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Rick's List
Watch Out for Hurricane Earl; Obama Answers Critics; Teachers to Blame For Public Schools' Problems; Politicians Dispute Which Party Deserves Credit and Blame; Emmys Hosted By Jimmy Fallon
Aired August 30, 2010 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Hey, good stuff, Ali. Have a good trip to New York as you head up there.
By the way, so many of you have been tweeting us, telling us what you think are the most important stories of the day. And I will tell you this: there seems to be a consensus that you want to know more about the hurricanes out there. So, hey, if that's what you want, then that's what we're going to do.
Topping the list right now: Just as families head to the beaches for the last hoorah of summer, Hurricane Earl gets stronger in the Atlantic. Earl is now a category three storm with winds hitting about 120 miles an hour.
Watch what that looks like, by the way, because we've got some pics to share with you. See those right there? Expect that we're going to be getting more of these as the day progresses.
This was shot this morning by one of our iReporters. He's out there in the Caribbean. That's how it's pronounced, by the way, Caribbean. Don't let anybody tell you it's Caribbean (ph). That was actually incorrect, because it was named after the Carib Indians. Oh, well, I digress.
This is St. Martin where these pictures are coming from. By the way, watch this now.
(INAUDIBLE) means he's going to be real busy. We've got some sound. Let's listen to it.
I can't make out what he's saying. Chad, can you make out what he's saying?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No, except stay out of the water.
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: It's expected to become a category 4 storm, Earl is, as it heads toward our East Coast during the last week of the summer vacation season, just as we head into Labor Day weekend.
So, we're talking strong winds, powerful waves, dangerous rip currents. Here's Chad Myers. He knows all those things by their first names.
I guess what we want to know, here's the thing about storms. And this is what -- you know, I grew up around hurricanes my whole life. So, I've always watched. The hardest storms -- the easiest storms to predict are the ones that are going this way.
MYERS: Yes.
SANCHEZ: Because you just pinpoint a place right there. The hardest ones to predict are the ones going this way because if they're going this way, at any point, they stop and make a left turn, all those places can potentially become troublesome.
MYERS: And you're chasing people for hundreds, if not 1,000 miles, saying, it could hit Jacksonville. No, wait, it could hit Charleston.
SANCHEZ: Right.
MYERS: No, wait -- no, wait, it could hit Wilmington. No, wait, it could hit the cape. And so, all those people are all leaving the coast --
SANCHEZ: And then people criticize -- they'd say, meteorologists, you guys don't know what you're talking about. You got it wrong because you said it could have hit in Georgia but it ended up hitting in North Carolina.
No, it's all one coast, baby.
MYERS: It is. And like you said, it's the perpendicular -- when it intersects this way --
SANCHEZ: Yes.
MYERS: -- you only have to worry about 50 or 100 miles.
SANCHEZ: Right.
MYERS: When it intersects this way, literally, it could be 1,000 miles of people that are affected along the East Coast because of the way our East Coast curves.
SANCHEZ: And in this case, it's almost the entire East Coast.
MYERS: At 140 miles per hour, you better be paying attention.
SANCHEZ: Show me on the map.
MYERS: It is. It's a big storm.
OK, and the difference with this, Rick, is that -- well, it was and has been going in a straight line for many days.
SANCHEZ: Right.
MYERS: Now, if you were with us on Friday, this storm was way -- it was off this map.
SANCHEZ: Right.
MYERS: And it was going to turn, OK? And then it was going to turn. And then by Saturday, it was going to turn. And by Sunday, it was going to turn.
Well, guess what? It still hasn't done that yet. And guess what's here? Right there, those are the Turks and Caicos.
SANCHEZ: Yes?
MYERS: So, right there, this is Anagota (ph). It's a part of the British Virgin Islands. It's getting pounded right now. The winds are 125 miles per hour and some of the gusts could be higher than that.
Hurricane hunter aircraft in this thing right now. They are flying through it. They are finding very significant winds.
Why do we care if it's just out there in the Caribbean? Actually, north -- it's actually part of the Atlantic, because the Caribbean, I guess, starts inside there. Irrelevant.
So, as it turns, great. Let's keep it out there in the middle of the Atlantic. That's on the right side of the cone. The problem is: what if it's on the left side of the cone.
SANCHEZ: (INAUDIBLE)
MYERS: That's -- there's the cape. There's Richmond, there's Virginia Beach, there's Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston.
SANCHEZ: It's like I-95 north.
MYERS: Inside the cone. Right.
