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American Morning
Afghan War Documents Leaked; Dam Hits Breaking Point; Contador Captures Tour de France
Aired July 26, 2010 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good Monday morning to you. And thanks so much for joining us on the Most News in the Morning. It's the 26th of July. I'm John Roberts. And we say good morning to a special guest today. Good morning.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Sara Sidner in for Kiran Chetry who is off today. A lot to talk about this morning, so let's get right to it.
On the chopping block, there are reports all over the place that BP's Tony Hayward, the man who once called the gulf oil spill a drop in the bucket, will step down today. But the company still insisting he's in charge. We're live in London to see if he'll survive a key board meeting today.
ROBERTS: An explosive leak of classified military documents on the war in Afghanistan. This morning, they are raising new questions about U.S. military strategy and whether Pakistan, America's critical ally in the region, has been aiding the enemy. We'll have a live report just ahead.
SIDNER: And fast moving storms spawning tornadoes and cutting paths of destruction from the Midwest to the northeast. Homes have been torn apart and trees knocked down. We're live in the extreme weather center with where the threat is this morning.
And the amFIX blog is up and running, of course. Join the live conversation right now. Just go to CNN.com/amFIX.
ROBERTS: But first, day 98 of the gulf oil spill and it may be Tony Hayward's last. The company could announce that he is done during a key board meeting in London today. Many residents of the Gulf Coast say his words were salt on an already gushing wound. And he became the poster boy for bad press saying things like the spill was relatively tiny, that the environmental impact would be small, that he wanted his own life back when 11 people died in the initial disaster.
Phil Black is live at BP headquarters in London for us this morning. So do we know, Phil, if we're going to hear anything about Tony Hayward's future today?
PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it looks like Tony Hayward is in the ejector seat but no one has pressed the button just yet. BP has just this morning released a statement saying that it notes all the media speculation suggesting that there's about to be a change of senior management at the company but says no official decision has been made just yet. It says there will be a board meeting later today and any decisions out of that will be announced as appropriate. But here that board meeting is really being interpreted as a formality for signing off on Tony Hayward's departure. And he looks set to walk away with a fair sum of money, too, a golden parachute.
There's a lot of speculation about just how big that will be. There's one possible outcome -- he's been with the company 28 years. He could receive a one off payment of as much or more than $1.5 million, and that would be followed up at the age of 60 by an annual pension payment of around $900,000. And inevitably, it is fair to assume that a golden parachute that is considered to be overly generous will be controversial for a chief executive whose company is in so much trouble -- John.
ROBERTS: Word is, too, Phil, that Bob Dudley, who was recently put in charge of the gulf clean-up, will likely replace Hayward. He was once in line for the CEO job in 2007 before that was given to Hayward. What else do we know about Dudley?
BLACK: Yes, Bob Dudley is the one name that is continually being mentioned as the likely successor and really the only name. He is currently the managing director and as you mentioned, he has taken on day-to-day responsibility for the clean-up operation in the gulf. He was born in New York, raised in Mississippi. And what this means quite significantly for BP is that he would be the company's first non-British chief executive and he would very much put on an American face and an American accent to this country's effort -- I'm sorry, this company's efforts, of moving forward and getting over this very dark times -- John.
ROBERTS: All right. We await the results of that board meeting today. Phil Black for us in London this morning. Phil, thanks so much.
SIDNER: Meanwhile, work is resuming in the Gulf of Mexico on those two critical relief wells. The weekend storm threat set things back about a week. Clean-up crews have also returned to the water this morning. One problem -- they can't seem to find much oil to clean up. CNN's David Mattingly flew over the spill site with the Coast Guard this weekend. Here's what he found out.
(BEGIN VIDEOT CLIP)
REAR ADM. PAUL ZUKUNFT, FEDERAL ON-SCENE COORDINATOR: This oil is rapidly breaking down and there's very little oil left. We have a few streamers that we located earlier off of Grand Isle that perhaps can be skimmed, but right now we're not seeing many targets for our skimming fleet of 780 skimmers.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You realize when you say that it's still hard for people to believe that this spill was so enormous and yet we're having trouble finding the oil to skim it?
ZUKUNFT: Well, it's not for lack of trying. We have 50 aircraft saturating this very location where satellites indicate there could be oil sheen in the area. And so we're going to look just like we would doing search and rescue to see where any possible target pocket of oil might be over this area.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: Rob Marciano is live in Gulfport, Mississippi this morning. Rob, you talk about not being able to see the oil but you certainly in your special this weekend saw a lot of it. Tell us about the efforts they're ramping up now to do this kill of this well, the static kill. What's happening right now with the completion of those relief wells?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as of midnight, the drilling ship that has been working on the relief well should have latched on to the MLRP package down there at the bottom of the gulf. There's no official word of that, but it was all on track as of last night and we'll get in touch with BP later this morning when they get into the office to get confirmation of that.
