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American Morning
Sherrod Case: Focus Shifts to Cheryl Cook; Rangel Ethics Charges; Big Oil vs. White House; Bonnie Threatens Florida Keys; Rescue: Saving the Gulf; When Oil and Politics Meet
Aired July 23, 2010 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good Friday morning to you. Doesn't that sound good?
Good Friday morning to you. It's the 23rd of July. Thanks for joining us on the most news in the morning.
I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Cheery.
Glad you're with us. And we have a lot to talk about this morning, so let's get right to it.
We start with Tropical Storm Bonnie closing in on the Gulf. And it's already having a major impact on the oil disaster response. Tropical storm warnings are in effect. Louisiana is already under a state of emergency.
Reynolds Wolf is tracking Bonnie from the Extreme Weather Center.
ROBERTS: A call from the White House. President Obama telling Shirley Sherrod that her unfortunate situation may present an opportunity to continue helping people. But she toll us she still would like to show him a few things.
We'll hear from her coming right up, and whether she's pleased with the effort to make things right again.
CHETRY: Under fire and not backing down. New York Congressman Charlie Rangel says that he welcomes the chance to defend himself against ethics charges at a public hearing next week in Congress.
Brianna Keilar is following developments for us, and we're going to get a live report from Brianna just ahead.
ROBERTS: But first this morning, Tropical Storm Bonnie moving in as the cleanup crews in the Gulf get out. The dangerous system is expected to pass through the Florida Keys today and then into the Gulf of Mexico, where it is already hampering oil cleanup crews.
(WEATHER REPORT) .
CHETRY: And as we mentioned, in advance of the storm, the government is ordering giant drill ships and also the rigs that are working to stop the leak to get out of harm's way. There is some good news though. The containment cap that's been keeping a tight lid on the damaged well and keeping the oil from spilling into the Gulf for the past eight days will stay sealed.
ROBERTS: It's not just the rig workers being affected either. The potentially dangerous weather also forcing the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center which is located along the coast of Louisiana to relocate. Crews started moving the oiled animals overnight to minimize the stress of transporting them. The animals and personnel will now be at the larger facility outside of the storm evacuation zone.
And new developments, more fallout in the Shirley Sherrod controversy to tell you about this morning. Of course, just to remind you, she's the USDA official who was forced to resign when her comments about race were twisted and then posted on the Web.
She talked to President Obama on the phone yesterday and told us about the information a short time ago here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: What did he say? Did he apologize to you?
SHIRLEY SHERROD, FMR. GEORGIA DIRECTOR, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, USDA: Well, you know, he didn't say, "I'm sorry," in those words. And I really didn't want to hear the president of the United States say "I'm sorry" to Shirley Sherrod. I felt he was saying that in his talk. Just by simply calling me, I felt it was in a way saying, "I'm sorry," because he didn't have to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, the focus is also now shifting to Agriculture Department official Cheryl Cook. Now, Sherrod claims Cook is the one who called her repeatedly and also toll her to pull over to type out her resignation on her BlackBerry when she was driving in the car. Cook may be able to answer a lot of questions including just how far up the ladder this whole thing really went.
Our Ed Henry is digging deeper for us this morning.
I know that yesterday, you were on quite a hunt trying to chase her down. But just one note. Shirley Sherrod said that she hopes that Cheryl Cook does not get blamed or lose her job over this, because she said she is a good person and is working hard within the Agriculture Department.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. We weren't trying to pick on her either. You know, the bottom line is we're just trying to get the facts here and make sure that officials not only at the White House, but at the Agriculture Department are answering some of these tough questions. The administration certainly talks a lot about transparency, but so far they've been giving up very little information about those contacts between officials at the Agriculture Department and here at the White House. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HENRY (voice-over): In the saga of Shirley Sherrod, there's only one mystery left to be solved: Where is Cheryl Cook?
(on camera): Cheryl Cook works here at the Agriculture Department as a top aide to Secretary Tom Vilsack. And she's in the middle of this story because Shirley Sherrod alleges that, on Monday, when the story first exploded, Cheryl Cook called her three times and demanded that she resign, and that Cheryl Cook said it was at the urging of the White House.
Now, White House officials and Secretary Vilsack have denied that, but Cheryl Cook has not come forward to answer one single question on this matter. So, we spent the day trying to track her down from here at the Agriculture Department, a few blocks away, over at White House.
