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American Morning
President Obama's Religion; Issue Number 1 Still the Economy; Set Your Own Spending Limits; Voice Of Wyclef Jean
Aired August 20, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING on this Friday. It's August 20th. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Acosta, in for John Roberts.
Lots to talk about this morning. Let's not waste any time. Let's get right to it.
A modern day Bonnie and Clyde caught after weeks on the run. The couple was arrested at a campground in Arizona. The authorities feared the two wouldn't go down without a fight. And this morning, we are learning just how close the arrest could have turned violent.
CHETRY: Question of fate. A growing number of Americans, nearly one in five, say they believe that President Obama is a Muslim. It's not true.
So, how did the facts get distorted? We're going to be talking about it and why it matters, with Candy Crowley -- just ahead.
ACOSTA: And are you drowning in credit card debt or feeling frustrated by unrelenting fears? Well, relief is on the way. We've got details on the new credit card rules that we hope will save you money.
CHETRY: And, of course, the amFIX blog is up and running. Join the conversation on any of the stories that you hear. CNN.com/amFIX.
ACOSTA: But, first, a multistate manhunt is over this morning. Police arrested John McCluskey and Casslyn Mae Welch, his cousin who was also his lover, at an Arizona campground last night.
CHETRY: The pair is on the run for three weeks after a prison break in Arizona. Earlier this morning, we learned just how close the authorities could have come to a bloody shoot-out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID GONZALES, U.S. MARSHAL, DISTRICT OF ARIZONA (via telephone): About 7:05 the last night Pacific Time, they have been effected the arrest. Casslyn Welch did have a gun on her. She had it hidden on the small of her back. She did pull that gun out but dropped it immediately. And --
ACOSTA: And this could have turned out -- this could have turned out much, much worse.
GONZALES: Exactly. And McCluskey was laying outside a tent. And they passed on him immediately, obviously. And he later said that -- it was confirmed that he had a gun inside the tent and that if he had the time, he would have shot the officers, the deputies, and he should have shot the forest service ranger when he had an opportunity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: The pictures that you were just watching that show you the dramatic scene out there, the two are also suspected of killing a couple in New Mexico.
CHETRY: Well, to politics now, and the White House wants to make one thing perfectly clear. President Obama is a Christian. This is as a result of new polling showing that many Americans -- in fact, a growing number of Americans are not convinced.
ACOSTA: Yes. And in some ways, it doesn't make any sense. According to a Pew Research poll, 18 percent think the president is Muslim. That is up 11 percent from last year. Thirty-four percent say he's a Christian. That's down from 48 percent. Obviously, all 100 percent of the people should know that he is a Christian.
And joining us now from Washington is Candy Crowley, CNN's chief political correspondent and host of "STATE OF THE UNION."
And, Candy, why has that fact not sunk in with so many Americans?
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that, first of all, you are just going to have a core of Americans who believe that he's Muslim and all -- evidence to the contrary. So, you have that.
ACOSTA: Because they want to believe that? Is that it, Candy?
CROWLEY: Because -- I mean, look, you know, I think can't get into the minds of all of them who think that. But -- I mean, the fact of the matter is, we've seen this in a number of things, people believe something and they are not going to be knocked off their believe. They say yes they say that, but he's really a Muslim. So, you're just not going to convince those people.
And then I think --
CHETRY: I'm sorry. I was going to say, because -- is it because this debate over the mosque near Ground Zero has sort of ratcheted up tensions and lot of accusations flying back and forth about who's -- you know, anti-Muslim and on and on right now?
CROWLEY: This poll was taken before the president made his statement about the Islamic center near Ground Zero. So, I think that it's a couple of things.
I think, first of all, this is not a president unlike Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan -- this isn't a president who sort of very often talks about his religion. Yes, he's been to prayer breakfast, he's done a number of things, he certainly during the campaign they felt the need for him to talk about his Christianity, but it's not something that he does on a weekly basis. Sometimes not even a monthly basis. It sort of seems to be private thing with him.
So, they don't have that kind of picture out there that -- the president -- going to church or whatever it is that people are looking for is proof. I think what's also interesting about this poll is 43 percent don't know what his religion is.
ACOSTA: Right.
CROWLEY: And I think that underscores that -- you know, people just don't have sense because they don't really see it. And I --
ACOSTA: And probably, some Democrats wish he would wear his religion more on his sleeves and that would solve a problem.
CROWLEY: Exactly. And Democrats have always struggled with the issue of religion and how much of that should be public. And how much of it should be private.
CHETRY: Well, President Obama is also facing some tough poll numbers. We have sinking approval ratings. And there's new "A.P." poll showing that only 41 percent of Americans approve of his performance on the economy. You have 60 percent saying the economy has gotten worse or stayed the same during the administration.
