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Debt Talks Deadlocked; Report: Murdock Papers Targeted Former Prime Minister Brown; Obama Challenges GOP; Summer Scorcher; Stun Gun Found on JetBlue Flight; New Gun Reporting Requirements; Harry Potter Fever Hits America; New Calorie Displaying Rules for Restaurants
Aired July 12, 2011 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Rupert Murdoch's media empire coming under fire. Published reports say that his newspapers illegally accessed the bank accounts of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the medical records of his ill son. Now, Brown was firing back on this AMERICAN MORNING.
And good morning to you. It's Tuesday, July 12th. Glad you're with us on this AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry along with Ali Velshi. Christine Romans is taking some time off.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Up first, the widening tabloid scandal that has Rupert Murdoch's media empire struggling. According to publish reports, Murdoch's newspapers illegally accessed the bank accounts of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the medical records of his seriously ill son.
After a phone hacking scandal forced Murdoch to shut down "News of the World" on Sunday, this developments have disrupted his plans to take over British sky broadcasting or BskyB with news corporation's market value taking a 10-figure hit.
Let's go live to Dan Rivers in London with the latest. Dan, the story developing on many fronts, on the financial front, on the political front, and on the criminal front.
DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. I mean, the latest here is that Gordon Brown has now been sort of dragged into this scandal with suggestions that his bank records were hacked by one other Murdoch newspaper, "The Sunday Times," that his son's medical records were accessed by a different Murdoch paper, "The Sun" newspaper.
Now, there are several sides to this story. He's come out and done an interview this morning talking about how he was in tears when he found out that his son's medical records have been accessed. "The Sun" is saying they got those records legitimately without breaking the law, and some of his critics, Gordon Brown's critics, are saying, look, he's still attended the wedding of Rebekah Brooks, the then editor of "The Sun" even after these allegations were published.
So was he really that upset if he was willing to accept that wedding invitation? There are a lot of different facets to this story. As you say, there are the financial aspects as well with the share price of News International taking an absolute hammering. And this morning some of the policemen who have been involved with this inquiry past and present are being questioned by politicians as well. So we're watching that one closely.
VELSHI: All right, Dan, we're going to be following this. Obviously there are new developments really every few hours it seems of this. You'll stay on it and we'll check in with you again. Dan Rivers in London.
CHETRY: Also new this morning Afghan President Hamid Karzai's half- brother found shot to death at his home in Kandahar. Ahmed Wali Karzai was the provincial council chief of Kandahar. He suffered gunshot wounds to his head and chest according to hospital officials. A spokesman for Kandahar's government claims that a guard is responsible for the shooting. The Taliban claims the guard was working for them. The U.S. has long suspected Ahmed Wali Karzai was involved in narcotics trafficking.
The divide between the U.S. and Pakistan growing even wider this morning now that Pakistan has arrested a local doctor, accusing him of helping the CIA set up a fake vaccination sting to track down Osama bin Laden.
Reza Sayah live from Islamabad this morning.
So how did the sting work, and how did the doctor's arrest impact the already damaged relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan?
REZA SAYAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this thing is straight out of a spy novel, Kiran. A Pakistani intelligence source tells us that this Pakistani doctor is in custody. It's not clear if he's going to be charged with anything. We do know that he's suspected of being linked with a very intricate CIA plot to confirm that, indeed, bin Laden was hiding out in Abbottabad.
The source tells us this doctor had staged a fake vaccination campaign offering free vaccinations and polio drops to people and children in Abbottabad. According to the British paper "The Guardian" he hired two nurses who were going around house to house offering shots. And the plan was to use the vaccine, the syringe, from the bin Laden kids or extract blood from them and match that DNA with the DNA from blood from bin Laden's sister who passed away in Boston, Massachusetts, last year.
We did talk to a number of residents in Abbottabad today. Indeed they say in late April these two nurses were going around house to house. We talked to one resident who said she accepted some of the vaccinations. It's not clear -- we haven't verified if indeed they made it into the bin Laden compound. One official has told "The Guardian" paper that the plan was in place but it didn't succeed in getting the appropriate DNA samples.
So a very intricate plot and it really shows you to what length the CIA was going to confirm the presence of bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
CHETRY: It is fascinating. Wow. Reza Sayah for us this morning in Islamabad, thanks so much.
VELSHI: The heat is on full blast. Warnings and advisories are in effect in 23 states where the heat index is expected to top 105 degrees. This extreme heat is being blamed for at least one death in Madison County, Illinois. In Oklahoma, it caused a highway pavement to buckle. Look at this. A motorcyclist was injured after his bike went over the damaged portion of road. In Arkansas several communities have opened cooling centers to beat the heat, which is on everybody's mind.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Judging by the way I'm sweating, it's eight out of a scale of 10. It's pretty hot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It might get 10 by tomorrow. Are you ready for that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'll probably stay inside.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We stay in air conditioning as much as we possibly can. Our trucks are air conditioned, thank god.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your brain cannot function at temperature extremes. And so if you get too hot you can start having problems and you can have long-term damage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Right now nearly 400,000 people in the Chicago area are without power following the worst storm in a decade. Utility officials say it could be several days before many of the customers are back online.
