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American Morning

Cracks Found on Southwest Planes; Japan Dumping Radioactive Water; Obama Launches 2012 Campaign; Losing And Winning; McDonald's Hiring Spree; U.S. Agrees To Continue Air Strikes For NATO In Libya For One More Day; Jerry Weintraub: "His Way"; Should College Player Get Paid?

Aired April 04, 2011 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, a day of delays and cancellations on Southwest Airlines.

I'm Kiran Chetry.

Inspectors are now checking dozens of the airline's 737 planes for cracks after a jet ripped open Friday night in midair.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Ali Velshi.

Desperate moves to stop radiation from spreading. Japan is now talking about building a seawall and wrapping the reactors in a giant sheet.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans.

A big discovery in the fight against Alzheimer's. Five new clues put scientists steps closer to finding a cure -- on this AMERICAN MORNING.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHETRY: And welcome. Good morning to you. Thanks so much for being with on this AMERICAN MORNING, Monday, April 4th.

We're never able to give better news about Japan. It's getting more discouraging a month out.

VELSHI: And we've got some new renewed fighting in Libya that might be changing the equation there. We'll bring that to you as well.

Let's start with the question that's on people's minds -- to fly or not to fly? That's the question for thousands of Southwest Airline passengers and some others after inspectors found cracks on three more of the airline's 737 jets.

That's the inside view of the big gash on top of the plane. The cracks are similar to those found on the metal of this Southwest plane, whose roof blew open at 35,000 feet last week. Passengers were -- they were pretty terrified.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not everyone was getting their mask on. Some were having problems. Some people were passing out. It was not good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought we were going down. I really did. It just seemed like we were dropping pretty fast. It's just all unreal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Can you imagine the feeling? There's this big whole in the roof, the plane depressurizes and, all of a sudden, the captain has to descend from 35,000 feet to 10,000 feet within seconds. Southwest is canceling 100 more plights today while emergency inspections are completed on those planes.

Well, earlier on AMERICAN MORNING, former FAA chief of staff Michael Goldfarb says age and the frequency of use is a big problem for the 737-300 fleet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL GOLDFARB, FORMER FAA CHIEF OF STAFF: Boeing stopped producing them in the 1990s. So, they're old by definition. Southwest has 288 around of them. There's about 900 worldwide.

And the 737-300 is especially subject to the constant short hauls. The short hauls pressurize, de-pressurize. I forgot, I think there was 37,000 cycles. There's a lot of cycles on this particular aircraft. So, with that number cycles and the constant landing and takeoffs, the planes are subject to metal fatigue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Goldfarb says the technology used today to check for these cracks is not necessarily going to find them. He says the FAA wants to retire the entire 737-300 fleet.

Well, the bodies of victims of the 2009 Air France crash have now been found. Investigators made the discovery yesterday after they uncovered wreckage from the missing plane. Air France flight 447 took off from Brazil and disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm. All 228 passengers on board were killed.

ROMANS: In Japan, efforts to plug a leak at that severely damaged nuclear reactor failing this morning. And now, Japan says it has no choice but to dump more than 11,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean on purpose.

Martin Savidge is live in Tokyo.

Marty, this is sadly the best option for them right now, isn't it?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is, unfortunately. I mean, Christine, we were all quite shocked when we heard the announcement that the Japanese government said the TEPCO is now going to release 11,500 tons of what it says is low-level radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. They say they have to do this, it's regrettable, they don't like doing it, but they have to make space in that facility for what they say is the really highly radioactive water that they don't want to go into the Pacific Ocean.

So, in order to do that, they're clearing tanks and they're clearing areas around reactors five and six. And that process is under way, by the way. The water is going in via what they say is a discharge channel into the Pacific Ocean.

Then we had that other problem, which is the leak you mentioned there. And this is the really highly contaminated water. They believe it's coming from reactor number two and it's been gushing into the Pacific Ocean. They tried cement, they tried this very high-tech polymer. That did not work.

Now, they're using something else. They've also tried, I should mention, sawdust and newspapers. Now, they're using bath salts. You might wonder, why the bath salts?

Well, apparently that's to add a color to the water, because they're trying to figure out, where is the water coming from. They're pouring in the bath salts in one place and see if that's what's gushing out somewhere else in this eight-inch break in the concrete. It's been a very frustrating day for the officials out there, Christine.

ROMANS: I will say, making it up as they go along.

There's also talk of wrapping the planet's reactor buildings this some kind of massive amounts of sheeting. I mean, I'm just imaging shrink wrapping this entire place and trying to keep as much as radioactive inside. What do this look like? What are they doing?

