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American Morning
"If It was Me, I Would Resign"; Air Canada Union Workers Strike; Greece Credit Rating Downgraded; Facebook I.P.O. Valued At $100 Billion?; Rock Icon Overcomes Hearing Loss; Size Matters
Aired June 14, 2011 - 07:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A government building in Iraq seizes by gunman.
I'm Christine Romans.
Dozens of people have been taken hostage just outside Baghdad.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: A blimp burst into flames.
I'm Kiran Chetry.
Hear how the pilot saved the lives of his passengers, took his own life, though, just seconds before that blimp exploded.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: And the president now weighing in on the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal.
I'm Ali Velshi.
President Obama has advice the New York congressman may not be able to ignore -- on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(MUSIC)
ROMANS: Good morning, everybody! It is Tuesday, June 14th. The morning after the big showdown that wasn't really a showdown. It was more of a show up against the president last night.
CHETRY: That's right. Right. At least seven of the GOP candidates that are running for president. You had to see a little bit of them, get to know them a little more. We'll have more on that.
But we have some breaking news out of the Iraq this morning where gunmen have taken dozens of hostages inside a government building northeast of Baghdad. Iraqi officials say the attacker stormed the provincial council building in Baquba after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a main entrance. Then a car bomb exploded nearby. At least eight people were killed and more than two dozen injured in these two attacks.
VELSHI: Investigators are trying to figure out what caused a Goodyear blimp to burst into flames and crash over the weekend in Germany. Witnesses say the blimp caught fire while it was trying to land. The pilot killed in the accident but he managed to save his passengers, telling them to jump to safety before the blimp exploded. Investigators say it could take weeks before they know what went wrong.
ROMANS: And amazingly, all seven passengers this World War II bomber managed to escape after it crashed into an Illinois cornfield. It happened yesterday shortly after the plane took off. The pilot apparently made the emergency landing after an engine caught fire.
CHETRY: Wow.
Well, seven candidates and one target. GOP presidential contenders faced off last night. It was the first major debate of the presidential race. They went easy on the front-runner Mitt Romney, choosing not to pick a fight amongst each other. But they all focus their fire on the man they're hoping to beat in 2012.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R), MINNESOTA: Clearly, President Obama has failed in leadership.
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This president has failed.
BACHMANN: His report card right now has a big failing grade on it.
ROMNEY: Any one of the people on this stage would be a better president.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
VELSHI: Earlier on AMERICAN MORNING, Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs was here to fire back a bit on some of the criticism. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, OBAMA CAMPAIGN SPOKESMAN: I think you saw last night, that Republicans wanted to spend more time trying to bash the president than talking about their own records. You know, if you're Mitt Romney and you've ranked 47th out of 50 in terms of state job creation when you were governor or Tim Pawlenty, who left Minnesota with $6.2 billion deficit, it's no wonder you'd want to talk about somebody else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Gibbs also suggested that Republican voters aren't satisfied with anyone right now. And that the field is still unsettled.
ROMANS: So, who won?
A poll of GOP insiders says Mitt Romney didn't do anything to hurt his front-runner status last night, that front-runner status. Fifty-one percent saying he was the biggest winner. But Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, she scored big points, too. She was the only other candidate in double digit, at 21 percent.
CHETRY: And in just a few minutes, we're going to talk about who came out on top and whether any of the candidates made a connection with viewers and voters potentially. CNN senior political analyst David Gergen and "National Journal's" Ron Brownstein will join us.
VELSHI: Now, even the president is nudging him out the door. President Obama, for the first time, is weighing in on Congressman Weiner sexting scandal.
ROMANS: Saying it's taking away from real problems and real discussions, a distraction.
Ed Henry live at the White House.
Ed, when you -- when the president of the United States suggesting, not saying outright, but suggesting this -- and it is also, of course, the moral authority of your own party. I mean, that's a pretty difficult position to be in.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a pretty clear signal this president, Christine, saying, "Enough, already, Congressman Weiner. It's time to go." He did this in an interview with Ann Curry on NBC's "Today" show.
And what he was trying to make is a broader point that this is a distraction for the Democratic Party right now. You saw those Republican candidates at the debate last night, taking aim at the president on jobs, health care, et cetera. The president wants to fire back. He wants to focus on the economy. He wants to focus on some of the Republican proposed Medicare cuts.
But it's hard for him to do that. It's being drowned out, in part, by all of the stories about Weiner.
So, this is what the president had to say to NBC. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ultimately, there's going to be a decision for him and his constituents. I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: So the president did not directly say he should resign. But by saying, I would resign in this position -- it's a not so subtle signal, maybe not a shove, but a strong push, guys.
CHETRY: Also, it's interesting, though, because he did stop short of actually calling for Congressman Weiner to resign. I mean, he is walking a tight rope here as well, I mean, even wading into it.
HENRY: Right. And the bottom line is, why would he not directly call for the resignation? Well, look, that would just pour more gasoline on the fire, number one. And number two, what if Weiner decides not to resign? It looks like the president has no juice in his party.
