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American Morning

President Obama to Nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan Supreme Court; BP Trying to Stop the Oil Leak With Smaller Dome; Home Sales Bottoming Out?; Breaking Free From Prescription Drugs; Kagan Confirmation Prospects; Taliban Tied to Time Square Bomber; Homegrown Terror's Poster Child

Aired May 10, 2010 - 07:00   ET

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

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good Monday morning to you. Thanks for being with us on this AMERICAN MORNING . It is May 10th. I'm Kiran Chetry.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. Thanks for joining us this morning. And here are the big stories we'll be telling you about coming your way in the next 15 minutes.

President Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court this morning. It will happen at 10:00. Kagan served as White House adviser during Bill Clinton's presidency. She has never been a judge, though. So, will her record inspire a fight over her confirmation? We've got the best political team on television standing by.

CHETRY: Another snag and another possible solution to the massive oil spill in the Gulf. BP plans to try to position a smaller containment dome over the leak after the first one clogged with ice crystals. The Coast Guard has an idea as well to stuff shredded tires and golf balls into the gusher to try to plug it.

Just ahead we'll talk with BP about how to stop the slick.

ROBERTS: And the White House says the man behind the attempted Times Square bombing did not act alone. There's new evidence Faisal Shahzad was taking orders from the Pakistani Taliban, and that has the Obama administration turning up the heat now on Pakistan's government.

CHETRY: And of course the A.M. fix blog is up and running. We'd love for you to join the live conversation. Go to CNN.com/amFIX.

ROBERTS: But first, in just a few hours' time President Obama will make his Supreme Court pick to replace retiring justice John Paul Stevens. CNN learning that it will be the country's first female solicitor general Elena Kagan.

CHETRY: The Manhattan-raised, Ivy League educated Kagan has been a frontrunner from the start and if confirmed will be the youngest member of the Supreme Court.

ROBERTS: So this morning we have our White House correspondent Ed Henry and senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin standing by. Let's start with Ed, who's live at the White House this morning.

So she was rumored to be the president's pick, but he went with Judge Sonia Sotomayor last year. So second chance here, is that why he's picking her?

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No doubt about it, John. Sources close to the president basically say he was definitely very interested in Elena Kagan the first time around last year. She came close to getting it. This time around he was very impressed with here we're told in his one-on-one private interview here at the White House.

And when you go through her record, they believe she's eminently qualified. As you noted, the first woman to become solicitor general. That current position means she argues on behalf of the federal government before the Supreme Court.

Secondly, while she's never been a judge before, conservatives suggesting maybe she has a thin paper trail there, she was the first woman to be the Dean of the Harvard law school and certainly made some of her legal views known there, and was an associate council here in the Clinton White House, so certainly weighed in on a lot of big legal issues. We're going to hear a lot about that at confirmation hearings.

You noted her age. This, according to the president's advisers, was a big factor. It suggests she could be on the high court for a long time, long after this president is out of office.

And finally, while they don't expect she would tilt the balance because she would be replacing someone in Justice Stevens who was very liberal on the court, what we've been hearing from the president's advisers in recent days is they are expecting someone with a spark like Justice Stevens, someone who will be a leader.

What that really means is that in some of these five-four decision that have gone to the right, they believe Elena Kagan if confirmed could be a leader on the court who maybe tilts the swing vote, Justice Kennedy, more to the left. And what's at stake is a lot of the much of the agenda from health reform to counterterrorism policy could be going before the high court in the next few years because of all kinds of various legal challenges, John.

ROBERTS: Before she gets there, Ed, she has to go through confirmation. Is the White House expecting a tough fight?

HENRY: They know there's going to be a battle here. These confirmation fights usually are. They look at the fact that last year when she was up for solicitor general in the Senate, she only had 31 votes against her. She has several Republicans on board, 61 votes for her, more than enough to break a potential filibuster.

And they basically will layout a challenge to Republicans -- what has changed since last year, her record or just the politics of the situation? We'll be hearing a lot about that, John.

ROBERTS: Ed Henry at the White House this morning for us. Thanks so much.