SAVIDGE: Well, it's only a theory at this particular point. It's a kind of fabric that they had thought about possibly draping over the damaged reactors. Some of the reactors have had explosions and thereby their upper structures have been heavily damaged.

So, they are using or they have talked about using, I should say, this kind of material to reduce any sort of radiation. Then they've also been spraying a kind of plastic on a lot of the debris up there and the dust piles.

Again, the whole idea here is to show that they are doing everything they possibly can think of, and they're thinking of a lot of things, to try to keep dust and radiation from leaving the site.

ROMANS: All right. Martin Savidge, thank you so much, Marty, for that. We'll check in again with you later.

VELSHI: At least 12 protesters have been killed by government security forces this morning in Yemen. Witnesses say hundreds more have been wounded. The bloody crackdown took place in the city of Taiz. Demonstrators assembled there calling for the resignation of the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

This could be the last time we see U.S. fighter jets being used to bomb Libya. Our agreement with NATO to provide attack aircraft expires today and there are still a lot of questions about arming rebel troops in their struggle against Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

Opposition forces had to retreat from the city of al Brega over the weekend. A bloody exchange with the government soldiers took place there.

And according to witnesses in Misrata, closer to Tripoli, the capital, pro-government forces shelled a medical clinic yesterday, killing one person and injuring 15 others. Nearly 400 wounded patients have now been picked up by a hospital ship. And among the many civilians and children, they're going to be taken to Turkey for treatment there.

CHETRY: Well, it's being called the most exciting event that's happened in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, at least according to the author of a new study. Researchers have discovered five new genes linked to the memory-killing disease. Now, each gene is basically a new clue as to what causes Alzheimer's disease, and this now doubles the numbers of clues scientists have.

Experts say it's the first big step towards finding a cure. And this is a disease that has continued to impact us. 2005 numbers, 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's. By 2050, they expect it to go up to 16 million.

ROMANS: All right. Rob Marciano is in the extreme weather center. Rob's got some extreme weather.

Tornados and severe thunderstorms, a threat there. Where exactly are you watching this, Rob?

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, this line of thunderstorms, guys, extends all the way from really the Canadian border down to the Gulf of Mexico. A large storm and it's slowly making its way to the East.

We got a couple of thunderstorm watches that are posted for parts of western Ohio and Arkansas as well. And earlier, we had a severe thunderstorm -- a cluster of severe thunderstorms roll through Dallas, with some really rough weather there, gusts of winds at 60 miles an hour. Likely some power outages as well. And that's now about through the Metroplex as it goes easterly at about 30 to 40 miles an hour.

Detroit also saw some rough weather that's pushing off to the east. So, this is all heading towards the New York City area, but won't get there until tomorrow. In the meantime, that little slice of precip marching across New England and the Upstate New York area, that is going to be the precursor of some warm air or a warm front moving that way.

Sixty-eight degrees is the expected high temperature in New York City today. It will be 79 degrees in D.C. All that warmth was a little bit further west yesterday, and that's kind of what's fuelling this thunderstorm activity. We had temperatures get to over 100 degrees in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas yesterday.

It won't be 100 in New York, but 68 sure will feel nice. Enjoy it, because tomorrow will be in the 50s with rain and thunder and lightning.

Christine, Ali, Kiran, back up to you.

VELSHI: All right, Rob. Thanks very much for that.

ROMANS: Millions of e-mails exposed in a major security breach and the list of companies affected growing this morning. Are you affected? We're going to break it down for you, coming up.

VELSHI: And it's on. President Obama's kicking off his 2012 re-election campaign this morning. He's got a brand-new slogan this time. We'll tell it to you after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: All right. There's a beautiful picture of Washington, D.C., today, where now it's in the mid-50s. But a little bit later, they could be looking at a wonderful, wonderful 80-degree high for this 4th of April.

VELSHI: Wow.

CHETRY: It makes you want to go outside.

VELSHI: It does.

CHETRY: But you've got to stay inside and get a budget going.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANS: Don't go outside.

VELSHI: Anybody who's got work to do in Washington, stay inside today.

President Obama, by the way, officially launched his 2012 re- election campaign. This may not surprise many of you, but it actually has to be launched. He actually has to announce that he can start fund-raising and doing stuff like that.

So, how did he do it? Very interesting. He released a video -- it's being e-mailed or sent by text to his supporters. The president could file papers with the Federal Election Commission today or later this week. The White House is hoping to raise $1 billion for his campaign, war chest.