But once that happens and they used 67 steel joints to make that line a mile through the ocean, once that happens, they're going to pull the plug that they put in temporarily for the storm. And they're going to run in some conditioning fluid to kind of make sure that the integrity is OK and kind of flush things out, and then they're going to start running that liner again and eventually seal it with cement.
Now that whole process, granted, takes five to seven days so as far as a timetable for when they would then try that static kill, we're still looking at the beginning of next week. So as you mentioned, the entire timetable to get this thing all said and done has been delayed about a week. And that still puts us into at least the middle of August. They want to try the stop the static kill first, and then will go after an intersection with the relief well and go for the bottom kill. I'm told that the static kill will actually help speed the process of killing the well from the relief well at the bottom for good. So they want to give that an effort.
As far as oil that's been seen around the Gulf of Mexico, as David Mattingly pointed out, it's been more difficult to find that oil. We've had that well capped now for over nine days, and skimmer have been working all along. So that certainly has given folks a heads-up. But Bonnie, the last 24 hours really has brought strong on- shore winds and there was oil just south of Grand Isle about 12 miles offshore, significant oil, that likely made its way closer to Grand Isle.
So, there's still some oil just offshore but they do have significant amounts of skimmers to go after the oil they do find. And right now, I guess the positive note is that if they're having trouble finding the oil, that's certainly a good thing.
There's lots of sheen out there. This area is going to be impacted for weeks and months to come from the residual oil and the oil that's been broken down into little particles and that sheen. But what they do find they're going to continue to try to skim as we go on through time and try to get things up and running full force with the plugging of the well today and then tomorrow - Sara.
SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Rob, there in Gulfport, Mississippi.
In the next hour of AMERICAN MORNING, we'll be joined by former Shell Oil president, John Hofmeister. He'll give us his take on what it might be like inside that big BP board meeting today. Hear from him at 7:40 a.m. Eastern.
ROBERTS: Also developing this morning, the White House blasting the whistle-blower Web site Wikileaks for publishing classified documents from the war in Afghanistan. The Web site leaked what it says are more than 90,000 military and diplomatic reports about the war, raw data on deaths and casualties over the past six years. The White House calls the document, quote, "irresponsible" and that it puts American lives at risk. Atika Shubert is following developments. We'll have a live report from her just ahead here on CNN.
SIDNER: And local Afghan officials say one of two U.S. Navy sailors missing in Afghanistan has been killed. They say the body was found in the mountains of Logar province where the two were reportedly abducted by Taliban insurgents. They're said to be holding the other sailor. The U.S. military is offering a $20,000 reward for any information. We have a live report from Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr coming up.
ROBERTS: Parts of Iowa, New York and Washington, D.C. are facing a major clean-up this morning after a string of severe storms and tornadoes. In Iowa, an ominous sight over Indianola, a twister that touched down on Friday. Nearly two dozen homes were damaged there, trees and power lines ripped down.
SIDNER: In New York, a scorching heat gave way to violent weather. At least one tornado touched down about 60 miles south of Buffalo on Saturday. Investigators say the twister packed winds of 125 miles per hour. It toppled trees and damaged a number of apartments and homes. Fortunately, though, only minor injuries were reported.
And further south in Washington, check out this scene. Powerful storms brought down trees, including this one here which crashed into a two-story brick home. This happening as the nation's capital suffers through some really extreme heat.
ROBERTS: I remember yesterday about 3:00 in the afternoon I was in Central Park and it was like something out of the "Wizard of Oz."
SIDNER: Not a good time to be in Central Park.
ROBERTS: All this wind came along. The clouds going by at 40 or 50 miles an hour and then the storms have fallen in behind. It was pretty wild.
SIDNER: You had to get everything done before that.
ROBERTS: Exactly. SIDNER: Get inside.
ROBERTS: Jacqui Jeras is tracking the weather forecast across the country this morning. What are we looking at today, Jacqui? Because yesterday afternoon, oh, my goodness, what an end to the weekend.
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It was a crazy weekend overall. In addition to all those stories you guys mentioned, we had tropical storm Bonnie which fizzled, thankfully. We had flooding in Chicago. We had a dam break in Iowa and we had all that record heat.
Today, it's looking a little better but we still have our trouble areas. And we'll be focusing more a little farther to the south. Our stationary front which has been causing all of the flooding rains is now making its way down toward the Tennessee Valley. We're going to see showers and thunderstorms across the southeast in addition to just that brutal heat.