CHETRY: And we want to bring in our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. You would normally be an expert, but even more so because you're friends with Elena Kagan and have known her for years.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: For almost 30 years. We were law school classmates, in a study group of four people all through our first year, so I do know Kagan well. She's smart, self- confident, she's funny. She is someone who goes into groups and organizations and figures out how to get along with everybody.

Her political views are a mystery, frankly, even to me. But everywhere she has gone she has been a leader and someone who has brought factions together.

ROBERTS: Not much of a paper trail with her because no time in the judiciary, although she was nominated in 1999 by President Bill Clinton and never confirmed.

A point of controversy that some people brought up is when she was dean of Harvard law school she tried to keep military recruiters off campus, and she ended up having to back pedal on the whole thing when the Pentagon threatened her and the Supreme Court ruled against her.

What was that all about? Do you expect that will come up at her confirmation hearing?

TOOBIN: John, I think that issue will be the biggest substantive issue she'll be questioned about because it is the only controversial issue that I'm aware of that she's taken a strong stand on.

All universities, almost every university and certainly Harvard, where she was dean, had a policy that said you can't recruit on campus. You can't recruit our students. We won't make our facilities available to you unless you agree not to discriminate -- race, gender, sexual orientation.

The military openly discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. You can't be a member of the military if you're gay.

Like virtually all of major schools in the country, Harvard said we want you to recruit here, but we want you to follow our policies. The federal government passed a law called the Solomon amendment that said if you throw the military off campus, you lose all of your federal funding, which is hundreds of millions of dollars for a University like Harvard.

Harvard and many other universities led by NYU challenged that law and said it was unconstitutional. Kagan filed a brief saying she thought the law was wrong, and the Supreme Court unanimously voted against her.

CHETRY: And then in her hearings for solicitor general she backtracked and said she would have pulled Solomon? TOOBIN: Absolutely. Her job as solicitor general is very different than her job as a private lawyer. When you are the solicitor general, it is your job to defend federal government and federal statutes. If you think you can't do that, you have to quit.

So she has defended laws that perhaps she would not have voted for if she was a member of Congress. So I think it's a little interesting and perhaps somewhat confusing to sort of judge her views by the stand she's taken as solicitor general.

CHETRY: And that's interesting because there will be a lot of memos about that because she writes to the president.

TOOBIN: Certainly there will be a lot of people at the Clinton library now looking at her paper trail, because when you look at someone like John Roberts and Samuel Alito, their record when they worked for the Reagan administration was useful in the confirmation process and this will be too.

ROBERTS: Jeff Toobin, thanks.

CHETRY: Also new this morning, a legendary singer and actress Lena Horne has died. She was an international star and also a trailblazer for future generations of African-American performers. She was an outspoken civil rights activist. Len Horne was 92 years old.

ROBERTS: Federal investigators say there were no signs of engine trouble before New York's Staten Island ferry slammed into a pier this weekend. Dozens of passengers were injured in the crash. It is the same ferry involved in a 2003 wreck that killed 11 people.

CHETRY: Also, emergency officials now say 23 people were killed in Tennessee by last weekend's flooding, 32 deaths in all across the southeast, 42 counties are now federal disaster areas, and city officials say the damage in Nashville with total $1.5 billion.

Two members of President Obama's cabinet, the secretaries of housing and commerce, will be touring the area today.

ROBERTS: Possible setback for Tiger Woods' comeback. The golfer suddenly pulled out of yesterday's players' championship due to neck pain. He also says he felt tingling in his arm and might have a bulging disk in his back.

CHETRY: And that wasn't the only pain in the neck Tiger was dealing with this week. He was taunted by a rowdy fan. Police used a stun gun to subdue the spectator.

ROBERTS: BP's four-story containment dome was supposed to keep leaking oil from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. It didn't work. So what are the chances a scaled down version might succeed? We're talking to the company's chief operating officer coming up next. It's nine minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROBERTS: Right now we're following developments in the Gulf of Mexico where BP is moving on to plan B to try to contain a massive oil spill. A 40-foot high dome lowered into the water over the weekend failed to work.

CHETRY: The company is now scrambling to figure out how to unclog ice crystals that have made it impossible for that containment dome to work and also to find a way to plug up the league that's spewing more than 200,000 gallons of oil into the sea every day.

Joining us from Louisiana is Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production. Doug, thanks for being with us this morning.