Here's what the storm looked like as it blew through Rockford, Illinois. Wow. Driving rains and powerful winds brought down tree limbs and littered the road with debris.
CHETRY: Wow. CNN's Rob Marciano is tracking is the extreme weather. They need a little rain.
(CROSSTALK)
But boy, we could certainly use a little rain to cool things down. Hey, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's the problem, guys. You definitely want that cooling shower in the afternoon. But with this sort of energy in the atmosphere and heat buildup you can get some blowups.
This is what happened last night on the radar. There's the bow echo. Here we go again, cruising right through. Pretty much wreaked peak intensity across southern Lake Michigan and then blows down to the south and east. There are winds gusting 70, 80 miles an hour, certainly enough to take down trees and power lines. And Com Ed saying it could be several days for those spots to get back online.
A number of heat records yesterday, but this is it on the list, and mostly in Arkansas up and over 100 degrees. It's so steamy, humidity in the air. That's really been the main factor with this heat wave at least the past couple of days. And that's why we have heat warnings and advisories that are up for a good 23, 24 states.
The pink areas, that's where the dangerous heat is. Oklahoma City back through Kansas City, Memphis and through Nashville. But now we're stretching some of those heat advisories all the way up into the northeast, including D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City as well.
Here's what we think for heat indices today and tomorrow, up and over 100 degrees in Little Rock and Memphis and Nashville. We may see a little bit of a break come Thursday and Friday, and we'll see this pattern break down just a little bit.
You don't get cold fronts that go all the way down to the south this time of year, but if we can just kind of break it up a little bit, get rid of the high keeping everything hot, hazy, and humid, we'll do a good job -- better job of that, I should say, later in the week. But the next couple of days, guys, is going to be dangerously hot. Do what you can to stay cool.
VELSHI: Inside, keep hydrated. All right, Rob, thank you.
CHETRY: Well, tensions between the Syrian regime and the U.S. reaching a new high this morning, mobs attacking the U.S. embassy in Damascus. Yesterday crowds surrounded the building, breaking windows, using spray paint. No one was hurt, but the violence comes as secretary of state Hillary Clinton unleashed her strongest criticism yet of that country's president, Bashar al Assad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: President Assad is not indispensable, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power. Our goal is to see that the will of the Syrian people for a democratic transformation occurs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Clinton went on to say that Assad has lost his legitimacy and is trying to deflect attention from his crackdown on peaceful protesters.
VELSHI: The Obama administration is moving forward with a plan that would require dealers -- gun dealers in four border states to do some extra work. Under the policy dealers in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas have to report the sale of high-powered rifles under certain conditions. This is part of an effort to stem the flow of guns to Mexican drug cartels. The National Rifle Association says it's going to sue to stop the new requirements.
CHETRY: A crowd of protesters get rowdy and shut down a San Francisco subway station. It happened last night. The group calling itself No Justice, No BART -- that's Bay Area Rapid Transit. They are upset after transit police shot and killed a drunk man who was waving a knife at that same station last week. So far no officers have been charged in that shooting.
VELSHI: The massive cheating scandal involving several public schools in Atlanta has cost four superintendents and a principal their jobs. The firings come less than a week after dozens of educators were accused of changing grades and falsifying standardized test scores. Also this morning, a new suburban Dallas school superintendent has been put on paid leave because she used to be a deputy superintendent in the Atlanta school system.
CHETRY: Earlier this morning, the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis woke up to the sounds of Matthew West and his new single "More."
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(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: The crew has a busy day ahead of them. Today will be the last spacewalk conducted with a visiting shuttle crew present. NASA also extending the shuttle mission for an extra day. Atlantis and its crew are scheduled to return next Thursday, 5:56 a.m. eastern time.
VELSHI: At 5:56 a.m. we'll just be able to watch it. Very nice.
CHETRY: Yes.
VELSHI: All right, coming up on AMERICAN MORNING President Obama says it's time to get serious about cutting a deal to raise the nation's debt limit. Republicans will not budge on taxes, and some Democrats are refusing to have anything to do with a deal that includes Medicare changes. So we're going to speak to an expert who, by the way, has worked in the treasury and says hundreds of thousands of jobs may be on the line if Washington keeps stalling.
CHETRY: The FBI is trying to figure out how a stun gun disguised as a cell phone got past TSA.
VELSHI: Because it looks like a cell phone.
CHETRY: Yep. And made it on board a flight to Newark Liberty Airport. Should they have caught it?
VELSHI: Can you imagine putting your hand in that seat back cushion and coming out with a stun gun?
CHETRY: No.
VELSHI: The Obama administration clearing the way for the government to get more information on gun purchases along our southern border. Is the new plan illegal? We're going to have both sides of the debate on the show coming up.
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VELSHI: President Obama and congressional leaders came up empty again in the talks to raise the nation's debt limit. The president and Hill leaders have agreed to meet again today with just 22 days until the nation can't cover all of its bills. And no one knows for sure what could happen to the global economy if that happens. And don't listen to anybody that tells you they do know for sure, because we don't.