And, of course, all of the timing of this, three months before the midterm -- how troublesome are these numbers for the administration and for Democrats?
CROWLEY: Pretty troublesome. The fact of the matter is that people do kind of set their minds on what direction they think the economy is going. Pretty early on in election year. Summer is kind of the time that people begin to formulate their overall view of how the country is going.
So, this may be set going into November. Obviously, the president, who's not on the ballot doesn't have to worry until 2012. Nonetheless, he'd like the Democratic House to stay Democratic and likewise for the Senate. So, it's troublesome and it's also -- you know, the other -- the flip side of that is, they spent almost $1 trillion to try to make the economy better part of it.
ACOSTA: Right. This was supposed to be a recovery summer. This was supposed to be recovery summer and it's not recovery summer.
CROWLEY: Yes.
ACOSTA: And the president and first family are up in Martha's Vineyard. And this happens every time the president goes on vacation -- we always, especially during tough times, we all say, should you be going on vacation in a nice flashy place like Martha's Vineyard when so many Americans are struggling?
CROWLEY: Exactly.
ACOSTA: It doesn't mean they're going to stop going on vacation.
CROWLEY: No, it does. And I mean, it's sort of summer. I don't know. I mean, presidents go on vacation in the summer and in the winter. And the fact of the matter is, a president on vacation doesn't unplug. I mean, he has all of these things available to him. We've seen presidents come off vacation. But we saw this with -- oh, gosh, he's off on these ritzy vacations. Earlier, it was with the first lady -- oh, she's all spending all this money in Spain and all these people are suffering.
In the end, this is something that presidents sort of always take flack for. Remember with George W. Bush, former president. It was, well, we have two wars going on and he's on vacation. Ronald Reagan, you know, would go out to Santa Barbara for a month in August, always took flack for that. It happens.
ACOSTA: Right.
CHETRY: What about coming up on "STATE OF THE UNION" this Sunday, Candy?
CROWLEY: Well, you may have noticed that the last of the combat troops are pulling out of Iraq. So, we are going to talk to General Odierno out of Iraq, out of Baghdad, to ask him what's next, how it looks on the ground. And then we have the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, and we also have Admiral Fallon, both of them were intricately involved in the war in Iraq, to kind of look back a little bit, also push forward and say, what have we learned here about what the military has to be and how does it apply to Afghanistan?
ACOSTA: All right. And be sure to watch Candy Crowley on "STATE OF THE UNION" this Sunday morning. That's 9:00 Eastern right here on CNN.
And I'm not sure what kind of world we live in when we're talking polls on whether the president is Muslim. But Candy will be breaking that down as well. So, stay tuned for that.
CHETRY: And, of course, important topics like Afghanistan and Iraq.
ACOSTA: Absolutely. That's right.
CHETRY: Candy, thanks.
Well, American Airlines could soon be hit with a record fine, $25 million or more. "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting the FAA is proposing a penalty for maintenance violations that forced Americans to ground its entire fleet of MD80 planes for several days back in 2008. An announcement is expected in the next few weeks, but officials say that no final decision has been made.
ACOSTA: Instead of the Hall of Fame, baseball seven times Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens could be hitting the showers in prison. A federal grand jury has charged the Rocket for allegedly lying to Congress back in 2008 about his steroid use. He's denied it to this day. And, yesterday, Clemens' lawyer said he will keep on fighting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSTY HARDIN, ROGER CLEMENS' ATTORNEY: Roger did not use steroids. He didn't use HDH and he didn't lie to Congress about it. Roger has known from the very beginning that if he chose to publicly deny the accusations in the Mitchell report that this day would come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Clemens also came to his defense on Twitter, saying he looks forward to his day in court.
CHETRY: Well, Aerosmith's front man Steven Tyler taking another tumble from stage. This time video from TMZ shot in Toronto shows it, captured it on tape. Some speculating it was no accident when the guitarist Joe Perry bumps into Tyler. You decide, though. You'll see it again.
Tyler fell off stage at Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. He got some pretty serious injuries from that. Here you see him hop right back on. Right? Appears to be OK.
ACOSTA: What a showman!
CHETRY: Perry and Tyler are said to have a rocky relationship in the past. TMZ, by the way, owned by the parent company of Time Warner.
There you go. Off the stage, back on again. It's all part of the show.
ACOSTA: Exactly. And we're talking about it. So --
CHETRY: His fans should have caught him. Lady Gaga, when crowd-surfing, and they all caught her.
ACOSTA: That's true. But it's a little tough to catch Steven Tyler. I mean, just hold him there, you know, and pass him around. It's little different.
CHETRY: Right. Because he's so heavy.
ACOSTA: Lady Gaga, well, they may be around the same weight, come to think of it.
CHETRY: Exactly.
ACOSTA: Rob Marciano is in the extreme weather center.