DOUG SUTTLES, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, BP: You bet. Thank you for the chance.

CHETRY: I know there was a lot of hope put in the lowering of the dome over the weekend. We learned it was ice crystals that ended up building up on the dome and you had to pull it off. And now you're going to plan B. Can you explain what the potential fix is when it comes to the containment dome?

SUTTLES: Yes, I can, Kiran. What we did was we lowered this chamber to the bottom of the ocean to put over the leak point. We knew these hydrates would be a problem but actually it was a bigger issue than we forecasted or predicted. It's the combination of the water with the gas and temperature and pressure that caused them to form.

So the new option -- and we have been working this all along. We've already built this smaller dome. It was already available. The idea there is to keep most of the water out at the very beginning and also allow us to put what we call methanol in so the hydrates won't form.

ROBERTS: So you have a couple of other things too that you might try. There's been talk about a top kill, trying to put some mud and concrete in there. You're not sure how that will work out. There's the thing described over the weekend where you might try to shoot in pieces of debris like ground up tires and golf balls.

Do you have any reasonable expectation that any of this will work, because you had high hopes for the containment dome and you don't have a lot of experience in working with some sort of remediation effort at that depth? How do you know any of this might work?

SUTTLES: Well, you know, John, what we had was since the beginning, we wanted -- the goals were clear -- stop the flow, minimize the impact, and keep people informed. What we've been doing is pushing parallel paths because we don't know which one is going to work.

And on the stop the flow options, we still have several available to us. And that includes this, what we call the junk shot, which is also the same as top kill. We actually pump that material in and plug up the blowout preventer and follow that with heavy fluids followed by cement.

We also have an option now available to us to actually put a valve or new blowout preventer on top of the existing one. What we're going to do is keep developing options and keep trying these options until we get this flow stopped. And ultimately the back stop is the relief well.

CHETRY: Is that happening now as well? You're still digging the relief well?

SUTTLES: Absolutely. And that started about a week ago. And that work continues. The well is at about 9,000 feet. Of course, about 5,000 of that is the water depth, and then the rest is drilling below the sea floor. We're slightly ahead of plan here. These are complex tasks, but we are making very good progress.

ROBERTS: You know, we talked to you about this last week, and we saw a lot of fishermen coming to BP over the weekend looking to file claims of economic damages. Where are you with this idea of economic damages? Because last week when we talked to you, you said that BP would pay all, quote, "legitimate claims."

But then when your CEO, Tony Hayward, met with Senator Bill Nelson in recent days, Senator Nelson came out and said, well, BP's position on this now is, according to Tony Hayward, that something that we'll have to work out in the future.

So which is it?

SUTTLES: Well, what we're doing -- I mean, I was in Venice yesterday. I spent a good deal of the afternoon and I went to our claims office. I went to our community center. I talked to the people there. I talked to the people in line. And you know, what you can feel is they want to be at work. They don't want to be in line waiting on a check, but we're getting them checks.

Actually while I was there, people let you go in, make their claim and leave with a check. And what we're doing is trying to minimize the immediate impact. Longer term, I'm sure we'll have to work that out. But we're moving very swiftly to try to get these people who are predominantly displaced from working, a lot of these are fishermen, is get them money so they can pay their bills. They can buy their groceries and we can offset some of this impact until we get this thing resolved.

CHETRY: And, Doug, along that line there is some criticism apparently from the local fishermen about the jobs program. They're saying that Louisiana and Alabama fishermen are complaining that too few of them are being selected and in some cases out of state fishermen are taking advantage of the program that was designed for locals and that some are being hit hard, for example, the Venice fishermen perhaps because of the language barrier there.

What are you doing to address some of those complaints? SUTTLES: Well, I mean, if I talk about some of those, we have several hundred boats already in this vessel of opportunity program where people can help us. One of the issues is, of course, we haven't had that much oil come ashore yet. So the number of boats -- mainly the boats are being used to deploy boom and stage material. But at this point since we don't have a lot of oil ashore, we don't need that many boats yet to respond.

On the issue about people whose first language isn't English, we now have interpreters in all the offices so that we can actually make sure communication isn't getting in the way. And I actually physically observed that myself yesterday when I was on site.