Here's somebody who knows a lot about it. Joining us live from Washington is former treasury undersecretary in the Bush administration Jay Powell. Jay, thank you for joining me. I appreciate that you're here. Kind of need to talk to somebody like you, because ultimately if we get to that deadline, that August 2nd deadline, and we have not increased the debt limit, somebody in the Treasury Department, maybe the treasury secretary, maybe one of the undersecretaries, is going to have to start making decisions as to who gets paid.
JAY POWELL, FORMER TREASURE UNDERSECRETARY: That's right. If we don't raise the debt ceiling by August 2 we're going to wake up on August 3 with not enough cash to pay our bills. In fact, we'll be 44 cents on the dollar short about, and we'll be cutting programs that are very popular and very important.
VELSHI: Let's go through some of this. Let's talk about where we'll stand on August the 3rd if this doesn't happen. We'll need about $32 billion in some payments. And when you break it down, we're going to have $12 billion in revenue, $32 billion in expenses. So there are things that could get cut. And included in that could be defense, could be $1.8 billion to the Department of Education, $500 million in federal salaries and benefits, $2.2 billion in Medicare and Medicaid, $1.4 billion in food stamps and welfare payments, things like that. Where do you have to start making those decisions?
POWELL: Well, the real problem with August 3 is that there is a large Social Security payment due in the amount of about $23 billion. And I should stress, these are our estimates using public data and we think they're close to right.
But so you have $12 billion of inflows on the 3rd, and you'll have some cash left over from the 2nd but not enough to pay all the bills, and you'll have this giant Social Security payment. So we wouldn't -- we don't have any certainty around what would happen, but you have to say that that big Social Security payment, which is the biggest one of the month, is really at risk if the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2nd.
VELSHI: And we keep hearing people in Washington on both sides of this debate saying, well, clearly, we wouldn't miss payments to Social Security or clearly we wouldn't miss payments to our military, or clearly we wouldn't miss debt payments. Who makes that decision? POWELL: Well, the administration makes that decision. That would be really a White House OMB decision among all the economic leaders would get together. But that's not their role in our system of government. Of course, Congress is supposed to make those decisions. Effectively, what's happening here is Congress has ordered spending and then it hasn't provided the executive branch with the funds to carry out its legally binding orders.
VELSHI: Let's talk about August 15th, that's the next big day if we didn't raise the debt ceiling. On August 15th, we'd have revenue of $22 billion, this is in a day, and expenses of $41 billion there. You know, you mentioned in the last, on August 3rd, we'd have a $23 billion Social Security payment. On August 15th, we'd have a $29 billion interest payment.
So, more than the revenue we bring in is due just in interest on that day?
POWELL: That's right. And what that means is, that you have to steal some revenue from prior days because I think everyone should understand that we're always going to pay the interest on our treasury bonds. We just will. That will be the highest priority because it is literally unthinkable we would default on a bond the possible effects in the global markets would be --
VELSHI: Let me stop you there. When you say -- I agree with you 100 percent, and a lot of people do. But when you say it's literally unthinkable that we would default on the payment of a bond, why? Tell our viewers what might happen if we did that.
POWELL: If we defaulted on a bond, then we would really be looking at potential catastrophic consequences in the global financial markets along the lines of what happened and worse in September of 2008.
The entire financial system is built on the idea that the United States is a credit risk-free entity and there is no risk and all over the world, people hold our bonds at a certain valuation. If we shake that basic foundation of the system, and it's not going to happen, because it would be so grave, then the consequences could be -- are unthinkable and, really, you can't predict them.
VELSHI: Yes, when you say unthinkable, I think you say that well, because we've done things like this in the past -- not related to this -- but we constantly think of what happened when Lehman brothers failed. There are a lot of very smart people in the room who thought we had the ability to weather that and clearly we didn't.
Let's just -- I want to give you another scenario that you actually gave us. If you look at what happens, if as you said, we're going to make Social Security payments, we're definitely going to pay the interest on treasury securities, those bond payments, so if we decide we are paying the following things, interest on security treasury, securities, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food, nutritional services, HUD programs, Veterans Affairs, unemployment insurance, special education grants, tuition insurance -- if we decide those are the important things we have to pay, by default, here are the things that we won't pay.
And let me show you this list: military active duty pay, Defense Department vendors, Department of Justice which is courts, and the FBI, Department of Education, those Pell grants, and Department of Energy expenses. Clearly these are not good tradeoffs.
POWELL: Well, it's, again, unthinkable. That's one of the examples that we've worked with. That example is the one where we protect all of the social safety net payments. This is food for poor people, this is Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt which have to pay and those sorts of things.
And you can see -- you've got to pay military active duty pay, you've got to operate the Justice Department. The Justice Department, for example, is only $1.4 billion in August. I say only. It's a lot of money. But that's the FBI, that's the courts, that's the jails, the federal jails, that's the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. You need that stuff. You can't eliminate that stuff.