You said he's the moral authority in the party. But if he says, you know, resign directly and he doesn't, it makes him, the president, look weak right now. And, frankly, as much as the president and Democratic leaders want him to go, they frankly just don't know what's going on inside Anthony Weiner's head right now, guys.
ROMANS: How long has this been going on now, three weeks?
HENRY: Yes.
ROMANS: I mean, you covered a lot of politics. I never thought this would last three weeks with the president weighing in on it. I mean, it's silly town.
HENRY: Right. And it's just dragged on and on, and that's why they, frankly, want him to go. I mean, I remember this breaking right at the end of the trip we were on with the president in Europe. And that happened when the president wanted to come home and talk about jobs. He wanted to talk about the special election in Upstate New York three weeks ago where the Democrat won by hitting the Republicans on the Medicare issue.
But instead, he's come back to the Weiner story. It's overshadowed a lot of issues. They want it over.
ROMANS: The New York political story completely different than what the Democrats and the White House thought it would be this time around.
All right. Ed Henry -- thanks, Ed.
HENRY: Good seeing you.
CHETRY: Following severe weather, especially in Colorado. Take a look at these pictures. Heavy rain and hail the size of golf balls. The video is shot by a group of storm chaser. This is in eastern Colorado. It's on Highway 36, at the town of Anton.
As dark as the sky is, you can actually see a rainbow through that storm.
VELSHI: Really? You can see a rainbow there?
ROMANS: I see a lot of hail.
CHETRY: They keep saying you can see a rainbow.
VELSHI: I don't see any rainbow.
CHETRY: Maybe it's in the video yet to come. We'll find it. We're going to keep looking for the rainbow and perhaps a pot of gold.
VELSHI: It's Kiran's special rainbow.
CHETRY: Pot of gold at the end of it.
VELSHI: Kiran always sees that rainbow.
All right. Rising Mississippi River punching two holes in two separate levees along the Iowa/Missouri border. The first breach was some 300 feet wide. And officials fear it could flood the town of Hamburg, Iowa. The second levee failed in Holt County, Missouri, sending floodwaters into nearby farmland.
ROMANS: The Missouri River just swollen there coming between that.
VELSHI: Look at that break. Yes.
ROMANS: All right. Fire crews making progress in the so- called "wallow fire" in Arizona, that has burned more than 700 square miles. Right now, the fire is about 10 percent contained.
Fire crews shifting their focus now to building fire lines in New Mexico now. Officials have even closed the famous Carlsbad Taverns.
CHETRY: When you take a look at that, can you imagine how back-breaking and hot that these fighters -- I mean, they are bringing in from all over the country to help out, but still, only 10 percent containment, Rob. I mean, I just can't imagine.
I know you've been out on the fire lines like that. It's just -- it's dangerous work and it's back-breaking work. And they are just trying to get a handle on this thing.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And the size of this thing is what's extraordinary. Almost a half million acres of it, and they've got to surround it. So, they've got -- I think a little bit more than 10 percent now.
And today, I think they'll have a better chance laying down some more fire lanes and getting a little bit more containment because the winds aren't going to be nearly what they have been.
Still, smoke a huge issue as it continues to press off into parts of New Mexico. Very bad air quality there. And we'll call it elevated fire conditions in parts of Texas and southern New Mexico, but we don't have any critical fire danger today, which is a nice reprieve from what we have seen.
We do have some issues, of course, across Missouri as the snow melts from the Northern Rockies, continues to filter in. That is dumping into the Mississippi. So, we got issues there.
And on top of that, we got heavy rains falling across parts of Iowa, Missouri again today, and in through parts of Illinois. These aren't severe thunderstorms at the moment but they could become severe later on today in this part of the world.
We do have heat as well. Up and over 100 in parts of Texas and Georgia. South Carolina and Arkansas are also getting to that mark and it's going to be steamy, again, across parts of the south. Dallas could very easily get to a hundred degrees today; 101 expected in Houston. As far as what it feels like, that's with the humidity.
And also in Atlanta, 91 degrees. We got a little bit of drier air that's moving into Nashville and moving into Columbia and moving into Atlanta. So, it won't be as quite bad there. But points south and west -- yes, it's going to be sizzling.
Meanwhile, 74 in Chicago, and not too shabby. And 65, still unsettled and cloudy in New York City. But you'll certainly take that.
By the way, Kiran, there was a rainbow at the end of that.
CHETRY: All right. We have isolated the rainbow! Can we please cue it! Oh!
VELSHI: Look at that.
CHETRY: That is beautiful. We just threw that on real quick and it totally worked!
MARCIANO: Yes, 45 seconds into the video. Editors don't quite get we don't have time for 45 seconds.
VELSHI: Kiran kept talking about this rainbow. And I'm like, well, does she -- is she seeing something we haven't seen? Do we need to get, call somebody in for this?
MARCIANO: No, it's there.
ROMANS: We all talk so fast! Technically, it should be able to come up by the time we are done talking.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: There it is.
VELSHI: All right, Kiran, vindicated.
ROMANS: Rob Marciano -- thanks, Rob.
CHETRY: Thanks, Rob.
VELSHI: I feel bad. Do I have to sit in the time-out corner?