CHETRY: You know what's so funny -- remember when it was such a huge deal that they text messaged their supporters back in 2008. Now, it's old hat.

VELSHI: Yes. It doesn't actually all go into a war chest, by the way. That's just an expression that we use in the news. National political --

ROMANS: It's an old-fashioned expression, isn't it? I think chest, full of coins.

VELSHI: Anybody talks about war chest, except Washington insiders, and we have one right here -- part of "The Best Political Team on Television," national political correspondent, Jessica Yellin.

Jessica, why is he announcing this? And why today? And why does it matter that he is?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They have to start building the war chest, Ali. I don't even know what it looks like. Yes.

It's because you officially have to file to start raising money. And I know you just mentioned that he's going to raise $1 billion, but that should come with sirens and exclamation points and oh, my goshes because that's unprecedented. That much money is astronomical, given that he has to raise it in little increments.

The maximum amount any individual donor can give in the primary and in general is $2,500. So, they're filing the paperwork so they can start asking people, making those phone calls and they're basically asking their private fundraisers to raise $350,000 each, totaling half billion dollars. Then the campaign is going to ask their regular folks to try to raise the rest of the money. They've got to get going.

And the president's hitting the campaign trail next week just to fundraise, not to be public, but just to fundraise, so they have to start moving now.

VELSHI: Now, we showed some of this video earlier. And I have to say, when I first saw it, I was a little bit of -- I was a bit confused. Were we running the wrong video or something like that? What is this video that the president released to announce his re- election?

YELLIN: So, there's no -- Obama himself does not appear in the video.

VELSHI: Right. That's why I thought we were running the wrong video.

YELLIN: Right. It's like, what's going on? Look, first two things. One, if he were in the video, what would we do? We would constantly be replaying only the part of it that's him and then saying the president's running for office, and then, that becomes part of the political discussion on Capitol Hill that the president's too focused on running for office and no actually doing his job governing.

So, one way to minimize the amount of political friction that comes from getting in the race as president is to keep himself publicly low-profile as much as possible. The other -- yes, go ahead.

CHETRY: Oh, no, I was just going to say, the obstacles in his way, I mean, it seems as though, at least, right now, it's really interesting. You don't really have any challenger on the GOP side yet.

VELSHI: Or you've got a lot of them depending on how you look at it.

YELLIN: Right. I mean, I watch your show. You, guys, are constantly, you know, seeing pieces about these guys who are out in Iowa or New Hampshire or where ever, even though, they haven't officially announced they're out there, and they are, you know, criticizing the president as, you know, these nascent candidates will do. So, the White House, you know, or the campaign's point is this is time they should be in the game too, but also, it's getting going.

And with these new campaign finance laws, they really do need to fundraise, as I've said and underscored. But also, if you look at who's in the video, it's a young man who said he wasn't allowed to vote last time. He wasn't old enough, but he's going to vote now. African-American, Latino, and then, you know, mostly women and then one white older man who says, I don't agree with Obama on everything, but I'm going to vote for him.

These are key demographics. They're starting their outreach now, and they're going to be building, building, building non-stop. It's going to be a fierce fight.

VELSHI: You're alluding to something, though, by saying one white man who says he doesn't really agree with him, but he's going to vote for him, anyway. What's the theme there?

YELLIN: Right. The president struggled to win the support of white men in the last election. Remember, we were constantly talking about that fight in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, for example. And now has lost a lot of support. It's eroded in that, among white men of a certain age and blue-collar men, especially. So, he's trying to do the best they can to reach out to them, win them back over.

And one of the messages there is, look, you don't have to agree on everything, but is he better than the alternative?

CHETRY: Right.

YELLIN: And you also hear in the video someone say, think of all the change that has happened since he was elected. So, they're going to make the point that, you know, we have changed some, is their message, you've got to keep us on track so that we can finish out the agenda.

ROMANS: All right. Jessica Yellin. Thanks so much, Jessica. So, I guess -- and they're off. It now begins.

CHETRY: Which one side is?

YELLIN: Yes.

CHETRY: All right. Well, how about this? The cover of the "New York Post" today, "losing." They were sort of panning Charlie Sheen's -- here it is, "losing," and there's his few -- what are they called again?

ROMANS: I don't know.

