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American Morning
"Secret Talks" with Taliban; Obama-Clinton Ticket in 2012?; Firefighters Let Home Burn; Dow Eyes 11,000; White House Goes Green; Possible Clinton-Biden Switch?; Martial Arts and Combating Bullies;
Aired October 06, 2010 - 07:58 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: It's Wednesday, the 6th of October. Thank you for joining us this morning. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
We want to get you caught up on what happened overnight. Reports this morning of secret high-level talks, negotiations underway between the Taliban and the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan. Talks that may lead to an end in the fighting. We're live in Kabul with the latest.
A reelection remix. A 2012 ticket featuring President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Well, according to reporter Bob Woodward, it's on the table. We're live at the White House with details.
CHETRY: And this is a story that doesn't seem real except that it happened. A firefighters in one Tennessee town refused to put out a family's home fire that was burning their home to the ground because the owners failed to pay a $75 fire protection fee that is required. The town's mayor standing by the decision. We're going to talk to the man that lost his home in a moment.
ROBERTS: Up first. Talking with the enemy. This morning the "Washington Post" reporting that the Afghan government is negotiating with the Taliban. Secret high-level meetings are underway.
CHETRY: Yes. Sources are telling the paper that the Taliban is very serious about finding a way out and ending the war.
Chris Lawrence is live for us in Washington.
Tell us more about what perhaps may be precipitating these talks because for so long now, it used to be that there was no debate, that as long as U.S. and our allies were in Afghanistan, the Taliban was not going to come to the table.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You're exactly right, Kiran. And we've seen reports of this kind of talks flare up before, although now, it seems to be at the most serious point and it could be a combination of factors. One, it could be a more openness on the part of the Obama administration and the U.S. government to accept or to take seriously some of these negotiations.
On the other hand, it could be that the Taliban leadership is facing a lot of pressure at this point. We know that there have been increased drone strikes on certain elements of the Taliban on the Pakistani side of the border.
But the key thing about this report, I had a talk with a senior defense official, you know, a few months back, sort of the last time some of this kind of started coming out and he said, you know, the key to any sort of negotiation is the fact that there is no one Taliban. We keep throwing around this name the Taliban. These are really two to three very distinct, separate groups with separate leadership.
And he said, you know, any time you start talking about negotiation, two big questions to him jumped out. One, are you negotiating with all of the groups? And two, does the leadership have the ability to impose any settlement on its subordinates?
ROBERTS: Yesterday, it was mentioned at the Pentagon briefing that General Petraeus has admitted that the Taliban has been negotiating with the Afghan government.
Let's listen to the spokesman, Geoff Morrell, and his response to that question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEOFF MORRELL, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Given the fact that General Petraeus has been speaking to this issue, perhaps he and his spokesman would want to elaborate on it. I mean, I think what we have seen, Michael, and you travel with us. You heard this firsthand from General Petraeus when you all spoke with him then, is we have seen high level outreach by some members of the Taliban to the Afghan government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So, Chris, what could this possibly mean for the military mission there?
LAWRENCE: Well, if you also look at what General Petraeus said, he also -- the way he characterized it was in its very early stages. He said, I wouldn't go so far as to call it real negotiations. He said it's more like really discussions.
Obviously, the reason we even care about this is because of the 100,000 U.S. troops. That's why we care about what's going on with the political process there in Afghanistan.
There are possibilities including, you know, the U.S. plan to start turning over certain districts back over to the Afghan government. If some of these were negotiated and the Taliban resistance dropped off in the areas, certain areas could be handed back maybe on an accelerated basis. That would allow some U.S. troops to pull back from some of those areas and concentrate on areas where there's still fierce Taliban resistance.
ROBERTS: All right.
CHETRY: All right. Chris Lawrence for us this morning -- thanks so much.
ROBERTS: Well, dozens more NATO supply trucks were torched this morning on the Pakistani side of the border. Thousands of gallons of fuel burning out of control after gunmen fired on the convoy. It's the third major attack on supplies in the past week. The trucks have been sitting ducks nowhere to go since Pakistan choked off vital supply lines for coalition troops last week.
Pakistan closed the border in protest of a NATO air strike allegedly killing three of its soldiers. The initial report from NATO on that attack is due out today.
CHETRY: It's the Most Politics in the Morning.
Now, there's some buzz and it's actually getting louder about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whether or not she would replace Joe Biden and actually be on the ballot with President Obama in 2012.
Well, appearing on "JOHN KING, USA" last night, reporter Bob Woodward said that the idea is, quote, "on the table."
ROBERTS: Our Ed Henry is live at the White House for us this morning.