And so, let's say it doesn't turn just yet as the computer models, and then, all of a sudden, it does something like this.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
MYERS: Literally, you're taking a run like a Hugo run. And it turns and it turns and it turns, and I was sitting right out there with a hurricane named Brett and I was just watching it getting farther and farther away going, good-bye, you're hoping you'd see something, never got close. It just turned right out to sea. That's what they do.
There are westerly winds here. That's why you can fly quicker from Seattle to New York than you can from New York to Seattle because the jet stream is kind of blowing you that way. So, as the pressure forces here, the pressure forces these storms to turn away. Pretty significant. So, this is stormpulse.com. You can log on --
SANCHEZ: Those are the models.
MYERS: We love this Web site because not only do they post where the cone is, but they post all the models and, hopefully, the models are inside the cone. Now, if you notice, Rick, here's Orlando, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, there you go, there's the cape right on there, on up through D.C., there's Dewey Beach. Right on up through, there's, of course, Coney Island, and there's -- so far, none of the models are onshore. But as of Thursday, none of the models even hit Bermuda.
SANCHEZ: So, they're going further west.
MYERS: They're waiting for this turn, waiting, waiting, waiting. And sometimes, you wait the whole time, and, all of a sudden, it hits you. So, you need to be paying attention.
SANCHEZ: What about the other one? Danielle was her name? What happened to Danielle?
MYERS: One hundred forty miles per hour is the forecast -- right there, right there in the middle, just east of the Bahamas.
SANCHEZ: That's a serious storm, by the way.
MYERS: Danielle is gone. Danielle is way up here --
SANCHEZ: OK.
MYERS: -- moving away -- although it could turn left and kind of go up toward Greenland. We'll see. And then I can't even get it here. Here it is, 90 percent. That's the one right there.
This here could be Fiona. And then, you know, OK, Fiona, forecast to turn. Boy, that's a broken record. We'll have to see.
SANCHEZ: Well, hey, Does Danielle -- what is -- quick question and I know you guys are good -- I know you're good at answering this. What are the factors that are causing this storm to either, A, kick east, away from the United States, or not kick east and hit parts of the Carolinas or New York or Maryland, et cetera?
MYERS: Yes. I will set that up for you in a hit in the coming hour.
SANCHEZ: OK.
MYERS: I'll explain it, but I can show it to you if I get a different computer on and I'll run, and I'll show to it you. Here's Puerto Rico, Spanish Virgin Islands, Vieques, and then right up here would be the U.S. Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, and then got to the very northernmost island that's called the Settlement, let's Tortola and the (INAUDIBLE) British Virgin -- Better End Yacht Club will be right there. So, it's still moving away.
What makes it turn -- what makes it turn, Rick, is actually a system. The high pressure has to be in the way or not in the way. And here we go. There was a high right there. And that allowed the storm to turn this way.
Well, the high kind of elongated a little bit. And so, as the high pressure -- we thought it was going to turn around, it kind -- it just kind of a little bit farther to the west. So, now, the storm has to go around that high this way. And the more it elongates, the farther it has to go to the west.
SANCHEZ: Is there anything in the -- over the United States that's kicking it out in the ocean?
MYERS: Not yet. Not yet.
SANCHEZ: No?
MYERS: And you know we don't know how big that high is because nobody lives there to put up weather balloons.
SANCHEZ: Oh.
MYERS: If we had somebody lived in every 100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean --
SANCHEZ: We could figure out.
MYERS: -- setting up weather balloon, we'd be a lot more accurate, where it goes. But nobody lives there. It's like trying to forecast in the black hole.
SANCHEZ: When are you going to have your next advisory?
MYERS: Five o'clock. We just had one, at 1:25, just came out three minutes before you went on the air.
SANCHEZ: And you got another one at 5:00 and another one at 8:00.
MYERS: Every two hours because now we have hurricane warnings posted.
SANCHEZ: What a coincidence because we have newscasts at that time. Can you hang with me tonight?
MYERS: I will be here.
SANCHEZ: Appreciate it. Take us through it.
President Obama, fresh off of his vacation and he's getting feisty. He's playing defense about several things, including questions about his birth certificate and his faith. That's ahead.
Also, some unbelievable news from the 33 miners trapped underground in Chile. They may not be down there for four months after all. Who knew?
Also, did you hear what one of the miners asked for? This is getting a lot of attention. This is an interesting story. That's next right here on THE LIST.
I'm Rick Sanchez. Glad to be back. Let's get through this. Lot going on, Chad's going to help us.
This is your national conversation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.
Let's do our follow-up list and we're going to do Chile. Crews have finally started making that shaft to try and rescue those 33 miners that are stuck in a deep cave for more than three weeks. It could be Christmas before they reach the men.