And, Rob, walk this way, fall this way.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. I think Steven Tyler weighs all of 90 pounds. But, you know, he's so thin he may just fall through the cracks.
CHETRY: Right, exactly.
ACOSTA: That's a good point.
MARCIANO: Maybe difficult to crowd surf.
Good morning, guys. Listen, talking about the Rockets, Houston, Texas, is going to be under the gun for heat advisories again today. But we've expanded them beyond Texas and in to much of the mid-South, including Memphis, where heat warnings are in effect again today.
So, we had a little break, a little reprieve from the heat at least across the Southern Plains. And it's going to be rebuilding, I think, throughout the weekend. So, just be aware of that. It's going to be a little bit smoking hot and hazy and humid at times.
Not bad across the northeast today and tomorrow. But then that big red blotch was going to spawn some severe weather later this afternoon. And that will be marching its way across the Great Lakes throughout the weekend. So, time your weekend activities accordingly.
Eighty-seven in New York, it will be 91 degrees in Chicago, 101 in Dallas. And we are watching some activity in the Tropics. It has been relatively slow, especially for a season that we thought would be extremely active. The Mid-Atlantic is perking up. We'll discuss that in the next half hour -- Jim and Kiran.
ACOSTA: All right. (INAUDIBLE) Mid-Atlantic perks up.
MARCIANO: Well, stay out in the Mid-Atlantic.
ACOSTA: That's right. Exactly. All right, thanks, Rob. Appreciate it.
MARCIANO: All right, guys.
CHETRY: Thanks.
ACOSTA: The Clinton campaign of 1992 -- you remember this -- gave us the political saying "It's the economy, stupid. Hello." When it comes to the midterm elections this fall, the catch phrase can easily be, "It's the economy, stupid, again." Why issue number one can make or break some political careers in November?
It is 12 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ACOSTA: Welcome back to the Most News of the Morning.
Jobless numbers just out showing more bad news this week -- the number of Americans seeking an economic lifeline is at a nine-month high and since Democrats are in control of the White House and on Capitol Hill, a sluggish to nonexistent recovery could be political disaster this fall.
Our Brianna Keilar is tracking issue number one live from our D.C. bureau this morning. And Brianna, you had a chance to profile Tom Perriello down there in Virginia and he has a tight race on his hands.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. We drove about five hours South of Washington, D.C. and as you know the election is the number one issue. But just imagine how or pardon me, the economy is the number one issue. But just imagine how big of an issue it is in a Congressional District that was hard hit economically before the recession. And now in some areas has unemployment above 20%.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR (voice-over): At Short Sugars Pit Barbecue in South Side as locals refer to Southern Virginia, you come for the pork.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had the sliced barbecue today.
KEILAR: And stay for the politics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody comes in here, Democrats, Republicans. Only place you can get along together. Probably talk about how the economy is doing and jobs, of course. That's the big issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know that it is so much jobs as it is all the money that we are spending to get the jobs. There is no results that are coming from that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seems that everything is just going overseas. It is not American anymore.
REP. TOM PERRIELLO (D), VIRGINIA: How are you doing? Nice to see you again.
KEILAR: This is why Democrat, Tom Perriello, is fighting for his political life, in Virginia's conservative fifth district.
PERRIELLO: And most of tonight will certainly be a chance to hear from you and for me to respond to your questions.
KEILAR: In 2008, Perriello edged out the Republican incumbent by just 727 votes. Since then he voted for the stimulus. The energy bill. And health care. All big priorities for Democrats. Now he's defending those positions and trying to persuade skeptical voters to give him a second term. KEILAR (on camera): You are asking for more time here.
PERRIELLO: We need a little more time. Because the other side has done a really good job of stopping some of the best parts of what we need to do to rebuild this economy.
KEILAR: Tom Perriello is in the same situation as dozens of other Democrats. They are in hotly contested races in districts like this one. Won by John McCain in 2008.
PERRIELLO: Can't get social security and unemployment.
KEILAR (voice-over): Sleeves rolled up, Perriello presents himself to voters as working hard to find them work.
ROBERT HURT (R), VIRGINIA STATE SENATE: Where are you retired from?
KEILAR: Republican State Senator, Robert Hurt is his opponent.
KEILAR (on camera): I want to see what you think of Tom Perriello's ad.
PERRIELLO: No times have been tougher for Virginia families. I brought them new jobs at dairy farms, and landfill projects that turned methane waste into clean energy, jobs bringing broadband internet to 120 public schools.
HURT: I think if you look at the facts, you will find that all the statistics he cites are related to one bill. That's the stimulus package. I think when you look at the number of jobs that have actually been created, it doesn't. That doesn't hold up.
KEILAR (voice-over): Hurt's message is similar to many Republicans taking on vulnerable Democrats. He says Perriello is in lock step with Democratic leaders who spend too much government money without any results.
