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Hurricane's Impact on Oil Containment; One in Five U.S. Children Raised in Poverty; Students Working to Restore Motor City

Aired June 30, 2010 - 13:58   ET

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


T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: We are back now with Carl Safina on this day 72 of the oil disaster. He is president of Blue Ocean Institute.

And, Carl, before the break, you were explaining why these booms, dispersants, and some of this oil burned is actually the wrong thing to do. You talk about how unprepared the government and BP were for this disaster. So if they were better prepared, what should they know to be doing now? What do you do? How do you attack this oil spill, if not for these methods?

CARL SAFINA, DIRECTOR, BLUE OCEAN INSTITUTE: Well, clearly if they were better prepared, they would have methods that allow them to contain and deal with the oil. Clearly, they don't. It's still gushing. It's still all over the Gulf. It's all over the beaches. Obviously, they didn't have what they need.

What they should have had is something to contain the oil at the site and to keep it concentrated at the surface because oil comes to the surface and it floats, so that they could then remove it.

HOLMES: What is that something?

SAFINA: Instead of these miles and miles of -- well, instead of these miles and miles of little booms this big made for inside the harbor where it's calm, they should have had booms that were, let's say, six feet across with a plastic skirt that's weighted under them that can withstand the ocean swell going up and down with the oil there, put maybe a five-mile square box of that boom around the site where the oil is coming to the surface and then where it's right there, collect it and take it off.

An analogy that I've been using is that if you're making a cake and you break an egg and the egg is rotten, you take the egg away. You don't bake the rotten egg into the cake. Once you do that, you can't get it back. They put these booms up but the dispersants dissolve the oil into the water where it drifts in and out under the booms. It's just -- there are cross purposes --

HOLMES: Where are we supposed to go from here, then? It sounds like the way you're telling it is that some irreparable harm, we can't fix what we've already screwed up in our response. So, where do we go from here? How do we suppose to attack the problem now?

SAFINA: Well, you can't reverse what's happening now. And it's still happening -- let's remember. We still don't even know when the beginning will end.

But if you think of this one leak as part of the ongoing process of having 30,000 holes in the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico and about 4,500 drilling rigs, that's the entire process. And what we need is, of all of these consulting companies and all of these rig tenders and everything, we need one that is tooled up with what it takes to contain the oil at the site of a blowout, because blowouts happen. This blowout is happening. All these other rigs are still drilling, and we need to be prepared and we're not prepared.

HOLMES: You say we're not prepared. At this point, if we don't have the methods to attack this problem, to contain this oil, is it almost a situation now that we should just step back and let nature take its course, essentially just cap that well, as soon as we can, and the rest of it, we just have to wait, maybe decades, for the oil to work itself out?

SAFINA: Yes, well, I more or less agree with that. We need to stop the leak as soon as possible. And then I would say, let all of the oil collect at the surface and try to deal with it at the surface. And if it comes ashore really concentrated, then we would actually have a better chance of removing it in big concentrations -- even letting it come ashore for a few days in certain places and then hitting those places with beach sweepers.

In the marshes, like in Louisiana here where we are, I don't think you should touch it once it's in the marshes. We should have done everything possible to prevent it from coming out of the sea floor, should have done everything possible to collect it at the sea surface, but when all of that oil and all of that dirty water comes into the marshes, you can't really go in and start trying to clean it because you'll simply destroy the marsh even more thoroughly that way.

HOLMES: Well, a dire -- some dire predictions on your part and a reality check, which we seem to get every single day now on day 72 of this disaster.

Carl Safina, we appreciate you coming in. Appreciate you braving the rain out there in New Orleans. But thanks so much.

SAFINA: Thank you.

HOLMES: Well, we're coming at top of the hour here -- a new hour, new rundown as well. But we are keeping an eye on Hurricane Alex right now. It is moving closer -- closer and closer to Texas and Mexico by the minute, even though it's moving farther from the oil disaster. That's the good news, we think, but still causing a few problems.

Our Chad Myers is standing by to tell us where exactly this thing is going and what it's going to do to the oil.

It's a category 1 storm right now. Now, that's compared to a three, four, five -- maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal. But we'll talk about exactly how big of a deal it is to be a category 1. It is a hurricane, folks. We'll tell you in our "Wordplay" today as well exactly what it means to be a category 1.

Also, you heard one-man band? What about a one-man stimulus package? We'll look at what's going to happen at the stroke of midnight tonight that could help one city, some city get a new stimulus package. That is in my "XYZ" today.

But, again, Hurricane Alex right now churning through the Gulf of Mexico. It's going to have some kind of an effect -- exactly not sure what kind on the oil, but it will have some kind of effect. It's having an effect on the people in southern Texas right now, in parts of Mexico as well.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

HOLMES: Brownsville, I know, is one area that we're keeping an eye on. But 140,000-plus people live there. Some people are high0tailing it out of there, packing up. That's a good news. Some are just getting some shelter. Some are just trying to hunker down as best they can as we've seen in storms as well.