And Woodward is getting his information from a specific place. And when you consider the source, it might not be unusual for him to be saying what he is saying.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you are absolutely right, John. That's important to note, which is the fact you listen closely to what Bob Woodward was saying to John King last night, he was essentially attributing this to advisers to Hillary Clinton who think she might be a great president some day. Well, that's a big shock, as you note.
And I can tell you that while there's a lot of speculation of Democrats outside this building, it's not something that we really see from the president or vice president. In fact, I'm reading Bob Woodward's book right now and it looks like from that book and all of the information Bob Woodward dug out, that there's a good working relationship between these two men. It seems unlikely that he would push Joe Biden aside for Hillary Clinton.
But take a listen to how Bob Woodward phrased it to John King.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FROM CNN'S JOHN KING, USA)
JOHN KING, "JOHN KING, USA" HOST: You know the talk in town. A lot of people think the president's a little weak going into 2012. He'll have to do a switch there and run with Hillary Clinton as his running mate. In all of these conversations, and all the political conversations, and the asides that you have when you're doing serious research, sometimes you have political asides. Things like that come up?
BOB WOODWARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "THE WASHINGTON POST": It's on the table. And some of Hillary Clinton's advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012. President Obama needs some of the women, Latinos, retirees, that she did so well with during the 2008 primaries. And so, they switch jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Well, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs is trying to take that notion off the table, if you will. I spoke to him in the last few moments. Robert Gibbs telling me, quote, "No one in the White House is discussing this as a possibility." So there you have it.
I mean, bottom line here is they have said here repeatedly that they're looking ahead -- the only election they're looking ahead to is 2010, just less than a month away. They're not looking two years down the road. So, they kind of think here inside the White House that all this speculation is silly -- John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: Well, she does, though, have a lingering reservoir of support when you look at the latest polls. Thirty-seven percent of Democrats said that they would vote for her in a direct matchup with President Obama in 2012. But, obviously, this administration is feeling some frustration. They really felt like they're being beat up from the left.
Do you hearing anything about any shake-ups in the works in the coming months?
HENRY: Oh, there's no doubt we're going to see a lot more staff shake-ups, turnover. Some of that, as you know, from covering the White House, is natural. Every couple of years, people are going to move on. A lot of these people inside this White House have not just been working two years. They have been working four years nonstop when you go back to what was essentially a two-year presidential campaign.
But I can tell you, the next person to look who's very likely to leave would be the national security adviser. Top officials here are saying Retired General Jim Jones is very likely to leave right after the midterm elections, by the end of the year. Someone like Tom Donnelly and his deputy is very likely to be in line to replace him.
So, we're going to see a lot more staff moves in the days ahead. There's not doubt, they're going to trying to sort of pump some new energy, some new life into this administration, John.
ROBERTS: All right. Ed Henry for us this morning at the White House -- Ed, thanks so much.
HENRY: Thank you.
CHETRY: Well, Vice President Biden is known for the sharp wit and his comments at a fundraiser in Minnesota yesterday were no exception. Biden was telling the crowd that Democrats know how to balance the budget, and then he went on to say, quote, "If I hear one more Republican telling me about balancing the budget, I'm going to strangle them." Noticing all the reporters at the event, Biden quickly, added, "To the press: that's a figure of speech."
ROBERTS: And President Obama kept his cool during a speech at "Fortune" magazine's most powerful women's summit in D.C. Check out what happened when the presidential seal became -- well, shall we say unsealed from the podium.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Engineering and math. We cannot sustain -- whoops! Was that my -- oh goodness. That's all right.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: All of you know who I am.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: But I'm sure there's somebody back there that's really nervous right now.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Did the Republican presidential hopefuls for 2012 see that as a sign? Well, the seal was retrieved after the president's speech and, by the way, men aren't usually invited to speak at the event, but organizers say that the president earned the podium considering his cabinet and Supreme Court appointments.
CHETRY: And I bet you the reason he said somebody back here is sweating it is -- do you remember the President Bush with the locked door trying to get out after giving -- sometimes there's accidental moments that are seared in people's minds.
ROBERTS: It's not the first time that things falling off. Not that -- I think it's first time for him, but it's fallen off for other presidents in the past.
CHETRY: Just Velcro?
ROBERTS: You just kind of stick the thing on there.
CHETRY: Like this.
ROBERTS: If you haven't put it on solidly, off it comes.
CHETRY: Well, Rob Marciano is in the extreme weather center for us.
And you were talking a little bit about this, what you said, we have a tornado watch or warning, then you said it's very unusual to come across your desk that time in the morning especially in Arizona?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. So, two unusual things happening right now and that is severe thunderstorm watch at this hour across parts of Arizona and a tornado warning which we'll get to in just a second. At least radar indicated.