Remember Friday we told you the engineers were working on a faster potential plan B? Well, that plan is finished. They're bringing in a special drill that will take that five-inch hole we've been telling you about -- or one of the three five-inch holes that we've been telling you about -- it's about 1,000 feet from the dark, dank cave that we've been showing you. When they're done, that hole will be more like two feet wide, actually a little more than two feet wide.
And look at those pictures right there. Those are the miners underground. Those are the videos that have been taken of them. Isn't that unbelievable?
There they are playing dominos. There they are saying hello to their families. That's just enough room for the miners to squeeze through, by the way, when they finally are done with that two-foot circumference -- wait, two-foot diameter, pardon me.
Plan B is expected to take two months. That's two months faster than drilling a rescue shaft from scratch. And a heck a lot of been in the four months they originally have been talking about. Being stuck more than 2,000 feet underground has given one of the miners plenty of time to think.
All right. Do you see this guy right there? See him? That's Esteban Rojas. Steve to you and me here in America. He just sent a letter to the love of his life, Jessica Yanez. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSICA YANEZ, TRAPPED MINER'S WIFE (through translator): Please keep praying that we get out of this alive. And when I do get out, we will buy you a dress and get married. Good-bye, Esteban Rojas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Of course, Jessica said yes. But she won't be your typical blushing bride. Jessica and Esteban are already married. They had a civil wedding some 25 years ago and have three kids and they have two grandkids. Now, after much though, Esteban wants to do it all over again, this time in a customary church ceremony with, this time, all the trimmings.
If kids don't do well on tests, is it the teacher's fault? Should those teachers get pink slips? What do you say?
This has been a fiery debate and we're getting right in the thick of it. This is called "Fixing Our Schools," a special segment that we've prepared for you.
Also, if one in five Americans thinks that President Obama is a Muslim, is it his fault? Wait until you -- wait until you hear how he answers this question. This is the president on the defensive, interestingly enough -- or maybe we should say for a change. That's next on THE LIST right here.
We call it your national conversation. We're so glad you take part and we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: It's like a drum and bugle corps there.
Hey, we're going to get to our political segment in just a moment. But I just -- you know, I asked the question a little while ago, if students are failing in schools, is it the teachers' faults? And I noticed during the commercial and I -- and you know I communicate with you during commercials. I'm on Twitter, and you and I were always having conversations back and forth. By you, I mean the indirect you, so many of you out there.
And many of you said something like, Lady Kayaker here who says, "Hey, if kids are doing badly on test, how about the possibility that it's the parents' fault?" So, there's an interesting argument. I mean, if kids are failing in schools, should the teacher be punished or should the parents be held accountable for letting their kids fail? Teacher, parent, teacher, parent -- interesting question and we're all over that coming up here on CNN.
Meanwhile, let's do politics. At the top of our follow-up list, the president is sick and tired of some of his critics and he let the American people know it. The president talked to NBC yesterday. He was in New Orleans to mark five years after Hurricane Katrina and he discussed that -- he discussed BP as well and he also discussed Glenn Beck.
But, first, let me show you what he said about the ongoing ridiculous rumor, the lie essentially -- let me say it again, the lie that is believed by so many Americans out there because it's told to them by certain people on the radio, et cetera, et cetera, that he is a Muslim.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly. We dealt with this when I was first running for the U.S. Senate. We dealt with it when we were first running for the presidency. I can't spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead. It is what -- the facts are the facts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: The facts are the facts.
Jessica Yellin is joining us now from Washington. The president seems like he's heard talk about his religion.
I want to play something else for you, though, Jessica. This is the president asked if BP had been his Katrina, you know, a refrain we've heard fairly or unfairly in the past.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: It's just not accurate. If you take a look at our response -- the only thing in common we had with the Katrina response with Thad Allen, who came in and helped to organize rescue efforts and he did so under Katrina, he did so for us. But if you look, we had immediately thousands of vessels, tens of thousands of people who are here. But the fact is, because of the sturdiness and swiftness of the response, there's a lot less oil hitting these shores and these beaches than anyone would have anticipated, given the volume that was coming out of the BP oil well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Jessica Yellin joins us now live.
Once again, Jessica, we'll get back to the Muslim question in just a moment. But give us your -- what's the reporting on the president's reaction to the questions about BP?
JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, his response to the BP spill did raise public concerns about his leadership. And they're aware of that in the White House. And they also, though, point out that it came out as his poll numbers were already going down anyway. I mean, that's the truth.