High pressure finally builds in to the upper Midwest and northeast bringing in some rather breezy conditions and much cooler temperatures. Hooray. All this when the heat advisories are gone for the northeast and your temperatures are going to feel much closer to what they actually say on the thermometer, in the 80s and 90s.
We also have some fire danger across parts of the west. We'll talk more about that and tell what you can expect for your travel weather. There are going to be some trouble spots there today as well. That's coming up in the next half-hour.
John and Sara, back to you.
SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Jacqui.
In the blogosphere, it's already being called the wedding of the decade and the closest thing America has to a royal wedding. This Saturday, Chelsea Clinton getting married somewhere outside New York City and "Politics Daily" is estimating the secretive ceremony could cost over $2 million.
ROBERTS: Well, we're not sure but the venue will likely be a private French-inspired mansion in upstate New York called Aster Courts. The rental cost there, between $100,000 and $200,000. Food and drink could be half to three-quarters of a million. $200,000 for tents. Forty grand on the band and another $25,000 for the photographer.
Now just as a point of comparison, Chelsea's parents got married in front of family and friends in their living room in Fayetteville, Arkansas back in 1975. Don't know the cost but we can expect it would be a mere fraction of what they're spending to see Chelsea.
SIDNER: Yes. Times have changed, too.
ROBERTS: Yes. Coming up, the U.S. military in a desperate search for two of their own who disappeared in Afghanistan. Reports say one of the Navy sailors has been killed. Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr following developments. We'll hear from her coming up next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Fourteen minutes after the hour now. We're back with the Most News in the Morning.
And one of two U.S. sailors missing in Afghanistan has reportedly died. Local Afghan officials say he was killed in a firefight with Taliban insurgents in Logar province.
SIDNER: It's believed the other sailor is being held captive at this point. The U.S. military is offering reward now of $20,000 for information.
Barbara Starr is developments. She's live at the Pentagon with the very latest -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, John and Sara. Terrible news, terrible uncertainty for at least two U.S. military families this morning about their loved ones.
The U.S. military saying very little officially other than an air and ground search is under way in Logar province south of the capital of Kabul where the two sailors are believed to have disappeared on Friday night.
As you say, reward money has been offered and posters have been put up with messages saying if -- to the Afghans in the region if that they have any information to please contact the Afghan or U.S. officials. Again, U.S. officials saying very little about this, but the chief of naval operations, Admiral Gary Roughead, the top man in the Navy, issuing a very brief statement yesterday saying, quote, "the thoughts and prayers of our entire navy go out to the missing sailors serving in Afghanistan and their families. We have been closely following the situation from the outset. Forces on the ground in Afghanistan are doing everything they can to locate and safely return our missing shipmates."
Now of course, the bottom line concern is if they cannot find them quickly, there is great concern that the men could be taken across the border into Pakistan outside the arms of any potential U.S. military rescue. The U.S. is aware of the reports that one sailor in fact has been killed and the other one remains in captivity, but they are not confirming that at this hour -- John, Sara.
SIDNER: All right. Thank you. Barbara.
ROBERTS: Barbara Starr for us this morning. Barbara, thanks.
Workplace bullying. Can you sue your boss for being a jerk? We'll tell you coming right up. Sixteen minutes after the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Nineteen-and-a-half minutes after the hour now. "Minding your Business" this Monday morning. Wal-Mart is trying to assure consumers that its new electronic I.D. tags will not be used to spy on shoppers.
Starting next month, the world's largest retailer will begin putting the so-called smart tags on certain items of clothing. The chips allow Wal-Mart to keep better track of its inventory, the company says. But safety advocates say even when you leave the store, the tags are not turned off and they remain trackable, so people are worried that Wal-Mart may be keeping tabs on where you're going -- Sara.
SIDNER: Thank you, John.
OK. Here's something that's going to get everybody talking. Is your boss a bully and should that behavior be considered illegal? New York may become the first state to outlaw workplace bullying. The State Senate passed a bill that would allow workers to sue their bosses for medical expenses and lost wages for emotional stress. Sixteen other states are considering similar legislation.
The guest in today, Adam Cohen joins us now. He's a lawyer and time.com contributor. Thank you so much for being here this morning with us.
ADAM COHEN, LECTURER, YALE LAW SCHOOL: Good to be here, Sara.
SIDNER: OK. So, everyone loves to trash the boss every now and then. It just feels good. But why is this law important now? What's happening in the workplace that made legislators think this was important to put this out there?
COHEN: People have been working on this for a while. New York State was a big victory. But there is a feeling that particularly right now, the workplace is becoming more of a jungle. Some of it is the economy, some of it is the kind of unions, but there's a sense that bosses are getting away with a lot more than they used to.
