you turn off all the equipment, the anesthesiologist literally counting the drops, John, of anesthesia going in because he can't monitor, you got to turn that off. It's a confluence of events, and a lot of things intervened, including a lot of good luck, I think.
ROBERTS: Thanks, Sanjay. What an amazing story.
CHETRY: And that leads us to the term "it's not brain surgery." that's brain surgery.
ROBERTS: Top stories coming your way in two minutes. Stay with us.
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