I want to give you an idea at least visually what the folks in Phoenix were enduring yesterday afternoon. Hail and flash flooding and wind damage and this reporter out in it, kind of taking a beating for the team. You don't get too much in the way of extreme weather like this too often in Phoenix. So, they got out and kind of showed the viewers how it went down.
Sixty-mile-an-hour winds in Phoenix. So, that brought down some trees and some power lines. Seventy-five-mile-an-hour winds in Chandler. And 11 other reports of -- some of those hailstones were upwards of an inch to two inches in diameter. How about that?
All right. On north of Phoenix right now, this tornado watch -- or severe thunderstorm watch is in effect for the next few hours; radar-indicated tornado warning for Coconino County, including Sedona, Cottonwood and Verde village there. You see that in a highlighted area. And this is all moving to the north at about 45 miles an hour. So, fast-moving storm individually but that low continues to sit and spin out west.
As does the one across the northeast, another day of unsettled weather, especially in New York to Boston. Boston really getting the most moderate, steady rainfall at this hour.
Well, try to get this out of your hair in the next day and a half and get you to some weather that should last quite nicely into the weekend.
We'll talk more about that extended forecast plus the subtropical depression now in the eastern Caribbean. We'll have the forecast track later on -- John and Kiran.
CHETRY: Just got a little ways to go before we have to worry about it. Thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: Yes. All right.
CHETRY: Well, Britain's Prince Williams is a royal hero. In his first mission as a search and rescue co-pilot with the Royal Air Force, he rescued a worker from a gas rig off of the coast of northwest England. He says he's happy to contribute to the unit. The 28-year-old prince is, of course, second in line to the British throne.
ROBERTS: Well, she is still golden even at the age of 88 and Betty White's name seems to be on everybody's lips these days, including this little guy. Check him out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Betty White.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who is this?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Betty White.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Betty White with blond hair.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She does, yes. What do you think about her?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: She's beautiful.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Betty White. Betty White. Betty White. Betty White. Betty White.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: There's got to be at least 86 years separating the two of them, but he is just smitten with her. There's no question.
CHETRY: So adorable that kid. He even serenaded Betty White. So, you know, it's really funny. You should make her comeback, you know, sort of accidentally as she told you with the Snickers commercial and then, I mean, just all the generations love her.
ROBERTS: There you go. We got to do something to get the two together there.
CHETRY: So cute. I'd love to.
Well, this is a story that is pretty unbelievable, as well. You know, you think if you call the fire department and say, "Hello, my house is burning down," they're going to come and help you put it out, right?
Well, not in one Tennessee town, not if you didn't pay the $75 fire protection fee. We're going to be speaking with homeowner Gene Cranick, who couldn't believe his eyes when firefighters stood by and let his house burned to the ground.
Twelve minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. Imagine this scenario. Your home catches on fire. So, you frantically rush to the phone. You call the fire department, and then you're told no one's coming. It sounds crazy, but for the Cranick Family of rural Tennessee this really happened. Firefighters from the city of South Fulton literally let their house burn down. You'd probably be wondering why.
It's because the Cranicks forgot to pay a $75 fire protection fee that's required of rural homeowners if they want that fire protection. Well, Gene Cranick joins us live this morning from what's left of his home in South Fulton, Tennessee. You know, thanks for joining us, by the way, especially, in this very stressful time for you and your family. A lot of people, when they hear this story, can't really believe it. Tell us again what happened.
GENE CRANICK, HOME BURNED TO GROUND LAST WEEK: I wasn't home at the time. My grandson was here, and I understood that he burned some trash. And it was aerosol can blew up and set the grass on fire. And, of course, it just wept from the grass to the -- our shed and then from the shed to the house. And then went on from the south end of the house to the north end of the house.
So -- and we called the fire department. They told him they'd be here in a little while, and they didn't show up. We called them back. They said they weren't coming. Some way my neighbor that joins here and got this cornfield on fire, well, they wanted to come put it out, but they had a tractor here and had it disked around and everything and they put a little water on the fence row here or something. I don't know exactly what they done because I wasn't paying any attention to them.
CHETRY: Right. So what you're basically -- what you were basically saying is that they let your house burn because they realized that you, guys, hadn't paid the $75 fire protection fee.
CRANICK: That's true.
CHETRY: Is that a yearly thing and a sort of a due date if you don't pay it, that's it?
CRANICK: Yes, that's a yearly thing. And always, you can pay later. They have waived that before. Three years in December that my son's house up here caught on fire, and we called them. And I said, they probably won't come because I didn't pay their fee, but they came out and waived it and the chief said, you come and pay this tomorrow.
Well, we paid it the next day and everything was fine. But we had everything out before they ever got there. So -- but this time, we couldn't handle it. I mean, there's no way to handle with a garden hose.