So, where is it now? Where is it going? Who is it targeting? It's not always the eye. We always think the eye is going to make --

MYERS: We always look at the eye, don't we? Yes, because it's the easiest to find.

HOLMES: Yes.

MYERS: Well, that's not always where the worst weather is. Not sure in this little band right there, that little convective band on the north side of the eye, right there, that's the one -- that weather in there is terrible. Let's hope nobody's in there because in the water.

Here's where the land is actually being affected the most, up here in this tornado watch box, this big red box there that I just put another yellow box around. That means that some of these storms as they come onshore could actually be spinning -- spinning enough to put down small tornadoes. Not F3, 4, not Texas-size tornadoes.

HOLMES: OK.

MYERS: People look at water spouts and say, I could go out and fish in that.

HOLMES: Yes.

MYERS: But you don't want to do that. It's still 100-mile-per- hour storm.

But look -- look at the scope of this. There are showers and storms up into New Orleans, all the way to Houston. And right there, that would be -- that would be Lake Charles and all the way back down toward Harris County, there are showers and storms on the other side of Florida over here. There are storms into Georgia -- all part of the same spin that is bringing up tropical moisture. That tropical moisture, follow my arrows, follow my arrows, follow my arrows. What is that doing to the oil that's parked right here? It's pushing it on land. There's no question about it that at this point, as we speak, that these buoys are moving up and down. This is not a beautiful map but it's a NOAA map.

HOLMES: OK.

MYERS: Now, you want it to be a beautiful map because your government dollars for it. The uglier, the better -- that means we don't pay very much for it.

Here's your significant wave height. That buoy right there, here's New Orleans, here's the end of the bayou, here's the Mystic River, and that's basically where the horizon is, 7.2 feet.

HOLMES: OK.

MYERS: You're pressure is going down and down. But it's that wind at -- let me clear it so you can see a little bit better -- the wind right there, 21 knots, gusting to 25 knots. That's 30 miles per hour from a southerly direction or due south direction at that point in time, pushing the oil that's here into the marshes of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

It's moving it away from Florida, bringing it around away from Florida. But that doesn't help everybody else because it's more of an effect of how big this thing is. The latest number, this doesn't have it just yet -- that number just changed at the advisory that we just got in about six minutes ago. Maximum sustained winds are now 85 miles per hour, gusting to 105 as the storm -- it has wiggled and wobbled and moved a little bit farther to the north and looks like it's headed to Brownsville but it's not.

HOLMES: It's not.

MYERS: It will turn to the left again and make landfall on coastal Mexico here. Now, there's a pretty big city right there called Monterrey, Mexico, right along the front range of the mountains. If it rains in the mountains, the water runs down the mountain, into Monterrey. We could get some flood problems there in Monterrey, Mexico.

HOLMES: Talk to me about oil now. Let's go ahead and have this conversation now, because Thad Allen, the commander out here, he said, if they get up to 40-mile-an-hour gusts in the area where they're doing this oil clean-up and the work out there with the Deepwater Horizon, they would have to evacuate.

Now, let's talk wind first and then we'll talk waves. Now, will they get anything possibly? You said 30 miles an hour.

MYERS: Thirty.

HOLMES: Any chance we're going to get up to that 40?

MYERS: In a squall, without a doubt, yes.

HOLMES: OK.

MYERS: I know we focus on where it is and where it's going, but these outer feeder bands away from the storm itself, that's where the storm -- even if it's a gust of 30, at some point in time -- let me find the other map. This is going to go back up. I'm going to figure out which one I want and grab that one, open it back up.

In these squalls as the squalls come over to these boats, ships, there will absolutely be 30 to 40-mile-per-hour winds in those -- in those squalls. Now, not every time, not every minute. These are gusts. What they're worried about are those sustained winds at 40 and that will not happen unless you're another 100 miles closer to the eye.

HOLMES: All right. Let's talk about the waves. And you drew it a second ago when you talked about the waves, even, let's say, 400 miles away from the actual horizon --

MYERS: Let's just -- let's do this.

HOLMES: All right.

MYERS: Because this is kind of what it looks like. That is basically our oil slick. All right, that's about where it is. It's very close to land. It's -- you know, it's touching in some spots. Then there are these fingers that are kind of out there.

All of the winds are blowing in this direction. I would love for this hurricane to be over here, blowing all the way into this direction. That's not happening. All the winds are like this.

And those winds are taking this oil blob and moving it -- I'm very happy to say that it looks like this cap that we've been looking at for days and days is really containing and sucking up a lot of that oil. It's not unabated like it was a couple of days ago. It is really getting a lot of it. I would say they're maybe getting 95 percent of the oil into that pipe into the ship and not to the surface of the water.

But where all that oil came out that was unabated, that still has to make -- we have 71 days of oil that's out there somewhere else that's going to be coming onshore with the winds like this.

HOLMES: One more quick thing. You talked about you'd love it -- I'm sure Florida wouldn't love it if it was closer over here --

MYERS: Sure.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: But as far as the oil goes, was this one of our worst- case scenarios for it going this direction versus going frankly a little closer to it and maybe pushing the oil?

