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American Morning

Deadly Storms Hit East Coast; New Charges in Rutgers Student Tragedy; "Come Together as Unemployed"; Rahm Emanuel Leaving White House; Rahm Emanuel Leaving White House; Storms Slam Carolinas; Cyberbullying and Gay-Bashing; Obama Vs Clinton in 2012

Aired October 01, 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 Friday morning to you. And thanks so much for joining us on the Most News in the Morning. It's October 1st. Starting a brand new month. What happened to September?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know, but October is coming in with a bang on the East Coast.

ROBERTS: I was just getting used to writing nine whatever. Now, I've got to write 10.

ROMANS: It's 10. That's right.

ROBERTS: But anyways, welcome to you. We're heading into the heart of fall here. I'm John Roberts.

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. Kiran Chetry is off this morning. Let's get you caught up on what happened overnight. That weather we've been telling you about.

Devastating weather up and down the east coast. Whipping winds and driving rains, sweeping cars into rivers in the Carolinas. It's an enormous system turning to the north now, where we're bracing for a beating today all the way to Maine, John.

ROBERTS: Yes. You can see a huge swath of rain coming through New York City right now.

"Rahmbo" is out. Sources tell CNN that Rahm Emanuel will step down as the White House chief of staff today. He's eyeing a bid for mayor of Chicago. So where does this leave the White House and Democrats who are trying to keep the majority that he helped them win? Ed Henry breaks it all down for us this morning.

ROMANS: New details and possibly new charges in connection with the Rutgers University student who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his same-sex encounter was secretly broadcast live on the Internet. The latest on the cyber bullying that allegedly drove 18- year-old Tyler Clementi to his death.

ROBERTS: Up first though this Friday morning, a devastating night of extreme weather up and down the east coast. Five people killed in North Carolina, and entire neighborhoods are waking up this morning under water. Here's the picture from high above two dangerous weather systems joined at the hip, including the remnants of tropical depression Nicole. They're forming sort of a conveyer belt, if you will, slamming one state after another now with whipping winds and driving rain.

ROMANS: The worst of it so far in North Carolina, Wilmington touched (ph) by a record-breaking, a record-breaking 22 1/2 inches of rain since Sunday. Statewide, five people are dead. Four of them killed when their SUV skidded into a ditch filled with water. Another driver died when his car was swept into a river. In South Carolina, 60-mile-an-hour winds took down trees and several counties are submerged. Officials say the flooding is severe.

ROBERTS: Further north in Silver Spring, Maryland, a downpour caused a collision between two D.C. metro buses injuring 26 people, including a group of high school students.

Our Rob Marciano is live in the extreme weather center. And, Rob, the weather system with all the damages left behind, still not quite done yet.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No, it's not, and it's moving up to the eastern coastline now. And as it begins to slide a little bit farther to the east, we'll get rid of it fairly quickly. But the rain that we're seeing this morning is certainly heavy from Atlantic City right up through upstate New York into the Adirondacks. And certainly some brighter colors in here so we're looking for heavy rainfall. There's going to be some street flooding across. Obviously, some heavily trafficked streets here at this rush hour, and there's going to be some airport delays, as well. There have been a couple of inches of rain that's fallen in New York so far. And you'll probably see a couple of more inches here before the day is done.

Here's where the flash flood watches and warnings are. The reds for upstate New York and northern parts of Pennsylvania including Scranton, that's just up for the next couple of hours. And then once the heaviest amount of rain begins to push to the east, we won't have as much of a problem. An additional one to three on top of what we've already seen is going to be the call here. And we've already seen in some cases two to three inches of rainfall.

Here's the forecast track for rainfall. The brighter whites and obviously the pinks, that's where we expect to see the heaviest amounts of rain.

How much have we seen so far? This is just for the last 2 1/2 days. So the storm total for this event, 17 inches at Silver Lake, North Carolina. Wilmington, 60.68. Quite a few encompass the last four days. You've got over 22 inches of rain that fell in Wilmington. So these are all-time records that have been broken for this area. They just got pounded and pounded and pounded continually with this combination of systems, what was left over Nicole. And then the strong funnel system that is trying to move through the northeast coastline right now and having -- well, taking its sweet time. And it's a bit of a mess out there for everyone in Jersey and the New York tri-state area and will be for the next few hours. Airport delays, as well. We'll keep you posted throughout the morning.

ROBERTS: Yes. A lot of people either heading to or at the airport right now, wondering what's happened to the flights. We'll check on that a little bit later on. Rob, thanks so much.

They're reeling this morning throughout North Carolina. In some places, it has never rained this hard or this much.

ROMANS: In Jacksonville, North Carolina, located in Onslow County, a family of four was killed because of the flooding. Five in all in just that one state. Joining us right now on the phone, Patty McQuillen, communications officer for the North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety.