SIDNER: Isn't there already the federal protections? There are labor laws in place for things like hostile work environment. Why do they need an extra law to go into place?
COHEN: Laws we have now are very limited. If there's a racial harassment or religious or gender, if you fall into certain categories, you're protected. But general harassment, just your boss standing in front of you and screaming at you for five minutes or writing evaluations that are completely untrue, other sorts of things are not protected right now.
SIDNER: As far as that goes, these things are often very difficult to prove, and there are a lot of people that are going to be worried about especially employers, obviously, fruitless lawsuits, people who just don't like their boss or don't like being told what to do, and so they decide, OK, how can I get them back and they file suit.
COHEN: That's right. And clearly, employers have a right to have a disciplined workforce and to make sure that the job gets done. This is about conduct that goes beyond that. As I say, there really are a lot of cases of bosses just screaming at a worker for five minutes, writing evaluations they know are not true or just bullying someone. There are bosses who really in some cases actually have psychological problems. And right now, there's not much a worker can do about that. If you go to HR, HR is not on the worker's side, they're on the boss' side.
SIDNER: Do you think this is going to change considering that change way that business is done in the workplace, change the way that corporations operate, what more can be done? A lot of people have these seminars, and they put you through all this different kind of training in the workplace to deal with colleagues and the bosses. Will this change the way business is performed?
COHEN: I think it will. It sends a signal that there could be lawsuits down the road. And you don't necessarily need a lawsuit. When employers begin to see that, potentially, a bullied employee can bring a lawsuit, yet in New York State, if this law passes, punitive damages could be tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, I think it will lead employers to actually, you know, check out their own backyard. See what's going on. See that HR gets on the case because they don't want this to go to litigation. So, ideally, this will lead to more self-policing that is going on right now.
SIDNER: What about vagueness? Some people have talked about that some of these laws maybe quite vague and what constitutes bullying as opposed to somebody getting angry with poor work performance, for example?
COHEN: Yes. No, it's a fair point, but that's true in any kind of employment law. When you talk about harassment, what exactly is sexual harassment, what is racial harassment? There are always line- drawing problems, definitional problems, but it would fit neatly into those categories. The juries are able to see when a boss or, you know, workplace has gone past the line.
SIDNER: Do you think this is going to gum up the courts though? I mean, obviously, anybody can throw a lawsuit out there, and the courts are already having difficulty dealing with the number of cases they have already.
COHEN: True. But courts are actually pretty good at dismissing frivolous lawsuits. They don't get very far. So, I think that this will actually be managed well by the court system and the cases that are really extreme, really harassment that leads workers to, in some cases, have, you know very serious disabilities because they're just so abused at the workplace. Ideally, these cases will be resolved properly.
SIDNER: All right. Thank you so much for joining us, Adam Cohen, contributor to time.com and an attorney.
COHEN: That's right.
SIDNER: So, you know about these things.
COHEN: Thank you, Sara.
SIDNER: Fully versed. Thank you, Adam -- John.
ROBERTS: Arizona's controversial immigration law legislated (ph) to go into effect on Thursday. So, how will it change life in the state? We'll take you to one county in Virginia where a similar law has been on the books for three years now to take a look. It's 24 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Forty-seven minutes after the hour now and your top stories just minutes away, but first, an "A.M. Original," something that you'll see only on AMERICAN MORNING.
Unless a judge steps in, Arizona's controversial immigration law will go into effect on Thursday. Of course, it's grabbed headlines from day one kicking off a huge national debate about immigration. But Prince William County in Virginia has quietly had a similar law on the books for three years now. Our Sandra Endo is there to see how life has changed for the county's Latino community.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANDRA ENDO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fear still rings in Maria's voice.
What has the law been like for you, living under this ordinance for three years now in this community? What have you been feeling and experiencing?
MARIA, UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT: Afraid. I'm so afraid, and everybody share the same feeling. We are afraid.
ENDO: It's been three years since Prince William County in Virginia passed a tough immigration law similar to the controversial Arizona law. Local police check a person's immigration status if that person is charged with an offense where in the Latino community is strong. Maria's undocumented and asked us not to use her last name or show her face. She says she rarely leaves her home, scared of being racially profiled.
MARIA: We can be all the time, you know, under the shadows as (ph) what I'm doing right now.
ENDO: There are tears in your eyes.
MARIA: Yes.
ENDO: Because you don't feel free?
MARIA: Yes, I don't feel free, and it's a really hard situation. ENDO: At Toto's Supermarket, owner, Carlos Castro, says his business suffered because of the law. Regular customers fled the county and moved away.