MYERS: East, best case. West, worst case.

HOLMES: Worst case.

MYERS: I mean, OK, much worse, a little less worse, a lot less worse and where we are now, OK? So, the farther away, the better. But you still have that constant three-day onshore flow with that water and that oil all moving in the same direction, all pushing it to our beaches and our bayous and are all the way through our pristine areas there in the Gulf.

HOLMES: And we are just getting started. This is, I believe you said, since '95, the first June storm we've had.

MYERS: Yes.

HOLMES: And we are just getting started with what's supposed to be an active hurricane season.

Chad, we appreciate the illustrations, as always.

MYERS: Bearer of good news sometimes and sometimes not. But here I am.

HOLMES: Sometimes not. No, we appreciate it.

And again, this was supposed to be the week they were hoping to have a third ship out in the area to actually siphon up some of that oil. That's have to be put on delay for now, at least for a few days. It was supposed to then give them the capacity to collect as many as 53,000 barrels of oil every single day.

That would have been some good news. But it's delayed for now. We'll see what happens with it moving forward.

Meantime, something else we're keeping an eye on here besides the storm. We're waiting for the president, President Obama, to step out in Racine, Wisconsin, having a town hall meeting there, expected to take some questions. We will take you live there when the president steps out in just a bit, but they're starting to collect already there in Racine, Wisconsin -- expecting that in just a few minutes.

Also, in "Chalk Talk," we're going to talking about giving every child a quality education. You're going to meet two people, including an actress whom you know pretty well, working hard to get kids the knowledge they need to survive.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Time for "Chalk Talk" now and a scary statistic.

One in five kids in the U.S. living in poverty, and that puts them at risk of not graduating from high school and other things. But efforts are underway to ensure every child in America has access to a quality education as well as a safe and vibrant childhood. Save the Children's U.S. Programs makes it a priority to help kids learn.

Here are the four points of the program: literacy, emergency programs, physical activity and nutrition, and early childhood development. The group is headed by Mark Shriver. An actress, Jennifer Garner, is an artist ambassador for the organization. Both of them were speaking on Capitol Hill last week, trying to get much- needed funding for Save the Children's U.S. Programs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK SHRIVER, SAVE THE CHILDREN'S U.S. PROGRAMS: Jennifer and I were in an elevator on Capitol Hill and some guys said, nobody is supposed to invest in in kids. And the answer is, on paper, they're not. But when push comes to shove, kids aren't getting the dollars, the hard cold cash to really make a difference in their lives.

People talk about kids as our most important resources, but early Head Start only reaches about 5 percent of the kids eligible for it. Head Start only reaches about 25 percent of the kids eligible for it.

So it sounds good. It looks good, but when push comes to shove, kids don't vote, they don't write PAC checks, they don't have a voice. And that's why Jennifer's presence here today makes a huge difference. We're trying to focus on early childhood education funding.

JENNIFER GARNER, ACTRESS/ARTIST AMBASSADOR: I'm finding that things work here and it feels very familiar. It feels a lot like being in Los Angeles where you're in meetings, where people say, yes, we should do this, that sounds great, we're all for it. We love you. We love your work -- and getting from there to actually getting something made or getting a bill passed or getting the funding in the bank is a pretty huge leap.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And Garner tells us every $1 spent to help kids succeed in early childhood education saves $10 in getting that child caught up later in life.

Well, we have been keeping an eye, as you know, on Hurricane Alex, a category 1 right now. One of the areas that's really under threat of this storm is in Brownsville, Texas, 140,000 people there. Also, South Padre Island, that's a big tourist destination. They are in a bit of trouble right now, under the gun of this storm. And also, Port Isabel, home to many of the area's shrimpers.

Now, you may remember Hurricane Dolly back in '08. It hit just a little farther north . A lot of people are still rebuilding from that. That storm as well, a category 1, and it caused $1 billion in damage.

And port Isabel is where we want to go right now.

David Sears of our affiliate KSAT has been holding on there for us. We can see from the pictures kind of what's going. But we've been having problems with your satellite because of the weather. So, by all means, we can see it, but describe it as well.

DAVID SEARS, KSAT REPORTER: Well, T.J., I can say, this is the reason why we're having problems with the satellite. This is the worst wind gusts we've seen all day. The highest wind and the most rain, you can see some of the surf out here. We're in the bay and the choppiness is incredible.

There goes the hat. It's coming over the post out there. Used to be pelicans on those posts. No more.

And you can see the causeway. Earlier, we thought we were going to close the causeway but they haven't yet. And no more can you see the island across that causeway. That's how thick the bands are. They've been coming through since about 7:00 this morning. The first band came through and then it just been getting worse and worse as the day has progressed.

I can tell you, right around this area, we have not seen much destruction yet. But once again, this is the hardest that this wind and the rain has come down so far during Hurricane Alex -- T.J.