Welcome to the program. Just tragedy when you have weather like this and people lose their lives, tell us about the family of four and what exactly happened there. This was a situation. They were in the car. The car hydroplaned and landed in a ditch, am I right?

PATTY MCQUILLEN, N.C. DEPT., CRIME CONTROL & PUBLIC SAFETY (via telephone): That's right. Yes, the car overturned and three people initially drowned. There were two twins and one later died in the hospital. And there's one twin that is alive. A little 3-year-old boy.

ROMANS: Oh, no. So it was a family with their small children in the car. You can imagine how difficult that is to try to get -- oh, that's tragic. Also, in Pamlico County, also a fatality there.

MCQUILLEN: Yes, a 51-year-old man was -- well, the highway patrol got the call about 4:00 in the afternoon that there was a vehicle submerged in water. So he probably was swept off the road.

ROBERTS: It's so tragic when people -- people don't understand that the water pools on the roadways, and the second that your tires hit that, it's like the car starts waterskiing, you completely lose control. We also have some reports, Patty, of entire neighborhoods under water, places like Swansboro. What's going on there?

MCQUILLEN: Well, I don't know about Swansboro, but in Bertie County there is flooding and roads closed, and people being evacuated from subdivisions and trailer parks. All in all, there are about 150 roads closed in the eastern part of the state.

ROBERTS: Wow. All right. Well, I know it's going to take some time for the water to go down and I know you have your hands full this morning. Patty McQuillen, great to talk to you this morning. Thanks for joining us.

MCQUILLEN: Sure.

ROMANS: Our CNN iReporters are checking in this morning, helping us bring you a better perspective on all this extreme weather. Gritty99 (ph), sending us these pictures from Carolina Beach, North Carolina. He's vacationing there from Buffalo, New York. He says he's a little frightened by the flood waters and he'd gladly take a Buffalo blizzard any day over the rain, wind and flooding. Clearly, some dangerous stuff.

We want to show you -- we want to show the world iReport. You can shoot it. You can send it to ireport.com

ROBERTS: You can imagine though, 22 inches of rain if that were snow in Buffalo? What it would be like?

ROMANS: Wow.

ROBERTS: You know, conservative conversion of 10 inches of snow for every inch for rain, my goodness.

Also developing this morning, a country plunging into chaos. A week-long state of emergency in effect in Ecuador after the military was forced to rescue its president. Hundreds of officers angry over a law that would cut their benefits took to the streets yesterday, set up road blocks and shut down airports. The dramatic live images were broadcast all day long.

ROMANS: Ecuador's president was trapped for more than 12 hours in the hospital where he was being treated after being tear gassed. The Red Cross says two officers were killed in a bloody 35-minute long firefight at the hospital between police and troops. Dozens of people have been injured and arrested throughout the country.

ROBERTS: Choking off supplies for coalition troops. Police in southern Pakistan say militants torched 25 fuel supply trucks that were headed for Afghanistan. A convoy was held up after the Pakistan government shut down the gate at Torkham (ph) over the deaths of three soldiers. Pakistan claims they were killed in Pakistani territory during a fight between NATO troops and militants.

ROMANS: Also new this morning, NASA laying off 1,200 workers today. Many of them -- they've been shuttle program workers since the beginning in its early 1980s. The pink slips come despite Congress passing a $19 billion budget for the space agency which extends the retirement date of the shuttle program to June of next year.

A great highlight from the Indians/Tigers game in Cleveland. It didn't happen on the field. It happened on the stands. Take a look at this.

A dad going after a foul ball while holding his baby. Can you see it? There it is. A pretty good balancing act, really.

ROBERTS: Look at that.

ROMANS: Whoa.

ROBERTS: One-handing the baby and the ball this morning.

ROMANS: See, that's a professional dad. He knows how to hold the kid on the hip, holding just one -- a whole one leg so he got the other arm free. The crowd --

ROBERTS: And you know, he caught it on a rebound, as well. ROMANS: That's awesome. Yes.

ROBERTS: Not bad.

ROMANS: Folks go wild.

ROBERTS: And it's a story that we told you about early this week on AMERICAN MORNING. A peewee football game in Texas turning into a fabulous demonstration of sportsmanship with an all out brawl between the coaches. Both teams as we told you were banned from the playoffs. Last night, players and their parents appealed to the league to reverse its ruling saying it's not right to punish the kids for the terrible, absolutely horrible behavior of the parents. League officials, though, refused. They apologized to the kids, but they said, the parents and the adults were behaving so badly that the final decision is a final decision.

ROMANS: Wow. So what do you do? Sit down with your parents and say, look, I'm not going to tolerate this anymore, dad?

ROBERTS: Exactly. I'm telling you, you know, the kids were demonstrating the good sportsmanship.