There's a fundamental difference between this and Katrina because in this incident, you didn't have Americans stranded, dying in front of TV cameras with the government not doing what was needed. And provided that the spill really is contained, I think that this is going to minimize as a political issue.
So, I don't think that -- you know, the White House has concerns. But it's not the top concern, given what's going on with the economy. I think that's raising a lot more anxiety there.
SANCHEZ: Take us -- take us now through what is being described as the president becoming defensive this weekend in that interview with NBC. I mean, not only did he talk about -- look, what do I have to do? Go around with my birth certificate pinned to my forehead to get people to stop believing that I'm a Muslim?
YELLIN: Right.
SANCHEZ: And he also addressed the Glenn Beck rally, this group of people --
YELLIN: Right.
SANCHEZ: -- who got together for Glenn Beck up in Washington. What did he say about that?
YELLIN: Well, first of all, on the Muslim question, this -- this is the first time he's talked about it since the polls showing how many Americans believe him to be Muslim came out. And so, these are first comments from him.
He is right. It came up a lot during the campaign. I was covering him and there were endless e-mails voters were getting from, you know, a friend was e-mailing something that another friend has sent saying that he's Muslim. And people would come up to me and asked me about it on the trail.
So, you get the sense that he's been sort of through this. He wants to set the record straight, but he really does seem to accept that he's not going to convince everyone and he's not going to spend a lot of time and energy on something that's not going to change.
SANCHEZ: But, you know
YELLIN: There's a certain amount in American public that's going to believe -- go ahead.
SANCHEZ: You know, I'm sitting here just shaking my head. He is the cotton-pickin' president of the United States.
YELLIN: Right.
SANCHEZ: If the president of the United States doesn't have enough of a bully pulpit to convince people of a lie -- that a lie is a lie, I should say, then, you know, where are we? What kind of planet are we living on? What the hell is going on here?
YELLIN: Well, there will be a certain, I suppose -- I'm sure there are a certain number of people who just don't buy it. You know, there are people who didn't think George Bush was telling the truth. You know, there were all those bumper stickers that said George W. Bush is a liar.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
YELLIN: So, maybe there's a certain amount of the population, they accept, that just you're never going to reach 'em and that's how it is.
SANCHEZ: But here's the point -- I can understand 5 percent. I can maybe understand 10 percent. I can maybe understand 15 percent. We're talking about, what was the latest number -- a third of the American people or more?
YELLIN: I think -- there's -- it depends who you ask. I think our polling had 18 percent. Look, we keep reporting -- he keeps saying it's something that you've got to just sort of accept at some point is and move on. We tell the facts. We'll continue to tell the facts like they are.
SANCHEZ: Yes. Yes. Well, look, it's -- as much as it is our job, it's also the White House's job, right? I mean, if -- I guess it comes down to this question. And this is just a matter, I suppose, of common sense that people can figure out.
I don't know. I've never been the president of the United States. I know what it's like to be lied about. People lie about me every single day and it just comes with being a public figure.
But if I was the president of the United States and someone was just making a bold-faced lie like that one about me, would I impetus be to have a news conference, to stand on top of the highest mountain, as my mom and dad always use to say, and just tell the truth? And it's frustrating as Americans, as we look at all these things.
Whether it's a lie about a Republican or a Democrat or whoever the heck this is going on about, it's difficult to look at it and say what a shame that it can't be remedied, that it can't be fixed. You get my drift?
YELLIN: I do. I do. You know, they blame us for talking about it so much. So, go figure.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
YELLIN: In part.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
YELLIN: You know, I'll also say that the president has joked about it. You know, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last year, he made a joke about the hardest -- something like the hardest thing to lose in life is love -- well, and your birth certificate.
SANCHEZ: Right.
YELLIN: So, they, you know, they have a sense of humor about it. They know what's what and at a certain point, they feel like it's -- you know, they got to focus on what matters, the economy, the wars, et cetera.
SANCHEZ: Right.
YELLIN: And, you know, hit this and move on.
SANCHEZ: It makes a lot of sense.
YELLIN: It's their view.
SANCHEZ: I know. It's just one of those things that was worth amplifying, I suppose. We had a lot of those things that we can talk about, but it's interesting that the president would address this the way he had.
Jessica, good to see you indoors, by the way. That's a change.
YELLIN: Good to see you. I know. It's nice and cool here. Good change.
SANCHEZ: Air conditioning for a change. Thanks, we'll look for you again soon.
YELLIN: Thank you.
SANCHEZ: Could this be a sign that we're near the end of summer? Folks, SUV does not stand for "swimming underwater vehicle." We're going to tell you how this vehicle ended up in a pool. That's ahead on THE LIST.