HOLMES: And we were talking just a second ago, Port Isabel, just a few years ago saw Hurricane Dolly. People remember that and remember it well and they're heeding the warnings. Are people getting out of there? Or are you finding a lot of people hunkering down and try to ride this thing out?

SEARS: Well, I can tell you, we were on South Padre earlier this morning. There are some people that are just going to weather the storm. They say it's not as bad as Dolly because Alex is going to hit down in Mexico, the eye of the storm will come down there.

So, they don't think it's quite as bad. It's only a hurricane 1 and Dolly was a direct hit on Port Isabel. So, they're hanging out over there on the island. Hopefully, they're doing all right.

But they're getting a lot of wind and the storm surge has started to come up on the beaches. We were over there earlier. We're already seeing flooding up to our kneecaps on some of the streets.

So, it's coming fast and furious. It's a -- it's a hurricane 1 but still blowing pretty good and raining pretty hard.

HOLMES: All right. David Sears, we appreciate you hanging in there with us. You certainly stay safe there as well. But thank you so much. David, see you -- from our affiliate KSAT -- thank you so much.

You heard him there and say, some people think it's just a hurricane -- category 1. It doesn't have to be a three, four, five, folks, to be serious and to be dangerous. But certainly, good luck to the folks who are holding and maybe make it through this storm as well.

Well, coming up: revitalizing Detroit by going green. One teenager's plan to help the Motor City is to get it growing, literally. We're "Building Up America" after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Now, planting seeds to save a city. A teenager in Detroit, along with a team of volunteers, is digging deep to help restore the Motor City to its former glory.

CNN's Jason Carroll has more on how they're "Building Up America."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: T.J., I want to tell you about a remarkable young woman by the name of Ivory Price. She spends much of her time after school with an organization called buildOn. BuildOn has students volunteering all across the country.

But in Detroit, T.J., Ivory and the others are helping one of the city's worst neighborhoods by the name of Ivory Price.

(MUSIC)

CARROLL (voice-over): Motor City -- Motown. In its heyday, Detroit thrived, a place of economic opportunity and growth -- a place 15-year-old Ivory Price only hears about.

IVORY PRICE, STUDENT: My grandma will show me pictures of what it used to be.

CARROLL: Ivory's Detroit is a city with one of the country's highest unemployment rates. So many businesses shut down, so many homes abandoned.

But Ivory believes there's a way to get Detroit growing again.

PRICE: Just planting one seed can definitely help towards that goal.

CARROLL: We found Ivory with a group of volunteers planting a garden in an abandoned lot in one of Detroit's worst neighborhoods.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CARROLL: She volunteers for an organization called buildOn. It's a nonprofit that created after-school programs where students help rebuild impoverished areas. Here, they reclaim land with a garden. Eventually, they'll donate the food they grow.

PRICE: We've definitely encountered people, even with this project and other times in buildOn saying that, oh, that's impossible, you can't do that. You should just leave it alone. Why waste your time?

CARROLL (on camera): What do you say to people like that? PRICE: I tell them, you never know until you try.

CARROLL (voice-over): Trying in this neighborhood is challenging.

(on camera): In addition to being economically devastated, the volunteers that are out here trying to rebuild this neighborhood also have to deal with crime. There's a gang that operates right here on this block and prostitution as well, which takes place right here, on what used to be a playground.

(voice-over): While shooting in broad daylight, a woman who didn't want to be identified still stopped to make sure we were OK.

(on camera): A group of volunteers, they've put together a garden over here around the corner.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I saw that, that's nice. That's really nice.

CARROLL: As a way -- you like that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's great. But the area itself, you know, you just don't feel safe anymore.

JIM ZIOLKOWSKI, BUILDON FOUNDER: Before our kids begin any projects --

CARROLL (voice-over): BuildOn's founder says the garden is just the beginning.

ZIOLKOWSKI: The rest of the neighborhood sees what's going on and sees how the youth are stepping up and leading this change. They take a stake in the garden and then the gangs move out and the prostitution moves out. It's changed. It doesn't happen overnight but it happens.

CARROLL: Ivory Price believes change is possible. She's seen it in her life. When not singing or volunteering, she's writing about her own economic struggles.

PRICE: The place had rats and bugs. At night, my mother and sister and I would sleep in the same bed to keep warm.

I have been there before. And the fact that I can come out here and help other people that are going through the same thing or things that are even worse, it makes me feel happy.

CARROLL (on camera): She really is an incredible young woman. You'll find volunteers like Ivory working in states like Connecticut, Michigan, Illinois and California. They have some 2,500 students from 118 high schools working nationwide. And obviously, T.J., we wish them all the very best of luck.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: All right. And thanks to our Jason Carroll for that "Building Up America" piece.

Well, have you heard it yet? The King is stepping down from his throne -- his 9:00 Eastern Time throne every night. We're talking about Larry King. He is stepping aside. But you haven't seen the last of the King here on CNN. You're going to hear from him straight ahead.

Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Taking a look, live look, the president just stepping on to the stage in Racine, Wisconsin. He's going to be making a speech there, talking about the economy, but also taking some questions in a town hall format. We are monitoring his comments and will take you back there when he starts with the Q&A portion of that town hall meeting.

Meanwhile, it is the end of an era for us here. Our own Larry King just dropped it on us last night live during his show, saying he's stepping away this fall. He didn't call me. He didn't give me a heads-up of any kind. He's just hit with it last night.

He's going to be leaving the show after a quarter of a century, but he's not leaving us, not leaving CNN. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE: Twenty-five years ago, I sat across this table from New York Governor Mario Cuomo for the first broadcast ever of "LARRY KING LIVE." And now decades later, I talk to the guys here at CNN and I told them I'd like to end "LARRY KING LIVE," the nightly show, this fall. And CNN has graciously accepted to agree to, giving me more time for my wife and I to get to the kids' little league games. I'll still be a part of the CNN family, hosting several "LARRY KING" specials on major national and international subjects and will be here for a lot of time until a replacement is found, will be here into the fall.

Tomorrow night, in fact, Elizabeth Edwards will be our special guest.

I'm incredibly proud that we recently made the "Guinness Book of World Records" for having the longest running show with the same host in the same time slot on the same network. With that chapter closing, I'm looking forward to the future, what my next chapter will bring.

But for now, for here, it's time to hang up the nightly suspenders. Until then, we've got more shows to do and who knows what the future is going to bring?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And just on that point, Larry, more shows to do. He does have a "LARRY KING LIVE" primetime exclusive, Elizabeth Edwards will be talking to Larry on her dramatic split from John Edwards and her battle with terminal cancer. Find out how she learned to deal with heartache and suffering. Elizabeth Edwards, tonight, "LARRY KING LIVE," as he continues before he gets to that next chapter of his life -- got plenty more shows and exclusives to bring you right here in his nightly spot, 9:00 Eastern, here on CNN.

Well, we've been watching this job interview. Not that many of us have to do one live on national television. But it's the job of a lifetime, literally. After the break, we're taking a look at the third and what may be the last day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan with three members of the best political team on television.

You see them there. Jeffrey in the middle, Donna on the left, Gloria on the right. Talk to them right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back. We're at the half hour mark now. Want to get you caught up on some of the headlines out there, including that hurricane Alex, now northeast Mexico, southeast Texas bracing for it. Expected to hit the area overnight. People leaving South Padre Island ahead of this storm which is now a category one. Could grow stronger before it makes landfall. Of course, the disaster on the president's mind right now, jobs on the president's mind as well.

That's what he's thinking about in Racine, Wisconsin. He is there holding a town hall meeting. Expected to take some questions. When he does, we'll take you back there live. But we are monitoring it right now.

Also the president says he has full confidence in General David Petraeus who will now lead U.S. forces in Afghanistan. It was just a short time ago, that the Senate unanimously confirmed him to replace General Stanley McChrystal.

And something else in D.C., we're keeping an eye right now, there she is, Solicitor General Elena Kagan. This is day three for her in her senate-- the confirmation hearings for her to be a Supreme Court justice, the next one to sit on the court.

She's been through three days of this now. This being the third day. Could be the last day as well. We have learned plenty, some would say, about her over the past three days. Some would say we haven't learned a whole lot. Let's bring in our Senior Political Analyst Gloria Borger, CNN Contributor Donna Brazile also CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

Guys, welcome back, guys. I talked to you last hour about her sense of humor which has really made an impression probably to anyone watching, certainly the senators as well. But let me play for our viewers if they did miss it one bit that certainly got a big laugh.

When she was asked a pretty serious question initially from Senator Graham about interrogations of terror suspects. But it turned into one of the biggest laughs we've seen. Let's go ahead and take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN LINDSEY GRAHAM (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: Christmas day bomber, where are you at on Christmas Day?

ELENA KAGAN, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL AND SUPRME COURT NOMINEE: Senator Graham, that is an undecided legal issue -- well, I suppose I should ask exactly what you mean by that. I'm assuming the question you mean is whether a person who is apprehended in the United States is --

GRAHAM: No, I just asked you where you were at on Christmas.

KAGAN: You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant.

GRAHAM: Great answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Okay. That's just funny.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Can I just say something? The Supreme Court Justices get famous for certain phrases. Potter Stewart about pornography said, I know it when I see it. And Harry Blackman said, l will no longer tinker with the machinery of death.

I think that comment, she could serve on the court for 30 years and not say anything as memorable as her highly accurate statement about the Jewish people and their love for Chinese food on Christmas day.

HOLMES: We all are familiar with that . But Gloria, how much of this is -- yes, it's her, it's her personality. That's what we've heard reported. But also how much is this to just put on a charm offensive up there with those senators? They seem to be really enjoying her.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well you know she's disarming to a certain degree. You know Senator Grassley yesterday was asking her a bunch of questions about something she wrote when she was in her 20s and she completely disarmed him and you know said, I shouldn't have written that, I can't pay any attention to it, I was too young and you shouldn't write about being a lawyer before you become a lawyer kind of thing.