In education, what you're looking at is a lot of money in August that's going out to the states for special education grants. It's August. The schools are opening all over the country. If you cut this amount of money, which is $6 billion, what's going to happen to the special ed students? What's going to happen in the schools?
So, you flip it around and say we can't make all the social safety net payments. So, there really -- you can move these chess pieces around any way you want. You're going lose.
VELSHI: Jay, last question. You talk to a lot of people about this on Capitol Hill, you give us sort of a fact-based, nonpartisan approach to this. Do they get it? Do the people who have to vote on this get it?
POWELL: Overwhelmingly they do. There are some who just won't be able to vote for a debt ceiling increase because it's an incredibly hard vote, and our job is to make their lives more difficult by explaining what will happen if the debt ceiling is not raised. But overwhelming, this has been received in the spirit in which it's offered which is just the facts.
VELSHI: Jay, good conversation. Very smart conversation. And I just want to clarify, you've run a bunch of different scenarios. That was one of them that we gave.
Thanks for your help. Jay Powell is the former undersecretary of the treasury under President George H.W. Bush, and he's a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center. I thought that was a brilliant way to look at that.
CHETRY: Yes, you're right.
VELSHI: Just the facts. I mean, we have to make choices. It's what families have to do with their budget at home.
CHETRY: Exactly. Good conversation. Meantime, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, a wizard studded premier, hundreds of Harry Potter fans line the red carpet in the New York, as the final "Harry Potter" film makes it U.S. debuts.
VELSHI: And our question of the day. Do you think Yankee fans Christian Lopez would have been better off not catching Derek Jeter's home run ball? He may be on the hook for $14,000 in taxes, even though he gave the ball back.
Let us know what you think. Send us an e-mail, a tweet, or tell us on Facebook.
CHETRY: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. Twenty minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Twenty-three minutes past the hour. Minding your business this morning.
Uncertainty running high on Wall Street over the debt crisis, spreading now to Italy, the third largest economy in Europe. The Dow sank more than 150 points yesterday and the NASDAQ dropping more than 50, the S&P 500 also down 24 points.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is scheduled to make opening remarks at a "Women in Finance" event, it's in D.C. this morning. He'll be speaking in a little over an hour. The jobs report stalls in the budget deficit talks and all topics investors will be watching for in his comments that could move markets.
Some of America's biggest companies reporting second quarter earnings. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Google all report later this week. Analysts at Thompson Reuters forecasting earnings for S&P 500 companies increased 7.5 percent from the same quarter last year.
News Corp stock taking a big hit after stalls in its bid to buy satellite TV company British Sky Broadcasting, BSkyB. Shares of News Corp dropped sharply, more than 7.5 percent. Support for the deal weakened after the news of the phone hacking scandal at some of News Corps' publications began to widen.
Nine percent of adults in the U.S. do most of their web surfing on their smartphones -- that's according to a study by Pew Internet and American Life Project. Many of these users tend to be young and lower income people, using their phones to access the Internet at home in place of computers.
Don't forget: for the latest news about your money, check out the all- new CNNMoney.com.
AMERICAN MORNING will be right back after a break.
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VELSHI: Look at that, Washington, D.C., it is 83 degrees right now and mostly cloudy. The sun is going to come out later on today. Maybe it's going to get -- you know how hot it's going to get there? One hundred and one degrees.
CHETRY: Yes, and probably it's going to feel 10 degrees hotter than that when you factor in the humidity.
Well, a rare honor for a true hero at the White House today. Sergeant First Class Leroy Arthur Petry became just the second living active duty service member to receive the Medal of Honor for his actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
VELSHI: The seasoned Army Ranger lost a hand when he tossed an enemy grenade away from the young soldiers he led.
Barbara Starr is live at the Pentagon for us with the story.
I mean, these guys are one more impressive than the next. But this is something. He took this grenade and tossed it away and it cost him his hand.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It did, indeed, Ali and Kiran.
You know, when this sergeant steps up to the podium at the White House later this afternoon, next to the president of the United States, he truly will step into history. We hear the words "conspicuous gallantry," we hear the words "above and beyond the call of duty," but for Sergeant First Class Leroy Arthur Petry, just to hear what happened to this young man, 2008 in eastern Afghanistan, they were in the middle of a brutal firefight in a daylight raid. The only place they could take cover in this compound was in a chicken coop.
So he and some other soldiers took cover in there, under fire. He is wounded. And then the insurgents throw a grenade right at him and his buddies. Already wounded, he picks up the grenade, with disregard for his own safety, of course, own life, he picks up that live grenade and throws it back at the insurgents. The grenade detonated in his hands, catastrophically amputating one of his hands.
But he has a prosthetic. He remains on duty with his beloved 75th Ranger Regiment. He's at Fort Benning -- stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Today, he will be at the White House. Sergeant Petry has deployed to the warzone already eight times.
The president will read the -- will make the remarks at the White House. The citation will be read and if you wonder what conspicuous gallantry is about in this day and age this is Sergeant Pettry.
VELSHI: That's the word they use, conspicuous gallantry. I mean, sometimes it seems less obvious even though there's always great heroism involved. This is remarkable that he would do such a thing.