CHETRY: No, but you owe me 5 bucks.
VELSHI: I do owe you 5 bucks. I said certainly there is no rainbow there.
All right. Broadway, "Spider-Man" is finally going to swing from the rafters. You heard about this. This colossal, budget overruns, bad reviews, injuries. The estimated $80 million production opens today.
It's been plagued with delays, show-stopping technical glitches, most expensive show to ever hit Broadway. U2 composing the music for it. Apparently, it's supposed to be fantastic.
ROMANS: (INAUDIBLE) said that they are quoted as saying they really had no idea what they were getting into.
VELSHI: Yes. They're at the Tonys on Sunday night saying that.
ROMANS: I saw the U2 360 Jumbo jet at Newark yesterday.
VELSHI: Yes, because they were here at the Tonys and then the launch of this, and it's going to be good.
ROMANS: All right. It's hockey the way Lord Stanley meant it to be. Boston Bruins beat Vancouver Canucks last night.
VELSHI: That's not what Lord Stanley meant.
CHETRY: He wanted it to get -- he wanted it to, you know, to be a good competition and it has been. Game seven now night or tomorrow night?
ROMANS: That's right. Of course, game seven is a deciding game in their Stanley Cup final series. That's tomorrow night in Vancouver.
CHETRY: And home team has won every time in this series. So, tomorrow, it's in Vancouver.
ROMANS: Do you think Kiran (INAUDIBLE) both of us with sports knowledge?
VELSHI: Yes, it's not a good game for us to get involved in with Kiran on sports. But this is hockey. So, it's a little bit more my turf.
ROMANS: Leave it, of course, to (INAUDIBLE).
CHETRY: You watched the NBA finals, right? Of course.
VELSHI: That was -- two teams.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: The one beat the other one? No, I was at the Tonys. I was at the Tonys. In fact, Chris rock was there. He said a year ago, if someone had told me he would be missing the most exciting basketball game ever to get an award at the Tonys, he would not believe it.
CHETRY: And there he was.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: All right. Well, still ahead, can Air Canada agents go on strike? I'm sure you --
VELSHI: Yes. Well, a lot of international flights, particularly Asia, go in through Toronto and through Vancouver. So, it's going to affect a lot of travelers here in the U.S.
ROMANS: All right. How strong is the economic recovery? What happens next? It's a there a hint of a double dip here? Do we need another stimulus?
VELSHI: Are we going to get another stimulus?
ROMANS: Could it even possibly and politically get another stimulus?
Coming up, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff.
CHETRY: Also, it is listed at $150 million. Now, the most expensive home for sale in the country -- there it is -- has sold. So, who is buying that mega-mansion?
ROMANS: Wow.
CHETRY: We'll tell you after the break.
Eleven minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Fourteen minutes past the hour right now.
A look at Washington, D.C., the White House this morning. Partly cloudy, 66. A little bit later going up to a high of 78. Pretty nice weather actually in Washington.
Meanwhile, last night, it was all about New Hampshire. Seven Republicans hoping to, one day, call the White House home, faced off last night in the first major debate of the 2012 race.
And the poll shows that the front-runner Mitt Romney held firm. He came out on top in the debate as well. Fifty-one percent saying they believe he won, while Congresswoman Michele Bachmann may have showed the nation that she's also for real. She came in second place, 21 percent who watched said that they thought she won that debate.
Joining us now is CNN senior political analyst, David Gergen, and political director for the "National Journal," Ron Brownstein. Good to have both of you with us this morning from Manchester. I'll start with David, and then, Ron, you answer as well. Who do you think stood out the most last night to you, David?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it was -- just had very much a spring training feel to it. It was a warm-up game, very important, because, suddenly, Barack Obama looked much more vulnerable than he did only a few months ago. So, this is a nomination very much worth taking. I think Governor Romney have putted himself well. He came in. He was much more relaxed as a candidate than he was four years ago.
I think, generally speaking, he seemed the experience is working well for him. And very importantly, I think, Ron, a lot of people who saw this, Tim Pawlenty was expected to go out and take a couple hard swipes at him when he ducked, and Romney was able to pivot off of that and actually turn health care into a positive story for himself. I think all of us thought, wow, he walked away from this unscathed.
The surprise for those who haven't followed her because she is doing very well out in Iowa was Michelle Bachmann. She came in as she was feisty. She was interesting. She self-revealing, and she wound in owner biography twice she told the audience that she had 23 foster children, along with five natural born children. So, I think a lot of people looked at her and said, wow!
CHETRY: Ron, did she do well as these people didn't expect as much from her or because she did well in her own right?
RON BROWNSTEIN, POLITICAL DIRECTOR OF "NATIONAL JOURNAL": No. I think she did well in her own right. I think she was dynamic, and as David suggested, she used her biography to kind of deepen that identification with evangelical, I think, voters above all which is going to be probably the core of her constituency. Overall, I think it was probably in the immediate terms the best night for Mitt Romney for two reasons.