And he said, wait a minute, I've got five minutes more of questions to ask you on this particular document. Then he went through it anyway because she essentially said, you know what? I was wrong. It was silly. Let's just move on. And she's done that very effectively.

HOLMES: Well Donna, on that point, just for people maybe at home paying attention to this, does this help? I'm -- we kind of dismiss it sometimes as just being funny. But strategically, does this help her in that it makes it a little difficult to try to go after and attack this woman that many might just find incredibly charming?

DONNA BRAZILE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think she's disarmed some of her critics with her quick wit and her sarcasm. I love the exchange with Senator Graham. She had some other great moments with Senator Specter. And we talked about a little about that before with cameras in the courtroom.

She's been not just engaging personally. But I think she's been pretty much herself because this is the person she is. She's just a well-rounded individual who's extremely smart but knows how to keep her own in terms of her ability to hold wonderful conversations with people. But I have to agree with Jeffrey. I think that line that she gave back to Senator Graham will be remembered long after she's on the Supreme Court.

BORGER: For its accuracy.

HOLMES: Jeff, for the rest of us who don't know the Supreme Court as well as you do, the idea of any justice, quite frankly, having a sense of humor kind of goes in one ear and out the other for the rest of us. We don't see them like that. But you know them a little differently and studied them. A couple up there are

TOOBIN: Absolutely. And it does have some impact, the personalities, because one of the most famous justices in the history of the Supreme Court was William Brennan, the great liberal.

And he was someone who was famous for putting his arm around his colleagues and saying, let's talk about this, pal. And he built an extraordinary series of coalitions over a very long tenure on the Supreme Court.

Look at the two George W. Bush nominees. Very different personalities. John Roberts is as smooth and as intelligent, cool. Senator Dick Durbin who's not a fan of Chief Justice Toberts after his testimony said, you retired the trophy on being a good witness. Samuel Alito is not that kind of person at all. Samuel Alito is kind of awkward, not charming like John Edwards -- boy, there's a whole separate subject there.

(CROSSTALK)

Yes. Like the chief justice. The Chief justice is someone who really takes seriously the idea of representing the whole judiciary and is a very polished speaker, some of the justices aren't.

HOLMES: It's okay. We'll forgive you there. Hold on one second. I have to get this one other thing in here, Gloria. I'm going to let you answer it. We're talking about what we're learning about her personality and whatnot.

But some of the committee don't think we're learning enough about who she is as, quite frankly, she's not a justice. She hasn't sat on a bench before. But still don't think we' we're learning enough about her. Let's listen to Senator Sessions here talk about that point. Then I'll ask you about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R) ALABAMA: We see her gifts and graces in many different ways. Those are revealed in her humor and her knowledge. But I think we -- some of the critics are saying who is this nominee, exactly what do you believe, might find it from the testimony difficult to know if, ms. Kagan, whether you'd be more like John Roberts or more like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Well Gloria, if he's saying it's hard to find out if she'll be more like this justice or that one, does that mean she's done her job well?

BORGER: Well, I guess so. But I think the Senator doth protest a little too much. I mean Lindsey Graham, also a Republican, said yesterday time and time again that he'd be shocked if President Obama did not nominate somebody who shared his view of the law, period.

Elections have consequences. So I think that Senator Sessions actually knows whether she would be more like Ruth Bader Ginsburg than Justice Roberts. But he wanted to get her on not sticking to her own standard which she had written about in an article about how these hearings become vapid and hallow charades as she put it, because you don't really answer any questions on issues that might come before the court.

But I do believe that Senator sessions does have an idea of where she is coming from because Barack Obama nominated her.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: You go ahead, Jeffrey and then I'm going to let you wrap up Donna.

TOOBIN: I think sessions asked a great question. And I don't see why a nominee shouldn't answer a question like that.

BORGER: Well that's the whole other issue.

TOOBIN: They don't. But I think it's a perfectly legitimate question. I think Arlen Specter grew very frustrated because he's trying to ask good questions. But the custom of these proceedings, inappropriately, in my opinion, is that they don't answer questions like that. But I think they should.

HOLMES: Last thing to you, Donna.

BRAZILE: She's been forthcoming on matters that she's already talked about in the past when she was before the Senate to be confirmed as Solicitor General. So--and you've heard her yesterday talk freely about the Citizen United case. So I think on matters that she's already been on record, whether it's don't ask, don't tell or in the case of campaign finance reform.

Even yesterday she volunteered she doesn't have a moral position on the death penalty. She's not morally opposed to the death penalty. So I think she's been really forthcoming given some of the other nominees we've seen in the past.

HOLMES: All right, guys. You all stand by we're going to take a quick break. Coming back with you all Donna Jeffrey Gloria, right after the break, stay here..

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: She is on day three now of her nationally televised job interview, Elena Kagan still back in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, still taking questions on this day three, expected to possibly be the last day of questioning before they wrap up with her and possibly see a vote sometime soon on the next Supreme Court Justice.