Also, should schools fire teachers who don't perform well? We're going to drill down on that next with CNN's education contributor, Steve Perry, who's had to confront that very problem. That's next.
Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: This is great. This is what works about having a conversation with my viewers throughout this newscast because you know that I'm here on Twitter and I read what you write during the commercial breaks. And many of you are pointing out a fault that I just -- a faux pas that I just made and I want to apologize for it because I obviously didn't mean any disrespect or anything when I said that.
But I was having that conversation with Jessica Yellin and I think I said something to the effect: it's so frustrating that people are lying about the president of the United States, that people are saying these things and it seems like he is defenseless to try and deal with it, although this weekend, the president came out and defended himself.
And we had a very ample conversation about what it is that the president did, what he didn't do, what his detractors say about him and what he can or can't do. In the middle of that conversation at one point, I said, why -- why can't the president of the United States seem to figure this out? After all, he is the cotton-pickin' president of the United States.
Well, soon after I said that, I started getting some tweets from some of you saying, you just said cotton-pickin' president of the United States about the first black president of the United States? You not even realized it. I was just saying cotton-pickin' because it's a term that I've used because I grew up in the south. It's a point that's often used to illustrate frustration. Not in any way shown to use -- used to show any kind of disrespect.
However, I apologize nonetheless for using it, in case it was taken by anyone as an act of disrespect. So, there you go.
And, by the way, thank you. I got about 10 tweets right away from people on Twitter saying, hey, be careful using comments like that. So I do. And I apologize for it.
Moving on, "Fixing Our Schools." Those three words will drive much of what you see on CNN this week because as America's children return to school, CNN has a mission. We've sent reporting teams across the country to document the education crisis in America. Most importantly, we will shine a light on success stories that can empower us to offer our children so much more than they're getting now.
CNN's education contributor, Steve Perry, is joining us now. And, today, what we're talking about -- and this is really important. Teacher performances.
And speaking of tweets, Steve, I've just gotten tweets from people who are telling me after I said, "Teachers, should they be the ones held accountable for children who fail?" And people were tweeting me during the previous commercial saying, "No, parents should be the ones who are held accountable for students who are failing."
How do you -- how do you balance those two? Who's really more at fault?
STEVE PERRY, CNN EDUCATION CONTRIBUTOR: We have your children six-and-a-half hours a day, five days a week, for 187 days a year. We are the ones who are certified and educated to teach your children. The expectation is that we will teach your children when you send your children to us, that they will be at least one day smarter when you receive them somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00.
We are responsible, therefore we should be held responsible. We are asking parents who don't have certifications and degrees to teach children the things we're supposed to be able to teach them? Parents can support the learning at home but they can't be held accountable for that which they simply do not know how to do. I can't teach a child chemistry, nor can any other parent, but chemistry teachers can.
SANCHEZ: But you can toe the line with your son or daughter and when they get home from school say, hey, did you get homework? Yes. Is it done? No. Well, then sit down and do it, young man, young woman, sit down and do that right now.
Sometimes it really does take parents getting in their kids' faces and making sure that they're accountable as well, right?
PERRY: No doubt. One of the things that we're doing and you know we have a feature coming up called "Dr. Steve Perry's House Calls" in which we are going to talk to parents about how they can improve what it is they do at home.
But if you send your child to an ineffective school, no matter how much time you spend at home with the child, you're not going to be able to offset the real impact that the school's had on the child. We cannot say parents aren't being held accountable when the schools first have to own our piece.
When we own our piece and start producing effective schools, then we can jump on the parents.
SANCHEZ: Let's talk about what's going on in Washington, D.C. Everyone seems to be paying a lot of attention to what's going on in Washington, D.C. Talk about accountable, that's an important word these days.
But the fact there's a woman there behind a major education reform, Chancellor Michelle Rhee, and she's talking about accountability, probably about as much as anyone else in the country. But she could be in trouble because the mayor Adrian Fenty, her strong supporter, is now trailing his Democratic challenger, city council president Vincent Gray by double digits in the most recent "Washington Post" poll that I've been looking at. What does that tell you?
PERRY: That tells me that they have a very strong organized labor. They have individuals who are against accountability, because, in the end, all Chancellor Rhee is saying that she wants is a quality education for the children. She's not going to wait for education reform or for turnaround. She's not going to let another child spend another day under these circumstances until the grown people get it right.
She's saying right now, right here, you don't get another chance to be nine-years-old, even if you have retained in the third grade. You have to be given access to a quality education immediately. It would be a great tragedy for all of us if such -- if she were removed from the educational conversation. And more importantly --
SANCHEZ: But wait a minute. Look what you're saying. You're saying that if the -- if you're right in saying that the labor movement is behind this, then could it be presumed, then, that their jobs are more important than the education of our children?