(voice-over): In the afternoon, my colleague Dan Lothian pressed Robert Gibbs on whether the White House would make Cook available.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I would point you over to USDA on that. I don't know if you talked to USDA.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right, but she's the person who supposedly said that the White House wanted her to step down...
GIBBS: Dan, if you want to reach the undersecretary or the deputy secretary, I -- again, call the Department of Agriculture.
HENRY (on camera): You can hear on the overhead intercom that Robert Gibbs is still doing his daily briefing. He just told Dan Lothian that, if you want to reach Cheryl Cook at the Agriculture Department, you should call the press office. So, we're going to try to track her down.
Hey there. It's Ed Henry at CNN.
We're working on a story about Cheryl Cook, and I just wanted to see if we can get an interview with her, because Robert Gibbs just said in the briefing, for the second day in a row, that if any reporters want to talk to her, we should call over to the press office. Can you help us?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me see. I can -- let me take your information down.
HENRY (voice-over): Later in the afternoon, I got a call back from another press person who left me a voice-mail shedding no new light on Cook's contact with the White House.
CHRIS MATHER, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, USDA: And I think we have been pretty clear about what the involvement was and wasn't. Obviously, we informed them of what was going on, because that's what we do on a daily basis. And in terms of their request or anything else, they -- this was our decision here at USDA.
HENRY: Then, suddenly, a possible breakthrough.
(on camera): My producer, Shawna Shepherd (ph), has just gotten what we believe to be the direct line at the Agriculture Department for Cheryl Cook, as well as her cell numbers.
ROBOTIC VOICE: Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system. The mailbox belonging to Cheryl Cook is full. To disconnect, press 1. To enter another number, press 2.
HENRY: She's getting a lot of calls. She's not returning calls.
(voice-over): So we headed to agriculture headquarters to see if we could find Cheryl Cook there.
(on camera): Have you seen her? Have you seen this woman anywhere?
(voice-over): We tried to talk to Secretary Vilsack, but his driver spotted our camera, and the car was brought to a different entrance and the secretary left. But just as we were about to leave, the secretary's car came back to the office, and we confronted him.
(on camera): Hey, Secretary, Ed Henry with CNN.
Would Cheryl Cook be made available for any questions? There's been an allegation that, you know, she said that the White House wanted Shirley to resign. Will she be made available to answer questions? Why not?
TOM VILSACK, AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: I addressed that yesterday.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HENRY: Now, the secretary said he had already addressed that the previous day, but what he had said was there was a liaison over at the Agriculture Department, a liaison to the White House, who had had some sort of contact with the White House to inform them about what was going on Monday as this was playing out. The secretary didn't really name that official at Agriculture.
Robert Gibbs has not named what person or what people here at the White House spoke to the Agriculture Department. And we haven't really gotten any details on what those conversations were like.
And now we've gotten these blanket denials from both Agriculture and the White House that there was no political pressure from the White House to push out Shirley Sherrod. But obviously, as you know, she has said repeatedly that just the opposite is true, and that she was told by Cheryl Cook that the White House wanted her out.
So, until these questions are answered, we still don't know those details from Monday -- John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: You wore out a lot of shoe leather trying to get the answer to that question.
And Ed, take a look at this, because we did talk to Shirley in our last hour. And don't forget that Cheryl Cook is the person that called her three times, said pull off the road, you need to resign right now. You think that Shirley Sherrod might be a little bit bitter about that.
Listen to what she told us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: What is your take on what -- who was perhaps instructing Cheryl Cook and what should happen after this?
SHERROD: You know, I know Cheryl Cook, and I know had she been given the opportunity to make a decision here on her own, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this. So she was the messenger. It wasn't -- I really, truly do believe it was not her message.
Cheryl is a great person. I would definitely want to see her be able to continue the work she was doing at USDA. So I would hope that this attention on her would not cause them to do the same thing they did to me -- you know, boot her out, get rid of that as if it's a sore that needs to be dealt with. She's doing some great work at USDA.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Very kind words from her. And as we talked to her yesterday, the only person she really thinks she wants to exact some sort of retribution from or some sort of justice from -- I guess whatever words you want to use -- the guy who posted her video in the first place, Ed.
HENRY: Yes, Andrew Breitbart. And she's also left open the possibility of maybe a legal suit against him. We'll see how that plays out.
But look, Cheryl Cook may just be sort of caught in the middle here. That's just one of those mysteries because, again, we've gotten such little information.