CHETRY: All right. Well, fingers crossed that a few of these other options will actually work, the smaller dome perhaps, and a couple of the other ones to get the leak finally plugged.

Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP, thanks so much.

SUTTLES: Thank you.

ROBERTS: All right.

The value of your home continuing to slide according to one real estate Web site. But are there signs that we may be reaching the bottom? Christine Romans is "Minding Your Business." She's got a preview.

Good morning, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. And yes, there are some signs that we may be reaching a bottom. In fact, a bottom perhaps in home prices later this year, maybe the third quarter. And good morning, California. The free fall has stopped in some major, major cities in California.

I'm going to tell you about the value of your largest asset, your home right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Twenty-one minutes past the hour. After ending the week with several days that traders would like to forget, things are actually looking up today for Wall Street. Dow future is up nearly 400 points right now. One thing calming investors worldwide, a European Union agreement totaling nearly $1 trillion aimed at fixing the region's debt crisis. Markets are up both across Asia and Europe this morning.

ROBERTS: Well, Christine Romans is here "Minding Your Business." And there might be even though potentially some bad news lies ahead in the immediate term, some good news long term for the housing market. What have you got?

ROMANS: Well, we're trying to figure out when this whole thing is going to turn around and you're going to stop the free fall in housing prices. And there's a new report from Zillow that basically says it may be by the end of this year you'll reach that bottom in housing prices. And in California maybe it's already happened.

But let me tell you what's happening at your home price right now. You are still seeing home prices in March, according to Zillow, down 3.8 percent. So it still hurts for the value of your largest asset. Average home price is about $183,700. 22.3 percent of homes are under water. That means your house is worth less than the value of the mortgage right now. This number continues to climb.

So look, I want to be clear, you're still kind of having some rough going in terms of the value of your home. But let's talk about California, quickly, because this has been an epicenter of the foreclosure crisis and the housing crash crisis. And I want to talk about some of these areas that are showing a little bit of signs of life.

Let me pull this over for you. The L.A. metro are home prices up. Also in San Diego, also in San Francisco, up 3.7 percent. Santa Barbara and Ventura metro up 2.9 percent. So you're seeing finally an end to those massive, massive declines in home prices. But I want to be clear about something else here. You still have one in a thousand homes are in foreclosure, Foreclosure resales. Of all the sales we're seeing, a fifth of them are foreclosed homes. And those homes are selling for about a third less than others. So, look, we haven't turned completely the corner but at least we're seeing these little signs that the value of your biggest asset, the worst might be behind you -- John and Kiran.

ROBERTS: Speaking of the worst might be behind us, Dow futures up 392 after this announcement of the big rescue package for Greece. Is that going to put an end to it?

ROMANS: I don't think it puts an end to it, but it certainly is a very big period on the sentence of the crisis and the debt crisis in those European countries. What this is, is an attempt. The EU is trying to say we are going to defend the European Union. We are not going to let what happened in '97 and '98 in Asia, where country after country was toppled by a crisis. We're not going to let that happen. A trillion dollars is a lot of money, so Wall Street is at least betting that the worst is behind us on that too. But there's still a lot of work to do. I want to be clear about that.

CHETRY: We'll see what happens when the markets open in a couple of hours.

ROMANS: Yes.

CHETRY: Christine, thanks so much.

Meanwhile, the mercy of prescription drugs. One young woman battles to finally break free. An update on our series, "Addicted." Just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Twenty- five minutes past the hour right now. Your top stories just five minutes away. First, though, an "A.M. Original," something you'll see only here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Back in March, we gave you a frightening look at prescription drug addiction among young people, specifically one 18-year-old named Melissa who is battling a dangerous cocktail of prescription drugs. Well, it nearly ended Melissa's life. This morning, we go back to visit her to see whether or not she's serious about getting clean.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty milligram Adderall. They're pretty wonderful because they taste like oranges.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They taste like Orange Tic-Tacs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yum, yum, yum, yum.

CHETRY (voice-over): We first met 18-year-old Melissa a month ago, a self-described prescription drug addict.

(on camera): How did you ever first get introduced to drugs?

MELISSA, 18-YEAR-OLD DRUG USER: My mother was prescribed Xanax. I began taking them as well. And there was this kind of like an immediate comfort from them.