KEILAR (on camera): I mean, what do you think as you are looking at this?
HURT: People are sick of this stuff. They want to know where someone stands. What we have shown is we have an agenda on jobs. We have an agenda for reducing costs and middle class families.
KEILAR (voice-over): That's what voters are talking about here at Short Sugars.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are all in the double digits of unemployment. We are in an especially hard hit area here. So, we pay real attention to it.
KEILAR: And they will decide if Tom Perriello and Democrats will keep their jobs.
(END VIDEOTAPE) KEILAR: Now this is just above the North Carolina border and Tom Perriello's very large district where we were. As I have said, it has been suffering for years, closed textile mills, a hard hit tobacco economy there. So, that's really the red center of the district. But you head a little further North, Jim, as you mentioned before, you are heading towards Charlottesville, you have a lot more students, you have more Democrats, you have an economic situation that's a little better. That really is more of Tom Perriello's country. But the question is, is it going to make a difference come this election in November?
ACOSTA: Yes. And Brianna, the Republicans have a big bull's eye on Tom Perriello's head. They would love to take him down in the midterms. Brianna Keilar in Washington. Thanks. Appreciate it.
CHETRY: Thanks, Brianna. Well, there are new credit card rules. They take effect this weekend and they limit some of the penalty fees. So, in the end is it going to save you money or will companies find another way to hit you up? Stephanie Elam breaks it down when she joins us in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-two minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News of the Morning. We are "Minding Your Business" now. You may want to rename Sin City, Stress City because Forbes says that Las Vegas is the most stressful city in America right now.
ACOSTA: Nonstop partying.
CHETRY: Well, even a lot of people go there to blow off steam and in some cases blow their paycheck. They say that people who live there are burnt out of working crazy hours, of commuting, they can't exercise outdoors because it is so hot. By the way, number two, L.A. number one -- I mean, number three, Houston. Number one, Las Vegas. A lot of it has to do with commuting, bad commutes.
ACOSTA: I cannot believe that. With all those restaurants and strip. But, you know, a lot of people will tell you in Las Vegas they don't spend a lot of time down there, so -
CHETRY: There you go.
ACOSTA: All right. New rules go into effect this weekend that will impact every credit card you own. The new rules slap new restrictions on the credit card companies and our Stephanie Elam joins us now to break down what we need to know. We are all in favor of just cracking down on the credit card companies. Right?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this one is one -- that people are really angry about.
ACOSTA: Beat them with a stick.
ELAM: They are like. Ooh. Credit card. You have to list half. That's exactly the case. All part of the government's plan to really help out the consumer on this one. So, these rules take effect on Sunday. And what you are going to see here is more transparency and actually less fees. Let's take a look at what we are talking about here. You are saying that there is going to be -- those astronomical late fees, they are going to go away as well. They are saying that your late fee cannot be larger than your minimum payment. There will also be no more fees if you don't use your credit card often enough, those inactivity fees. Those are going away.
They are also limiting now a fee to just one per transaction. And if your interest rate is going to go up, they have to tell you why it is going to go up. Then if they do raise it, then every six months they have to re-evaluate it and if they deem it necessary to bring it back down, they have to do that within 45 days. So a lot more transparency here that you should see. This starts on Sunday, of course.
All these kinds of story that we cover, anything that is related to "Minding Your Business," anything business, you know you can always check cnnmoney.com. Now, there is one other thing that I want to tell you about, too, that's interesting from Mastercard. They are implementing this new program called In Control. Citigroup is the first one to sign up for it. Basically what they are saying here is you will be in charge of how much you are going to spend on certain items. So, let's say you spend a lot of money on coffee, those double lattes, on fast food, or maybe you just want to control how much junior spends while away at college, that can be a big one there. What you can do is say here's my limit for the month on how much I want on spend on these things. And even if there is money still in the account, you will get an alert and this alert will say to you --
CHETRY: You are cut off?
ELAM: You hit that limit. At this point you will just get the alert and keep on spending. But eventually what Mastercard says you will able to do is have further purchases declined when you hit that limit so that if you have a hankering for doughnuts, that you only spend so much on doughnuts and don't blow your entire paycheck.
CHETRY: This is the digital way of doing what the personal finance editors used to tell you what to do, which is freeze your credit cards.
ACOSTA: You mean what you should do yourself.
CHETRY: Let it thaw so you are going to have time to think about it.
ELAM: Really decide if you want to do that.
ACOSTA: So, we are making our credit card our conscience.
ELAM: Right, exactly, to control yourself. But Mastercard says they found that nearly 50% of people, would with some sort of budgeting tool, so that that would help them spend so that they wouldn't spend all their money on things that they didn't need.
ACOSTA: Hey welcome back, by the way.
ELAM: Thank you. It is good to be back.