But when you look at Shirley Sherrod, one of the things we've clearly learned about her in recent days -- as you noted, her words were kind to Cheryl Cook -- is that she's not a bomb thrower.
ROBERTS: Yes.
HENRY: She hasn't been throwing out wild allegations. But consistently, she said that based on those three hurried phone calls from Cheryl Cook, she got the clear, distinct impression that the White House was pressing for her to go.
Again, this is not some partisan throwing a partisan allegation at the White House. So, why the White House and the Agriculture Department won't just put this to rest is a real mystery at this point. CHETRY: Yes. And again, as Cheryl Cook said -- as she said about Cheryl Cook, Shirley herself, she was the messenger, this was not her message. So, again, you're trying to tackle who's message was it then?
HENRY: Right. And if we could just talk to Cheryl Cook, we might get some answers. But they won't make her available.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: You can expect the heat was probably coming down on her, too.
Ed Henry at the White House.
Ed, thanks. Good to see you this morning.
HENRY: Thank you.
CHETRY: Well, this weekend we're taking a walk in her shoes, an intimate look into the life of Shirley Sherrod, the woman who overcame prejudice after her father was murdered and was forced to actually defend herself against charges of racism this week. "The Woman Behind the Controversy," this Saturday night, 7:00 and 10:00 Eastern, here on CNN.
And more on this at 7:40 Eastern with Sherrilyn Ifill and Boyce Watkins. Was the president's response enough? Has the president done enough to foster a positive discussion about race? And is it even his job to lead the discussion?
ROBERTS: Meantime, still ahead, powerful New York Congressman Charlie Rangel has been formally charged with violating House ethics rules. A live report from Washington on that just ahead.
It's 12 minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Coming up now on 15 minutes after the hour.
CHETRY: Yes, it is.
It's Charlie Rangel's war, I guess you could say. The New York congressman formally charged with violating ethics rules, now facing a rare public trial in the House this week.
ROBERTS: Yes. But Rangel has a message for his accusers: Bring it on.
Our congressional correspondent, Brianna Keilar, is following developments. She's live in Washington for us.
Good morning, Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, John and Kiran.
This is a really big deal in terms of congressional ethics hearings or actions. This basically plays out like a trial. One senior Democratic source told us that what happened yesterday was basically the equivalent of an indictment against Congressman Charles Rangel of New York.
He served 20 full terms in the House. He used to be -- you know, he recently stepped down amid this ethics cloud from his position on the very powerful tax-writing committee in the House. And so what the Ethics Committee is going to do is they're going to look into whether these allegations are true.
They're going to have these almost court-like proceedings where the attorneys for the Ethics Committee who have been doing this investigation will essentially be prosecutors. And then you're going to have Rangel's attorneys who will be putting up his defense, telling their side of the story. And they're going to be meeting for the first time next Thursday.
We ran into Rangel as this story was breaking yesterday, and here's what he told us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: All I'm doing is to get (INAUDIBLE) right now and say that at long last, the Ethics Committee has completed its investigation at my request. It will report those findings on Thursday. And when they do, I look forward to responding. As it relates to my election, I'm glad and hope that this will be aired before the September primary, and certainly before the November election.
So until they go public, I can't go public because I would not know exactly what their findings are, and I will not know until Thursday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have not been shown a report?
RANGEL: There is no report. They gave this saying that the report will be issued on Thursday, next Thursday. I'd like to say that at long last, the sun will be piercing over the cloud that I've been carrying for almost two years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: So the question now is, what are the charges that this committee is going to be having this trial basically for? And, you know, John and Kiran, we don't know, and Rangel himself told us that he doesn't know what they are, that he's going to find out next week.
ROBERTS: We do have a pretty good idea though what those charges might be connected to.
KEILAR: There are a number of issues that have been hanging over his head. Among them, he had several rent-controlled units in his Harlem, New York, apartment building when he wasn't supposed to have several of them. Also, he used congressional letterhead, official letterhead, to solicit donations for a center bearing his name in New York City.
Also -- and he has admitted this and paid back taxes now -- he failed to pay taxes on $75,000 worth of earnings that he got for a villa that he owns in the Dominican Republic that he rented out. And there's also this issue -- and this is a big one, too -- of failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of assets, John and Kiran, on his congressional financial disclosure form, something that all members of Congress are supposed to do, and certainly something that a person who is the head of the House tax-writing committee is expected to take seriously and know the import of.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: Right. Well, if he thinks it's going to vindicate him, we'll see where it does go.