ROMANS: Unbelievable.

ROBERTS: Yes.

ROMANS: All right.

ROBERTS: It's just, you know, when adults behave badly. It's just crazy.

ROMANS: All right. Coming up, new details in a cyber bullying case that has simply shocked the nation. A Rutgers University student driven to take his own life.

It's eight minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: It's coming up now on 12 minutes after the hour. New details and possibly new charges in connection with the Rutgers University student who jumped off the George Washington bridge the over day. The tragedy shining a new light on the dangers of cyber bullying. You remember 18-year-old Tyler Clementi took his own life after his same-sex encounter was streamed live over the Internet by his roommate.

ROMANS: Two other Rutgers students including that roommate are charged with invasion of privacy and they could face additional charges. Stephanie Elam is following developments for us this morning.

You know, this is a story that people just can't stop talking about. It just cuts you to the core this young man took his own life. STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Especially when you hear so much about him being just a good kid, a talented violinist, as well. And what we're now able to tell you is that the New York medical examiner's office is saying that the body found the day before yesterday in the Hudson River is that of Tyler Clementi.

Now the death of the 18-year-old has been ruled that he did kill himself. And the cause of death, drowning and blunt injuries from the impact of the jump. Now the last alleged message that we have been able to see from Tyler was allegedly on his Facebook page where he said, quote, "Jumping off the G.W. Bridge, sorry," end quote.

Now Clementi's death comes after his roommate, Dharun Ravi (ph), along with another student, Molly Wei, allegedly streamed video online of Clementi kissing a male companion. Ravi allegedly tweeted about Clementi, quote, "Roommate asked for the room until midnight. I went into Molly's room and turned on my web cam. I saw him making out with a dude, yay," end quote. And then on another day, on the 21st, he tried again. He says, quote, "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat with me between the hours of 9:30 and 12:00. Yes, it's happening again," end quote.

Now, new to the story here is that there's a chain on a message board from user on a gay-oriented Web site that closely resembles the events that occurred at Rutgers. The post reads, quote, "So, the other night I had a guy over. I had talked to my roommate that afternoon and he said it would be fine with him. I checked his Twitter today. He tweeted that I was using the room, which is obnoxious enough, and that he went into somebody else's room and remotely turned on a web cam and saw me making out with a guy," end quote.

We have to mention here, obviously, the tone of this post doesn't sound like someone who'd be distraught enough to go ahead and kill themselves the very next day. And so that's one of the reasons we're working to confirm that these posts are, in fact, from Tyler Clementi. It's under a name so we don't know if it was from him. But we did learn, CNN has learned that the IP address associated with the post does trace back to Rutgers here. So that's one of the interesting things here is that what happened between the 21st when his roommate allegedly tried to film him again to the 22nd when it looks like he went ahead and killed himself.

ROMANS: In cases of suicide so often, though, you don't see any kind of signals. The person where they can seem like they were fine, like they're fine. You know, this is something when you know someone or you know people who've had a suicide in their family, they say, wait a minute, the day before everything seemed fine. So I don't know what the tone of the message what we can even --

ELAM: Well, also, you know, he's posting, almost reaching out for advice and help from some of these Web sites. And so for this Web site that he would go to, if this was him, that's what we still don't know yet. And so he was looking for advice on how to deal with it.

The other thing that we can say now is because these two people have been charged, the prosecutor in Middlesex County, Bruce J. Kaplan is saying that now they're going to see about this invasion of privacy and whether or not they can charge them with bias because was this done because he could have been a gay man? Or was it just because it didn't matter who it was in this room that he went after.

ROBERTS: And there's some people who are saying as well that maybe the charges should be elevated to accessory to some sort of -- you know, I don't know if there's an accessory to manslaughter charge. But, you know, maybe they didn't push him off the bridge, but the allegations are that they led him right up to it.

ELAM: And -- and the whole idea of how do you police what people post on social networking sites? And if you're able to do that and then do our laws as they stand now, are they even addressing the situation?

But it's an awful situation. It's putting light on the -- the pressures that a lot of people are feeling out there, because it's so easy to just go write something and not think about what affect it'll have.

ROBERTS: Yes. The whole thing is just -- the whole thing is just so unbelievably disgusting.

ELAM: It is.

ROBERTS: It's just total, you know, erasure of all the boundaries.

ELAM: And just that quickly, a -- a very promising life is gone.

ROMANS: It's not just writing something. He's actually turned on the --

ELAM: Setting up a web cam.

ROMANS: The cam.

ELAM: Yes.

ROMANS: All right. Stephanie Elam, thanks so much.

ELAM: Sure.

ROMANS: Coming up at 6:40 Eastern, we're going to take a closer look at cyberbullying and its tragic consequences with Parry Aftab, a privacy in ceyberspace lawyer and executive director of WiredSafety.org. And Sela Gaglia, director of Training for Challenge Day and leader of the MTV show "If You Really Knew Me."