CHETRY: You look great. Stephanie is a new mommy, so she is back now.
ELAM: Yes. It is very cool to have the job and the baby. It is cool to kind of blend. I am sleep-deprived.
ACOSTA: You are a super mom.
ELAM: Thank you. I try.
CHETRY: Thanks, Stephanie.
ELAM: Sure.
CHETRY: Well, President Obama begins his vineyard vacation. Along with that though comes work as well. And the Press Corps, they are traveling with the President. We are going to get a live report up next.
ACOSTA: And cranky passengers and scary co-workers. We are not talking about present company here. But Renee Foss is coming up. She wrote a book and wrote about her life as a flight attendant around the world in a bad mood as she calls it. That's coming up in just a few minutes. We are going to have some fun with Renee, so stick around for that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ACOSTA: It is 8:28. Time for this morning's top stories. The nightmare is over. That's what authorities are saying this morning after catching two fugitives who have been on the run after a prison break back in July. Escaped inmate John McCluskey and his alleged accomplice Casslyn May Welch were arrested at an Arizona campground yesterday, thanks to a tip from a forest ranger.
CHETRY: Well, Roger Clemens is still denying that he ever took steroids during his baseball career after he was indicted for allegedly lying to Congress back in 2008. The seven-time Cy young Award Winner has been indicted on six counts. They include perjury, obstruction of justice and altogether could hold a possibilty of 30 years behind bars.
ACOSTA: And hip hop artist Wyclef Jean is set to find out if he will be able to run in Haiti's upcoming presidential election. The country's election commission says it will decide on that today. Our own Larry King making the news in a conversation last night with the potential candidate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: If they turn down, if you are not allowed on the ballot, what are you -- does the fight go on? WYCLEF JEAN, HAITI PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): We will continue to fight in the sense of how can we work with the new government and administration which to give kids which is -- one of the number one things in the constitution. The Haitian constitution says all kids should have privilege to a free education. And that's something we will push on whether if I make it or not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Wyclef also told Larry a list of the candidates that came out from Reuters news service which did not include his name is not the official list and that, quote, "It's looking good for us."
CHETRY: Also, when you are the leader of the free world it is certainly tough to get away and everyone is watching every time you go on vacation. It looks like it could be another working vacation for the president who will be at Martha's Vineyard for the weekend.
ACOSTA: Isn't it always a working vacation? The press corps knows better than to put the blackberries on silence. Dan Lothian is one of them.
Dan, I think Phil Burton, the deputy press secretary there, didn't he a one point during the last Martha Vineyard's trip saying go out and enjoy yourself and relax, and regretted it?
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He did. You are right. He had to eat those words. He said, listen, you know, there's no news that will be made. Go out with your families if they are here, and take long walks on the beach.
Well, this year he is using a bit of reverse psychology telling reporters they will be working long hours every day and may not get a chance to go outside. He's obviously joking, but he could be right.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOTHIAN: It may have looked like a vacation -- swimming, bike riding, golf, and ice cream. But by the dictionary's definition, freedom from work, President Obama has never been on holiday.
KENNETH WALSH, "U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT": When a president goes away he can't really escape the job. Not only does he have briefings and so on, it has to be on the back of his mind the sense that something could erupt at any moment.
LOTHIAN: And it does. President Obama's Hawaii Christmas getaway was interrupted almost before it began by the so-called underwear bomber.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: We are learning more as the night goes on about what the White House is calling an attempted act of terrorism.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The American people should be assured we are doing everything in our power to keep and you your family safe and secure during this busy holiday season.
DENIS MCDONOUGH, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL CHIEF OF STAFF: My blackberry starting to go off vigorously. While I tried to ignore the first couple, I wasn't able to ignore it for long. And so we went right to work on this.
LOTHIAN: Denis McDonough, top national security adviser traveling with the president, managed the floor of intelligence information, linking Hawaii to the White House Situation Room.
DENIS MCDONOUGH, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL CHIEF OF STAFF: Arranging from the phone calls making sure General Jones is in regular touch with the president, John Brennan was in regular touch with the president, to make sure we are doing everything we can to stop the immediate threat.
LOTHIAN: It isn't always a national crisis. While the first family was on Martha's Vineyard last year Senator Ted Kennedy died. And the White House announced the reappointment of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Even on Martha's Vineyard or Hawaii, I think you could attest to the fact that the notion of a presidential vacation is one sip away from becoming --
LOTHIAN: Well, from becoming just another day at the White House. Correspondent Ann Compton, who has covered seven presidents for ABC News, has seen her share of disrupted presidential vacations, but none more than while traveling with George Herbert Walker Bush.
ANN COMPTON, ABC NEWS: Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, President Gorbachev of Russia is subject to a coup and held hostage. Every single time the president got to Kennebunkport all heck would break loose somewhere around the world.