Brianna Keilar this morning.
Brianna, thanks very much.
Big oil against the White House. Could the moratorium have deleterious effects against the economy that go far beyond the Gulf Coast?
We'll check in with the president and CEO of Shell Oil coming right up.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: All those folks making plans for their weekend coming up.
Twenty-one and a half minutes after the hour.
"Minding Your Business" this morning, four oil giants -- Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil -- are launching a new rapid response system in case there is another oil spill down in the Gulf like the BP well blowout. So far, the price tag for all of that is $1 billion.
I spoke with the head of Shell Oil about that last hour. We showed you part of that interview here earlier on AMERICAN MORNING. But I also asked Marvin Odum about the White House' six-month ban on deepwater drilling, what it means for people along the Gulf Coast, his company's bottom line, and people across the country as well.
Here's that part of our discussion.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARVIN ODUM, PRESIDENT, SHELL OIL COMPANY: Well, if it stays in place for six months, there is no question in my mind we will start to lose equipment out of the Gulf of Mexico which means we'll loss jobs, we'll loss rigs. And that well already has had a significant impact, frankly, and it will continue to have a significant impact.
Part of the problem here, John, is that you may say if the moratorium ends in six months, what's the impact? The bigger question is, do we have any certainty around when it will end? Because a rig company may keep its equipment sitting there for several months idle, even though it generates something on the order of $1 million a day when it's working. But if you don't have any concept of really when the moratorium does end, they almost have no choice but to start to move that equipment out of the Gulf of Mexico.
ROBERTS: And if it goes, it's gone for a period of time, anywhere typically from a year to 18 months, isn't it?
ODUM: No, that's right. You understand that these large pieces of equipment have to go under long-term contract for it to make sense. It's expensive, actually, to move from one country to another. And so getting those in place, getting the contracts in place, it's usually several years, actually, before a rig would return.
ROBERTS: It's easy for people along the Gulf Coast to understand why this moratorium is having an economic impact, but what about in other parts of the country? If the industry stays shut down, are we going to see a reduction in the production of oil from that area? And might that eventually result perhaps in the next nine to 12 months in an increase in gasoline prices?
ODUM: Well, I think you can draw the lines pretty directly between the two. In terms of a U.S. supply, the Gulf of Mexico supplies about 30 percent of our oil. It generates something on the order of 150,000 to 200,000 jobs, so it's a very significant economic benefit to the country.
Now oil, as we all know, comes from reservoirs which are a depleting asset. You have to replenish that. And so, if we stop drilling from an area that already supplies 30 percent of our oil, that clearly creates a gap on energy that we are supplying to ourselves. We've become more reliant on international supplies of energy, and ultimately that reduces the amount of energy supplied in the world, which is where the price impact comes into play.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: By the way, just a little bit more on this rapid response system.
It's going to be pre-positioned in the Gulf. It may take a year or two to get it all together. Very similar technology to what BP is using right now on the Macondo well, but it would certainly put those assets in the area so if something else were to happen, they'd be able to react to it very quickly, as opposed to developing a containment system over the course of three months.
Well, still ahead on the most news in the morning, diversity and the GOP. The Shirley Sherrod controversy does not come at a good time for Republicans who are trying to diversify the party. So what now? A "Gut Check" coming up right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-seven minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the most news in the morning.
"Gut Check" time now.
The Shirley Sherrod controversy, it comes at a time when the GOP is trying to attract more African-American voters. But the edited video posted by a Tea Party activist may have cost them more votes.
Carol Costello is live for us this morning in Washington with more on this issue.
You know, a lot of mainstream Republicans though say this does not speak about us at all, but it certainly doesn't help.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, it does not help.
The possible fallout from the Sherrod affair has some powerful Republicans very worried. They've been trying to attract more African-American to the party, and already the racial tit-for-tat that's gone on between Tea Party members and the NAACP has caused concern.
So what to do now? A "Gut Check" this morning from one African- American who loves Republican ideals but not the party.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO (voice-over): Sophia Nelson is a political strategist, blogger and longtime Republican. Well, at least she was until she says it became uncomfortable.
SOPHIA NELSON, LONGTIME REPUBLICAN: I think that the problem the party has, the Republican Party, is it's now as identified with the Tea Party, with the conservative movement, exclusively, so that people like myself and others feel like, well, there's really not a place for someone like me in that party because we're RINOs, Republicans in Name Only.