CHETRY: Right. And so, why do you think they let this happen? I mean, what -- do you think they were trying to send a message, prove a point if they started cracking down lore (ph), I mean, why would they let your house burn?
CRANICK: Well, they wanted to prove a point. And this is the fourth house, I understand, that they've let do this. They stood back over south of here and sprayed water on this man's neighbor's house and let his burn down for the same thing. And I understood the Union City Fire Department also let a barn burn that had horses in it. So, I don't know what their big reason is. Even if they charged extra fee put this out, we would have paid it.
CHETRY: Right.
CRANICK: And --
CHETRY: This is what they said. I just want to get the city -- the mayor has defended this decision saying that the city has a fire department that has to respond on a per call basis. They have to have this, you know, paid to spray I guess you could say in rural areas because they said if they didn't, there'd be no incentive for anyone to pay the fee and that it's like trying to buy car insurance after an accident. Do you buy any of what the mayor was saying?
CRANICK: No. I don't. Because he's either told the story or somebody told the story that I refused to pay. I did not refuse to pay. I forgot it. If you can call that refusing, I guess that's all right, but whichever way but I didn't refuse to pay. I refused my neighbor told him that they would pay the money to get the fire out. I told them whatever it took that I would pay.
CHETRY: Right.
CRANICK: And another neighbor.
CHETRY: And as I understand, yes, your insurance agent also writes and said that they'd give them $500 if they put it out.
CRANICK: Yes.
CHETRY: And they said, no. Can't do it after the fact, sorry. Meanwhile, at least one bright spot is that you do have insurance, right? They're going pay to help you rebuild?
CRANICK: Yes. Yes. They're going to pay for the loss. Not all -- I lose some. I don't have much, but I didn't have enough insurance to cover everything.
CHETRY: Sad situation. Do you have any message for the town?
CRANICK: Well, the city, they got their policies to do. We have no say so in their doings. So, we can't vote. Yay or nay, either way, whatever they decide. If they decide raise to 250, 300 or whatever, we got no say so. We'll just have to pay it.
CHETRY: We're sorry for your loss. As we understand it, you also lost some pets in the fire, a cat and two dogs. Really sad situation. Gene Cranick, coming to us from South Fulton, Tennessee, this morning. Thanks so much for sharing your story.
CRANICK: All right. Thank you all.
CHETRY: John.
ROBERTS: Boy, you would think just the bad publicity that the town is going to get from this would be worth more than the $75 that they were going to charge the guy. Wow. What a story. Twenty-one minutes after the hour. Cell phones at 30,000 feet? Which airline plans to allow not only texting blackberries but even cell phone service?
And hey, big spender, luxury retailer Neiman Marcus is unveiling its annual Christmas book of fantasy gifts with gifts from $1.5 million all the way down to $15. Something for everyone.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Twenty-five minutes now after the hour. Time for "Minding Your Business." Wall Street eyeing a new magic number again. Three months ago, the Dow was trading below 10,000. Now, 11,000 is back on the horizon.
CHETRY: Well, right now, Dow futures are also up, up and down closed at 10,945 yesterday. The Nasdaq also up at the end of trading, 55 points.
ROBERTS: The White House getting a green makeover soon. Solar panels and the solar hot water heater will soon be installed. Officials say it reflects President Obama's commitment to clean energy. Former President Jimmy Carter also had a similar commitment. He installed solar panels on the roof during his term. They were removed during the Reagan administration. President Bush installed some solar panels on other buildings on White House grounds.
CHETRY: Well, now, may be a good time to invest in noise- canceling headphones. Singapore Airlines which offers an 18-hour non- stop flight to Newark has announced that it may soon allow passengers to make and receive text messages and phone calls during the flight over WI-Fi. Federal regulations still ban the use of cell phones in the U.S.
ROBERTS: Well, it would be like Italy running out of pasta, China running out of tea, hooters running out of wings. There's a panic going on right now in South Korea over a kimchi shortage. Many South Koreans eat this basic side dish each and every day. Its nicknamed gold, but the cabbage shortage this season has forced them to cut back or pay four times the price.
CHETRY: That's right. It's the side fermented cabbage. It's the (INAUDIBLE) cabbage and so the --
ROBERTS: No kimchi.
CHETRY: Yes. And they say if you want extra kimchi, it costs you 2,000 won or something. They say the whole meal, it doubles, and they cost you 5,000 won.
ROBERTS: Amazing. It said to cure everything from impotence to the common cold.
CHETRY: Really?
ROBERTS: Yes. CHETRY: All right. Well, I grew up liking it. And I still get colds.
ROBERTS: Next story.
CHETRY: I still get colds is what I was going to say.
ROBERTS: Better for work though, right?