LOTHIAN: A vacation may mean freedom from work, but rarely for the president.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LOTHIAN: And so when a president is on vacation they may be over here in Martha's Vineyard or thousands of miles away in Hawaii. They still travel with mini White House so they can respond to anything that does pop up.
One more big event happened while President Clinton was right here on Martha's Vineyard -- Princess Diana was involved in the car accident and then died. The president interrupted his vacation to make a public statement. Jim, Kiran?
ACOSTA: We hope it stays quiet for you out there. It is so nice out there.
LOTHIAN: We do, too.
ACOSTA: Dan Lothian, appreciate it. CHETRY: Well, cranky passengers, scary co-workers, a lot going on as the industry keeps tightening its belt. What's it like for flight attendants? Rene Foss wrote about her life as one in "Around the World in a bad mood." She will be joining us coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ACOSTA: David Lee Roth has the setup for the next segment. I like that.
We think we have it bad on flights these days. What about the flight attendants? Steven Slater's slide to fame put this in the spotlight, but our next guest has been talking about it for years and her book and in her one-woman plane, "Around the world in a bad mood."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RENE FOSS, FLIGHT ATTENDANT: I am a flight attendant, and the world is my oyster. And what an oyster it is -- mechanical delays, weather delays, security delays, mergers, bankruptcies, outsourcing. It's like a big Wal-Mart in the sky.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, Rene Foss joins us now to give us a sneak peek into the world of flight attendants, a 25 year veteran of the airline industry. And her play, by the way, hits the eighth year in Greenwich Village, New York, in mid-September. Thanks for being with us this morning.
FOSS: Thank you.
CHETRY: Clearly you can poke fun at yourself and poke fun at the industry in general. Tell us a little bit about what your play and your book is about when it comes to what life is like for flight attendants.
FOSS: Contrary to the title, "Around the World in a bad mood" is a humorous look at air travel in general and flights in the profession. As you can see in the news these days, there's a lot of stress and conflict for everybody. So my play and book just tries to take a humorous approach and that's my way of dealing with stress.
ACOSTA: Well, I was hoping you were going to bring an air marshal with you this morning.
FOSS: He is in the lobby.
ACOSTA: I will behave myself. I have to say -- and you tell me if you heard this before, too -- that flight attendants are not as nice as they used to be. And they can be a little tough. I mean, you know, I can't remember the last time I was on a flight where I really just wanted to go and give that flight attendant a hug. They are tough these days. Why is that? Is that -- am I right about that?
FOSS: That's kind of a general, blanket statement. I mean, each individual flight attendant and passenger has their own personality and history for the day. So I'm sorry you had that experience. I apologize on behalf all of the attendants.
(LAUGHTER)
ACOSTA: Is it because we, the passengers, are just getting worse and they are cramming the flights with too many people and you guys are just totally stressed out?
FOSS: You know what it is -- it is a combination of many things. First of all, flight attendants have taken huge pay cuts. We are working more and earning less.
Then after 9/11, our job completely changed, because where we used to be safety and service professionals, now we are safety, security, and service professionals. So we have a lot more responsibilities.
Then if you traveled at all lately you may have seen all of those carryon bags coming on the plane because there have been surcharges if you chant to check the bags. So more passengers are trying to bring more stuff on the airplane.
And then the airlines are having to fight high fuel costs and other things, so they're reducing the size of the equipment and maybe reducing the amount of flights that go places each day. So we have full, full path flights. With any kind of delay or bad weather, it is a really pressure cooker for everybody onboard.
CHETRY: As we saw, speaking of the pressure cooker, there is a release, and that is if you don't want to con having your job, you do what Steven Slater did and pull the emergency chute. He tells one side of the story and there were reporting by people on the plane and said he was acting weird and doing different things on the flight.
But in the end, there he is. He had it. He had gotten back and forth with the customer that wasn't sitting still and jumped up before it was time to leave. He became the -- actually, he -- funny part is he -- became a folk hero on the Internet. There were fan pages and people saying did you what I have dreamed of for years.
(LAUGHTER)
Pulling, you know, the chute, dramatic exit and taking two beers. Have you ever wanted to do that?
FOSS: When I first heard this, the first thing I thought there by the grace of god go I. Have I ever had a rotten day? Yes, because flight attendants have -- not to get new sympathy, but we have tough jobs because we have to ensure these safety regulations set by the FAA and by each airline individually. So when the flight attendants are asking passengers or telling you rather, you know, please sit down, please stow your bags, it's not that we want to bully you or be the bad guy. That is our job, and it's for the good of all. So sometimes it can be frustrating when someone does want to comply.
And 95 percent of the people are great. But it's the five percent that, you know, feel they are entitled to something better and have different expectations and feel they don't have to listen. It can rely escalate.