ROBERTS: Well, it's coming up now on 16 minutes after the hour. Again, it's the very first of October. Beginning a brand new month today. And while it may be, oh, a long way away in your thoughts, the idea of lying out and getting a suntan, guests at one hotel might need full body armor to protect them from the rays of sun, which are being focused in such a way that they're being called death rays. Is there a high enough SPF sunscreen to protect you from this? We'll find out, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Depending on how you look at it, they're either turning 12,010 years old, John, or 50. Yabba Dabba Doo. That's right. The Flintstones is celebrating their 50th anniversary. Before it was a Saturday morning, an after school fave.

The show was a primetime comedy that first aired on ABC in 1960. And we can still learn a lot from the Stone Ages, like how to build a truly zero emission vehicle.

ROBERTS: You know, for -- when I was a kid, the Flintstones was my favorite cartoon. Yes, I saw the original airing. But I could never figure out the lyrics to that song, speaking of zero emission vehicles. It says, "Let's ride with the family down the street through the courtesy of Fred's two feet."

ROMANS: Oh, there you go.

ROBERTS: There you go. There's your zero emission vehicle.

ROMANS: You learn something everyday.

ROBERTS: "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Wealthy Americans developing a big appetite for fast food during this downturn in the economy. A study by American Express found that ultra affluent consumers are spending 24 percent more than last year at places like McDonald's and Domino's. The average American spent about eight percent more on fast food year to year.

ROMANS: And attention Wal-Mart shoppers, store prices rose in September to their highest level in 21 months. The mega retailer has been scaling back on discounts from earlier this year. Prices for produce at Wal-Mart jumped 10 percent in the past month. Dairy products rose two percent.

ROBERTS: Well, a new hotel in the Vegas Strip is becoming a hot spot -- a hot spot of the worst kind. The Vdara's sleek curve glass facade is reflecting the sun's rays and directing them at the pool area. They're being focused to the point where the rays are melting plastic cups and bags.

Well, it does kind of look like one of those solar farms, you know? All the mirrors are pointed at the -- the big collector. One guest says he was lying on a lounge chair and he could smell his hair burning.

ROMANS: The hotel is putting a special film on the windows that blocks about 70 percent of the reflection now and they're getting bigger umbrellas to deal with the -- the hot spots I guess in the pool area.

ROBERTS: That sizzling sound you hear is not your morning omelet.

Taking on the Tea Party's enthusiast and see how the big unions are trying to energized the unemployed to prevent a Republican takeover in November.

It's 22 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Welcome back to the Most Politics in the morning. The major labor unions, they're traditional ally of the Democrats and the president. But this election, many of the rank and file aren't feeling particularly enthusiastic about the party. So the unions are now trying to organize and motivate the unemployed to vote.

Our Jim Acosta is live in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Jim, good morning.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine.

Yes, we've heard a lot about the Tea Party these days firing up the Conservative base. They've gotten a lot of coverage. Well, not to be outdone, the big unions are hoping to whip up an army of unemployed voters these days. They're trying to pull out the stops to get voters to the polls in about a month from now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANGELA ORAVSKY, UNEMPLOYED WORKER: I lost my home. I spent all of my daughter's college fund to survive.

ACOSTA (voice-over): They're sharing their horror stories from the great recession.

LIZ LASSITER, UNEMPLOYED WORKER: I'm looking everywhere, McDonald's, I mean, you know, where I was (ph), anywhere.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm just trying to keep my family together.

ACOSTA: And even though they're sitting around a kitchen table, it's clear this is no Tea Party.

ORAVSKY: I don't care if I have to, shall I say, scream from the room -- rooftops? Knock on doors. We have to come together as unemployed people.

ACOSTA: These unemployed workers were recruited by one of the nation's biggest unions to become part of a new political force. The idea, to match the emotion and the energy that fuels the Tea Party, but to keep the Democrats in power in Washington.

ACOSTA (on camera): You want to give people a choice?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, we want to give people a choice.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Organizers say this meeting inside the home of Angela Oravsky is one of many across Bucks County, Pennsylvania -- a crucial swing district in the upcoming midterm election, an area that bears the scars of the recession.

ACOSTA (on camera): If you think the politicians can escape these harsh realities, consider Congressman Patrick Murphy. Four out of the five businesses surrounding his Congressional office in this part of Bucks County are closed. Hard times are right outside his front door.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Murphy was not available for an on-camera interview. But in his TV ad, he warns his Republican rival Mike Fitzpatrick will take the country back to the Bush years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D), Pennsylvania: He signed me on the George Bush's (INAUDIBLE) and on policies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Fitzpatrick who lost to Murphy four years ago says President Obama's policies are the issue.