CHETRY: That's right. Charlie Sheen was heckled and booed during his road show debut. He's making some changes, apparently, to get a more winning formula working. We have a live report from our Kareen Wynter, who was in the audience, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Twenty-one minutes past the hour right now. The reviews are in and the torpedo of truth was a dud, apparently. Charlie Sheen booed off stage on the first night of his "Violent Torpedo of Truth" tour in Detroit. Here's a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(AUDIENCE BOOING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Well, it looks like he was able to turn things around with a few tweaks to his show in Chicago. He apparently got a big ovation walking off the bus. Well, Kareen Wynter was at that first show where things didn't go over so well. He's live in L.A. So, we keep saying he bombed. What was it like to be there? What did he do that was so bad?

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me tell you, I left the show with a big fat headache just with all the boos around me, Kiran. It was nonstop. But, you know, I've got to ask myself this, and many people do, I bet, when it comes to Charlie Sheen. How does he do it? Just when you think he's on the brink of self-destruction, he always manages to pull it together just in the nick of time.

I was in the audience when the former "Two and a Half Men" star kicked off his 1960 torpedo of truth tour on Saturday in Detroit, and as we've all heard by now, he bombed big-time. He redeemed himself, but he bombed first. People were heading for the exits in the middle of the show. Folks were screaming "refund" at the stage. Here's what some fans had to say after the concert, and it wasn't pretty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's insane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unreal!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sell your ticket!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Awful! Waste of money!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Worst show ever! Ever!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's terrible!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The worst show ever!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It sucked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WYNTER: And it felt really like a concert, even though, it was a tour, because there were women dancing on the side, in the audience. They were waving their beverages in the air, alcohol. It felt like you were at the club, but, no, it was Charlie's opening night. And, you know, when you think his tour -- just when you think his tour's in the tanker, last night, in Chicago, the windy city, he redeems himself.

Gone were all the confusing video screens and random rappers that made fans scratch their heads in Detroit, Kiran. In Chicago, it was totally different. It was a stripped down show, really just Q&A type of setting with Charlie. He was on-stage. He was sitting in the chair. He was chatting with his friend and co-producer of the show. No one booed. In fact, he got several, several standing ovations for opening up to the audience.

And Sheen, he also was very candid about getting fired from his TV show saying that he would go back if they hired him again, it's that simple. That unlike them, he's a man of his word. He talked about the custody dispute with his estranged wife, Brooke Mueller, but here's the interesting stuff and stuff that only we have. We caught up with Charlie's manager and publicist just a short time ago. They just landed in L.A. They were heading back to Charlie's house in a limo, and you're hearing it here first.

They gave us the scoop on what went down in Chicago and Detroit, the good, the bad, the ugly. They said after Detroit, Charlie was, quote, "dejected and determined, that first show was really an eye opener." But instead of blaming the audience, they said, Charlie blamed himself and that he knew what he needed to do to rock it out in Chicago the next night.

He got to the venue early at nine o'clock for an 8:00 p.m. show. He spent all day on his tour bus working on his material, and his manager, Mark Burg, said, quote, "the audience at knew Charlie Harper from "Two and a Half Men" now got to know Charlie Sheen." So, he was happy about his performance but reveals Charlie knows that there's a lot of room for improvement.

CHETRY: All right. Kareen Wynter with the download this morning for us about that. Thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right. He's a Hollywood legend, but producer, Jerry Weintraub, started out working in a talent agency in the mail room.

VELSHI: Are video (ph) really or is that what just everybody says when --

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: He hit the jackpot taking Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra on tour. He produced movies like "Diner," "The Karate Kid," "Ocean's 11." He sits down with us live to talk about his colorful career coming up next.

VELSHI: And a sandwich.

ROMANS: Yes, we got a sandwich.

CHETRY: A sandwich named after him.

ROMANS: You know you hit it big when they name a sandwich after you.

VELSHI: And up next, the hackers now know your e-mail address. The security breach hits T Boe, Citi, Marriott and others. We're "Minding Your Business," coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: This is a pretty picture of New York City, Central Park this morning, where it's now 47 degrees. There's apparently going to be a small window of opportunity where it's not cold and it's not raining, but that will be a small window.

VELSHI: It's going to warm up more, but it's going to rain.

CHETRY: Sixty-eight, but bring your wellies.

VELSHI: Talking about a hiring spree. McDonald's announcing that it plans to hire 50,000 new workers on one day, April 19th. The so-called McJobs include full and part-time crew and management positions. Average pay, $8.30 an hour. Managers making up to $50,000 a year.

ROMANS: If you want to be at the lookout this morning for e- mails from a number of companies you trust that could be asking for your personal information. Carmen Wong Ulrich is "Minding Your Business." A big e-mail breach.