CHETRY: Melissa and her best friend, who asked to be called "Sara," told us snorting crushed-up pills was a daily habit.

(on camera): How long did it take you to get addicted?

"SARA", 18-YEAR-OLD DRUG USER: I wouldn't really say -- I wouldn't really say that I'm addicted, like I've been on and off.

CHETRY: Do you think you could stop today?

"SARA": No.

CHETRY: Why not?

"SARA": Because I've tried. I made it -- I think I made it three days.

ADAM, 20-YEAR-OLD FORMER DRUG USER: I just fell in love with it.

CHETRY (voice-over): Adam is Melissa's cousin. Now sober, he says he overdosed 15 times before getting clean.

ADAM: It's just like you need it and you don't want to do anything else and you don't care about anything else. You know, and you'll spend every last penny you have on it just to have that feeling. And for me that was immediate. CHETRY: All three of them say they started abusing drugs when they were just 13. Fast forward five years, Melissa has been in and out of rehab three times, is a high school dropout and has been arrested. She told us she was well aware of her losing battle with pills, yet continued to abuse.

MELISSA: I'm most certainly am an addict. Like, hi, my name is Melissa; I'm an addict and I'm an alcoholic. Like, I know that I am. Like, I really do just make excuses. I need to clean my room, but I have no ambition of taking Adderall, yet my room needs to be clean. That's why I took it. Yes, that's why -- they're just dumb excuses, dumb reasons, just telling myself it's OK. It's not OK.

CHETRY (on camera): And so where do you -- after having that type of self-realization, where do you take the next step? What's next?

MELISSA: Honestly from here, like, I don't know where everything is going to go. But I want to try -- I want to try really, really hard to stop making excuses for why I do these things because it's not getting me anywhere.

CHETRY (voice-over): Then two hours later, after we finished our interview, Melissa and "Sara" were snorting Adderall in their car.

MELISSA: Prescription pills suck. They suck. They suck. I am currently high on them and it's not worth it. It's not worth it.

CHETRY: But even that wasn't her lowest. She would hit rock bottom in two days.

(on camera): And you've certainly been through a lot since we last spoke?

MELISSA: It was a really, really rough month.

CHETRY: So what happened? After we left, you know, you had spoken really candidly and you didn't feel that doing drugs is going to get you anywhere. What happened after that?

MELISSA: I went over to a friend's house and I thought I was having a good time, and I ended up trying to commit suicide. I felt really lonely and I guess a lot of times when you're using drugs, that's how you end up feeling. But I felt really alone and I felt worthless, and I tried to commit suicide.

I don't remember calling an ambulance or how it got to me. But I went to the hospital, I was in intensive care for four days. They told me I was 15 minutes away from death.

CHETRY: What did you take?

MELISSA: I took Benadryl, Tylenol, Aleve, Advil. Basically there were some prescription pills that were in there. I took some of those as well. I'm not sure what they were. I basically went for anything I could get my hands on. CHETRY: So after you came to in the hospital, what was the first thing that went through your mind?

MELISSA: The first thing that came through my mind was wanting to get high and thinking that I needed to be high.

CHETRY (voice-over): It wasn't until her fifth day in the hospital that Melissa finally saw through her addiction.

MELISSA: I've been in rehab and it just -- it wasn't enough for me. It didn't strike me as that serious. But being 15 minutes away from death, that was my bottom. That's as low as I can get. And it made me realize what I need to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: So tomorrow, Melissa takes us inside of her new world of sobriety. We'll show you some of the challenges she's facing. She actually shot a video diary for us. Old habits and friendship that could actually pull her back into the addiction. So how she doing, we're going to find out tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING.

ROBERTS: You know, the pull of these drugs is so powerful for so many people and we've seen even people like Robert Downey, Jr., almost throw away a fabulous career because of just the need to get high. Do you think she's got what it takes to battle through this?

CHETRY: Well, I think one of the hardest things is when you go back to the same exact environment when you started using, so the same friends. I mean, a lot of people talk about how you need to find a new group of friends.

ROBERTS: Where are her parents in all of these?

CHETRY: Well, as she said in the piece, she first was introduced to prescription drugs by taking her mother's, at the home. And she had left for a while and lived with her sister and her sister's husband in North Carolina. That was where she was for this month that she was taping the video diary. Now she's returned home. And so we're going to find out how challenging it is for her.