ACOSTA (on camera): But if there are more Republicans like you in Washington, wouldn't there be more gridlock and nothing will get done?

MIKE FITZPATRICK, FORMER CONGRESSMAN, RUNNING AGAIN: No, if there -- there are more people like me in Washington, we'll have a reasonable health care reform bill and lower taxes. Lower taxes will permit the business person to create jobs and put these men and women back to work.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Back at Angela Oravsky's house, they're writing postcards to remind voters what's at stake on Election Day.

ACOSTA (on camera): Did you honestly feel a little disappointed?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No --

KIM MCMURRY, AFL-CIO ORGANIZER: I think that we've been -- I think we're a little disappointed how everyone didn't work together on this huge issue --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

MCMURRY: -- which is the economy.

ACOSTA: But the Democrats were in control.

MCMURRY: They were in control, but they can't do everything --

ACOSTA: You mean that they --

MCMURRY: -- by themselves.

ACOSTA: You mean that they --

ACOSTA (voice-over): And you could say Oravsky has already found herself a job.

ORAVSKY: I'm so tired of people saying, oh, these people are so lazy. They need to get a job. They need to come off unemployment. I would do anything, and anybody at this table would do anything to work.

ACOSTA: Permission to get out the vote.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And those unemployed voters that you met in that piece, they're going to be lining up with other big labor union organizations and other liberal leading groups. They're all heading to the National Mall in Washington tomorrow for a rally of their own. They're calling it One Nation.

And John, Christine, they're telling us just don't call it a Tea Party. It's definitely not going to be one of those.

ROBERTS: So -- so they're obviously motivated to get some -- you know, some -- actually going for the election. Do unemployed voters actually get out to the polls, though?

ACOSTA: That's a good question. I mean, we looked into that ourselves, because we were wondering, you know, do unemployed voters vote? And, as it turns out, in 2008, according to the census, 55 percent of unemployed voters did show up to vote in the 2008 election. But contrast that with people who do have jobs, 66 percent of people who have jobs vote. So there is a big difference there.

ROBERTS: Yes.

ACOSTA: So, you know, they want to change that. These union organizations want to change that and fire up all of these people out there who've lost their jobs to get out there and keep, they hope, Democrats in charge, John.

ROMANS: Jim Acosta. Thanks, Jim.

ROBERTS: That's quite (ph) a difference. It's pretty big.

Huge departure from the Obama White House coming today. Sources tell us Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is going to leave Washington, head back to the Windy City to run for mayor there.

ROMANS: If Karl Rove was Bush's brain, Rahm Emanuel was Obama's muscle, and, long before that, the driving force behind the Democratic Party. So -- but why now?

Ed Henry is live for us in Chicago this morning. You know, Ed, Rahm Emanuel played a very significant role in the Obama White House. His departure comes at a pretty critical time ahead of the midterms. ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It really does, Christine. It's a huge blow for a number of a number of reasons. I mean, just the fact that it's coming after a whole series of high- profile departures from the inner circle, but also because, as you know, it's coming right before these midterm elections.

They're going to set the table for the next two years of the Obama administration, but also set up his whole likely reelection battle in 2012.

And when you look at it, if Democrats do take a hit in those midterm elections, who better than Rahm Emanuel to help the president pick up the pieces from a political standpoint, but from a policy standpoint, he would have been critical to help the president on Capitol Hill navigate what might be a Republican Congress or severely hampered Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate. He's now not going to be there.

And I think it's also interesting while, you know, he certainly has his critics. He's brash. He's profane. He's got sort of this winner-takes-all mentality that doesn't sit well with even people in his own party. There's no denying that Rahm Emanuel's fingerprints have been all over the accomplishments this president has had over the last two years.

Take a listen to Robert Gibbs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: His leadership, his energy, has helped us accomplish so much in helping our economy recover, in passing landmark Wall Street reform, health care reform, credit card reform, student loan reform, all of the things that -- there's not a -- there's not an important thing that has happened in this administration that we've been able to accomplish for the American people that has not involved heavily his signature.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: But while he's a huge power player in Washington, here in Chicago, it's almost like he's got to start over again. If you look at this morning's "Chicago Tribune," on the cover there, " it's the governor, all about the governor's race. You have to look all the way here for page eight where there's a story about Rahm Emanuel leaving the White House.

Interesting, there's already 10 candidates in the Democratic primary, already jump into that big primary, about a dozen more candidates mulling it. So, he's going to have to fight and claw, scratch his way into winning the mayor's office. It's going to be a big battle -- a lot different from being the top dog in the White House.

ROBERTS: Well, if anybody can fight, claw, and scratch, it's Rahm Emanuel who can do it.

HENRY: You're right.