CARMEN WONG ULRICH, PERSONAL FINANCE EXPERT: I just got one.

ROMANS: Did you?

ULRICH: My Gmail. Disney destinations. We're going to talk about all the companies affected here. There was an extensive security breach at the nation's largest e-mail marketing company, Epsilon. Epsilon manages e-mail marketing for seven of "Fortune's" top ten American companies. As to what's information would compromise, Epsilon released a statement.

"The information that was obtained was limited to e-mail addresses and/or customer names only." Now, here are some of the companies that have been affected. I mentioned Disney Destinations, CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Walgreen's, and best buy. Now, your e-mail contact information, if it has been breached, is used for phishing.

This is when you get e-mails from these companies, but not really, but they're looking for you to give personal information in response or click on links. So definitely do not click on links or respond to e-mails, especially if they're asking for personal information or if they're from your banks, because banks do not do this.

ROMANS: The one you got today, was it a real e-mail saying we used to have your information and it's been breached or a fake e-mail --

ULRICH: I didn't even open it up. I saw the Disney destinations, knew it was on the list of companies that have been breached and it went right into my spam. I got an e-mail from Disney.com in my regular mail. I also deleted that as well. However, if I want to shop there, I will go directly to the Web site, which is what you should do.

CHETRY: Is this something eventually -- does this open up the floodgates now and you'll continue to get these, or is there a span of time where they'll lose that information?

ULRICH: I'm sure Epsilon is doing all they can to do something about this and find the hackers and stop them. But don't click on links or find any personal information.

ROMANS: I can't even send on the e-mails you guys send me.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Kiran does make a good point, if you're used to getting e-mails from your banks, how do you determine which ones are right and which ones are not?

ULRICH: I say go safe, because I've had my computer hacked before. Don't click on it, even if it's something you usually get. Instead, just go in directly, type in chase.com or citi.com or call customer service.

VELSHI: All right. Good, thank you, Carmen.

CHETRY: In the meantime, Southwest Airlines canceling some 100 flights today after inspectors discovered cracks in three more Boeing 737-300 planes. They're similar to the cracks believed to have caused a fuselage rupture, basically a hole torn into the roof of a Southwest flight. They had to make an emergency landing in Arizona Friday. The carrier is still inspecting dozens of these 737-300 planes and the FAA has called for them to be grounded.

Well, a desperation move in Japan this morning. Officials say they're dumping more than 11,000 tons of nuclear water into ocean on purpose because they need room to store water that has even higher levels of radiation.

Meantime, they're going through many other exercises, I guess you could say, to try to find a way to end this. Radioactive water is still seeping through a hole at one of the reactors. Efforts to plug it are not working. They're talking about potentially trying to wrap these reactors in a tarp-like substance to end the radiation leaks.

A top U.S. general in Afghanistan calls a Florida fundamentalist pastor's decision to burn the Koran "hateful." At least 20 people are now dead after days of violent protests in Afghanistan. While NATO officials denounce the burning of the holy Muslim book, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called on Washington to formally condemn it.

VELSHI: Now to the uprising in Libya, where the U.S. is providing air support to NATO for one more day. Nic Robertson live in Tripoli this morning. Nic, we heard from Ben Wedeman in Brega this morning. The fight for that town is raging right now. What we've been hearing is that opposition troops have been forced to retreat, to rearm themselves. They're going further east and north into their controlled territory and government troops are making inroads. What's the latest from you?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's still an offensive the government going on in Misrata, about a two to three hours' drive east of here. The government is confident that it still can deliver military gains on the battlefield.

But I think it's interesting that at the same time they've sent a senior diplomat, a deputy foreign minister to talk about a possibility of a diplomatic solution here. So perhaps despite the battle going on right new in the east of the country, a reality dawning here that there's only so much ground this government can take while coalition still backs and supports the rebels, Ali.

VELSHI: Nic, if after all of these air strikes and the air cover that's going in there are points at which the rebels are losing ground, what is the next logical discussion that is going to happen, whether it's these British diplomats that you said are on the ground or a potential retreat by Gadhafi out of Libya or ground forces? What's the next thing that has to happen if this is not achieving the stated goal?

ROBERTSON: Well, it seems that the international community, at least, is losing will right now to put in ground troops. And it certainly seems they're prevaricating on the issue of supplying weapons, although there may be there some going on already supplying to rebels.