CHETRY: Yes, exactly. If you want to save the economy all by yourself this holiday season, pick up the Neiman Marcus Christmas book for 2010. You were making fun of Christine Romans saying, hey, you know, don't be cheap. Buy your husband a new wedding ring. So, maybe this one's for you.
ROBERTS: No. No way.
CHETRY: Yes. Money is no object for love. Check it out. The iPad app this year, yes, there is one for this, by the way, but here are some of the things you could get your hands on. A $ 4,500 tricycle.
ROBERTS: Yes, that's practical.
CHETRY: (INAUDIBLE) only 19 years old. A $15,000 gingerbread house. That one looked cute.
ROBERTS: I know a lovely place. They can give you the same thing fabulous for $60.
CHETRY: How about this one? A $250,000 houseboat. Ooh. That's pretty cool. You can actually dock that in the Hudson.
ROBERTS: Just so you can drive it over a dam like those people that we saw last year? Wow.
Well, if you think that's merely a bag of shells in extreme, well, (ph) a pink diamond is going go on sale next month in Geneva. Somebody says it could fetch $38 million at auction. Girls meet your new best friend. It's a 24.78 carat gem with slightly rounded corners. It's been in the same owner's possession for 60 years.
CHETRY: Pretty.
ROBERTS: Not bad.
CHETRY: Well, what happens when the school bullies won't back down? Should your kids fight back? Can teaching them martial arts like jujitsu help? We're going to check in with Casey Wian as part of our solutions when it comes to bullies in school. Twenty-eight minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Crossing the half hour right now. Time for a look at the top stories this morning. Secret talks reportedly under way between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Even though it's very early on the "Washington Post" is reporting that there are negotiations taking place on a deal that would include some Taliban figures in the Afghan government as well as a withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops.
ROBERTS: After being trapped for two months, 33 Chilean miners could be rescued by next week. Crews are now within just a few hundred feet of tunneling through to their underground chamber. The president of Chile calling a rescue, quote, "imminent."
CHETRY: Talk of the Obama/Clinton dream ticket in 2012 getting louder. Here's what "Washington Post" reporter Bob Woodward told CNN's John King when he was asked about the possibility of Clinton swapping positions with Vice President Joe Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOODWARD: President Obama needs some of the women, Latinos, retirees that she did so well with during the 2008 primaries. And so they switch jobs, and not out of the question. The other interesting question is Hillary Clinton could run in her own right in 2016 and be younger than Ronald Reagan when he was elected president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Despite the chatter, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tells our Ed Henry just a short time ago that no one in the White House is discussing this as a possibility.
ROBERTS: We haven't heard from David Axelrod yet, but we're checking with him, too.
There's a crisis confronting millions of American families this morning. One-third of the children in this country are either victims of a bully or they are bullying someone else's kids. So what's a parent to do when a child is bullied at school?
CHETRY: A lot of people believe that the problem is so pervasive that children need to know how to defend themselves. They need to learn it, because telling them to walk away or telling a teacher isn't always enough.
Well, our Casey Wian went to a jujitsu class that teaches self defense while stressing the need to always avoid violence if possible. He's live in Los Angeles this morning. And I was fascinated when we first saw your story in the last hour and then the instructor teaches to fight fire with water.
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. You know, there's a debate nationally. You mentioned, how many students are victims of bullies in schools. Some academics say it is on the rise nationally. Others say it just seems that way because the media is paying more attention to the issue.
But in this class there's no doubt that these students will not likely become victims of bullies.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen to me, hamburger head, this is my school. Level your hamburger at home next time. Yes, good. Tackle, tackle, tackle nice.
WIAN: Nine-year-old Trevor Robertson is one of 60 students in a jujitsu class that says it can bully-proof kids.
MARGARITA ROBERTSON, ENROLLED SON IN "BULLYPROOF" PROGRAM: He had to transition to a different school and had a hard time fitting in with some of the kids.
WIAN: Now Trevor's earned a new stripe on the belt and new confidence.
TREVOR ROBERTSON, GRACIE BULLYPROOF PROGRAM MEMBER: I was at soccer camp, and an older kid, he was kind of picking on me, and then he tried to push me. So I got his arm and I put it behind his back and I asked him if he would stop. And he said, yes. And he didn't bug me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Redirect. Lay down.
WIAN: At the Gracie Jujitsu academy outside of Los Angeles, students learn that physically subduing the bully is the absolute last resort.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be respectful and calm.
WIAN: And they should never go looking for trouble.
RENER GRACIE, CO-CREATOR GRACIE BULLYPROOF: If the boy is harassing you, talk to them with confidence. And we teach them how to do that. Eye contact, stand strong, what to say. If the bully still persists, you have to tell the teacher and get the parents involved, get the principal involved, school administrators involved.