ROBERTS: Let's talk about the new guy for a second here, Pete Rouse, senior adviser. He's going to be the interim replacement, likely to be announced today. Personality wise, he's completely different from Rahm Emanuel, but, you know, he's still an insider, right?

HENRY: Absolutely. I mean, this is somebody who's well known to this president. He's been a behind-the-scenes player, senior adviser in the White House. He helped in the campaign. He was also chief of staff to then-Senator Obama. And you know that he came from Tom Daschle's office before that, was the chief of staff to the majority leader known as the 101st senator because he wielded a lot of power.

But you're right, quiet power, behind the scenes, much different than Emanuel. And there are some Democrats who think, look, it might be better to have somebody who's not so high wattage, especially over the next two years. Now, he's only doing it in a temporary basis, but there are some Democrats who think he may end up getting the job long-term. There are other White House aides like Ron Klain, Tom Donilon, who have been talked about.

I think the bottom line, though -- it's going to be tough to replace Rahm Emanuel with that high-wattage personality. But, you know, this president on that short list right now for the long-term job. There are a lot of people we're familiar with who are sort of in his inner circle.

But it will be interesting after the elections whether there's more pressure on the president to come up with somebody outside the box and really shake things up, because most of those names, like Pete Rouse, are really familiar with this president in that inner circle, may be pressured to maybe go outside the box, John and Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Ed Henry, thanks -- in Chicago.

ROBERTS: Yes.

Crossing the half hour now -- it's time for this morning's top stories.

Record breaking extreme weather up and down the East Coast during the last couple of days, continuing again today. Five people dead in North Carolina where parts of the state have been hit by nearly two feet of rain in the past few days. Flood watches in effect this morning as far north as Maine.

ROMANS: About that $182 billion we owe you -- well, insurance giant AIG has finalized a plan to repay its record bailout. It involves a huge stock swap with the Feds. The White House claims the government stands to make a $20 billion profit on the deal.

ROBERTS: And Chilean officials say the first test of a rescue capsule designed to bring 33 trapped miners to the surface was a success. Once one of three drills working to reach the miners breaks through, the capsule will be lowered nearly 2,000 feet. Officials expect to complete the rescue by the beginning of next month.

ROMANS: Coastal Carolina is reeling this morning. Streets are flooded, homes, businesses underwater.

ROBERTS: In Carolina Beach, North Carolina, kayaks, not cars are the only way to get from street to street.

More on all of this now from Amanda Lamb of CNN affiliate WRAL.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANDA LAMB, WRAL REPORTER: It's still a real mess here in Carolina Beach along the North Carolina coast. This storm dumped 21 inches of rain over the last few days in this area. And you can see all of these roads are underwater.

There's an 11-acre lake behind me. It can usually handle about six or seven inches of rain, of course, not the 20 inches-plus they got.

They have five pumps working back behind me, trying to get the water out of this town. They're pumping out about 13 million gallons a day. But as you can see, they still have a long way to go. And once the sun comes up, we'll have a better idea of just what the flooding has done to this area.

The highest rain total they had here was back in 1999, that was 19 inches from Hurricane Floyd. So again, this is just an epic event here along the North Carolina coast. And they are going to be cleaning up for some time.

Back to you guys -- John, Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTS: All right. Wow. Terrible situation for those folks today. Hopefully, the water will go down quickly, though.

Coming up, the death of a Rutgers University student spotlighting an epidemic of cyberbullying and gay-bashing among kids in high school and college.

ROMANS: A closer look at the problem and the tragic case that shocked the nation -- next.

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ROBERTS: Thirty-nine minutes now after the hour.

The story has sent shock waves across the country. Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old student at Rutgers University took his own life jumping of the George Washington Bridge after his gay sexual encounter was streamed live on the Internet, allegedly by his roommate. It's a tragic example of the growing danger from cyberbullying.

Joining us now from San Francisco to talk more about this is Sela Gaglia. She is the director of training for Challenge Day.

And with us in the studio is Parry Aftab -- of course, a familiar guest here this morning.

PARRY AFTAB, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WIREDSAFETY.ORG: Good morning.

ROBERTS: Good to see you again.

She's a privacy and cyberspace lawyer and the executive director of WiredSafety.org.

Now, Parry, let's start with you. This case just seems to be a complete obliteration of the boundaries of decency here. You know, he was -- this kid was tapped into via a webcam. It was posted about on Twitter. People were invited to see the live streaming video.

Are we creating with the Internet an entire generation of young people who just know no boundaries?

AFTAB: Know no boundaries and see it a way of gaining their 15 megabytes of fame. You can do something using surreptitious videotaping and you become famous on the Internet.

ROBERTS: You know, Sela, what's really troubling about this case as well, from another angle, is Tyler Clementi who leapt to his death off of the George Washington Bridge, took with him before he committed suicide his laptop and his cell phone and posted on his Facebook page that he was about to commit suicide.