COSTELLO: She says some Republican leaders are sensitive to that and even more worried now in light of the Sherrod affair, as perhaps they should be.
A CNN poll shows 73 percent of African-Americans think some or all of Tea Party supporters who generally lean Republican are racially prejudiced, and only 26 percent of African-Americans think the Republican Party does a good job of reaching out to minorities.
Nelson says Republicans have been calling her lately for advice. And she's sharing. NELSON: If all of your messengers are gray-haired white males, middle-aged white males -- and there's nothing wrong with white males, I'm not saying anything bad about them. But I am saying that it's a perception issue.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R), MINNESOTA: Thank you everyone for coming today.
COSTELLO: Conservatives have tried to change that perception. For example, when Congresswoman Michele Bachmann called her Tea Party Caucus together, at least five speakers were people of color.
Nelson says that's not good enough.
NELSON: Just because you have a black face doesn't mean you have credibility in your community. Right?
I mean, so people look at you based on what you've done, what organizations you're a part of. Are you helping to make things better in the community you're a part of? That's the kind of stuff that resonates with people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: It is the kind of thing that resonates with people. Nelson says that's why Barack Obama's work as a community organizer resonated with so many African-American. She said if Republicans really want to attract more African-Americans to the party, they should reacquaint themselves with somebody like Colin Powell, a moderate Republican who, yes, endorsed Barack Obama for president, but he is respected in the black community.
We want to know what you think about this, this morning. What can the Republican Party or the Tea Party movement do to attract more African-Americans? Write your comments on my blog at cnn.com/amfix. Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. A great gut check this morning for us. Carol, thanks so much.
ROBERTS: Colin Powell, didn't they kind of elbow him out of the party after he supported President Obama? What was it that Dick Cheney said about him? Is he still a Republican?
Thirty minutes after the hour. It means it's time for this morning's top stories. A dangerous situation unfolding right now in southern Florida. Tropical storm Bonnie closing in on the Florida Keys. Conditions there are expected to deteriorate throughout the morning. The National Hurricane Center says South Florida could receive one to three inches of rain.
CHETRY: Also tropical storm Bonnie's heading to the gulf, unfortunately. Right now, the floating city of ships near the oil spill site has been ordered back to port. Last night the government ordered the vessels to get out of the storm's path. It is a decision that will disrupt operations at the well site for at least 10 days. The good news though is that the cap is still in place and there is no oil flowing into the gulf.
ROBERTS: And this setback coming after the government re-opened more gulf waters to fishing. After no reports of oil off of Florida's West Coast for the past 30 days, the government re-opened more than 26,000 square miles of water from Tampa to the Florida Keys.
CHETRY: Well, it doesn't look like much of a weekend for fishing in the gulf anyway with tropical storm Bonnie bearing down.
ROBERTS: Yes, the forecast has got operations in the gulf on hold. The ships pulling out their drilling rigs and moving off of the site for the moment. Rob Marciano is live in Gulf Shores, Alabama this morning.
Rob, you've been out with those skimmer boats picking up oil. The fact that they're finding much less oil in recent days than they were in the previous weeks, does that mean that the storm might not have that much of an effect?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it will bring less oil on shore. That's for sure. And that's one thing we haven't really talked about. We talked about the evacuation. And unfortunately when you take that drilling rig off the relief well, it takes days just to get it out of the way, and then days just to bring it back.
But the track of the storm if it holds true slices it right through the middle of the spill site. And that means all the oil basically north and east of the Mississippi delta is going to have an onshore push with that storm surge. We don't expect it to be a strong one but it maybe enough to get whatever oil is out there back on shore, in places like where I am right now in Gulf Shores, Alabama, back across Mississippi and southeast Louisiana, they may see another infiltration of oil.
How much that is, we'll just have to wait and see. But the boom is going to be relatively ineffective. Skimming will be ineffective as well in some of these rough waters. They don't like to do skimming at night but in the long days of fighting this oil spill, sometimes day turns into night relatively quickly.
And being on the deck of an operating skimmer at night is definitely intimidating.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO (on camera): Wow! So this is the first taste I've got of a skimming vessel. All the equipment that they're pulling out right now is completely caked in thick, heavy crude. This is just a mess. Smell the oil. Hot. Dirty and the sun is not even up. I can't imagine these guys doing this for 10, 12-hour shifts in the heat of the day. These guys are busting it to try to clean up the gulf.