PERRY: That's exactly why we're 24th in the world in terms of mathematics and 17th in the world in terms of science. We are behind because we haven't yet decided that had we want our children to be the most important people in the educational conversation.
We have designed schools that meet the needs of adults but simply don't meet the needs of students. We have too much research out there to tell us what children need. They need longer school years, they need longer school days, they need to be more engaged in professionals.
They need individuals who can and will go the extra mile and who will say that they love the children by showing them every single day by giving them compelling academic experiences. That's what we know, and we can measure that.
We don't have to guess any more what it makes to run an effective school. We absolutely know. We've seen too many of them to suggest it is for guesswork.
However, when we hold people accountable for not doing what they are being paid to do, what they are certified to do and expected by the community to do, then people rise up and say that the methods of evaluation are simply unfair, which is frightening.
PERRY: But Can you work with the unions to make them meet you halfway so that they, too, are concerned about those teachers that aren't doing well enough and not protect the bad ones?
PERRY: Well, that's a great question. I haven't seen too many labor unions, especially education labor unions, who are willing to say, we, first -- let us first purge our ranks and then we'll come to you, because we are judged by the least among us, not by the greatest. Since they don't do that, we find ourselves in a bad situation.
SANCHEZ: Steve Perry, my thanks to you, interesting conversation. Appreciate it. I'm sure a lot of people with kids at home find this a good conversation to have as well, one that I should say reflects the conversations they are having at home.
Speaking of fixing our schools, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is traveling the country on a mission to reform the schools. We'll have a live report from our producer who is traveling with the secretary. That's ahead on "THE LIST."
Also a smash and grab at a eyeglass store is caught on cam. We're going to show you how it played out. That's coming up next. Stay right there. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Automotive technology is so advanced these days -- you know, GPS navigation, automatic parking, back-up camera, you've got it all on your cars, not mine. If only SUVs could float now, right? Then we wouldn't have to show you this. Are you ready?
Can we keep our vehicles out of the deep end? It's a community swimming pool in a small town not far from Pittsburgh. Police say a teenage girl lost control of the SUV. She managed to jump out as it rolled toward the pool, went through a fence, and then, splash. Good thing it was in the middle of the night. Nobody was in the pool at the time or this story would have had a very different tone.
Next one, watch this guy smashing and grabbing. Surveillance cameras after hours -- they catch a thief with a two-by-four making a mess inside a high-end eyeglasses store in Cincinnati. He swiped about 100 sets we understand of designer frames, some of them worth $500 or more. No arrest yet, but this guy doesn't even cover his face or wear a disguise. Maybe he didn't notice the cameras because he needs glasses. Last one -- 2,300 people getting soaked. Bakersfield, California, high school, it's an attempt to break the world record for biggest water balloon fight. When it was all over, disappointing news, no new record. But these people don't look too broken up about it. Plus they raised a bunch of money for their high school band.
That's "Fotos." And you can see them for yourself on my blog at CNN.com/RickSanchez.
The president shows anger at those who call him a Muslim, or as close to anger as this president can show, and expresses a few other things on his mind. Some say, overdue. Some say, wrong. Some say, not enough. That's all ahead on "The List."
Also, tweets, your tweets and those who are relevant to the news we cover. That's next on your national conversation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: I love this quote from Victor Hugo. It was just sent to me by one of my tweets, Mike Kilpatrick. He says, "He who opens a school door closes a prison." "He who opens a school door closes a prison." That's by Victor Hugo. Good stuff.
We've got other tweets, though. This conversation I had with Steve Perry just a little while ago, our education contributor, listen to what many of you are saying about this. We start with Jessica Gottlieb. She tweeted me, "Can we start with teaching our kids how to think instead of what to think?" I love that.
Next, "I'm not good at math. I can't help my son with math at home. Yet school expects me to bring him in early? No way. Six hours to teach."
And the next one, "Dr. Perry is too hard on teachers. They are underpaid for the job they do. Complain about paying too little taxes for education."
So my thanks to you for all your comments. It is an important discussion and we're going to continue to have it throughout the day. CNN will continue to follow not just this but the very latest on the president's comments tomorrow right here at 8:00.
Also, did you watch the Emmys last night? Some crazy moments, including jokes about Conan O'Brien and Mel Gibson. Even George Clooney got in on this action. You're going to see the greatest hits coming up in just a little bit.