But we look forward to seeing that, Barbara. Thank you for telling us that story.
STARR: Sure. CHETRY: Thanks, Barbara.
Our top stories now, Pakistani Security Forces have arrested a local doctor who reportedly helped the CIA set up a fake vaccination sting during the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
The idea of the sting was to collect DNA samples from people who lived inside the terror leader's compound. It's not clear how the doctor's arrest will impact the already fractured relations between the two countries.
VELSHI: Rupert Murdoch's news corporation media empire under fire this morning. According to published reports his newspapers reportedly illegally accessed former prime minister -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's bank accounts and the medical records of his seriously ill son.
That is disrupting Murdoch's plans to take over British Sky Broadcasting or B-Sky-B. News Corporation's market value is taking a multimillion-dollar hit dropping 10 percent just yesterday, 7 percent just yesterday.
CHETRY: President Obama saying it's time to get serious about raising the nation's debt ceiling. Talks continue today after leaders came up empty again yesterday. The president is insisting he is not accepting any short-term fix.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So, we might as well do it now. Pull off the Band-Aid. Eat our peas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Right now, Republicans are refusing to budge on taxes and some Democrats are saying all entitlement benefits like Medicare must be spared.
VELSHI: Nearly half of the country now feeling the heat this morning to a dangerous degree. There are heat advisories posted in a whole bunch of states.
Twenty three states from New England to Oklahoma and from the Deep South to the Ohio Valley. The heat index could reach 115 degrees today in some places, little doggy.
CHETRY: Rob Marciano is in the extreme weather center. You got to watch out for the dogs, watch out for small kids, for the elderly. I mean, a lot of people vulnerable to getting sick when you're talking about 115 degree heat indexes.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Not everybody has AC. So you know, I hate to be morbid here, but the number one weather-related killer year after year is heat. Just look after your neighbors, certainly if they're elderly or frail or medically ill, because this will take a toll on you regardless. Even, you know, there's going to be a strain on the electrical grid as well. So, you know, there may be local blackouts in spots. Just be aware of that, 100 to 110 degrees. The heat index, what it feels like, in the shade, when you incorporate the humidity.
That's really the thing with this, the amount of humidity in the air. Oklahoma City back to Kansas City, some of these areas, the dew points are approaching 80 degrees. That is stiflingly humid and now extending the advisories and heat warnings up towards the northeast as well.
It's 104 in Memphis and 104 in Little Rock, 107 in Jackson, and 107 expected in Montgomery. These are the temperatures, what it will feel like over the next couple days. We'll see a little bit of a break come Thursday and Friday.
We will see some afternoon thunderstorms, so be aware of that. They probably won't be as intense as they were last night in Chicago, where still there are hundreds of thousands of people without power.
You want the cooling thunderstorms, but you don't want the severe weather, a bit of a catch 22 there. Hopefully if you get a shower in your area, it will be a gentle one to cool you off. Temperatures in New York City will easily get into the 90s today and with that humidity, certainly near a subway, it's going to feel a lot hotter than that. Guys --
VELSHI: All right, Rob, we'll check in with you a little later. Hundreds of mourners gathered to pay respects to a firefighter who died in a freak accident at the Texas Rangers game we showed you this.
Shannon Stone was laid to rest yesterday. His casket placed on a fire truck in his hometown. Stone fell 20 feet to his death when he was trying to catch a ball tossed into the stands by a player and his 6- year-old son witnessed the accident.
CHETRY: On the same day that Shannon Stone was buried, a fan at last night's home run derby nearly fell out of the outfield stands. He was lunging for a home run ball that was hit by Prince Fielder.
Take a look at the spot shadow here as friends grabbed him by the feet and held him and pulled him back as he dangled over the railing.
He wasn't exactly the picture of safety, though. Here he is at the game, dangling from the stands again. At one point, he was even up on a table bare foot with nothing in front of him to break his fall. Look at that.
VELSHI: That's ridiculous. The FBI is trying to determine how a stun gun disguised as a cell phone made it on to a Jet Blue flight from Boston to Newark.
All the passengers were off the plane Friday night when cleaning crews found the weapon in a seat back pocket. Federal agents are not commenting on reports they've identified the passenger who is sitting in the seat where the stun gun was found. CHETRY: The Obama administration is moving forward with a new plan to stop the flow of guns to Mexican drug cartels. Under the new policy, four border states, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, will be required to report the sales of high-powered rifles.
The National Rifle Association is saying it plans to sue and that this plan is illegal. Joining me now to discuss both sides of the issue, Dennis Henigan, acting president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Chris W. Cox, chief lobbyist of the National Rifle Association of America. Thanks to both of you for being with us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks for having us.
CHETRY: Dennis, let me start with you. Just explain how this new measure would help crack down on that problem of these guns making their way into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
DENNIS HENIGAN, ACTING PRESIDENT, BRADY CAMPAIGN TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE: What we're seeing is a torrent of guns being trafficked from Americans gun shops into Mexico and feeding the awful cartel violence in that country.