What is that thing up there? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bringing down the skimmer right now, bringing down the hose. He's going to drop the skimmer right there so you can wrap it up in plastic to contain the oil because tomorrow morning it will heat up and it will be all liquid, make a big mess.
MARCIANO: So that's the vacuum that's been sucking up the oil all day?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, that's the skimmer.
MARCIANO: Look at the size of that boom they're pulling out of the water right now. Crane. It's just all -- much, much bigger than I ever imagined. It's amazing.
This is where I'm going to be working tomorrow. And it's an intimidating, messy thought.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO: A little taste of that hour special that we're premiering tomorrow night. And it looks like the timing of that is going to be right around when Bonnie's going to be in the gulf and having some effect on the shorelines. Forecast and Reynolds has been talking about it is for it to make landfall, probably Saturday night, into Sunday morning. So we'll be here covering that as well. John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Strange coincidence. Rob Marciano for us this morning. Rob, great to see that and looking forward this weekend to seeing Rob's special report "Rescue Saving the Gulf." He's on the front lines on what could be the largest clean-up effort ever. Join him Saturday and Sunday night, 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.
CHETRY: And still ahead, race and politics. Now that President Obama has spoken with Shirley Sherrod, some are asking is it even his job to lead the discussion about race in America? Some are expecting that of him and others are saying, he has enough problems to worry about. We're going to speak with two guests who have some differing opinions on that coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Thirty-eight minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the most news in the morning. The Shirley Sherrod controversy and the explosive mix of race, politics and the viral age of the internet. President Obama spoke with Shirley yesterday and expressed regret for the turmoil that she endured this week. A short time ago we asked her how she thinks the White House is handling race issues in general.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERROD: I'm assuming this administration feels, too, that, you know, if they highlight issues of black people, the country would perceive it as something negative. I know they probably have to struggle with that, but I think they're wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, joining us now from Baltimore, Sherrilyn Ifill. She's a law professor at the University of Maryland and a civil rights lawyer. Welcome.
SHERRILYN: Thanks for having me.
CHETRY: Sure. And also from Louisville, Kentucky, this morning, Boyce Watkins, a professor at Syracuse University and founder of yourblackworld.com. Good to see you as well, Boyce.
BOYCE WATKINS, FOUNDER OF YOURBLACKWORLD.COM: Yes, same here.
CHETRY: Sherrilyn, let me start with you because I know you're pretty fired up about all that's gone on with the Shirley Sherrod controversy and you say that the president has to do more on race. You're hearing a lot of anger from the African-American community. Some might say though he has so much on his plate, you got the oil spill, the struggling economy, two wars. What more do you think the president himself should be doing when it comes to the issue of race relations?
IFILL: Well, I think the president was hoping -- and I think it is understandable that what he does on race would be in his substantive policies, the revitalized civil rights division, what he's trying to do in extending unemployment benefits, what he's tried to do in stimulating the economy and so forth and even the real and sincere efforts of the USDA to deal with backlogged civil rights claims.
So I think the president was hoping that substantive policy would be enough. But the reality is, race happens. It happened last summer with the Gates incident. It's happened with Shirley Sherrod. The right has been -- the hard right in particular -- has been very careful to try and present the entire Obama administration and the project of this first black president as being an exercise in reverse racism.
And so race is also a matter of public discussion and consciousness and I don't think the Obama administration can avoid it. The ironic piece is that I think most Americans trusted President Obama to be the person to help kind of navigate us through these shoals.
After that race speech toward a more perfect union in Philadelphia --
CHETRY: Right.
IFILL: I think that really settled it for many Americans. And so I think the Obama administration actually should be more confident about having the president be able to speak explicitly to the issue of race.
CHETRY: Well, Boyce, so when you talk about confidence, and when Sherrilyn brings up confidence, I mean, the Henry Gates controversy was not -- I mean, you really can't blame the conservatives for that and the president said when asked at a news conference, "the Cambridge police acted stupidly."
And then he said before knowing the full story of what happened. In this situation you had the NAACP and some would argue the Department of Agriculture by extension the administration also being quick to rush to judgment turning out that they ended up doing more damage, regardless of where the tape originally came from, just about how the administration deals with race. Two for two, it's actually turned out to be much worse for the president.