CARLOS CASTRO, SUPERMARKET OWNER: People were also running some rumors that immigration was here at the supermarket and, you know, don't go out.
ENDO (on-camera): Police statistics show overall last year, 6 percent of criminal arrests were found to be illegal immigrants, and police can only stop to check a person's status if an arrest is made, not simply if a person is just stopped by cops.
ENDO (voice-over): The County hired the University of Virginia to find out the impact of the law. Preliminary findings show that illegal immigrant community shrank, but the law created discontent within communities of color.
TOM GUTERBOCK, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: It did create very serious rifts in the community about how people viewed the county. It's still taking time for the police to repair those issues.
ENDO: Prince William County police chief, Charlie Deane, says he's working to build that trust.
CHIEF CHARLIE DEANE, PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY POLICE: We are very much committed to community policing, meaning that we understand -- I certainly understand and our officers understand that we have to maintain the trust of all of the people that we serve.
ENDO: Castro believes the heightened fear of three years ago has lessened.
Do you think it was a good idea?
CASTRO: I wouldn't consider it a good idea because of all the pain we went through, but we have a safer community.
ENDO: But for Maria, the pain is still very real.
MARIA: People who thinks different than me should come into my shoes and feel what Latino people is feeling.
ENDO: Sandra Endo, CNN, Prince William County, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: We're coming up to the half now which means it's time for your top stories. BP boss, Tony Hayward, could be on his way out today. Report is saying the company will announce his exit at a board meeting in London, but BP insisting for the moment at least he is still in charge.
SIDNER: Clean-up crews and relief workers are back in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The storm threat this weekend, though, set back operations by about a week. BP is now looking at August 1st as a possible date to attempt a static kill on its damaged well.
ROBERTS: And let the war games begin. The U.S. and South Korea are conducting joint military exercises in the Korean Peninsula. The drills involve 20 ships and some 200 aircraft. They'll continue through Wednesday. They're in response to North Korea's sinking of a South Korean warship back in March. The North threatens to retaliate with, quote, "sacred war."
SIDNER: The White House calls it a threat to national security -- a massive leak of secret military files on the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.
ROBERTS: The whistle-blower Web site WikiLeaks is behind the release of more than 90,000 documents. They are raising new questions about military strategy, tactics, and America's ally in the Afghanistan war.
CNN's Atika Shubert is following developments. She's live in London.
And, Atika, strong reaction from the military and the White House on all of this.
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. It's actually taken a while for us to go through these documents, but already, it is sparking angry reaction from Pakistan to Afghanistan, all the way to the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHUBERT (voice-over): This is the video that sealed WikiLeaks reputation as a clearinghouse for classified materials. It created a stir over the killings in 2007 of two Reuters journalists and others in an attack by U.S. forces in Iraq.
Now, WikiLeaks is publishing what it says is more than 90,000 U.S. military reports filed about the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2009 -- raw data from the front line, a day-by-day unvarnished view of the war by U.S. soldiers themselves.
WikiLeaks will not say how it received the documents and CNN has not been able to independently confirm their authenticity. But if confirmed, it would be the biggest leak yet of classified documents to WikiLeaks.
JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS EDITOR: It is sort of the total squalor of the war. All of these people killed and the small events we haven't heard about which numerically eclipse the big events, casualty events. It's the boy killed by a shell that missed a target.
SHUBERT: In a statement responding to WikiLeaks Afghan document release, the White House said, "The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security."
But Julian Assange, editor for WikiLeaks, denies that the site has put troops in danger and says it did hold back some sensitive material.
ASSANGE: There certainly have been people that have lost elections as a result of the material appearing on WikiLeaks. There have been prosecutions as a result of the material on WikiLeaks. And there's been legislative reform as a result of the material appearing on WikiLeaks. What has not happened is anyone being physically harmed as a result.
SHUBERT: Assange says his aim is to shine some light on abuses in the field and give the general public the information it needs to have an informed opinion on the war.
ASSANGE: This material doesn't just reveal occasional abuses by the U.S. military. Of course, it has the U.S. military reporting on all sorts of abuses by the Taliban suicide bombers and IEDs going off and so on. So, it does describe the abuses by both sides in this war and it's how people can really understand what is actually going on and whether they choose to support it or not.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SHUBERT: And the fact is, it's going to take weeks, even months, to go through this massive amount of information. These are thousands and thousands of raw data. So, it's going to take a long time before we actually know the full impact. But already, a lot of the angry statements and blame is being passed around.
SIDNER: You were talking to him about whether or not this could put the troops in danger. What does he say about -- how can he determine what will or will not put the troops in danger and if there is a board of people looking at this, a bunch of people, or is it just one person making that decision?