Yet, you've got to ask yourself, as a parent, just a person in society, what's going on with kids today?

SELA GAGLIA, DIRECTOR OF TRAINING, CHALLENGE DAY: Absolutely. And I am a parent of three sons. So, when I saw that, it, of course, hit very close to home.

I think what we've got is a generation of young people that actually feel really disempowered. And these are grasps at trying to get that power back again.

ROBERTS: Well, you know, the Internet, Parry, has really changed the game. It used to be something going on in the dorm or in the home, or in the classroom, or whatever, you know, I'm going back 15 years here, that it might be a subject of gossip among a small group of people for a few days, and then it would go away. Now, it can explode on the Internet. It can become viral. Millions of people can find out about it overnight and it never goes away.

AFTAB: Never goes away. And it's hundreds of millions of users. The good thing, John, as you know, I'm on Facebook safety advisory board, they have a lot of places where suicide help groups and obviously cyberbullying will help people when they need help. So, we need to use the power of the technology to help people, not just exploit them.

ROBERTS: Sela, is there enough -- are there enough resources on the Internet for people like Tyler Clementi that if he's having a problem, there might be another way to deal with it than leaping off a bridge?

GAGLIA: Absolutely. And not just on the Internet. I mean, there's definitely a lot of creative resources popping up for this relatively new issue. But there's also a lot of resources on campuses, high schools and colleges, that are there for young people in these situations or any other type of bullying situation.

ROBERTS: And, Parry, we talk about a decency issue here and how somebody could do what is alleged to have been done in this particular case. But then there's also the legal aspect of it, as well. The two people who are alleged to have been involved in this may face charges of invasion of privacy. They could also face bias charges. There are others who are saying maybe they should elevate the charge to have something to do with manslaughter.

Do people know enough about what it's OK to post on the Internet and what's not OK to post on the Internet?

AFTAB: They have no idea. And clearly, Ravi was enough to have gotten (INAUDIBLE). He knew what he did was absolutely wrong. You can't bring the manslaughter type cases. I hope it's going to be a lot more than privacy.

And the governor of New Jersey has asked the attorney general to look at whether or not civil rights charges, which I had recommended, could be brought in this case. So, I hope it's going to be treated in a very serious way and send a message to others that it stops here.

ROBERTS: Sela, who is responsible here for a student's behavior on the Internet? Can parents really get that involved here? Because for the most part, the student knows so much more about Internet usage than the parent does. And it's just, oh, yes, mom and dad are really cute, they're trying to tell me how to use the Internet, but they know nothing about it.

Who should be teaching these young people what's right and what's wrong?

GAGLIA: Yes, I believe it's all of our responsibility as a society whether we have children or not. It's definitely the responsibility of teachers and educators, coaches.

But we encourage parents to sit down with their young people and ask them questions. Our key phrase is, "If you really knew me, what would you know about me?" And have those detailed conversations about their young people's lives. Create an environment that's safe enough for the young people to honestly answer the questions.

AFTAB: John, it's a college. This is not a parent issue. By the time they get to college, they either know the values or they don't. So, we need to make sure they're using this filter, the one between their ears.

ROBERTS: All right. Parry Aftab and Sela Gaglia, good to talk to you this morning. Such a tragic case here.

Bullies are a pervasive problem in and out of school. Watch AMERICAN MORNING all next week for special reports on bully-proofing the classroom and your kids -- Christine.

ROMANS: It is 44 minutes past the hour. Rob Marciano will drop by with the morning's travel forecast right after the break.

And in 10 minutes, what if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a primary bid against President Obama? How would she do? We've got the latest poll numbers on that.

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ROMANS: Forty-six minutes past the hour. It's time for a quick check of the morning's weather headlines. Our Rob Marciano is in the Extreme Weather Center, and there's plenty to be tracking this morning, right, Rob?

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. The rain now that just dumped on parts of North Carolina and also parts of Pennsylvania, the northeast, tremendous amount of rainfall here. These are the totals, and this is just really two-day totals for the one particular storm itself. And from North Carolina through Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, we've got rainfall totals that are easily over a foot in many spots. And we mentioned, Wilmington as seeing over 22 inches in the last four days, and that is definitely record-setting.

What are we seeing right now? Here's where the rain is right now. And it is finally beginning to move in some capacity to the east. So, we're going to get it out of here before to long, but before we do, it's been raining heavily. Philadelphia got two-and-a- half inches of rain in three or four hours this morning. That has since moved out. And now, into New York out towards Long Island and parts of Connecticut, that's where the heaviest amounts of rain are falling and pushing off to the east.

