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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Debate Arises Over How to Compensate Hurricane Victims; Faith Based Groups May Receive Compensation for Hurricane Relief; Tom DeLay Indicted in Texas; Several New Orleans Police Officers Under Investigation; Tom DeLay Indicted
Aired September 28, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. Anderson is in Biloxi, Mississippi, four weeks out from Hurricane Katrina. Nearly every building in the city was damaged by the Category 4 storm. An overwhelming job of rebuilding lies ahead, Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It certainly does, Aaron.
And you really get that sense when you come to Biloxi. I mean, look around. This is just a street, again, we picked randomly. Every night, we have been sort of just stopping on a street to show you what it is like for people and what awaits people when they come back. This is a home. This is 216 Howard.
Chris (ph), if you can pan over here, show that sign.
It looks like that is 216 Howard. This is where it's meant to be, but it's not; 216 Howard is actually from across the street. This should be 217 Howard. And that's a little bit down there; 217 Howard is owned by a woman named Uma Broussard (ph), who has raised 11 children on this spot. She wants to come back here. She's 77 years old. But, as you can see, it's going to be a long time before anyone gets to live here again, Aaron.
BROWN: Anderson, thank you. We will get back to you in just a moment.
First, a look at some of the stories that made news across the Gulf Coast today and elsewhere.
In New Orleans, workers have completed their initial cleanup at the Superdome. They hauled away as much as 3,000 tons of debris, garbage. It took them 19 days. East of New Orleans, the residents of St. Bernard Parish returned to their home today for the first time in almost a month. Nearly all the parish was under water after Katrina. As many as 80 percent of the buildings will need to be bulldozed and rebuilt.
The state health officer overseeing the body recovery process in the state of Louisiana said today that only 32 of the nearly 900 people killed by Katrina had been released to their families. The process is slow, he said, to ensure no mistakes are made.
And the mayor of New Orleans announced a new plan to bring people back to the city today. Beginning on Friday, residents of eight zip codes will be allowed to return to their homes. Business owners in the same area will be allowed back starting tomorrow.
Under the mayor's plan, all areas of the city except the Ninth Ward will be open by next Wednesday. That is the plan. Those who wish to return to their homes and businesses will be able to do so. Whether they should do so is an altogether different matter.
Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Degas House is a historic building near the French Quarter. Now a bed and breakfast, it will reopen for guests as early as next week. There will be some inconveniences, however, no electricity. The water is unsafe to drink. And debris is scattered everywhere.
David Villarrubia owns Degas House.
DAVID VILLARRUBIA, OWNER, DEGAS HOUSE: Hospital services. There are no pharmacies. There's no way to even restock water. And, I mean, that's a basic element. You can bring in food and water for a day, exit at night. I think that works.
ROWLANDS: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told members of the Louisiana state legislature that, except for the hard-hit Ninth Ward, he plans to have the entire city open by next week. The mayor says he's pleased with the way people are returning to New Orleans, but he's upset with how the state has reacted. Specifically, he was unhappy with a state health warning that termed New Orleans -- quote -- "extremely dangerous."
RAY NAGIN (D), MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS: We're doing it as quickly as we can, and we're trying to make sure it's as safe as we can. But we're continuing to send mixed messages out to everyone as it relates to the federal -- I have fought with the federal government on this issue earlier. Now I'm fighting with state government on this issue. And unless you guys start to make a whole bunch of noise, this is not going to change.
ROWLANDS: In the central business district, where stores and hotels are slowly getting ready to open, Nagin's plan is getting a lot of support.
CHARLOTTE SULLIVAN, MANAGER, CHILDREN'S PLACE: The longer people stay away, they're going to actually stay away and not come back. So, I think it's a good plan to have everyone come back into the city as quickly as possible.
ROWLANDS: One major problem for restaurants and hotels is getting employees to come back. For example, many of those who work at the J.W. Marriott lived in the Ninth Ward and now have nowhere to call home.
DAVE HARDY, J.W. MARRIOTT: Obviously, they were affected by large scales, because they lived in the parish that got destroyed. So -- but we're prepared to supplement them as long as we need to, to get our business and our hotel back open and protect their jobs and get them back in here.