Should he punch me in the face? No, of course not. Should he tackle me? No.
If it's physical, we give the child the resources to defend themselves without ever being violent. End it.
WIAN: Michelle was bullied when she started kindergarten last year.
WILLIAM HIE, DAUGHTER TARGETED BY BULLIES: She'd come home with her pants like dirty, her sunglasses kind of like broken. So when we asked, say, hey, what happened here? She really said, I just fell. OK. She didn't want to say anything else. But I noticed the kind of like the attitude change. OK? It's kind of like angry.
WIAN (on camera): Does she have problems with bullying anymore?
HIE: Actually, no. She kind of like knows what to do. That's a good thing.
WIAN (voice-over): As part of the yearlong class, children are taught responsibility, respect, citizenship, and manners.
GRACIE: If you want something, say "please." If they give it to you, "thank you." If you don't, what do you say? "No, thank you."
We're teaching fighting fire with water. It is the humble approach. And again, it can't be more emphasized that the more a child learns how to defend him or herself, the more confident they become. And the more confident they become, the less likely they are to be targeted by the bully.
WIAN: The academy has heard complaints from schools with zero tolerance policies for violence even in self defense. As a parent, I asked Gracie how to advise my son.
WIAN (on camera): I don't want him to go against the school and protect himself. So how would you handle a situation like that?
GRACIE: It makes sense that the schools says no one fights at all. Throw a punch, kick someone or respond to a fight, everyone's in trouble. Everyone gets suspended. The problem is the bullies violate the rules, and the kids who are the victims now of the abuse, the violation of the rules, are too scared of the policy to stand up for themselves.
WIAN: He stresses the goal to avoid conflict giving kids confidence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIAN: The Gracie Academy says that jujitsu can work for kids with special needs. In our visit there we met a little boy with a mild form of autism, and his father described him as a bully magnet. Since he's been taking jujitsu classes, though, bullying has not been a problem. John, Kiran?
ROBERTS: I love the one kid that stuck to the kid like Velcro. But when you look at the kids, they're so engaged in what they do. They really are, you know, interested in learning the techniques?
WIAN: Yes. It really -- these instructors make the program fun for the kids, but it's also very serious business and especially for a child who has been bullied. They're desperate. Their parents are desperate for help.
And these programs give them the self confidence, that looking the bully in the eye that's going to keep the bully away. We all know from just walking on the street in a bad neighborhood, the last thing you do is look down at your feet and look like an easy target. They teach these kids the same thing. Look the bully in the eye. Project self confidence and you're not likely to run into any problems.
CHETRY: Interesting stuff. Casey Wian, thank you so much. I took Tae Kwan Do when I was younger. ROBERTS: Were you bullied?
CHETRY: I think we all were to some degree. The first thing they teach you in the class, people think that you take martial arts to learn how to fight, but you really take martial arts to develop the self confidence to avoid a fight.
And so it was fascinating and first thing they taught us was discipline, manners, getting good grades, but also how to avoid conflict by being confident.
ROBERTS: You see, I grew up in Canada. You learned how to play hockey and so you learned how to fight. I'm kidding.
CHETRY: Hip check anybody.
ROBERTS: Nobody messes with you with a hockey stick.
CHETRY: Exactly, exactly. What do you did if you're a parent and your kid is bullied? As we saw, it is not so easy for many parents. And do they have any recourse legally, as well? We'll talk to a Paul Callan, a professor of media law at Seton Hall University and also psychologist Jeff Gardere, the two experts who have dealt with bullying issues, and they're going to talk to us coming up.
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CHETRY: Welcome back to the most news in the morning. It's 41 minutes past the hour right now.
We're talking about bullying here on the show all week and in a larger context CNN and Time Warner, because it's an issue coming up more and more with some high profile cases of bullying to the extreme and people actually in some cases take their own lives.
Moments ago we saw Casey Wian showing us how some parents enrolling their kids in martial arts like jujitsu classes in order to teach them how to defend themselves and stay safe at school. But is that really a solution for everyone?
We are joining this morning by Paul Callan, former prosecutor and now professor of media law at Seton Hall University, and Dr. Jeff Gardere, clinical psychologist. And we had you on Monday talking about the case at Rutgers University which is just heartbreaking.
But form a larger standpoint, parents wrote in after Carol's pieces during the weekend and the recommendations of not humiliating a bully or the focus on releasing the bullied person early from school, sort of singling them out. Parents furious saying, wait a minute. We were always taught to punch a bully in the nose. But really, does that work?
JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I don't think it works at all. We need to understand and I agree with, you know, the parents being frustrated about this. I totally understand it as a parent myself. But we know that bullies have issues. They have emotional issues. So if we tend to single them out or try to harass them, all we are doing is making a bad situation even worse. What we need to do as parents, be role models, try to work out the situation with this kid, whomever the bully is, and talk to the other parent and find out what's going on and how we may be able to assist them in dealing with the problem.
At the end of the day we end up really helping our own children who are being bullied.
PAUL CALLAN, PROFESSOR OF MEDIA LAW, SETON HALL UNIVERSITY: I may be leaning more, Jeff, in the punch them in the nose camp, actually.
(LAUGHTER)
GARDERE: You are an attorney, Paul, of course.
CALLAN: No, no. I do think this thing functions on a couple of levels. The first level is kids have to be able to stand up for themselves. A lot of life, there's a lot of hard knocks in life. And a lot of being a kid and learning how to deal with bullies and learning how to deal with people that pick on you.
And I think people who are now trying to advocate criminalizing childhood, in other words by bringing the feds in to prosecute bullies, are forgetting that, you know, you have to go through the school of hard knocks a little bit.
That being said, of course, when it gets over the top, when it's cruel and inhuman and it's put on the Internet, there are legal ways to deal with it. But I think you have to toughen your kids up, too. They can't run home to mom and dad every time a kid tries to push them around in school.
GARDERE: I agree, of course. The point you made, Kiran, earlier about the jujitsu, it's not just about defending yourself physically, but your mind is your best weapon.
I've had kids been involved in martial arts, and what they have learned is how to have self discipline. If they have more self esteem they're less likely to be bullied. If somebody says something they'll stand up to them, but they don't have to use their fists of fury as Bruce Lee would say in order to deal with the situation. It toughens them up mentally.
And that's what we want to teach our kids. It's not about the fisticuffs and the physicality, but what is it in your heart and in your mind to be able to stand up to a bully and to not be a bully, because we know a lot of kids bullied end up being bullies themselves.
CHETRY: Ok but let me ask you about that. Because in yesterday's story that Carol did. She said that the common thought is that if you are a bully it's because you were bullied and you're sort of picking on a weaker target. And she said that in many cases they found that bullies are actually the more socially adept, they know how to manipulate adults; they know how to appear to be doing the right things so that their victims actually get in trouble and not them.
CALLAN: Well, you know, this is kind of funny. Because I suppose in a -- in a true sense bullies kind of rule the world to a large degree later on. I mean, large corporations, everybody knows, you know, a tough boss who yells at his employees to get productivity.
So I don't know how that plays out in the long run in terms of a human development. But -- but I do know that -- that the thing, Kiran, and I think that we are all worried about with the Internet and bullies is that, you know, back in the old days a group of five kids in a backyard picking on another kid, it stayed within a very small group. It didn't get beyond that.
CHETRY: But it was not any less devastating.
CALLAN: No, it wasn't.
CHETRY: And to be --
CALLAN: To be the victim.
CHETRY: And to be singled out and to be -- yes -- the bullied.
CALLAN: Yes but it is -- but what's happened today now is when people go online and they publish pictures and they public -- publish stories, instead of it being published to five or six people, it's an entire school.
CHETRY: Right.
CALLAN: It's 300 people or an entire town so the --
(CROSSTALK)
GARDERE: Or the entire world.
CALLAN: Or -- so the level of humiliation has quadrupled; it's geometrically increased so -- so kids today can be victimized in a way that maybe they could not be victimized in the past.
GARDERE: I agree.
CHETRY: And Dr. Jeff, I want to ask you about this.
GARDERE: Yes.
CHETRY: Because we had people write in. Mark said, "It's all about parenting. If you're child's a bully, you're a bad parent, period. If you can't teach your child respect or honesty, or moral values, you shouldn't have children."
And then someone else wrote, "Wait a minute. I know that I taught my kids values but their friends are where they learned to bully because they wanted to be with the in crowd." Which is it or is it not so black and white?
GARDERE: I think it's a -- it's not so black and white and I think it's a combination of both those things. I don't think that bullies necessarily come from bad parents or bad parenting. Sometimes bullies have these emotional issues they are dealing with and sometimes they are expressing the angst or some of the issues that are going on in their own homes.
So even their parents may not be aware of what it is that they are doing or how their emotional issues are affecting their children. And you can be a good parent and your child is in some ways socially involved with other kids who may be teaching them some really bad values or bad behaviors.
And that's why you need to step in and know who your kids -- are friends with --
CHETRY: Right.
GARDERE: -- and make some sort of an intervention and show them the right crowd to hang out with.
CHETRY: Also quickly, there's bullying or some sort of anti- bullying laws on the books in many states. Does that make a difference -- that prevent, you know, the childhood angst that comes with this?