One, because as a front-runner, he came out unscarred, and any time you do that, it's a good debate. I think he was confident and calm, if not, really particularly dynamic or compelling. The other reason that was a good night for him, though, was because it was a good night for Michele Bachmann, and I think he would prefer Michele Bachmann to emerge as his most serious alternative than someone like a Tim Pawlenty.
Bachmann has a -- can generate a lot of passion, and you saw, she's a good performer, but she also has to face the issue of whether she has a ceiling in this race with a lot of Republicans who are yet to be convinced that she is a plausible actual nominee.
CHETRY: This is interesting, David, when you take a look at the field. It seems that there is an ideological sameness. I mean, at least more conservatives, less moderate Republicans. David, looking ahead to a general election with the exception of Mitt Romney, who did run in 2008 and did not become the nominee, do you see a place for more moderate or independents to come on board with a GOP candidate?
GERGEN: Well, we'll have to see whether someone like Jon Huntsman gets into the race and how he performs under this, but it was interesting on "AC 360" last night. Ron Paul was saying who'd been in the field four years ago or three years ago, that he found it much more congenial group out there because they were more conservative, both on domestic policy and on foreign policy. I think, overall, this debate would play well with a Republican base. It would surely excite a lot of conservatives, but I must tell you, I question whether it's -- they were so hard right and so uniformly against almost anything that government has touched that I'm not sure how well that played with the general electorate.
You know, whether this was sort of like -- there are an awful a lot of people looking for an alternative to President Obama. Whether this is the alternative they're looking for, I think it's going to be an interesting question.
BROWNSTEIN: For me, that was the big take-away of the debate, which is that I think it gave you a signal this race is going to be more about authenticity and electability that ideology. You saw very little ideological differentiation between the candidates.
In many ways, it felt that there is a consensus in the party that's already developed from the tea party, from these activist conservative governors, from Paul Ryan and the House Republicans, and these candidates are auditioning to see who can make the best case in delivering the agenda that is largely being delivered on to them by the party rather than vice versa, and that's a little unusual in presidential politics.
CHETRY: It was unusual to hear the quote from Amy Kramer of the tea party saying that we're going to pick the candidate -- we're going to hand the GOP candidate. We're not going to have to go along with the one that's handed to us unlike other years. So, that was interesting. We'll see if they really have as much pull as what we, perhaps, saw last night and what we're hearing from the tea party. David Gergen and Rob Brownstein, great to talk to both of you this morning. Thanks.
GERGEN: Thank you.
CHETRY: Well, he is the non-candidate that everyone is talking about as well. This is New Jersey governor, Chris Christie. He joins Piers Morgan tonight at nine o'clock. Is he -- I mean, he's gotten a lot of calls to jump into the race. People have said they'll support him, but is he considering it? We'll hear tonight a little bit about conversation on Piers Morgan.
VELSHI: How does body size affect your salary? We're going to be discussing a new study that says that men that are bigger than the average do better while women who are substantially smaller than the average earn more.
ROMANS: Yes, 25-pound difference could mean an awful lot of money.
Plus, big buzz on Wall Street today about Facebook. Could Facebook be going public? We've heard these rumors before. Could it be worth more than $100 billion?
VELSHI: No.
ROMANS: Wow. We're going to tell you more about that twenty minutes after the break. Half of the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Twenty-four minutes after the hour. "Minding Your Business" this morning. Air Canada's customer service and sales employees walked off the job at midnight last night after they couldn't reach an agreement with the airline on pension plans. Air Canada says the airline is fully operational but warns of long lines check-in. Be careful you, Americans, who are transiting through Canada.
Americans paid almost $5.7 billion in airline fees last year. That's according to the Department of Transportation. Most of that money came from baggage fees and fees to change reservations.
The state of Illinois considering selling advertising space on its license plates to make some extra money without raising taxes. Texas already allows corporate ads on plates in that state.
Standard & Poor's cut Greece's credit rating yesterday to CCC making it the lowest rated sovereign nation in the world. The downgrade points to a greater risk of default in the future. Right now, negotiations for a second bailout are under way for Greece.
Right now, stock futures are up ahead of the opening bell. Investors looking to fresh economic data out this morning. Retail sales and the producer price index for May come out in just a few minutes, 08:30 a.m. eastern. And this afternoon, Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, speaks about the federal budget in Washington.
Big buzz on Wall Street today about Facebook going public as early as next year, and for how much? Maybe a hundred billion dollars. The fresh chatter kicked of yesterday after a report on CNBC.
And it appears Candy Spelling, the wife of late TV producer, Aaron Spelling, has found a buyer for 57,000 square foot mansion in Los Angeles with a list price of $150 million. It's the most expensive home in America. The reported buyer, 22-year-old Formula One heiress, Petra Ecclestone.
She said she needed the home because she'll be putting her time between Los Angeles and London. Of course, she needs a $150 million if putting a time between those two cities.
According to a study in the journal of applied psychology, women who are 25 pounds below the average female weight take home $15,000 more a year than other women, while men who are 25 pounds below the average male weight take home $8,400 less than other men.