So if everyone can just take a deep breath and follow orders, it is public transportation, and try to make the best of it. But it's a tough situation.
And if you want to find out how I do, come to the duplex on September 17 or read the book. I will give you all my tips.
ACOSTA: What's your advice? How do we make this industry better? I feel like you guys would know better than anybody because you are there.
FOSS: OK. I will say it has to happen on a few levels. First of all, as a passenger, I think we need to adjust expectations to what we are going to get. It is not what these advertisements necessarily portray. It is not what it was in the 1950s when it was quite glamorous.
ACOSTA: Everybody dressed up.
FOSS: Yes. My mom was a flight attendant. She used to wear white gloves. I'm wearing rubber gloves. That's the kind of thing -- reality.
ACOSTA: That's a change.
FOSS: We need to adjust our expectations as a general traveling public. We need to be patient, accepting of the other passengers and crew members and try to think of other people, not just think about yourself, because you are on a place where there is a lot of other people.
Then there needs to be some adjustments perhaps with the way the whole industry run is. I don't know if that will be on a legislative level. We really need to address the carryon luggage thing. And there is legislation before Congress now. It is a huge problem.
And so -- many things, too. The way each corporation runs itself, needs to be different policies. Maybe they need to reexamine the bags. Perhaps the way to do it is charge people for the checked bag -- I mean, not the checked bag, carry-on bag.
CHETRY: Some airlines are.
FOSS: So maybe that's an experiment many and maybe we'll have to experiment. But day to day travel, just adjust your expectations, allow yourself a lot of time. Be prepared for the worst. Expect the best -- be prepared for the worst, and realize that many people are traveling. So it is going to be packed and it is going to be slow going.
And I think they need to make connection times longer as well. Lot of people miss connections and that ruins your trip because they think you can do it in 35 minutes. It takes about 35 minutes to deplane the aircraft let alone to walk across the whole airport. So there are so many levels to it. For me personally, it --
ACOSTA: It must feel good to go out on stage and vent.
FOSS: It's such a relief, because I can do all the things onstage that I can't do on the plane.
CHETRY: And if you had to do it all over again, would you be a flight attendant?
FOSS: Yes. I would. I would. I would tell -- I would say if you want to be a flight attendant, I would say proceed with caution and talk to some flight attendants and really know what you are getting into, because there is that element that it is glamorous. There is an element of glamour and a little bit of you are a gypsy and free spirit. But it is a lot of hard work, and you really have to be prepared to deal with all sorts of situations.
ACOSTA: I was teasing you earlier when I said you should have your air marshal with you, because we love our flight attendants and we thank them for taking care of us. I always feel so bad when you have to tell people to turn off your electronic devices, anything with an on/off switch. It is like hey, buddy, we are talking about you.
FOSS: Right, you in the red shirt in 17-B. We're talking to you.
(LAUGHTER)
ACOSTA: That right there makes me -- that one right --
(CROSSTALK)
FOSS: I am.
CHETRY: Did you have kind of that jacket by the way?
ACOSTA: That explain -- I mean, that right there makes me totally sympathetic to your cause.
FOSS: You know what? It's for the safety of everybody.
ACOSTA: Yes.
FOSS: It's not because I want to pick on you. I don't want you to make that phone call.
ACOSTA: Well --
FOSS: It's because you know, supposedly they interfere with the electronic navigation system.
ACOSTA: Well, Rene Foss, we're looking forward to your play.
CHETRY: I love it supposedly.
FOSS: I know. Well, they do -- yes they do.
CHETRY: But they can do it anyway.
FOSS: Yes they do.
ACOSTA: Exactly. Well, Rene Foss, your one-woman play coming up later in September down in the Village. We wish you the best of luck.
FOSS: Thank you.
ACOSTA: Not only on stage but in the skies.
FOSS: I need it.
ACOSTA: Thank you so much for your time.
FOSS: Thank you. Many thanks.
ACOSTA: We appreciate it.
Well, and here's -- here's something for travelers out there. Severe storms are erupting in the Midwest. Southern downpours, you better pack some patience if you're heading to the airport.
Rene would appreciate it. Rob Marciano is coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ACOSTA: You are looking at the city of St. Louis, Missouri. They tried to put us on camera to catch us that dancing but they were too slow. It's going to be 76 degrees. Right now actually. It's partly cloudy. It looks a little more like mostly cloudy.
But we're not sure, later today mostly sunny and 94 degrees. And Cardinals are in the playoffs hunt. They are in St. Louis.
CHETRY: Oh wow. All right. They're putting up a beautiful shot this morning.
ACOSTA: We're the -- we're heading into fall. So baseball -- it's really good.
CHETRY: Now -- yet now they are starting to keep score.
ACOSTA: Ok.
CHETRY: Rob Marciano's in the Extreme Weather Center, right? One game back, two games back, three games back.