CALLAN: I don't think it prevents the angst but I do think that people should understand there are places to go. Forty four states now have anti-bullying statutes. Now, most of those require school systems to cooperate and help you in a situation where your child is being bullied.
So I think you can start by go to the parent of the bully first, escalate it to the school level and if you have to, you can go to the police ultimately and sometimes the prosecution can result. But you know something? The best way to deal with these things is I think toughen up your kids and, also, deal with it on a parent to parent basis before you bring school systems in.
CHETRY: And teach them to be kind.
GARDERE: And teach them to be kind and conflict resolution skills.
CHETRY: Yes.
CALLAN: You got it.
GARDERE: They might grow to become president.
CHETRY: Tough but kind.
CALLAN: That's right.
GARDERE: Or you know good bullies grow up to be trial lawyers probably.
CHETRY: Oh no. Dr. Jeff and Paul Callan thanks --
CALLAN: He said it.
CHETRY: I know.
GARDERE: Yes.
CHETRY: Well, he's the lawyer, right. John?
ROBERTS: All right, tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, the bully within the beauty. Supermodel and talk show host Tyra Banks goes one on one with our Suzanne Malveaux discussing her days as a bully back in grade school.
You can find complete coverage of CNN and Time Warner's efforts to stop bullying. And you can get involved, too. If you're school is trying to stop bullies by holding special events send us an iReport. Go to CNN.com/bullying.
Well, a pair of slow-moving storms bring rain and thunderstorms to both coasts. Plus frost warnings are up in some parts of the country and other parts got snow. Rob Marciano is coming up next.
Forty-nine minutes after the hour.
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MARCIANO: Tuna fish sandwich, anybody? Wow. Look at this -- record catch of tuna in Prince Edward Islands a couple of days ago. They caught 144 of these big bad boys in the first eight hours. My goodness. That is a haul up there off the coast of Canada.
Off the coast of Canada, we're looking at some showers. Eastern New England, as well, from a very stubborn area of low pressure across the East Coast. This thing has not moved very much and it's slow to get out of here although, D.C. will see a little bit better weather today.
The same deal out west, this area of low pressure is not moving much at all either. It brought snow to the Sierras rain to SoCal and rough weather to parts of Arizona and Nevada and even right now -- even this morning we're under a severe thunderstorm watch until noon local time and some of these cells are moving across Sedona and up towards Flagstaff have warranted tornado warnings, at least the radar indicated.
So some rough weather continues to pound parts of Arizona. And that will continue to be the call later on today. Kind of warm across the midsection of the country, still pretty cool across the Eastern third of the country, especially across the Southeast.
Further south and east into the tropics, the subtropical depression number 17, this was deemed a subtropical depression earlier this morning by the National Hurricane Center, the center of which is right about this. This is a large circulation there and kind of caught up in the upper low that's why it's not a true tropical depression. But it's forecast to become that.
Right now we're getting some heavy rains across the Eastern parts of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Here is the forecast track, so we're fairly well protected with the upper level winds for the U.S.
You're up to date weather wise. AMERICAN MORNING is coming right back.
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CHETRY: Sorry.
ROBERTS: Every day it's a mystery.
CHETRY: Yes.
ROBERTS: What will Phil (INAUDIBLE) do?
CHETRY: That's right. He has to top himself. Today it was speaking into his boot.
ROBERTS: It's like "Get Smart" and the old shoe phone.
All right. We've got four minutes to the top of the hour. Time now for your "A.M. House Call," stories about your health.
A handful of walnuts each and every day could keep your stress away. Researchers at Penn State University found that a diet rich in walnuts and walnut oil significantly lowered both resting blood pressure and blood pressure during stress. There was also a drop in the levels of LDL, that's the bad cholesterol.
CHETRY: Well, if you spend hours a day with a laptop computer on top of your thighs, beware of toasted skin syndrome. That sounds pretty gross. Researchers have now documented ten cases of laptop users who actually developed a brown discoloration of the skin. It's caused by the prolonged heat exposure from the laptop computers. It's a damage that can -- a condition that can lead to permanent darkening of the skin and in rare cases, it can develop into skin cancer.
ROBERTS: Yes, find yourself something to put the laptop on.
CHETRY: They also talked about male infertility and how keeping a laptop on your lap for long periods of time on flights could actually --
ROBERTS: Another reason to eat kimchi. Prevent that infertility. Three minutes to the top of the hour.
CHETRY: if you can get it.
ROBERTS: We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: That's going to wrap it up for us. Thanks so much for joining us today. We'll see you back here bright and early again tomorrow morning.
CHETRY: That's right. Meantime the news continues, "CNN NEWSROOM" with Fredricka Whitfield starts right now. Hey, Fred.