WATKINS: Well, let's be clear. Race is a 400-year-old problem for our country and you're not going to have progress without struggle. The election of President Obama was a landmark achievement for our country. We deserve tremendous credit for the fact that many Americans, white and black and other ethnicities decided that the best man for the job, the best person for the job was an African- American and so that's a good thing.
But then at the same time Obama's election has brought out some of the ugliest dimensions of our nation when it comes to race, many of those unresolved issues that we failed to confront. And the issue here is that when you talk about the delicate surgery, the delicate social surgery that needs to occur in order for us to deal with race, you can't do that surgery with a rusty butter knife.
And to some extent that's what the president did last year when he addressed the Henry Louis Gates case without knowing all the facts, without being very careful about how he hit the issue. And the result was that it was a political disaster. He lost a lot of white support.
It was the seminole moment when the tea party became much stronger than it was at that time. That was when Obama became identified as a radical black man which he certainly is not. And so ultimately the Henry Louis Gates case put the president in a cage where he literally became almost petrified to deal with the issue of race in public.
So when you saw more substantive issues occur like the shooting of Oscar Grant, the shooting of Sean Bell, the shooting of Ianna Jones, things that the president should have been involved with, he was afraid to touch those things. So I think that a conversation on race must occur in the United States but the president is not necessarily the person positioned to best lead that conversation.
In fact, Shirley Sherrod has impressed me so much that I think she should be involved in helping to lead that conversation because we have to have that conversation without a political agenda.
CHETRY: And that's interesting. So you believe that it is really not the president's place to take up this issue or lead the discussion. And I want to ask you about this, Sherrilyn. Because Shirley did talk to us this morning, gave her opinion that perhaps the administration feels that if it highlights issues of black people, that the country would perceive it as something negative. She thinks that's not necessarily the case but she's talking about perception. What do you make of that? Sherrilyn? IFILL: I think there are two pieces here. I think there are two pieces. Number one, the problem with what happened with the Henry Louis Gates matter and the beer summit last summer was that what was a symptom of a larger problem of race and encounters of African- Americans with the police was treated for political expediency as a personal misunderstanding between two individuals that the president then brought together for beer and nuts.
What was lost was the opportunity to talk about the larger picture. And that's what the president can speak to, including in this Shirley Sherrod matter. Which also is being personalized. I think Mrs. Sherrod has, to her credit, tried to draw attention to the larger issues.
This is a woman who knows quite a bit about rural land loss. She knows about black land loss and she clearly knows about white land loss. She's got a wealth of experience that I think she wants to give to the president about what it's like to be living in rural America in the south. And that to me is the critical place at which the president should be working and speaking and hearing from people like Shirley Sherrod.
So it is not about, you know, just leading an abstract conversation. It is about substantive policies that have to do with the president's authority and power to address the issue of race in this country.
CHETRY: And Boyce, there is a startling Quinnipiac University study that was out about this. It was the president's approval rating. And there was just a stark contrast between black and white. 91 percent of blacks approve of the president right now, whereas only 37 percent of whites do.
And then you dig a little deeper in those numbers, Boyce, and some younger Americans who were super energized about the election, Independents as well, seem to be finding themselves turning their backs on the president, support eroding in these two categories. And in this match-up that Quinnipiac did, especially among young people, they would vote for a generic Republican over the president come 2012. What happened?
WATKINS: Life happened. America happened.
The reality is that whites and blacks have always had divergent perceptions on almost every issue that relates to race. You go back to the O.J. Simpson trial and you polled whites and blacks, you -- you got two different results. If you look at any situation involving a black male athlete, say Michael Vick, you poll whites and blacks, you get divergent outcomes there as well.
The reality is that whites and blacks don't see the world as the same. The bigger problems in America are not so much racism, meaning I hate you because of the color of your skin. The bigger problem is -- are things like racial inequality, which is a byproduct of racism, where whites and blacks have different realities when it comes to access to education, access to economic opportunities, and -- and all these other things that go on in -- in our society, like mass incarceration where black men are actually arrested and incarcerated at a rate that's five times higher than the rate was in South Africa during the height of apartheid.
So the point is that America is a two-tiered society when it comes to race, and -- and if we don't deal with this issue directly and in an honest way, we're going to always have these problems.
I don't know if the president is necessarily the person who can really do that. I don't know if he's a person that wants to do that. I don't know what's in his heart and mind. But I know there are a lot of good Americans, white, black and otherwise, who want to address this issue, and -- and I call on those people to -- to attack it.