ACOSTA: I thought I threw a little sports there. CHETRY: Someone still has to lose and we have to win. And we're --
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes it's kind of like the NBA. You don't watch until the last two minutes. Well in baseball, you don't pay attention until the end of August. That's the way it works. And it gets -- yes it gets interesting.
Good morning guys. A great weekend to take on a game; heat and humidity in some spots down across the south, some severe weather across parts of the northern tier and in between, not terribly shabby stuff.
If you are heading to the Carolinas a little bit of rain leftover from yesterday but over a half an inch in spots. And not quite as much as what they saw in Tennessee. And thankfully the Cumberland River did not go above flood stage last night.
Here is what's leftover. We'll see spotty showers and thunderstorms develop across southeast where it's still warm and humid. And we're looking at the threat for severe weather across the upper Midwest.
105 to 115 heat indexes across parts of Texas, Arkansas and now getting to the western Tennessee, Memphis, is seeing just a smoking hot summer. And they are looking for more in the way of heat this weekend. This heat will be expanding as a matter of fact throughout the weekend.
So summer not quite over yet and hurricane season, getting into it. This -- is probably going to be our next tropical depression or at least tropical storm probably by Monday. But it's way out there. Here's the Caribbean. So we're talking way out there in the mid Atlantic. Nothing to worry about just yet but things are beginning to percolate just a little bit more.
Jim and Kiran back up to you.
ACOSTA: All right. Rob, I think you're going to want to hear this next story because this is very important stuff, important information for all of us to know. What is the hardest hangman word? I played this quite a bit because I've lost too.
CHETRY: Still or when you were little?
ACOSTA: Now I have little kids now and this is a fun game. And it you're already thinking eight syllables, a dozen letters, relax. A mathematician who used his skills to write a program that would play hangman with all 90,000 words in the dictionary says he had settled on the answer after simulating get this, 15 million games. Should we play hangman here I mean --
CHETRY: Wow, I guess so. It only has four letters. We will reveal it.
ACOSTA: Let's get -- let's reveal -- CHETRY: J-a-z and for a double score z. That's right. Jazz is the hardest Hangman guess. He found that shorter words with a lot of x's and z's were generally the hardest in every version of the game. And it does makes sense because what -- "Wheel of Fortune," right?
ACOSTA: Yes.
CHETRY: I mean, you always buy -- you always, what we always do a and e --
ACOSTA: Exactly.
CHETRY: And they do t, r, n, s, p.
ACOSTA: And they -- it's by the way -- they give you the easy ones.
CHETRY: Right.
ACOSTA: And then you've got to pick like three or four more of the tough ones. But I mean, Hangman, I mean, you would think, rob, I mean, jazz, the hardest word of all time in the history of Hangman? I'm sorry. There must be a meteorological term or something.
MARCIANO: No, I don't have an explanation. I'm stumped and I don't play basketball. I'm still trying to figure out how to spell horse. Jazz seems perfectly normal to me.
ACOSTA: And we have our own little game of hangman that we play on "American Morning." According to the people in the group I'm already hanged. Aren't we all? We won't go there.
MARCIANO: You guys have a great weekend.
ACOSTA: All right. You too, Rob.
CHETRY: Bye, Rob.
ACOSTA: It's 52 minutes after the hour. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Fifty-five minutes past the hour. Welcome back to the Most News of the Morning. This week's CNN hero is saving lives by building bridges. He's doing it over rivers filled with snapping crocodiles and hippos. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARMON PARKER, CNN HERO OF THE WEEK: What strikes me about this place is the beauty and the feeling of being insignificant. Life for people here is very difficult, very secluded. The beauty of this place also becomes dangerous because of these mountains when it rains.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My father Pit came to the market in the morning. He was with my mother. On the way back in the evening, they found the river was flooded. They drowned.
PARKER: I worked all over Kenya. Every community has the same story. Crocodiles and hippos and loved ones lost. When it floods, people really suffer. Not being able to get across to the clinic or the market or to their school.
Look at this. Here come the kids.
The very first bridge I built, I saw it helped change lives and transformed the community. So I carried on and I love what I do.
My name is Harmon Parker. I build bridges to transform people's lives. The community has to initiate the project. They have to participate and make some sort of financial contribution. I don't know how many goats I have in this region but they always give me a goat.
I spend half my life in a tent. I've had malaria seven or eight times. It is hard and -- it takes a lot of determination. The bridge is a beautiful metaphor for many things. I feel I'm privileged to do what I'm doing, destined to help people. And I am driven by that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Well, that's going to do it for us today. Thanks so much for being with us here on "American Morning". Continue the conversation on today's stories by heading to our blog, cnn.com/amfix.
ACOSTA: And thanks for having me and "CNN NEWSROOM" with T.J. Holmes starts right now. Take it away, T.J.