Also, there is new backlash over Arizona's controversial immigration law. The Obama administration used it as an example in the human rights report to the United Nations. And now the White House is getting an earful from Arizona's governor. All that is coming up right here, the controversy, both sides, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SANCHEZ: On our follow-up list, House Minority Leader John Boehner versus President Obama. I want to play for you some sound from the minority leader. This is in June. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOEHNER: How long are you going to blame the Bush administration? Come on. When is someone in Washington going to take responsibility for what they are in charge of?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: So that's the minority leader saying that it is time for the president to take ownership, that you can't pass along the blame to former President Bush's administration.
So on Friday, the minority leader writes an op-ed for a conservative website and talks about the success of the surge in Iraq. He gives the credit to the troops and the surge but who did he not give credit to? President Obama. So in one instance, take credit for what happen under your watch, and the other instant you don't get credit for whatever it is that happen under you watch.
I will talk about this now with Erik Erikson, the editor in chief of a conservative blog, redstate.org. And he's getting a lot of you- know-what from the left for that. They may have a point.
ERICK ERICKSON, REDSTATE.COM: I don't think they do have a point, because the people who are now all of a sudden taking credit of getting the troops out of Iraq were the people attacking the surge, attacking David Petraeus and saying it's never going to work. It did work and now all of a sudden they're taking credit for it.
It was the troops. Yes, the president wanted to back down from Iraq. We're doing that. He's keeping us on the track that he wanted to keep us on. But it's the troop who is accomplished what it was to be able to get them out.
SANCHEZ: It's hard to -- it's funny. We live in a country right now where everything is about keeping score.
ERICKSON: It is, everybody wants to take credit and everybody wants to keep score.
SANCHEZ: And it really shouldn't be. Your politics may be to the right, they could easily be to the left. In the end, who cares? It's our country, right? We get very caught up in this country, who was it who knocked down the deficit? Was it Clinton or was at this time Republicans in the House?
ERICKSON: But this goes back -- you've got people who don't want to give Reagan credit for winning the cold car. They want to say it was Gorbachev. This is the way we play things in this country.
SANCHEZ: And it's not right. ERICKSON: No, it's not. He is the commander in chief, he deserves some credit. But let's not overshadow it because it was the troops who did the surge that Barack Obama voted against.
SANCHEZ: What do you make of what's going on in Arizona? It looks like the governor of Arizona is --
ERICKSON: She just secured re-election thanks to Barack Obama.
SANCHEZ: You think?
ERICKSON: Yes.
SANCHEZ: Well, the president seemed to be agreeing with places like the U.N. who seem to say that law they passed was a law that probably wasn't fair the way it was written.
ERICKSON: All the law did was enforce federal immigration law. So if he is going to say that, then he needs to say federal immigration law is unfair because they amended the law and all it does is it allows people -- police to enforce federal immigration laws.
SANCHEZ: But isn't she's playing right into the J.D. Hayworth perspective, that is I will win by making all the people I can afraid of brown people?
ERICKSON: No. The interesting thing about Jan Brewer, people forget, she was opposed to the law when it was originally proposed. But she is going to ride --
SANCHEZ: Can you be opposed to this law in any way, shape, or form in Arizona and win?
ERICKSON: Probably not.
SANCHEZ: Can anyone -- thank you.
ERICKSON: There are 17,000 proposals around the country. There are 30 states trying to adopt similar measures. It's very popular for the president of the United States to go to the United Nations and say, this is a human rights problem with the United States when the majority of people do it, it just ratifies for a majority of people that Barack Obama's worldview is not their worldview.
SANCHEZ: Yes. The point is, though, and here's where you and I will probably find a lot of agreement, that is, when you sit down and talk about immigration in general, there is a lot that we could agree with, right?
ERICKSON: Right.
SANCHEZ: But for some reason both sides don't want to.
ERICKSON: The problem is number one both sides want to use it for politics.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
ERICKSON: Republicans see it as this legal versus illegal whipping their base into a frenzy. Democrats see it as identity politics. Both are using it to get to November. Why can't we secure the border?
SANCHEZ: Right.
ERICKSON: Both sides are in love with comprehensivism. I don't want conservative comprehensivism anymore than liberal comprehensivism because neither side can see into the future enough to know if their comprehensive plan will work.
SANCHEZ: That's interesting. Well, thank you for sharing our perspective.
ERICKSON: Sure.
SANCHEZ: Everything good with the blog?
ERICKSON: So far so good. Dot-com by the way.
SANCHEZ: Did I mess that up? Oh, no. It had to be some writer.
ERICKSON: It used to be. There you go. We'll let you slide.
ERICKSON: I'll take the responsibility because it came out of my mouth.