SHUBERT: No. WikiLeaks is a group of journalists and analysts. But having said that, it's a rather mysterious group. Nobody knows exactly who's involved with WikiLeaks.
Obviously, Julian Assange, is the editor. There are some other public faces but not everybody knows the whole group except for those involves. They claim they have had a 100 percent rate of verification, authenticity of their documents. They claim never to have been hoaxed or have any forgeries published.
How can they tell that none of their material that's put out has caused physical harm? That's up for debate.
The fact is they say that they have not endangered anybody. Obviously, people like the White House say, putting this out there is endangering national security. It has to be said that WikiLeaks did actually hold back some of the records, some 15,000 records, specifically because they named informants in villages in Afghanistan and WikiLeaks felt that would endanger them and they will not publish those documents until those names have been redacted.
ROBERTS: All right. Atika Shubert for us in London this morning -- Atika, thanks so much for that. We'll hear from you a little bit later on this morning as this continues to unfold.
Meantime, the voice of the Tea Party steps aside -- Mark Williams, the former chairman, under fire for a blog rant that many are calling racist. Is the party permanently damaged by it though? We'll ask that question coming up.
Thirty-six minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: Anytime you start up a Monday with Barenaked Ladies --
(LAUGHTER)
SIDNER: That will wake you up.
Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
One of the driving forces behind the Tea Party Movement has resigned under fire. Spokesman and former chairman, Mark Williams, stepping down Friday after a blog he wrote triggered cries of racism.
ROBERTS: It looks like Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and her newly formed Tea Party Caucus are ready to step up and fill the void. So, where is the movement headed now with midterm elections now just a few months off?
Joining us to break it all down, CNN contributor John Avlon.
John, good morning.
JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning.
ROBERTS: So, this whole thing with Mark Williams, he's decided to remove himself from the Tea Party Express after the Tea Party Federation kicked him out of the whole game. Is this what some people might call the self-correcting nature of something like the Tea Party?
AVLON: That is -- that is certainly what Tea Party enthusiasts say it is. They say it's evidence of a movement, which is essentially leaderless, which is self-correcting. When certain members go too far or people in quasi-leadership positions, they're increasingly getting kicked out. It's a recognition I think of the base that ultimately extremists are your own side's worst enemy.
And right now, the Tea Party Movement is at a pivot point. They're at a crossroads. They're trying to move from pure protest and angry politics to political influence and policy influence. But there are some growing pains and I think the Tea Party Caucus is an example of that.
SIDNER: What kind of impact do you think it's going to have, though, on the November elections, mid-term elections? Obviously, they've already had some kind of an impact.
AVLON: Sure. Huge -- I mean, first of all, in the near, they've had a very strong record of Tea Party insurgent candidates defeating GOP establishment in close partisan primaries. And traditionally, a midterm election is a low turn-out/high intensity election, which should be very good for the kind of Tea Party enthusiasm.
However, the candidates that have done well in close partisan primaries could be kryptonite to a general electorate. Their positions don't translate very well to the center. And that's the transition that really needs to be made. They could alienate more voters than they attract. And that's what's going on right now. That question is still unanswered. That's where the real --
ROBERTS: You mentioned the newly-minted Tea Party Caucus led by Michele Bachmann in the House of Representatives.
AVLON: Yes.
ROBERTS: Skepticism from both the Republicans and Tea Party about this whole thing. But Michele Bachmann says, we're not here to lead, we're here to listen.
Let's listen to what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R), MINNESOTA: We are also not here to vouch for the Tea Party, or to vouch for any Tea Party organizations, or to vouch for any individual people or actions, or billboards, or signs, or anything of the Tea Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: This caucus was self-appointed, which has raised skepticism among Tea Party members or the pseudo-leadership, whatever you want to call it, because they like to pick their members of Congress, not the other way around.
AVLON: Well, that's right. And Michele Bachmann, taking as much distance as you possibly can while embracing the name with that caucus.
ROBERTS: Exactly.
AVLON: You know, what's interesting to me is the Tea Party Movement, lot of it is recruiting is about a commitment to fiscal conservatism, claims of representing libertarians. But look at the members of that caucus, and that's why I tried to do in this recent piece, is take a look -- you've got seven of the 12 co-sponsors of the birther bill, but only two of the Republican leadership.
A lot of the really principled conservative fiscal leaders of Congress, guys like Paul Ryan, are nowhere to be found. A lot of members of Congress are saying, "I don't want to be part of that," because they are concerned about the appearance of extremism from some of the very -- key members of this caucus.