What do you think about that? Could body size and success go hand in hand? It's our question of the day. E-mail us, give us a tweet, or tell us on Facebook. We'll read through some of them later in the show. AMERICAN MORNING right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROMANS: The fourth U.S. Senate Web site has been hacked. A review of every website associated with the Senate has now been ordered by the chamber Sgt. at Arms which hold no user account information was compromised in the vulnerability, and the system has been corrected.
CHETRY: Everyday, we talk about another major hacking, right?
ROMANS: I know. It's actually appalling.
CHETRY: Well, as a war commander, he is a short-timer, but General David Petraeus is now in Washington for meetings on the next phase of the war in Afghanistan. He'll make recommendations on the drawdowns of some 30,000 surge troops. President Obama has said that they could start coming home next month. Petraeus is also prepping for a Senate confirmation hearing next week as the new CIA director.
VELSHI: Three Democratic senators are calling for tougher gun laws in this country, and here's why. A new report says in 2009 and 2010 the Mexican government asked U.S. officials to trace 30,000 firearms used in drug-related crimes. Guess what. More than 70 percent of them came from the United States.
Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York are calling for reinstatement of assault weapons ban and better enforcement of a ban on importing military style weapons.
ROMANS: It's 30 minutes after the hour. Top stories now.
In Iraq, about a dozen gunmen have been taken hostages inside a government building northeast of Baghdad. Iraqi officials say they stormed a building in Baqubah after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the main entrance. At least eight people were killed. More than two dozen wounded in those two attacks.
President Obama adding to the pressure on Congressman Anthony Weiner. The president saying Weiner has embarrassed himself and if it was me, he said, I would resign.
Attacking President Obama rather than attacking one another, seven Republicans faced off in New Hampshire last night in the first major debate of the 2012 election. The front-runner Mitt Romney joining in on the hit parade against the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROMNEY: Any one of the people on this stage would be a better president than President Obama. He has -- he has -- he has failed in job one which was to get this economy going again. He failed in job two, which was to restrain the growth of development. And he failed in job three, which is to have a coherent and consistent foreign policy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: So did the candidates connect with GOP voters? CNN's Martin Savidge watched the debate with a family is in South Carolina.
VELSHI: He's live in Greenville, South Carolina. Martin, how did it go?
MARTIN SAVIDIGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It went pretty well. I mean, nobody fell in love last night. It was kind of a first date. It was a getting to know you kind of a session, but there was some interest. Here is what we found.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAVIDGE: Meet the Carnes. Brad, former military turned executive, business wife Wendy, a realtor, two daughters, Margaret and Rebecca. Politically --
BRETT CARNES, GREENVILLE RESIDENT: I would say they probably tends more to the left and I'm always right.
SAVIDGE: Last presidential election wars in Iraq and Afghanistan mattered most to them. This time it's the failing economy, which in a reality job Wendy has seen and felt.
WENDY CARNES, GREENVILLE RESIDENT: It's been hard. I work the same or more hours as I did five or six years ago and making a third of the money.
SAVIDGE: And that is just how the debate started, with the economy.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: What would you do as president of the United States to create jobs?
HERMAN CAIN, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The thing we need to do is to get this economy boosted.
TIM PAWLENTY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What we need is an economy that is unshackled.
MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What this president has done has slowed the economy.
SAVIDGE: All of the candidates blasted the Obama administration. But 35 minutes in, Brett still wasn't hearing what he wanted to hear.
BRETT CARNES, DEBATE WATCHER: That is the stupidest answer I've ever heard. To me, it's just been political posturing, getting their big talking points out, you know? They got to check those blocks. I haven't heard anything about me.
SAVIDGE: And even after two hours, the couple still hadn't heard enough when it came to making the economy better, frustrated by a format that stressed short answers.
BRETT CARNES: It's taken several years for us to get into the situation. You won't solve it in a 30-second answer.
SAVIDGE (on camera): Did you see a candidate up there on that stage you think can beat President Obama?
BRETT CARNES: Yes. I saw seven. How many did you see?
(LAUGHTER)
WENDY CARNES: I think it would be interesting to watch one of them debate him.
SAVIDGE: So I do see a little bit of a divide here?
BRETT CARNES: Just a little.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SAVIDGE: As for the qualities that this couple is looking for in their candidate, they don't want to see long-term politicians. They prefer to see CEOs. They want people who have business experience because they say that is the experience need now to get this country out of its economic doldrums. Back to you.
VELSHI: Were they both independents or Republicans, or was she a Democrat?
SAVIDGE: Well, pretty much Wendy is the independent here and Brett is pretty much the conservative of the group here. And one of the things I should point out here, what they did like, they liked what John King was doing there with that or this. They thought those were insightful moments. You get the candidate, you ask them a question. Even though it's a simple sort of thing, blackberry, iPhone, those responses gave you kind of a candidate insight into the personality that many times it seemed the candidates were on the guard. You weren't getting the real person. So they liked that.
CHETRY: If Mitt Romney said he liked his wings mild, see, he is boring and you needs to spice it up!
VELSHI: Blackberry or iPhone, Martin? Put you on the spot.
SAVIDGE: I have got the blackberry.
VELSHI: He says that with remorse!