I have been at the -- Thanks, Eric. Appreciate it. I have been at the center of plenty of so-called anchor wars with folks like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh. You know that, right? Frankly, it's like a badge of honor for me because somebody has to stand up against, well, what oftentimes is referred to as hate.
I do it because I believe in social media. You have taught me that the hyperbole, the divisiveness, the shouting will eventually die out and become part of an old media model when we can have conversations like Mr. Erickson and I just had.
Social media doesn't work that way, all right. Why? Because it's a community. In communities, like what we do in social media where you point things out to me and I accept criticism or points to be made by you. Vitriol rarely wins out. People who tweet, use Facebook, MySpace, are much more apt to dialogue rather than "duel- ogue."
It's like the 80 percent rule. You've heard the 80 percent rule -- 10 percent of Americans are one extreme, 10 percent on the other extreme, but the remaining 80 percent have a ton in common.
The old media model seems to want to make us believe it's the other way around, that 80 percent of us are totally divided. Most of you believe they are wrong, that we're not totally divided. Social media is a new model which is bringing us together, helping us find the middle and avoiding the shouting. It's all in my book. The book is called "Conventional Idiocy." I wanted to tell you about that. It's out next week.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: I don't know if you got a chance to watch the Emmys last night, but there were some pretty incredible moments in it, actually some moments that broke out of your typical Hollywood-ese and into the political realm.
What were they? Who took the bite on them? We'll tell you in just a little bit. Brooke Baldwin is going to join us to take us through the highlights -- pardon me, Brooke Anderson is going to be joining us to take us through the highlights in just a little bit. Brooke Baldwin, Brooke Anderson -- you know, they're different. Brooke Anderson when we come back. Stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Hey, I can't believe it. You know what? Let us go now to trending topics, and trending topics today are all about, that's right, the Emmys last night. And Brooke Anderson is standing by to bring us this.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, eventually it just had to happen. I had to say Brooke Baldwin as I was tossing to you. I apologize.
BROOKE ANDERSON, HOST, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": Rick, you can call me Brooke Baldwin any day. I love her. She's bright, beautiful, funny. Call me Brooke Baldwin any time.
SANCHEZ: I know you're good friends so it works for you.
ANDERSON: Yes.
SANCHEZ: There was a lot of interesting stuff last night. First of all I'm hearing nothing but rave reviews for the emcee, and why is it no one expected that?
ANDERSON: Because it's a tough gig. I think that's why, Rick. A lot of times the Emmys telecast has not done well in ratings. We're just getting numbers in and the ratings this year were on par for last year, about 13.5 million people watched Jimmy Fallon host the Emmy telecast this year, up from 13.47, so the difference was slight.
August is a tough time. A lot of people are on vacation. But they wanted to avoid that September NFL season kickoff.
Anyway, Rick, did you see the opening number with Jimmy Fallon? Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, the cast of "Glee" and Jon Hamm, Betty White. It was hilarious. Can we take a look?
SANCHEZ: Sure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BETTY WHITE, ACTRESS: We need more people.
(LAUGHTER)
Hamm, look alive. We need glee club members.
JOHN HAMM, ACTOR: Great. Just working on sweet new dance moves with my new dance coach.
WHITE: Come on. Do the double-double. That's it. Get that going. All right, back that mother up. Oh, I like that. I like that. I like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
ANDERSON: Rick, I love that John Hamm was able to kind of shed that Don Draper, "Mad Man" stoic image and back that thing up with Betty White. Did you know she is 88 years old?
SANCHEZ: Unbelievable.
ANDERSON: And she is just the woman of entertainment right now, belle of the ball.
SANCHEZ: Interestingly enough, one of the funniest moments was the Mel Gibson line. Who did that one?
ANDERSON: Ricky Gervais.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
ANDERSON: He is hilarious. You know, his comedy is edgy, it's bawdy, and his jokes are so funny, but they're the type of jokes that when he tells them you think, did he really just say that?
SANCHEZ: Yes.
ANDERSON: I mean, there is delayed, nervous laughter afterwards. Let's listen to what Ricky Gervais said about Mel Gibson.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICKY GERVAIS, COMEDIAN: Mel Gibson, come on. No, come on. I'm not going to have a go at him. He's been through a lot. Not as much as the Jews, to be fair.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: That's a hell of a line. I mean -- (LAUGHTER)
ANDERSON: And Mel Gibson was not present. He is going to be a punch line for years to come.
SANCHEZ: And Ricky Gervais, the thing about him is he says everything like with this little kid's smile on his face that makes it seem like he can get away with stuff the rest of us probably can't.