Let me bring back in Donna Brazile, Jeffrey Toobin and Gloria Borger. Guys before the break, I wanted to ask you, Donna, about the politics of it all. And how after these confirmation hearings, how might this play out? Let's say she does get confirmed. How will both sides play this come November?

BRAZILE: Well, clearly the Republicans are going to use it to keep their base energized, to try to remind members of the conservative community that President Obama nominated somebody outside the mainstream.

They'll try to find the three or four pillars of interest out there, whether it's gay marriage or abortion or something that can energize them to keep them enthusiastic going into the fall. For Democrats, this is another reminder that having control of the White House and the Congress is very, very important and there's no question that Democrats will use this as a rallying call for not just their base but independents to keep the party in power so that the president can continue to nominate judges like Elena Kagan who's in the mainstream.

TOOBIN: T.J., I think --

HOLMES: Go ahead, Jeffery, go ahead.

TOOBIN: I just think there's an even more specific lesson you can take out of the politics here, which is how the Republican party is changing in particular. Think about Orrin Hatch the Senior Senator from Utah,. He is looking at a junior senator Robert Bennett, his colleague, who was thrown out of office by the Republican party because he was perceived as cooperating too much with Democrats.

That, to me, tells Orrin Hatch do not vote for Elena Kagan. Bipartisanship is over as far as he is concerned. The Tea Party movement, whatever else impact it had is really disciplining members of the Republican party and you see that in this year.

BORGER: And don't forget --

HOLMES: Orrin Hatch, though -- hold that point I'm coming right you there. But on Orrin Hatch, since he teed it up for me, you mention that and he has one issue at least been going back to, in these hearings the issue of keeping military recruiters off the campus of Harvard Law school when she was dean. Let's listen to that exchange. And I'm coming right back to you Gloria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN ORRIN HATCH (R) UTAH: I'm not asking whether recruiting went up or down or whether there was some access to something at all times. The law requires the same access for the military as other employers, not access that the dean may consider good.

Do you disagree with this description of the situation by the office of the Judge Advocate General?

KAGAN: Senator Hatch, I appreciate that reasonable people can disagree about this issue. But I do think that the military at all times, regardless whether it was whether the Office Of Career Services was sponsoring, or the Veterans Association was sponsoring, had excellent access to our students.

And over many years prior to my deanship, the Veterans Association had sponsored the Department of Defense had thought that that sponsorship was fully adequate to their needs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And, Gloria, hold on for me one second. They're talking about this live right now, the same issue.

KAGAN: The restriction that we put on was that the Office of Career Services couldn't provide assistance.

GRAHAM: Which is the place where most students met employers?

KAGAN: No. It's just an office, really. 95 percent of interviews from employers at Harvard law school --

GRAHAM: Here's the point. It's clearly not just an office. It was a political statement that you were making, I think -- maybe I'm wrong. But seems to me you were making a political statement. You're not taking the law in your own hands but you were trying to make a political statement on behalf of the law school that this office is not going to be used by the military because we don't like this policy, is that a fair statement or not?

KAGAN: Senator Graham, I think what I was trying to do was on the one hand to ensure military recruiting, on the other hand, to enforce and to defend the school's very longstanding anti- discrimination policy. So it wasn't me making a political statement. It was me as dean of the law school -- and that's what I was. I had an institutional responsibility as dean of the law school, trying to defend an anti- discrimination policy that had existed for, I don't know, 25 years --

GRAHAM: Would it have applied to the catholic church if they wanted to come and recruit lawyers from the law school because they don't have women priests?

KAGAN: Well the way we enforce this policy is if an employer comes, we give the employer a form and the form basically says, I comply with the following policy. And it says, I will not discriminate on the basis of and then it says something like race and creed and gender and sexual orientation and actually veteran status as well.

And if the employer signs the form, the employer can get the services of the office of career services. And if not, not.

GRAHAM: Okay. So it wasn't a political statement on your behalf at all? You weren't trying to tell the world what Harvard Law School thought about this policy?

KAGAN: It was not, Senator Graham. I was just trying to defend a very longstanding and --

GRAHAM: It would have been okay with me if it was. I just disagree with you. But I'll take you at your word. Now, you were an advocate for the -- you're a lawyer who played an advocate role in the Clinton administration regarding formulation of policy, is that correct?

KAGAN: I was two things in the Clinton administration. I was a lawyer --

HOLMES: All right we're listening there talking about the very issue I was talking to the panel about. We're going to get a quick break in here. Gloria, I'm coming right back to you on this issue of what she did when she was the dean of Harvard Law school, keeping military recruiters away from campus. We'll continue with Gloria, Jeffrey and Donna right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: We are keeping an eye on the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan. They continue today. Could be the third and final day of her confirmation hearings. Let me bring back in Gloria Borger, Donna Brazile and Jeffrey Toobin who have been talking about to me about some of these issues.