And the Tea Party Movement is at a crossroads. Do you follow Michele Bachmann's lead or do you try to follow Milton Friedman's example and really have a policy impact?
SIDNER: Could it crumble or is it just getting started? There are some people who say, look, it looks like it's falling apart a bit here, or is it just reworking itself and getting started to -- for another push?
AVLON: This is growing pains time, this is a crossroads. They're going to be trying to really turn this anger and protest movement into political gains in the fall. And they've some of the very impressive track record this year when it comes to the close partisan primaries.
But they're heading some rocky things. They're trying to self- correct. They're publicly confronting some of their demons for the first time. In the past, they tried to deny, and now, they're actually denouncing.
So, it's a very pivotal moment right now. Where it comes out in the fall, that will really determine whether the Tea Party is a lasting movement or, really, it's a mediocre piece that ends up alienating more voters than it gets.
ROBERTS: You know, we didn't get a chance to see you last week. And I want to get your take. What's the independent perspective on what happened with the Shirley Sherrod case?
AVLON: Sure.
ROBERTS: Who's to blame? Is it Breitbart for putting this stuff on his Web site? Is it the White House for accepting it at face value without looking further into it? Are both culpable?
AVLON: Sure. I think, ultimately, you know, the White House overreacted clearly and made a mistake. But you need to look at the whole cycle that we're all starting to feed into. Independent voters have been angry about the hyper-partisanship affecting politics and media for sometime -- this gotcha politics, gotcha journalism.
And here's an example of when it got all out of control very, very quickly. People are overreacting to a narrative that was already in place before they took the time to look at it in context. And this statement was taken unforgivably out of context. And now, there's a person, Sherrod, this individual, who has become a symbol for the kind of damage that can be caused, the kind of personal slander and smear.
So, what hopefully it becomes -- it becomes a teachable moment, what some might call. Something where we all say, look, let's take a step back. There is, right now, a collision, there's a politics-media confluence where ideological conflict is the bread and butter. It is being stirred into this whole cycle.
And what we need to do is take a look at this sort of thing -- an independent perspective in particular -- and say, stop, take a deep breath, let's get the facts right. It's not about short-term partisan gain. It's about long-term political thoughts. And that's the idea we need to start advancing.
SIDNER: All right. Thank you so much, John Avlon.
AVLON: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Do you think people will actually take that to heart or do you think this just might make things worse?
AVLON: I -- look, I think we need to start planting a flag. I think we need to say that there's a demand of an alternative out there and there's a market for alternative, away from the gotcha politics from the far right and the far left.
ROBERTS: John, good to see you this morning.
AVLON: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Jacqui Jeras, in for Rob Marciano this morning. She's going to have this morning's travel forecast right after the break.
SIDNER: And in 10 minutes, just when you thought you heard it all -- never guess who took this car you're looking at right there for a joyride.
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ROBERTS: Beautiful view of the Hudson River, the GW Bridge and beyond this morning in New York City where right now it's a beautiful, nice and comfortable 69 degrees after the storms blew through and brought a little bit of cooler temperature in. But today the heat wave returns. Ninety degrees later on under sunny skies in New York.
SIDNER: There is a whole new landscape in Eastern Iowa this morning. A nine-mile long lake disappearing. Two hundred structures destroyed, 1,100 damaged after the deadly dam reached its breaking point unleashing a wall of water on communities downstream. The governor is calling it a catastrophic failure. Officials say heavy rains pushed the lake two feet above its previous record set in 2004. Amazingly though, even looking at those pictures, no injuries reported at this point.
ROBERTS: Been a year of really wild weather. We had such a cold winter and such a hot summer, and these Massive storm systems moving through. Jacqui Jeras is tracking the weather headlines for us this morning. She's in Atlanta. I don't want to say this is one for the record books but maybe in some areas it is, Jacqui, this year. JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Oh, yes, absolutely. You know, there was record flooding on the Maquoketa River which is, you know, what that dam is from. So, we've seen a lot of rainfall across parts of the Midwest. Some places have seen record rainfall for the month already, including Milwaukee, Wisconsin where they had that terrible flooding. Remember last weekend, they shut down Mitchell Field for a while. Now, we finally have a little bit of a change in our weather pattern. Our frontal system has made a little progress down to the south.
Just many of those areas in the Midwest and Ohio Valley are going to dry out a bit for today. And the big focus for our weather headlines, here across the southeast. And look at all the action already at this hour of the morning. Showers and thundershowers trying to make their way on shore across the Gulf Coast. We've seen some spotty weather across the Deep South and into the Tennessee River Valley already this morning. And we think things are really going to fire up again this afternoon. I don't think we're going to see a lot in terms of severe weather, but we will see some torrential downpours.