These cartels are exploiting the weaknesses in American gun laws, to feed their -- that violence. And what we see is that straw buyers for the cartels are going into these gun shops and they're buying five assault rifles at a time, 10 assault rifles at a time.
And all this rule will do is require the gun shops to tell federal law enforcement when these highly suspicious transactions occur. So that they can figure out what are the patterns of trafficking, arrest the traffickers before those guns ever get to Mexico.
CHETRY: I just want to ask a question about that because as you said, this exposes some of the weakness in the gun laws. There already is a law saying that this -- these so-called straw purchases or this trafficking is illegal. So why are we adding another law on top of it?
HENIGAN: Because it's very, very difficult to detect a straw purchase and what you need is real-time notice when one of these multiple sales occurs. For over 40 years, we have had a similar requirement applied to the sale of handguns.
It has been a very effective anti-trafficking measure because these are highly suspicious sales. So they give real-time notice to law enforcement about who is buying all these guns and which dealers tend to sell a lot of guns because sometimes the dealer and the trafficker are basically conspiring to feed guns into the illegal market.
This is a pro-law enforcement measure. It's a very modest measure and it is amazing to me that the National Rifle Association is going to go to court because it wants these transactions to remain a secret.
It wants these transactions to be the secret between the straw buyer and the dealer. We think law enforcement ought to know about them and act on that information. CHETRY: Why, Chris, are you guys planning to sue when this happens?
CHRIS W. COX, APPOINTED CHIEF LOBBYIST FOR THE NRA IN 2002: Well, thanks, Kiran. First of all, it's a bad idea because Congress, it won't work. It's an illegal idea because they don't have the authority to do it.
When the president wants a health care bill, he goes to Congress. When he wants to raise the debt ceiling, he goes to Congress. When he wants to pass gun control and he knows Congress won't pass it, he does this Enron around Congress. Kiran, you brought up an important point that Dennis continues to just ignore.
It is illegal for a straw purchase in this country. Ten years mandatory jail time in federal prison, but according to Syracuse University, and their track studies, this administration has the worst record ever on prosecuting those gun crimes.
It's embarrassing that they want to ask for another one when they won't enforce the laws they already have. The truth is the drug cartels aren't going to be concerned with a paperwork violation by ATF.
The first thing we need to do, ATF does know a lot about straw purchases because they approved thousands of them and sent thousands of illegal guns into Mexico. We now have a dead federal agent. This is nothing more than a distraction away from a growing scandal in a program that's not going to do anything.
CHETRY: All right, well, hold on. You're making a lot points here and I just want - I mean, the goal is to give a clearer argument for people at home to understand what's going on.
You're referring to "Fast and Furious." This is an ATF operation, where the goal was to trace those guns and to actually bring down the smuggling network and yes, there were -- obviously did not go as planned.
We know that. Back to this one, you agree that it's a problem that these straw purchases are getting in the hands of are drug cartels in Mexico especially because the two most popular guns are the AK-47 and the Bushmaster 223.
These are able to fire off, you know, 30 plus rounds without having to be reloaded. This -- these are the guns that they want down there. These are the guns that the cartels want.
So why would you fight -- they're not trying to limit the right of people to bear arms here in the United States. They're not -- this isn't really a threat to the second 2nd amendment. Why would you oppose these getting in the hands of drug dealers in Mexico?
COX: Well, let's be clear. The National Rifle Association's position is that if you break the law, you ought to be arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail. The truth is. The majority of the guns that are in Mexico are fully automatic. They're getting hand grenades. They're building submarines to smuggle drugs into this country and to somehow suggest that a reporting requirement to an agency that's been incompetent with regards to the same reporting is able to police this situation, is just a sad reality that it's not going to work.
We need to get serious. We need to tell the president to go to the U.S. attorneys and prosecute people who are buying guns illegally. If you're not, leave the law abiding gun owners out of the equation. Focus your job on law enforcement, which means enforcing lawsuit and nothing more.
CHETRY: Let me let Dennis weigh in just quickly about some of these questions. Why not go through Congress and also do we have a more of an enforcement problem as opposed to a problem with the laws?
HENIGAN: Well, ATF already has the authority to take these kinds of modest steps. So it doesn't have to go through Congress. There's a lot that should be done by Congress, but we can do this now and this is a law enforcement issue.
Yes, we want to be able to prosecute the straw buyers. This is a way to identify those people who are very likely to be straw buyers because they're going into gun shops and they're buying five assault rifles at a time and then three more and then ten more.
Those are the people you want to go after and so this is a pro-law enforcement measure. It is precisely the law enforcement officials and the prosecutors who are supporting this measure.
And it's the NRA that's opposing it. The NRA wants to keep these transactions a secret. It doesn't want law enforcement to know who the likely straw buyers are. It doesn't want law enforcement to have the capacity to intercept these guns before they ever get to the Mexican border.
COX: Dennis, that's just exactly wrong and you know it. The truth is law enforcement during the course of a criminal investigation can have any and all records they want. So to go on national TV and to suggest that the NRA opposes law enforcement, just shows the ignorance on this issue.