But you can already start to see back through Jersey and Allentown, Pennsylvania which we saw its fair share of rain in the last 12 hours, a bit of a dry slot. So, we'll take that for sure. But the damage may very well be done as far as what we're dealing with at the airports. Ground stops until at least 7:00 a.m. for both LaGuardia and JFK, and we'll see a multiple delays, I think, throughout today, and it will be on the increase for Boston as well.

What do we expect to see for flooding? Another 1 to 3 inches as this last bit of rain comes through. There is a little bit more in upstate New York. So, flash flood warnings there, also flash flood warnings for the next couple of hours posted for New York City and also parts of Southwestern Connecticut as this last batch of rain moves through.

But generally speaking, from Canada all the way down to almost Florida, the ground's saturated. We went, guys, from drought conditions across much of the eastern third of the country to pretty much busting that drought in a hurry. Unfortunately, all that rain came in too short of time for many folks across parts of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Eastern Pennsylvania are the states that really bore the brunt of this deluge of rainfall.

We'll get out of here. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful weekend. That's the good news here, but we got another 12 hours of battling the elements before that comes. Back to you.

ROMANS: That's about a third of the population of the United States right now trying to figure out how they're going to get to (INAUDIBLE). And again, to be very clear, I mean, there were some fatalities in North Carolina. Be careful of the hydroplaning. Be careful of the ditches with water and alike. I mean, it can be a little treacherous out there.

ROBERTS: Yes. That's the issue. I was driving along I-20 in Georgia last week and coming back from Charleston and heavy rainstorm and some guy in a little Ford Focus, I think, went flying by us at about 80 miles an hour hydroplaning all over the place, barely in control.

ROMANS: Wow. Wow. All right. Rob Marciano. Thanks, Rob.

ROBERTS: And about a mile up the highway, there was a rollover accident, not that person. Another one. Be careful out there.

President Obama gets an earful from top Democratic leaders. Their message, get aggressive. Details from the best political team on television.

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ROMANS: welcome back to the Most Politics in the Morning. Crossing the Political Ticker this morning, his poll numbers may be down, but one thing hasn't changed for President Obama since 2008. Democrats still prefer him over Hillary Clinton for president.

ROBERTS: But, of course, it all depends on which Democrats you're talking about. Our senior political editor, Mark Preston, up early and live this morning at the CNNPolitics.com desk. Good morning, Mark.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR: Hey, good morning, John. Good morning, Christine. So, what would happen if Hillary Clinton challenged Barack Obama in 2012? Remember, she was that bitter rival who became this very trusted aide. Could she become a bitter rival again? Gallup Corporation now put out a poll just a few days ago, and they tested that question. And who comes out on top? As Christine says, Barack Obama still comes out on top.

He comes in at 52 percent in this hypothetical match-up to Hillary Clinton. Clinton herself comes in at 37 percent. So, where is his strength in the Democratic Party right now? Men, women, college age and non-college grads as well as more liberal part of the base. Where is Clinton's biggest support? Conservatives, of course. And if you remember back to the 2008 presidential race, Hillary Clinton was really doing well with those more conservative Democrats.

But again, hypothetical match-up, not very likely to happen. Let's focus on the 2010 midterms, right? We're about 30 days out. Remember, the term that Barack Obama used fired up and ready to go? Democrats want him to be fired up and ready to go. They were very impressed with him during his big campaign rally out in Wisconsin just a few days ago. There's been a lot of talk that he's a liability on the campaign trail.

But you know something, they realized that he is their best bet to help them retain control of Congress. In fact, during a private meeting at the White House yesterday, they expressed so much. So, Democrats are telling Barack Obama, get up, get on the campaign trail, get fired up because we're ready to go -- John, Christine.

ROBERTS: All right. Yes. It's really interesting to look at that poll. And there are some people, some Democrats, I guess, who are looking at Barack Obama, Mark, saying he hasn't lived up to what we thought he was going to do.

(LAUGHING)

ROBERTS: And anything they're looking at whether the grass is greener on the other side.

PRESTON: And that's the big fight right now in the Democratic Party. You know, some would say, you know, is the glass half empty or is the glass half full? And even Obama has addressed this in a "Rolling Stone" interview just a few days ago where he says, look, I've done everything that I said that I would do. Just because we haven't been able to get some things through doesn't mean that you should be totally upset at me or upset at the Democratic Party. Big struggle in the party now, John.

ROMANS: All right. Mark Preston, Political Ticker, awesome.

ROBERTS: Mark, thanks so much. We're going to check back in with Mark on our next hour. And a reminder that for all the latest political news, go to our website, CNNPolitics.com.

ROMANS: All right. Top stories coming your way right after this break. Five minutes until the top of the hour.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Extreme weather. Record floods, the most rain ever in one region. A perfect storm on the move this morning, already dealing a deadly blow to the east coast and impacting travel nationwide on the Most News in the Morning.

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