Certainly, the international community seems to be get a better and keener sense of exactly who the rebels are, how they perhaps maintain a shadow government of some sort in the east of the country, and what's the likelihood they could overthrow the regime here, while the regime makes a calculation over what are the military gains they can take on the battlefield, what concessions do they perhaps need to make to bring peace?

What the rebels have called for is for Gadhafi to be removed from power. What we're hearing from sources here, very good sources, is that in the fullness of time, once this crisis is resolved, as they put it, then Gadhafi would slide away from power here.

Whether both sides can be brought to agreement on what appears to be sort of not mutually exclusive paths, but still a huge gulf between them, whether they can be brought to agreement with international mediation or something else is unclear. But it does seem that at the moment there is some sort of time it seems for diplomacy and whatever international diplomats can work out with rebels on the ground.

VELSHI: Nic Robertson, we'll stay on top of it with you and ben and the rest of our team in Libya. Thanks.

ROMANS: Our next guest started out as a regular kid from the Bronx. Today, Jerry Weintraub --

VELSHI: Don't tell me, he worked in a mail room?

ROMANS: He did. Cue, this guy wrote the -- he's right out of central casting, except he's not. Everything is so different. Jerry Weintraub, the legendary film producer and manager is here live and doing things his way, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back. We got a real treat today for you a very special guest on our show. His name is legend, of course, in the movie and music business. For all of his success as a talent promoter, it's Jerry Weintraub's personal story that appears larger than life. He's the subject of a new HBO documentary, "His Way," that premieres tonight, 8/9 eastern. Here's a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jerry Weintraub is --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jerry Weintraub is --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jerry Weintraub is --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jerry Weintraub is --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a puncher.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He never gets done and quits. He's that guy, he's the cliched guy that fights harder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a lot of things to a lot of different people. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's Houdini.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't buy him dinner.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's tough as nails, but has a mushy marshmallow center.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

CHETRY: That's the man himself right now. Jerry Weintraub joins us. Thanks for being with us.

JERRY WEINTRAUB, PRODUCER: Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

CHETRY: You have been a famous producer for so long and you've had to -- you've produced these -- in this documentary, you had to give up control and let close friends and people who have worked with you narrate your life. Was that scary?

WEINTRAUB: The frightening party, Ivan carter from "Vanity Fair" produced this, and he came to me and said, "I want to do a film about your life." And I said to myself, he's going to do a film about my life. When I do films about anyone else's life, I'm in total control. Here I had to say, go for it, and give it all up.

VELSHI: And it's a little voyeuristic.

WEINTRAUB: Yes. And I had to give it away and give it to other people. I said, who's going to do it q? Who's the director, who's the writer, who's this and all that? He gave me a list of people, they were very, very extraordinary filmmakers and I met with them and decided to let them go for it.

CHETRY: Are you happy with how it turned out?

WEINTRAUB: I think it's fantastic. We got huge ratings in "The New York Times" this morning. I'm very, very happy about it because I got to write my book, and instead of Kitty Kelley writing it, or somebody like that, I wrote it. So my kids and my grandkids and my great grandkids can read my words, what I said. And now they'll be able to look at the movie and say, wow, that guy did a lot of stuff.

VELSHI: I have two questions for you. And because we are three anchors, I don't get to ask two, so you can choose which one --

(LAUGHTER)

CHETRY: If they're both good, I'll give him one of mine.

VELSHI: You can either give me your best memories, because some of our viewers may not know you, you had a very close relationship with both Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, or you can explain to me how it is you have a wife and a girlfriend. WEINTRAUB: If you explain why you get to sit in the middle of these beautiful women.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: This is my work life. You've got a real-life situation that's similar.

WEINTRAUB: It's similar. I have a wife and a girlfriend. And I am still married to my wife close to 50 years. And I've been living with my girlfriend for 20. And they are very close friends. We are not having a menage a trois. There's nothing sordid about it. Jane and I, Jane Morgan, she was a very big star, had a lot of hit records, Jane told me years and years ago, if you meet somebody else and you fall in love, tell me. Don't hide it. Just come out and tell me. So we had been together and I love her -- I told her five times a day today.

CHETRY: You don't live with her. She lives in Malibu and you live with your girlfriend Suzy.

WEINTRAUB: Right, in Beverly Hills. But we vacation at Jane's guest house and she vacations at our guest house. So instead of having the War of the Roses and instead of spending millions of dollars with lawyers and instead of screwing up my estate, we decided to do this. And Kane said, when and if Suzy needs to marry you, we'll work it out, figure it out. I told her, you can have a divorce, you can have anything you want, I'm not going to fight over anything. And she said, look, the bottom line is, I've lived with you for a long time. You're pretty much a pain in the neck. Now it's her problem.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANS: About Frank Sinatra in the very beginning, now, George, Matt, George, Matt, and Brad. These are people you know very, very well. You've spanned a generation of leading men. Any -- leave us with some insights, who's the most fun? Or are they all different.