The truth is we support law enforcement. Law enforcement supports the second amendment, but we need to get serious about the situation in Mexico. We can talk about paperwork violations all day long. But until the government gets serious about enforcing the law, it's going to continue to be a problem.
HENIGAN: Chris, you can denigrate this as paperwork violations, but this is giving real time notice to law enforcement agents on the front lines against these traffickers. They need every tool they can get to fight this trafficking.
CHETRY: I want to thank both of you for your point of view.
HENIGAN: The NRA is opposing it. The NRA wants the traffickers to keep these transactions a secret, doesn't want law enforcement to know about them. So that these guns can be intercepted and that Mexican citizens and Mexican families can be protected against this violence, which is being committed largely with United States weapons.
CHETRY: All right, Dennis Henigan and Chris Cox, I thank both of you for your time and your perspective this morning. We're going to take a quick break. It's 43 minutes past the hour.
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VELSHI: Well, they should have had magic wands instead of bats. Check this out. In honor of the final installment of the Harry Potter movies being released this Friday, the minor league Fresno Grizzlies wore Harry Potter school uniforms during their game on Saturday. They were auctioned off the game. By the way, the Grizzlies won the game so whatever spell they put on --
CHETRY: OK, whoever wrote that story is definitely not a Harry Potter fan. They don't have magic wands. What are those things they use?
VELSHI: You're asking me?
CHETRY: When they play Quidditch, what do they ride on?
VELSHI: Somebody else?
CHETRY: Come on.
VELSHI: Somebody else got --
CHETRY: What is it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Broomsticks.
CHETRY: Yes, but the special broomstick that Harry Potter has, it's something 3,000, right? OK, forget it. Nimbus 3,000.
VELSHI: The Nimbus 3,000.
CHETRY: Yes.
VELSHI: I don't know why she thinks I would know this.
CHETRY: And the Firebolt.
All right. Harry Potter mania is hitting --
VELSHI: I've never been to a Harry Potter movie in my life.
CHETRY: CNN's Zain Verjee is following that for us live in London.
Right, the Nimbus 3,000. That's what they needed at this baseball game.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, obviously. Everybody knows that. Come on.
VELSHI: Yes, exactly.
VERJEE: Dumbledore and Hufflepuff and Snape and Lord Voldemort. Come on, Ali.
(LAUGHTER)
VERJEE: Well, let me just show you some video, guys, of the screaming fans looking at the Harry Potter stars as they came in through the red carpet for the final installment of the movie "Hallows Part 2."
They all wore the glasses there and this is actually the last time they're going to be seeing all the stars altogether for this premier. Harry Potter or Daniel Radcliff was saying, guys, that I don't think any of us thought this day would come, but it is here. And some of the things, guys, they were telling fans, was that it was actually quite refreshing during this last year -- there they go -- to actually play different roles and not what they've been playing for the last 10 years.
And check out Emma Watson there. Grabbing her dress, making sure it looks just fine there. She was actually wearing Bortega Vaneta and looking pretty amazing, I thought there, too, right?
CHETRY: A, she looked amazing. First of all, you really -- you have to be -- to get away with that haircut, that's amazing.
VERJEE: Right.
CHETRY: But also, you're right. She was fluffing out her own dress with like authority, you know? She knows what to do on the red carpet.
VERJEE: She does. She was saying she wanted to push the fashion envelope in New York. In London, she wore Oscar de la Renta, a little more conservative.
VELSHI: She's definitely a fashionable muggle.
Zain --
VERJEE: Oh, good, Ali.
VELSHI: Thank you. It's the only word I know in Harry Potterdom.
Let's get your take on this "News of the World" scandal which is expanding, it's reaching new places, it's affecting other Murdoch newspapers.
What's your take?
VERJEE: Well, the focus today, Ali, is really going to be on the police. The question is, what did the police know, did they try and cover up anything that they knew of what was going on.
They're being grilled by members of parliament today and what they want to know is why did they not dig deeper into an investigation into the hackings? There are only like 4,000 cases, so the question is, what went wrong there? And there was also the assistant commissioner who was told to reopen the investigation back in 2009, and he didn't do it and they want to know why.
Let me just show you how it is spreading. Gordon Brown, really angry, saying that Rupert Murdoch has links to criminals today. Really upset that he was hacked and there was information about his child having cystic fibrosis and also the queen being hacked, too, allegedly and numbers of the members of the royal family.
This could get worse. We're keeping an eye on it.
VELSHI: Yes. It's costing the company money, too. The stock value has taken an hit.
VERJEE: Yes. Plummeting.
VELSHI: All right. Zain, thanks very much for that.
Zain Verjee in London.
VERJEE: Thanks, guys.
CHETRY: Calories on a menu make a difference. You make better food choices if you know that what you're eating either has too many calories.
VELSHI: Totally. I mean, look at me now. I come back to New York and like dropping the pounds because of calories on the menu.
CHETRY: Because of the calorie counts?
VELSHI: Yes. I make that up. That's not really true.
CHETRY: We'll see if it really works for everyone else. Elizabeth Cohen joins us, coming up. Fifty minutes past the hour.