So, some of that flash flooding is going to be a possibility. High pressure building into the north of that and that starting to pull in a little bit of a cooler northwesterly wind. So, those of you across the northeast are going to finally see so much better weather. Hey, speaking of stormy weather, check out these pictures, some video we got from one of our eye reporters from Rainer Mueller. This is in South Dakota. He said it was just an incredible -- yes, did you heart that?
It was unbelievable. He said it was lightning like non-stop for about an hour. Yes, lightning, lot of it out there. And we're going to expect to see that in the southeast for today. If you're trying to travel, those thunderstorms could cause some delays in Atlanta as well as Memphis, St. Louis, and Houston. Some low clouds in San Francisco and maybe some of those delays because of the wind across the Northeast, and that will include you in New York City.
Let's talk some of these temperatures. We had record heat over the weekend. Look at that, 101 in Charlotte, Columbia also 101, 99 in Atlantic City, record in Washington Dulles that was 98, and 97 in the tricities of Tennessee. We do expect to see more heat today. The advisory is farther south. Look at this Charleston down toward Savannah, it could feel like 115 to 118. That is brutal heat, and it will stay hot for the next couple of days in the southeast. And you, guys, even though you're cooler today, you'll gradually start to warm up throughout the rest of the work week.
ROBERTS: Yes.
JERAS: That's OK.
ROBERTS: Ninety degrees compared to 98 in New York is pretty good.
JERAS: Yes, it feels a lot better.
SIDNER: And compared to 115 in Delhi.
ROBERTS: The funny thing is that Sara was hoping to come to the United States from New Delhi hoping for some cooler temperatures. Sorry.
SIDNER: Oh well, it's the summer. What are you going to do?
JERAS: What do you do?
ROBERTS: Thanks, Jacqui.
For the third time in four years, Spain's, Alberto Contador is the winner of the Tour de France. He finished nearly 40 minutes ahead of the 23rd placed American, Lance Armstrong. Yesterday's final stage delayed when cycling officials ordered Armstrong's team to change Jerseys. So, they tried to wear black to promote Armstrong's cancer charity with the number 28 on it for the 28 million people who are suffering from cancer but were forced to change back into regulation jerseys before the final leg actually started.
This morning's top stories just minutes away, including talk of big changes at BP with CEO Tony Hayward reportedly on the way out today. What a change at the top could mean for the Gulf cleanup effort, compensation for the victims and the safety of its workers?
SIDNER: Also, talk of a second stimulus, the Treasury Secretary saying let the Bush tax cuts expire. Can the fragile economy though handle that or could it cost you your job?
ROBERTS: And right after the break, you would think that a bear would go for something bigger than a compact car. What happens when you leave your lunch in the back seat and the door open? Ooh, that's what happens.
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ROBERTS: There's Kings of Leon this morning. And rock bands (ph) deal with exhausting schedules, cramped tour buses, bad catering, but the Kings of Leon draw the line at engine (ph) droppings. The Nashville rockers say they were forced to walk out the stage at the Verizon Amphitheater Friday night in St. Louis because of a pigeon infestation above the stage. The band's management says they really tried to hang in there, but the aerial attack was just ridiculous. The line nation (ph) says it's going to be offering fans a full refund because they couldn't finish the concert. Maybe they'll do something to get rid of the pigeons, too.
SIDNER: It's a pretty save bet. The 17-year-old Ben Story will never leave a peanut butter sandwich in the back seat of his car ever again. This is what happened to his car. Now, there you can see the bear inside there. So, you can guess what happened. He went into the car, 2008 Toyota Corolla and started ripping it apart. Seems a hungry bear got a whiff of that sandwich on Friday morning and will let Ben and sister, Becky, and his dad, Ralph, pick up the story from there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a peanut butter sandwich in the back seat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess he smelled the peanut butter sandwich.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had smelled something. I think that's what it was.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He opened the back door and climbed right in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, he hit the shifter knob.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the door closed behind him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And knocked it in neutral.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, he was trapped.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rolled down the hill.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, just kind of sucks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: That pretty much says it all. The bear was trapped, as you heard, in Ben's car for two hours. Sheriff's deputies say he was pretty agitated when they got to him, but imagine, it was just a peanut butter sandwich. I'd be aggravated, too, after all that works.
ROBERTS: Can you imagine -- apparently, as the car was rolling down the hill and the bear was really freaking out, he actually hit the horn.
SIDNER: Alerting the family that something was wrong.
ROBERTS: It's such a shame that nobody actually had video of that.
SIDNER: Got video. I know.
ROBERTS: One time when you really want it, we don't have it.
Top stories coming your way right after the break. Stay with us.
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