ROBERTS: Yes. A situation like this it requires, it does take a village to really help somebody stay clean and sober.

CHETRY: It does.

ROBERTS: She has a serious, serious problem.

CHETRY: Yes.

ROBERTS: My goodness.

Crossing the half hour now. Time for this morning's top stories. A series of coordinated attacks across Baghdad against Iraqi police, an army unit has left at least 10 people dead. They are all police officers or soldiers. Gunmen using automatic weapons open fire at six check points across the city and explosions rocked four others. The attacks followed the recent arrests and killings of Al Qaeda members in Iraq.

CHETRY: The leaders of Britain's top political parties resumed talks today in an effort to form a new government. Right now, there's what's called a hung parliament. For the first time in 36 years, the parties are trying to hammer out a power sharing deal against the backdrop of anxiety over the country's economic stability. Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown is still clinging to power despite his party's lost last week to the conservatives.

ROBERTS: And President Obama sets to nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan this morning, as the nation's 112th Supreme Court justice. She was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would become the first justice in nearly 40 years who has never served as a judge.

Our senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash is live on Capitol Hill this morning. And any idea how members of the judiciary committee are reacting to the president's nominee?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, interesting, as far as I was told by some sources in the last hour, there has not been official word given to the Senate and to the judiciary committee so far by the president and his aides. There certainly wouldn't be surprise and our surprise to hear that the president will be nominating Elena Kagan later today.

We're likely to hear especially from the Republican side some pretty tempered statements, likely to say, "well, look, we can't say much because we don't know much about her record." As you mentioned, she's never been on the bench and she is a very, very short paper trail. Few writings, few speeches that tend to give senators a window into a nominee's judicial philosophy or even position that she or he will take on the court.

But, you know, it might not just be Republicans who are worried about that, John, liberals also just in the lead-up to this have been writing that many of them are very concerned that she might not be as far left as they would like her. She might actually be too conservative as far as a nominee for a democratic president goes.

ROBERTS: Yes, because one of the things that she indicated that she supported during her confirmation hearings as solicitor general was indefinite suspension without trial of terror suspects. So people on the far left might not like that.

BASH: You got it.

ROBERTS: But in terms of Republicans, seven supported her during the confirmation hearings for solicitor general. Is she expected to get any this time around?

BASH: You know, it's really unclear. I think most senators, Republican and Democrat, will say it's one thing to approve the president's pick for the person who will argue his cases before the Supreme Court. It's a whole other thing to vote for somebody who will have a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

But what's very interesting is that we're already seeing that Republicans in terms of this process may use Elena Kagan's own words against her. Remember, since 1987, Robert (inaudible) failed the nomination to the Supreme Court, nominees from presidents of both parties have been very careful not to say anything at all really, or very much, about their positions that they might take when they get to the court.

Well, Elena Kagan, John, wrote back in 1995 that she thinks that the process is a charade and that a nominee should give their position. Look at what she said, she said "When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce."

Now conservatives are calling this the Kagan Standard, saying she should live up to her own arguments, that she should be answering questions when the nominee's hearings come forward about what exactly she might do on the court. They say that she said it. But as solicitor general going through that nomination process, she said that she's changed her position since 1995 on that.

ROBERTS: Well, I'm sure that there will be some people on the judiciary that want to have a couple of things to say about that. We'll see. Dana Bash for us on Capitol Hill this morning. Dana, thanks so much.

BASH: Thank you.

CHETRY: Well, U.S. officials now say that a Taliban connection to the attempted Times Square bombing is clear. So what's the Obama administration prepared to do about it? We're live in Washington just ahead. It's 35 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's 38 minutes past the hour right now.