WEINTRAUB: I've spanned a few generations, but I go back to Cary Grant and Gene Kelly, Rita Hayworth, to Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

ROMANS: Are stars today as rarefied as we think they were before, are they all the same?

WEINTRAUB: Yes. The problem today with stars is they used to drive over to my house, park their car, come in the house, have something to eat, play a game of tennis, have a drink. They can't do that anymore.

CHETRY: Because of the paparazzi, you're saying, and 24-hour Web sites.

WEINTRAUB: TMZ and "Extra!" You've got all that stuff going on.

CHETRY: There's a lot of mystique taken away from the stars. Back then, a movie star was a movie star, now every move they make is out there, everything they do wrong. So do we have superstars anymore?

WEINTRAUB: Yes, you have. All those people are superstars. Will Smith is a superstar. Tom Hanks is a superstar. Tom Cruise is a -- we've got the same thing. It's the same things -- it all --

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: And you're the connective tissue. That's what's so cool. You've gone through the whole thing.

WEINTRAUB: Isn't that wild?

ROMANS: That's awesome --

VELSHI: Speaking of connective tissue, have you seen the sandwich?

CHETRY: Let's bring it in.

WEINTRAUB: What about that. This is my greatest accomplishment.

CHETRY: This is a very New York thing.

WEINTRAUB: To hell with my book and my movie. This is my --

VELSHI: The Carnegie Deli sandwich named for you. Jerry Weintraub's his way, when I stop eating, you know I'm dead.

CHETRY: How much is it worth? They have corned beef. For people who don't know New York, Carnegie Deli is famous. Did you want a sandwich named after you or did they just do it?

WEINTRAUB: I wanted it, but I didn't ask.

ROMANS: There you go.

WEINTRAUB: And when it came around, when it came time, and they told me they were going to do it, I was ecstatic. Just ecstatic. Couldn't have been happier.

VELSHI: We have to go to Carnegie.

ROMANS: We are going to do it.

VELSHI: And we're going to enjoy it.

Good to see you, Jerry.

(CROSSTALK)

CHETRY: It's an absolute pleasure to have you with us.

WEINTRAUB: Thank you. CHETRY: And we'll all be watching tonight. Just a reminder, the documentary, "His Way", all about Jerry Weintraub premieres tonight, HBO, 9:00. Thanks so much for being with us.

WEINTRAUB: Thanks for having me.

VELSHI: While we work our way through that sandwich, Rob's going to be working on some weather. There's hail, high winds, even tornadoes possible today in the Midwest and the south. Rob's tracking that. Give us a few minutes to take a few bites and then we'll get to Rob.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Oh, yes. Spring comes early here in the ATL. Beautiful sunshiny morning. Downtown Atlanta, temps in the lower 50s, get up into the lower 80s today. Spring's here.

Good morning, everybody. Spring also means the threat for severe weather across much of the country today, as a matter of fact. Check out the size and scope of the storm here on the radar scope.

We do have tornado watches and warnings that have been posted for parts of the southeast and that does include places like Memphis, Tennessee, up through Paducah, Kentucky. This line of thunderstorms getting a little bit more intense and organized as it makes its way toward the east.

We did have some severe weather roll through Dallas earlier this morning. That line has now pushed off to the east and it has, if anything intensified. Before, when it went through the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, it had winds of 60 miles an hour or greater with even some power outages, a little bit farther to the east.

Certainly some hail within this as well, as it moves towards Texarkana. Again, it's going to organize and that's not good news for the folk who live say in Memphis, western parts of Tennessee, and back through northern Mississippi.

Up towards the north, we had some rough weather move through Detroit now. That line extends and slices right across Ohio. This is slowly making its way towards the East Coast. You had a little batch of rain move across New York earlier. That's the leading edge of some warmer air, which you're going to get into today and it's going to be quite toasty.

Temperatures are going to be well above average: 68 in New York City; it will be 79 in D.C.; 84 -- this warm air was of towards the west yesterday. Look at these daytime highs. In Childress, Texas, 102, a record high there. San Angelo, 99 degrees for a record. Dodge City, seeing 94 degrees. And St. Louis seeing 90; won't quite be that warm today across parts of the northeast, but it will pretty nice. And thunderstorms rolling your way tomorrow.