ROMANS: Throw an iPad in for good measure.
VELSHI: Martin, good to see you.
SAVIDGE: Good to see you both.
ROMANS: Unemployment stuck at more than nine percent. Dire warnings about the nation's debt and growth stalled. Is it time to worry again about the economy? Up next, economist Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: That is Boston. Cloudy, 56, showers, 59 later today. For many of you at home during the recession, you learned how to spend less and pay off your bills. The same can't be said for Washington. The government reached its debt limit. Last week Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, a ranking member of the House budget committee, used the work of our next guest against raising the debt ceiling without deep cuts in federal spending.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS, (R-AL): We cannot continue to borrow and spend and this is threatening the American growth. And the economic studies of Rogoff and Reinhart are when you reach 90 percent of your GDP, your economy, the debt equaling that, then you lose one percent of economic growth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Joining me now is Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics at Harvard University, a man that has literally written the book on financial crises, cited widely by both sides quite frankly. Welcome.
KENNETH ROGOFF, ECONOMIST, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Thank you, Christine.
ROMANS: Do we need to get our debt under control or hurt our economy in the near term?
ROGOFF: We need to think about the trajectory of our debt which is clearly unsustainable. It is at a very high level. Unfortunately, the economy is very weak and not easy to have quick fixes on that side. We're not getting a lot of tax revenues. That is the biggest problem.
ROMANS: What about cutting spending? Cutting is aggressively you're hearing cutting deeply. Could that hurt the economy more in the near term?
ROGOFF: Yes. Looking at how weak the numbers are recently, jobs weren't as good as people had hoped, I think it's a little hard to rush things, and you have to get the trajectory right. It's hard to move a big ship like this quickly. We're going in the wrong direction, no doubt about that. We do have to do something. Greece got the lowest credit rating in the world recently. We're not there yet, but in 15 years if we don't do something we will be.
ROMANS: In the meantime, we rely on the thoughtful economic analysis of our elected leaders to make sure they get it just right for all of the right reasons?
ROGOFF: No comment.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: I didn't think I could get you to go there. Let me ask you about that debt we talk about, the federal deficits and the big national debt. There's also consumer debt. That is the big debt burden in America that a lot of people thought they dodged that bullet. We have a lot of consumer debt in this country still.
ROGOFF: That's exactly right. The mortgages are still out there that caused the problem in the first place. I think one of the things we need to address is find a way for a lot of people to bring their payments down or we're going to keep having housing prices fall and keep having foreclosures and unemployment will still be a problem. I think the consumer debt is a big piece of the problem.
ROMANS: How do we fix it? I know it's a recovery but it doesn't feel good. It still feels like a recession for so many people. I think politically you will hear that more on the campaign trail as well. How do we fix it?
ROGOFF: Unfortunately, there just isn't a quick fix. And what you have to do when you have a deep financial crisis like we have had and we haven't had one since World War II, since the Great Depression, you just have to work on the fundamentals. And it's boring. Education, infrastructure and prove our tax system. It's boring. Finding quick jobs is not easy. But we could do something about the mortgages because that's at the core of one of our big problems.
ROMANS: What can we do?
ROGOFF: I think we need to have a program that allows people to perhaps, say, reduce debt in return for maybe giving up some of the upside of their houses prize, if there is any.
ROMANS: I see. We have had federal programs for the mortgage problem but it hasn't worked very well.
ROGOFF: We have, but it's been sort of hard to get something that everyone agrees on and it hasn't been all in yet. And I think we need to pursue that more aggressively.
ROMANS: Larry Summers, the first sort of nationally economic adviser for the president, he just wrote an op-ed saying we need to have a public works style stimulus, another big spending plan and maybe focusing on infrastructure. The 10 year interest rates are three percent or lower. We have 20 percent of unemployment in the construction industry. This could be a way to get people working.
ROGOFF: Infrastructure is something we need to fix. It's not all a money problem. Part of it is we can't get the right-of-way. You want to build a road and you have to get everyone along the way you can build the road. There could be private money in there. It doesn't all have to be public money.
At the same time, budget deficit is very big and I think basically bringing it down gradually. I don't think a big stimulus is necessarily what is called for. But, on the other hand, you can't pull out really quickly either. ROMANS: What is the best case scenario for the economic growth at this point? Tim Pawlenty on the campaign trail talking about what we could do to have five percent economic growth. I mean, that seems very optimistic considering what we are seeing right now in the economy.
ROGOFF: It's possible. I mean, it's very hard to predict a couple years out. It really is. What you don't want to do is panic and do crazy things that shoot yourself in the foot, for example, reducing trade, doing something to put up trade barriers, regulations that reduce growth.
We're the greatest country in the world. We are the richest economy in the world. Our fundamentals are pretty good. You don't to get off that program completely. It's not exciting to say let's spend money, here is the quick fix. There isn't a quick fix.
ROMANS: I like that, though, that it's not impossible.
ROGOFF: No, it's not, it's not. There's so much uncertainty. It's easy to think what could go wrong but I've been around long enough. Things just often go great, and you go, of course, the technology revolution was going to come. Of course, it was going to be fantastic. It's very hard to predict.