They weren't sure at first but now senior White House officials say they are convinced the plot to set off a bomb in Times Square was hatched by the Pakistani Taliban using Faisal Shahzad as the point man. Here's what secretary of state Hillary Clinton said last night on "60 minutes."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: There are connections, exactly how they are, how deep they are, how long they've lasted, whether this was an operation encouraged or directed, those are questions that are still in the process of being sorted out.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CHETRY: Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve is following developments for us. She's live in Washington this morning. Good morning, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. A week ago administration officials were saying they thought Shahzad was operating alone, but the investigation has taken a different turn and now administration officials are saying definitively, Shahzad was working with the Taliban in Pakistan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BRENNAN, WHITE HOUSE COUNTER TERRORISM ADVISER: It looks like he was working on behalf of the Tehrik-I Taliban Pakistan, the TTP, that's the Pakistan Taliban. This is a group that is closely allied with Al Qaeda.

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We know they helped facilitate it and we know they help direct it. And I suspect that we're going to come up with evidence that shows they helped to finance it. They were intimately involved in this plot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: Neither Brennan nor Holder provided any specifics. The development is an important one because the TTP believed to be responsible for the assassination of Pakistan's prime minister Benazir Bhutto has never before been implicated in an attack inside the United States. Brennan and Holder gave no hints as to whether Shahzad had other associates here, saying the investigation is continuing. Kiran.

CHETRY: So meanwhile, the attorney general also had some important comments regarding Miranda Rights. This has been a very controversial issue when it comes to people who have been detained and wanted to be questioned in connection with terror plots overseas.

MESERVE: That's right. Holder revealed that Shahzad was questioned for about four hours after the public safety exception before being read his constitutional rights. Shahzad is still cooperating, providing information to interrogators but Holder says the government needs greater flexibility to question terrorism suspects than is provided right now.

He said the administration would look to work with Congress to curb out new exceptions. The issue of reading Miranda Rights, as you said, became a flashpoint in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged Christmas day bomber, where some Republicans arguing terror suspects should be treated like military detainees, not criminal defendants. This has surfaced again since the arrest of Shahzad. Kiran.

CHETRY: All right. Jeanne Meserve for us this morning. Thanks so much.

Also coming up at 8:10 Eastern, we're going to be speaking with CNN national security contributor Fran Townsend and former CIA officer Peter Brookes about the Taliban connection and U.S. reaction to a new threat. What Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said but is there anything we can do when it comes to clamping down on the Taliban in a sovereign country like Pakistan. We'll talk about it just ahead.

ROBERTS: Faisal Shahzad, of course, is not the first U.S. citizen linked to a homegrown terror plot. Others have pleaded guilty in similar cases but how do everyday Americans become radicalized and turn against their country? With a preview of an in depth CNN investigation, "American Al Qaeda."

Here's CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): This is Penn station in the heart of New York, at peak rush, more than 60,000 people churn through here every hour. 60,000 every hour. For Al Qaeda, Penn Station and the potential for a mass killing is a prize daunting target. But then it seems they got lucky.

That's when this man, a young American who grew up only 50 miles from here made his way to Pakistan to offer his help. He is Brian Neil Venus and this is how a quiet studious middle class kid suddenly transformed into a dangerous enemy of the state.

DIRECTOR MITCH SILBER, NEW YORK POLICE DEPT., INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS: Brian Neil Venus is almost a poster child for the process, the unremarkable nature of the people who might go through this process and the danger that presents.

ROBERTSON (on camera): I spent the better part of the year here in the U.S. and in Europe unraveling how and why Brian Neil Venus went from Catholic to Muslim, from U.S. Army recruit to jihadist, from Long Island to Lahore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Well, counter terrorism officials also describe Brian Neil Venus as the Forest Gump of jihadism by sheer perseverance. He managed to get himself not just into Pakistan from New York, but to the border and from the border to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan and to get into an Al Qaeda camp. That took months of perseverance on his part just here in Pakistan alone, John.

ROBERTS: Nic, after these ties were established, these alleged ties were established between Shahzad and the Taliban in Pakistan, the U.S. government now, of course looking into the Pakistani government to do more. Has there been any response from the government there yet?

ROBERTSON: We're not hearing anything officially. What they've been saying up until now is the cooperation continues, that the cooperation is going well. And the prime minister just a couple of days ago, before the latest round of statements said "America understands our situation, we know that they understand it. We know that we're cooperating with the United States. Our relationship is good." We haven't heard a direct reaction to the latest comments by Holder, by Brennan and by Hillary Clinton as well.

ROBERTS: Nic Robertson for us in Karachi this morning. Nic, thanks so much.