CHETRY: Well, we're scratching the surface, certainly, but I'm glad we got to get both of your opinions about it this morning.
Sherrilyn Ifill and Boyce Watkins, thank you.
WATKINS: Thank you.
IFILL: Thank you.
CHETRY: Well, we're tracking tropical storm Bonnie, coming up. We're going to have the latest on where she's headed.
Forty-seven minutes past the hour.
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WOLF: Welcome back to CNN AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Reynolds Wolf.
This is a look at -- take a look at tropical storm Bonnie. Right now it's fairly weak at this time, a minimal tropical storm with winds of 40 miles per hour. Once it gets over 39, then it's classified -- or just 39 or above, it is then a tropical storm.
Received some scattered showers in Fort Lauderdale, southward to South Miami Heights. As we take a look at the big picture, you'll notice some of that deep convection, but the storm kind of ragged at the time being, interacting with some strong upper-level winds. It's moving west-northwest at 19, sustained winds at 40, gusts up to 50, expected to make its way into the Gulf of Mexico if it follows the expected forecast path of the National Hurricane Center and may actually go over the oil slick as we get into Saturday and then into Sunday.
But the winds look like they may actually strengthen as we get into Saturday, moving into an area of minimal shear, so there certainly is that possibility. Already, we've had tropical storm warnings that have been in effect in roughly (ph) Panama City back over towards New Orleans and even into the Central Louisiana coast. A lot of changes are going to take place certainly over the next 12 to 24 to 48 to 72 hours. Of course, we'll keep you up to speed on the latest with this storm. That's what we've got for you for the time being. For more news and weather, you're going to want to stay here, right at CNN AMERICAN MORNING, the Most News in the Morning.
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ROBERTS: Scottish ministers have declined an invitation to testify next week when a Senate committee holds hearings on the controversial release of the Lockerbie Bomber. Senators want to investigate Scotland's decision to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi from jail last year and the role that oil giant BP may have played to send him back to Libya.
Brianna Keilar joins us live from Washington this morning. They're looking to get Scottish ministers there. They're also looking to get the top guy from BP on the stand.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Tony Hayward and we don't know yet if he's going to be there. But this is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John, taking a rather extraordinary step of asking foreign officials to come and testify before Congress.
So here's who they invited yesterday to top the list, Jack Straw, Britain's top -- former top justice official. Also asking Scottish officials to come, Kenny MacAskill, who is the Scottish Justice Minister; and Dr. Andrew Fraser, who oversaw medical services for prisons. Both of them, according to British reports this morning, are going to not be showing up and talking to Congress.
And then there's also Tony Hayward, of course, the head of BP, who has been on Capitol Hill before. He's been invited, and BP says they're considering whether he's going to go.
But here is the deal here. About a year ago, when Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was released after serving less than -- or about eight years of his life sentence, he was released on compassionate grounds because the understanding was he only had about three months to live, that he was dying of cancer. Well, here we are, John. It's almost a year later, and he is still very much alive, and it appears his prognosis right now is pretty good.
Now, since then, since he was released, BP has been able to move forward on a potentially billion dollar oil exploration deal off the Libyan coast. And this is what these Democratic senators say they -- it's just not passing the smell test for them, and they think that some sort of deal was brokered here and that BP was very much involved, John.
ROBERTS: BP officials say they didn't speak to the British government about al-Megrahi specifically, but were there -- was there more general lobbying about the transfer of Libyan prisoners?
KEILAR: Yes. And they -- they have said that they did talk to British officials about really a blanket prisoner transfer that was already in the works. And what they were saying to British officials is if we can't come to a -- I guess, a quicker resolution to this, it's going to be hurting British business interests in Libya, and that includes BP.
But even though they've said that and even though Scottish and British officials -- the Scottish and English officials have said, look, there was no deal here, these Democratic senators don't buy that.
Four of them are from New Jersey and New York. Almost 300 people were killed in this airline -- in this airplane bombing, almost 200 of them American, and a lot of them were constituents of these lawmakers, John.
ROBERTS: Yes, yes, Senators seeing a certain odoriferous quality about this whole thing. It will be interesting to watch those hearings coming up.
Brianna Keilar on Capitol Hill for us this morning. Thanks so much, Brianna.
CHETRY: Meanwhile, we're coming up to the top of the hour. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back with your top stories in just two minutes.
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