ROMANS: Fantastic. Ken Rogoff, thank you for joining us.
ROGOFF: Thank you, Christine.
ROMANS: Morning headlines are next. It's 44 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: 46 minutes past the hour. Here are you're morning headlines.
We start in Iraq, where gunmen have taken hostages inside of a government building northeast of Baghdad. The attacker stormed the provincial council building in Baqubah after a suicide bomber blew himself up at the main entrance and a car bomb that exploded nearby. At least eight people were killed and several others injured.
A blimp caught fire and crashed over the weekend in Germany. The pilot is being called a hero for ordering the three passengers to jump from the blimp just before it went down. Unfortunately, the pilot was killed in that crash.
The second largest wildfire in Arizona's history has spread to New Mexico. It's now threatening the Carlsbad Cavern State Park. At least 200 tourists were ordered to evacuate. I said national park rather, the fire is about 10 percent contained. And fire crews say that the extremely dry conditions are a big concern.
President Obama is leaving for a historic visit for Puerto Rico this morning. This is the first presidential visit to the island in 50 years.
A poll of GOP insiders saying Mitt Romney won last night's Republican presidential debate. But the Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann scored some big points too coming in second place.
Three pieces of duct tape at the center of the Casey Anthony murder trial. They were found with the remains of the 2-year-old Caylee Anthony. But an FBI expert says she can't positively connect the duct tape to the suspected killer because there are no fingerprints on it.
A market watch now, the markets open in 45 minutes. And right now, the DOW, NASDAQ and S&P futures are up despite a new government report showing retail sales fell in May for the first time in 11 months.
You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING is back after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Memphis, Tennessee, some clouds and in case you didn't want to take our word for it. We angled the cameras that way --
CHETRY: Did you see that rainbow?
VELSHI: 32 degrees. There's going to be thunderstorms and 97. I thought thunderstorms were supposed to kind of cool it down a little bit? But not in Memphis. Right, Rob? Rob Marciano?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It may --
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: He's looking for the rainbows? I'm sorry everybody.
VELSHI: Rob is looking for the rainbow as well.
MARCIANO: Winds at 70 miles an hour yesterday.
VELSHI: Wow.
MARCIANO: That will cool -- will cool you down.
VELSHI: That will cool you down yes.
MARCIANO: Also cooling you down -- I know you guys have seen this but you've got to play the hits. It's the third time we've shown this. In case you missed it, now if you're just waking up with us on the West Coast. Here is the Bay Area, baby. This is the Oracle racing boat. Look at that catamaran go topsy-turvy; all the sailors hanging on for dear life there. They are wearing helmets. This is a kind of an experimental type of catamaran, a 45-footer.
The real one that they are going to race in 2013 in America's Cup is 72 feet, so almost twice the size of that. They've got some more testing to go with that, obviously.
Well, not a bad day today across the San Francisco. Across the East Coast, we're looking at cool weather across the northeast and still steamy down across parts of the south. Although there are little pockets of drier air as this kind of front has kind of broken its way across the parts of the mid south to alleviate some of that humidity at the very least. But this time of the year, it comes back fairly quickly.
All right, here are some of those thunderstorms that are rolling across parts of Iowa and Illinois. Some of these have a lot of heavy rain with them and they are drifting down towards the south and east towards the Tennessee River Valley. It might not get all the way down to Memphis, at least right now. But later on today, as the heat builds up, you may see some more thunderstorms pop.
Across parts of North Texas, temperatures yesterday well up and over 100 degrees, record-breakers there; also a record breaker in Savannah with a temperature of 102 degrees and north Little Rock, Arkansas, seeing 97. So that's on the steamy side for sure.
Here is what we expect to see today as far as when you take temperatures and you combine that with the humidity, what it actually feels like out there at the heat index, 102 is what it's going to feel like today in Little Rock and 102 expected for a heat index in -- in Jackson.
But notice Atlanta, Columbia, and Nashville; that's where that little sliver of drier air and then boy, that makes all of the difference in the world when you got dry heat versus a moist heat. That's when it gets to be miserable.
Actual air temperature in Dallas today expected to be 100 degrees; 98 degrees expected in Memphis; 74 in Chicago; but 65, my goodness, that is a cold snap of gigantic proportions compared to what the -- you were seeing last week with record-breaking temperatures near a 100 degrees, almost a 40-degree cool off for the Big Apple.
So yes, three-piece suit -- that's the way to go when it's 65 degrees. You're dressed perfectly, Ali.
VELSHI: That's the weather is rest --
ROMANS: Wow.
CHETRY: Yes and the air conditioning has got a little bit of a break which is a nice thing.
MARCIANO: Yes.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: I was in New Hampshire yesterday and it was football weather.
CHETRY: I saw you. Poor Christine, every time she wasn't on camera, she had a little stadium blanket around her.
ROMANS: Oh it was 8:00 and one of the photo journalists said, wow, we just broke 52 degrees. It was cold up there.
CHETRY: All right, Rob.
VELSHI: Were you Kiss fans? I was a Kiss fan.