VELSHI: It means you have to stay and watch to find out the real answer.
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CHETRY: Soon, it will be difficult for you to ignore and impossible restaurants to hide just how many calories, as well as what, fat, salt content are in some of your favorite meals. The FDA is about to make it mandatory fast food and other restaurant chains including these calorie counts on their menus.
The question, though, is, will it actually change what you decide to eat?
VELSHI: Did for me. But let's see if it does for other people.
Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, who always makes good eating choices anyway, joins us now from Atlanta.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I try.
VELSHI: Elizabeth, it's sort of had an impact on me because I'm not -- as you know -- I'm not really intuitive about some foods that are really high calorie.
COHEN: I think you're putting that nicely, I'm not really intuitive. I like how you say that. That was good. That's right.
Right, it's hard to know what's going to have a lot of calories and what's not. For example, let's take a look at this salad here. You take a look at a salad and you think, OK, how bad could this be?
VELSHI: Healthy.
COHEN: OK, salad. And really, it's 1,347 calories.
VELSHI: Wow.
COHEN: That is a lot. I'm going to put that in perspective. You're supposed to be about 2,200 calories a day and you're having over 1,300 calories in one meal.
So, you're absolutely right that sometimes we just don't know what's in a meal.
CHETRY: That's right. Some states are already doing this. We have it in New York. Way in New York City you can see calorie counts.
VELSHI: Why are you stopping her? She's got some kind of blooming onion there. What is that?
CHETRY: Well, you have to be crazy to not know, A, how delicious, but B, how caloric the blooming onion is.
COHEN: All right. For Ali, let's go over the blooming onion.
First of all, I don't know who could eat this on their own.
VELSHI: I can.
CHETRY: I could polish off one of those so fast your head would spin.
VELSHI: That is intuitive with me, you know, Elizabeth, but with Kiran, she's like a championship eater.
COHEN: To look at her, you would never know. I can't believe that. But that's 1,551 calories right there in a blooming onion.
CHETRY: And the worst part about that, Elizabeth, is that's usually the appetizer before you get the drover's (ph) platter, right? Because I know where that's from. That's the appetizer before you go for the Alice Springs chicken.
VELSHI: So we know that these labeling rules exist in New York City. Where else are they coming and what kind of restaurants are going to have to follow them? COHEN: Right. There are various other counties and municipalities that have said, let's put the labels on there. But, the whole country by the end of the year or next year, everybody's going to have the labels for big restaurant chains so, something like an Outback Steakhouse or a Cheesecake Factory. If you've got more than 20 restaurants in the United States, you're supposed to do put the calories on the menu.
And some studies show people are like Ali. They see it and change their choices. I know that I've seen these and said, oh my goodness, I had no idea. Other studies show that people don't care. I think it really depends on the person.
CHETRY: Yes, I've got to tell you, I have two tricks, though, Elizabeth. So you have that huge salad. They're putting 1,300 calories on that and if you dump all of the dressing on it. You can only use half the amount of dressing, maybe get the salad split, like say, I'd like the other half to go immediately before you start eating. And also, you can pull off some of the things that are really caloric, like the avocado or the cheese.
COHEN: Right. I mean -- right, exactly. Look at the ingredients. I think that's important. And so if it comes with cheese, you say please give me half as much cheese as usually goes on there. If it comes with lots of nuts that are all sort of fried up with something, you can ask for less of that.
I really -- my favorite thing is ask for half of it to go from the beginning. Just say, serve me half, put half in a doggie bag, bring it home, that's my lunch tomorrow.
VELSHI: Oh, yes. That's likely going to happen for me. Can I get half a salad? By the way, like a cheeseburger there and you got some KFC? I don't know why I'm in New York for this conversation.
COHEN: Believe me, wouldn't want to eat this. It's been sitting around a couple hours.
CHETRY: Would not stop us, Elizabeth, at all.
VELSHI: How many calories just for a --
COHEN: Nearly 1,300 for an angus bacon cheeseburger, large fries. We got these for Kiran, because we heard that these were her favorite.
VELSHI: Yes, she does like those.
COHEN: And so that together is 1,300 calories. And then you have KFC. This is the diet dish on the table here, only 850 calories for a large popcorn chicken and potato wedges.
VELSHI: Oh, sweet.
COHEN: But put that in perspective -- 2,200 calories for the day and you're spending 850 of it on this meal.
VELSHI: Totally worth it.
CHETRY: You're right. Or you're on the treadmill for two and a half hours. Is it worth it?
VELSHI: Three meals a day, if I'm taking one-third of my calories in one thing of KFC, I can have two more in the same day.
CHETRY: That's his reasoning, OK?
COHEN: I guess so.
CHETRY: I don't know what we are working with here, Elizabeth.
VELSHI: I'm confused. What did you just say?
CHETRY: Thank you.
VELSHI: All right, Elizabeth. Thank you.
COHEN: OK. Thanks.
VELSHI: Top stories coming up right after the break.
You get it though, right? If I order three of those and I'm doing 200 -- are -- we're still on TV. We're going to take a break now.
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