Gloria, going to get to you now. Sorry I had to keep going to thing. But it went exactly -- sure enough, the q and a turned to what happened at Harvard. And you talked about this earlier, I believe. They're trying to figure out whether or not she was trying to follow the law or she was trying to make a political statement. BORGER: Well, it was interesting because Lindsey Graham, as you just saw, kept asking her whether it was a political statement, political statement. What she said was, no, she was trying to balance the Harvard community's adherence to anti-discrimination law versus the military's need to recruit on the Harvard campus.

So what it seemed to me in listening to her over all these days is what she did was not make a political statement so much as a political decision. The political decision was to say, you can recruit but not at the career office. You can recruit somewhere else.

There are going to be disagreements over whether this was the right decision or the wrong decision. But I think it shows you politically where she comes from, having served in the Clinton administration is that this is somebody who was not anti-military but, in fact, tried to adhere to the rules of Harvard University and allow military recruiting at the same time.

HOLMES: Jeffrey, let me bring your legal brain back into this because there's a lot of-and really it's back and forth and people really trying to understand. And Republicans certainly trying to paint it a certain way.

But remind us exactly what she did when it comes to the law. It sounds like she just wouldn't allow these recruiters into a certain area of the school versus having access to the students.

So break this down for us with all this legal back and forth.

TOOBIN: Right. Well see what makes-I sorry to make it even more complicated. What happened was there was a court decision in the middle of her tenure as dean of Harvard law school which changed the legal environment.

The third circuit court of appeals which covers several northeastern states ruled that the Solomon Amendment, which prohibited universities that discriminated against the military from getting federal funds, this court said that was unconstitutional.

It was in reaction to that decision, in reaction to the victory for the gay rights forces in that court case that she said, the military had to recruit through the this--the veterans organization, not through office of career services.

When the Supreme Court overruled that decision unanimously, she let the recruiters back in. So she was both following the law and following the sort of political situation at Harvard. It is somewhat complicated. But I do think it illustrates that she is someone who tries to merge law and politics in a way that does honor --

HOLMES: Well Jeffrey, you weren't kidding when you said you were about to make this thing more complicated.

(CROSSTALK)

Donna, I have to wrap it up with you here before I let all you guys go. But Donna I'll wrap it up with you. You just tell me your guess about what the vote is going to be.

BRAZILE: Well, I think 19 members, I think the vote will clearly be in her favor. Perhaps 13 to 6 in our position. I don't know. But I hope that she's able to get some bipartisan support.

She deserves it. And one thing you should note, she never banned the military from campus. There have been many letters in support of her from servicemen and women who went to Harvard during her tenure. In 2007 she spoke at West Point. She is very proud of the veterans who not only graduated from Harvard under her tenure but she is really pro and very strongly in support of our servicemen and women.

BORGER: This case will not keep her off the court.

HOLMES: Yes, all right. Well Donna Brazile, Gloria Borger and Mr. Simplicity, Jeffrey Toobin, I appreciate --

TOOBIN: You're killing me T.J I tried, man, I tried.

HOLMES: I know. Appreciate you guys as always. Good to see you as always. Thanks so much.

Well coming up here, he's a one-man stimulus package and some lucky city is going to get him. Who am I talking about? You'll find out in today's "XYZ".

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: There's a new stimulus package on the way. This one will be worth untold millions over the next several years. Congress, though, has nothing to do with this one. Neither do your tax dollars.

However, this stimulus package is not going to benefit the whole country. It's only going to benefit one city. And the city has yet to be determined. It's a one-man stimulus package and that one man is Lebron James.

At the stroke of midnight tonight, Lebron is officially a free agent and free to negotiate and sign with a new team. Now he could stay in Cleveland but a growing chorus of sports insiders say he's going to look elsewhere.

Chicago, Miami. New York, New Jersey believed to be some of front runners wherever he goes, the team's value is going to go up. The team is going to win. Whatever city he goes to as well stands to gain.

Case in point, when Cleveland drafted Lebron No. 1 overall in '03, the team had just finished a year last in the league in attendance. About 11, 500 people per game. This season, they averaged 20, 500 per game.

They routinely sell out. 9,000 more people we're talking about here. That's 9,000 more that will go to bars, restaurants, hotels. 9,000 more people may need to pay for parking. 9,000 more people to go into gift shops and buy James jersey's and other team gear.

But more specific now with the numbers, a University of Illinois Chicago professor uses a formula taking into account hotel rooms, taxis, food parties all that stuff to estimate, that the Cleveland area gained some $15 million each home playoff game.

That's Cleveland. But in Chicago, has a bigger population if he went there, it would mean about $50 million per playoff game. If the team plays ten playoff games at home, that's roughly $500 million a year.

In New York with an even greater population, he could generate $100 million per playoff game. Ten games here, that's $1 billion.

Just the playoffs we're talking about here, not even the regular season to take into account. So, yes, wherever Lebron goes, the team is going to win. But wherever he goes, that city stands to win a whole lot more as well. That's today's "XYZ". Now here is Rick Sanchez..