That's a quick check on weather. AMERICAN MORNING is coming right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Buy a ticket to a Butler game, purchase a Kendall Walker T-shirt. Universities are making millions off college basketball and some advocates think the players, well they should get a chunk of that change. Should college athletes get paid to play?

CNN education contributor Steve Perry is here to discuss the debate. Steve, "USA Today", though, did an analysis saying a typical final four player earns the equivalent of $120,000 annually when you factor in coaching, extra academic help, medical. Aren't they already getting a good deal?

STEVE PERRY, CNN EDUCATION CONTRIBUTOR: No. Because the problem here is that most of them are not graduating. In some schools, like Butler and Duke, about 92 percent of the players are graduating. However, at UConn, less than 30 percent have graduated.

Yet, Mr. Calhoun, the coach there, is receiving a five-year, $13 million contract -- five-year, $13 million. I'm not even saying he isn't worth it. He may be, in fact, worth it, but isn't he also -- I mean aren't the kids also worth it? Shouldn't they get some fraction of the money that he's raised? How could he even feel good about himself knowing that he's making all this money and these kids are walking away without a degree, and in fact, without a dime in their pocket?

How can these kids feel good about looking into the stands and seeing thousands of people wearing their number and their image on their person --

ROMANS: But they're given opportunity, they can graduate if they want. They've got all -- if they go through and they do everything they're supposed to do, they've got all of these tutors -- I'm just sparring with you Steve but --

PERRY: So it's the kid's fault? No, no, no. I appreciate that.

ROMANS: No, no, no. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that you look at all the things -- and some of this comes from student fees, so you'd have to pay -- so if you're going to pay the student, how are you going to pay the student? Through the student fees that goes through, through the profits of the program, what?

PERRY: Well, actually, HBO did a great documentary on this on Real Sports. What they talk about is that the NCAA made $757 million last year. And in addition to that, they talked about over $4 billion -- that's b -- $4 billion of sales in video games with the images of these children on them.

They can do the same thing that the NFL does, because in many cases, many of the big-time college sports programs, their stadiums are bigger than the NFL stadiums. In fact, ten college stadiums are bigger than the biggest NFL stadium. These kids, at the very least, should be allowed to make their own money. Let's say that you have a child who plays lacrosse at a school in which he has a small division three school. Well, there's no money to be spread around there, that's what the argument always is. At least let this kid get an endorsement. If he has the personality that somebody wants to pay him to endorse their product, then let him do that. Let them get a job doing that.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: This goes back to the basic -- they're called student athletes, but are they students or are they athletes?

PERRY: They are athletes.

ROMANS: I mean opinion is that it's unlike any other -- it's just unlike any other situation we have. You know? And that's what makes it so difficult which makes both sides so passionate. There's also an NCAA report for the year 2008/2009 that found that 14 athletic departments of 120 schools made money. That's it. That's it. They had an operating profit.

They had hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, yes, but in terms of making money, when you look at the Bowl Games -- most schools spend more on Bowl Games than they receive. It's a marketing endeavor.

PERRY: Auburn made $18 million when they won the national championship. $18 million and they have a millionaire coach.

ROMANS: So that should be shared with the students? The players should get some of that money?

PERRY: No doubt. Absolutely, they're the reason why Auburn -- why we're even talking about Auburn. They're the reason why, because they did something so special that no one else could do. I'm simply saying, even if you don't want to share the profits -- I don't know why -- but even if you don't want to share the profits with these kids, then at least let them earn their own on their own image.

These Ohio State players suspended for selling something that they made famous.

ROMANS: Right.

PERRY: How horrible is that?

ROMANS: That's a really good point. You've got the kid there and then the school is making all this money on his name, on his jersey. That's a really good point.

Steve Perry, we've got to leave it there. We're out of time buddy. Next week, we can tackle it again. Thank you, sir.

PERRY: All right.

ROMANS: It's 57 minutes after the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: All right. So this was the Jerry Weintraub Sandwich courtesy of Carnegie Deli. They made it up for him.

VELSHI: Or what's left of it after they put it in front of us --

CHETRY: We put a hurting on this. This thing was -- I don't know how big before --

ROMANS: It's got to be four pounds of meat.

CHETRY: Yes. Well, it was quite delicious. Thanks, Jerry Weintraub.

VELSHI: We'll finish the rest of it now and we'll hand the show over to Carol Costello. "NEWSROOM" starts right now. Hey, Carol.