You can catch more of Nic's report and our in-depth investigation tonight on "AC 360," "American Al Qaeda," at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 p.m. Pacific, only on CNN.

It's 45 minutes after the hour. We'll be right back.

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ROBERTS: It's coming up on 50 minutes after the hour. We'll be back after the break.

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CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's 52 minutes past the hour right now.

If you have teenagers, you have a list of things to worry about seem to be growing. And it can be even more stressful if you have a teenage daughter.

Research shows that more girls than ever are taking antidepressants, using alcohol, even drinking and driving, and technology is adding new problems with Internet bullying and, of course, "sexting."

Dr. Leonard Sax has a new book on all of this, "Girls on the Edge." I had a chance to talk with him and ask, why are so many teenage girls in trouble?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. LEONARD SAX, AUTHOR, "GIRLS ON THE EDGE": Well, 40 years ago, they were asking girls question like, do you feel so anxious you can't concentrate or focus? Do you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep because you are so on edge?

And 40 years ago it was very unusual to find girls in this country who answered those questions "yes." Today, it is common. In fact, it has almost become the norm. One professor calls this era "The age of anxiety for teenage girls."

CHETRY: You talk about four major factors that are contributing to this. One you talk about in your book is the "cyber bubble." You say that growing up in a cyber bubble has particularly tough implications for girls.

SAX: That's right.

CHETRY: Explain that. SAX: Among 14 to 17 years of age, they found the average girl is now sending 100 text messages a day. That's 3,000 a month. These girls are hyper-connected to each other, texting, instant messaging 24/7, social networking sites.

Why is that a bad thing? As they become hyper connected to each other, they are disconnecting from themselves. When teenage girls share their Facebook pages with you, what do you see? You see lots of photos with captains, short little entries with lots of allusions with the latest minutia to teen culture.

It's all surface. She is promoting a brand, presenting a persona which often is not genuine, honest, true to who she is, because she doesn't know who she is.

CHETRY: Your own process of self-realization that happens in your adolescent years is stunted. You say a lot of it has to do with this over-expression, this over-sharing that takes place. You are constantly connected and getting real-time feedback about how other people think about you.

SAX: They are creating a mask. And when they take the mask off there's nobody there. These girls may look fine and feel fine as long as things are going well. But they are on the edge of a total meltdown.

CHETRY: Let's talk about a couple of other factors you talk about. You talk about sexual identity. Explain that.

SAX: Yes -- 30 years ago, if you went into a department store in this country you would find clothes on sale in the six and seven-year- old girls department very different from those on sale in the 17-year- old girls department.

Not anymore. Today, it is pretty much the same thing what they're selling for seven year old girls as they're selling for 16- year old girls. You can buy a t-shirt with big red lips on it or a t- shirt that says "Too hot for you," or hot pants that say "Sassy" on the behind.

Girls today are expected to present themselves in a sexualized context at seven, eight, nine years of age. And the result as I describe in the book is girls are now becoming disengaged from their own sexuality. They are using sexuality to achieve some other end.

CHETRY: What you lay out is a scary prospect for parents. Are there solutions? Is there a reversal that can take place?

SAX: Yes, because the main focus of my book is not a litany of complaints, but a handbook of practical tips parents can do.

CHETRY: Give us a few.

SAX: I'll give you a few.

The cell phone charger must be in the parents' bedroom. No cell phones allowed at the dinner table. Among teenagers, girls are way more likely to bring their cell phones to the dinner table and they're texting among the dinner table. Among people over 30, it's the dad that is most likely to bring his blackberry to the table. He is doing this.

We need to be there 100 percent. When we are there together as a family, I am there for you. I am not looking at my blackberry. No cell phones or digital media at the dinner table. We need to reconnect.

So those are the practical things to bring girls back to the real world and get them out of this cocoon of texting and instant messaging where they're connected only to other girls their own age, reconnect them, restore the bonds across the generations.

CHETRY: Thank you so much Dr. Leonard Sax, always great to talk to you.

SAX: Nice to see you.

CHETRY: And the book is called "Girls on the Edge, the latest one of four factors driving the new crisis for girls." I appreciate your time.

SAX: Thanks so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: And the top stories coming your way after a quick break. Three minutes to the top of the hour.

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