CHETRY: Yes my husband was such a huge Kiss fan. He is a member of the Kiss Army.
VELSHI: Yes, yes. And there (INAUDIBLE) right around by the way, there's a whole new generation of Kiss fans.
CHETRY: They've managed to stay relevant for decades.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: They have yes.
CHETRY: But one thing you might not know about them is actually Paul Stanley was born deaf in one ear and he helped make a band that, of course, became bigger in rock 'n' roll.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more on this morning's "Human Factor".
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL STANLEY, GUITARIST/LEAD SINGER, KISS: Everybody clap your hands.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To rock 'n' roll all night and party every day. That's always been Paul Stanley's dream.
STANLEY: If somebody had told me at 58, 59 I'd be running around on stage without a shirt, you know, and in tights and high heels, I would have said, what drug are you taking?
GUPTA: But the road to rock stardom as the front man for Kiss was difficult. Few people know it but Stanley was born with a condition that should have steered him away from music.
STANLEY: I had a physical deformity called microcia (ph).
GUPTA: One of Stanley's inner ears -- the ear canal which conveys sound to the brain never developed. Figuring out the direction of sound was particularly challenging. And he was also born with an underdeveloped outer ear.
(on camera): Did you get teased a lot? With a tough problem?
STANLEY: It was horrible. And you know, I have to say that childhood was not fun.
GUPTA: You decided to grow your hair out. I mean, and that's become such a signature look of you and the band. Was that, in part because of wanting to hide your ears?
STANLEY: Absolutely.
GUPTA: So you grew your hair out to do that?
STANLEY: Absolutely.
GUPTA (voice-over): Strength and a bit of defiance got Stanley through the taunting.
STANLEY: Something told me inside that I could do music and interestingly, being deaf in one ear was not something that I saw as a hardship or something that was a hindrance at all.
GUPTA: But eventually, off-stage, hearing loss did become a hindrance so Stanley had surgery.
STANLEY: Basically, you take a power drill and aim into the head.
GUPTA: The surgery was successful but it does not equal self- acceptance. That, Stanley, learned over time and by working with kids.
(on camera): You talk to kids who have microcia. So they're -- they're right now -- they're like Mr. Stanley, I'm -- I'm the one getting teased on the playground and I'm not a rock star.
STANLEY: And how cool it is for them to hear somebody say I was there and look what I did. You can get through this and you'll find out how much something means to you by how hard you're willing to work to overcome in.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: A pretty shot of Central Park today. You can see the ball fields there. Nice and green. And a little bit later maybe a little wet, 65 degrees with a chance of showers and mostly cloudy here in New York today.
ROMANS: All right, the waitresses at the newest W. Hotel in lower Manhattan are bringing sexy back. Check out their new outfits, uniforms actually. They are tuxedo-inspired vests and shorts. They knew the Wall Street folks who visit the hotel's bar say, hey, it's a nice departure from the little black dress but others say the outfit looked a little --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: What do you mean a little black dress? What hotels check people in little black dresses?
ROMANS: I don't know.
VELSHI: I mean, we'll I got to tell you. I -- I --
CHETRY: Wait, are these servers? Are they cocktail waitresses?
VELSHI: It says servers.
CHETRY: Ok. So they're waitresses or cocktail waitresses --
VELSHI: Right.
You know I don't know, it doesn't -- they might be making much to do about not that much. It's not for me. Nobody was suggesting it was.
CHETRY: They just need the rest of your outfit.
ROMANS: All of those women are thin, which leads us to believe they could make more money.
VELSHI: Because there's this new survey out that size really matters when it comes to how much money you take home. It's a study in a "Journal of Applied Psychology". I was smooth. I moved from that to that.
(CROSSTALK)
CHETRY: Smooth until you stopped.
VELSHI: Women who are 25 pounds below the average female weight take home $15,000 more a year than other women. Men who are 25 pounds below the average male weight take home $8,500 less than other men. So bigger men take home heftier pay checks.
ROMANS: And skinnier women take home heftier paychecks. What do you think? Do size and success go hand in hand? It's our question of the day.
Here are some of your responses.
VELSHI: Rob on Facebook says, "You have to take a lot of things into consideration when looking at a person's success. Remember that the management likes people who are more like themselves, size and all.
ROMANS: (INAUDIBLE) on Facebook writes, "Any thoughts to the possibility that adults with higher salaries have more money to spend on working out? Individuals with lower income simply can't afford to spend as much on healthy foods or gym membership."
ROMANS: Rose Row on Facebook says, "Considering that men are in control of the business world, it is not surprising that they want to hire women they consider attractive which in our society is slim and blonde. So many talented women are overlooked because they don't fit that mold, especially the media." We have a long way to go. You know, the thing is this is the third or fourth response we have had about how blonds are honored in society.
VELSHI: Yes. People are super-imposing their own -- they're projecting their own ideas on to a different survey. We will do that survey next week about blonds versus brunettes. But this week, it's skinny versus fat.
CHETRY: That's right. All right. Well, meanwhile, another non-blonde to bring us the news. CNN NEWSROOM with Kyra Phillips starts right now. Hey Kyra.