ROWLANDS: What remains to be seen is how many people will actually come back and how this crippled city will be able to support them. David Villarrubia is hoping to rent his bed and breakfast to FEMA at a reduced private. He thinks, no matter how fast people are allowed back, it's still going to be a very long time before this city will be anything close to normal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS: The mayor's plan has raised a lot of eyebrows, but he says he wants the people that live in New Orleans to have the opportunity to get back as soon as possible and take part in the rebuilding process. The 911 system is up and running. One of the concerns is the hospitals. They are not at full capacity. The U.S. Navy has sent their hospital ship Comfort to New Orleans. It will remain here as long as is needed -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ted, just a couple of the most basic sorts of questions. If you pick up a phone, a regular landline in New Orleans, do you get a dial tone?
ROWLANDS: No, not in most places. And that is a concern, of course. The cell phones work, for the most part. The cell towers are up.
And they're still working on a lot of the infrastructure. You drive down the street, and there's still a lot of debris in many of these neighborhoods. Many people think it's unsafe.
BROWN: If you turn on a water faucet in most of New Orleans, do you get clean drinking water?
ROWLANDS: No, not by any stretch of the imagination. You're still being told to boil the water to drink it. Some areas, you're not even told to take showers with. They're just using it to -- quote -- "put out fires" if needed.
Clearly, this is going to be a struggle for people that do come and decide to stay. What is believed what will happen is a lot of people will come, survey it, maybe stay for a day or two, and then reevaluate -- reevaluate the choice to stay.
BROWN: Ted, thank you very much -- Ted Rowlands, who's in New Orleans tonight.
Those who do return will find that buildings aren't the only part of the city damaged of late. New Orleans' police department has been shaken pretty good as well.
Anderson saw a lot of that in his time in New Orleans, didn't you?
COOPER: Yes. They're certainly shaken in many different ways.
I mean, there are these allegations about looting. A number of the officers, too, are homeless still at this point. One officer was shot in the head and is in a hospital in Houston. So, this is a department which has been badly whipped around. And a lot of the officers just feel like they have been abandoned by -- not only by their superiors, but by those around them.
And so, it is a very tough time for a lot of these officers, the great majority of which, I should point out, stayed on the job and did their jobs very well.
Questions continue to swirl, however, about the police department in New Orleans. The resignation of police Superintendent Eddie Compass really just added to the questions. Some, including Mayor Ray Nagin, called him a hero. Others have questioned the leadership of a police department with nearly 250 people who left their posts and the people they were supposed to protect during a disaster.
CNN's Chris Lawrence looks into the police in New Orleans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Howard Robertson (ph) spent 35 years on the New Orleans Police Force and retired as a major. He says former Chief Eddie Compass did not voluntarily resign.
HOWARD ROBERTSON, RETIRED NEW ORLEANS POLICE MAJOR: I have never known Eddie to quit anything, anything. I don't care how bad it got. I don't care what it was. If you were in a fight, you wanted him with you, because he wasn't quitting.
LAWRENCE (on camera): Then why -- why would he walk away now?
ROBERTSON: Politics is a nasty game, nasty, nasty game. And, you know, just my guess -- I'm not going to say this is reality, but just my guess -- politics played a role more than anything else, because Eddie would not have left his troops during this time. He wouldn't have done it.
LAWRENCE (voice-over): Other law enforcement sources tell CNN Compass met with mayor Ray Nagin earlier this week and was pushed out of his job. Some officers speculate it had to do with statements he made in Katrina's immediate aftermath, statements that were never proven to be true.
EDDIE COMPASS, SUPERINTENDENT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: And we were fighting a criminal element that was heavily armed. They were shooting indiscriminately around civilians, so we couldn't return fire.
LAWRENCE: The man who takes Compass' place is Warren Riley. In 1996, then Chief Richard Pennington suspended Riley for neglect of duty following an independent investigation.
Felix Loicano was Riley's commanding officer.
(on camera): At the time of this incident in 1995, did you agree with the official action that was taken in Warren Riley's case? FELIX LOICANO, FORMER SUPERVISOR OF WARREN RILEY: If you're asking me did I agree with the decision that Chief Pennington made regarding discipline, yes, I did, or I did at that time. And I still do today based upon the knowledge I have or the information I have.
LAWRENCE (voice-over): Riley only faced internal discipline and went on with his career. Howard Robertson says Riley was deputy chief during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
ROBERTSON: The thing that scares me is, you know, the guy who was in charge of the whole thing is the chief of operations. And that was Riley. Riley's the number two guy. He's going to walk out of here unscathed. Compass is going to take all the heat. But Riley's the number two guy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: Well, as of last night, Riley is now the number one guy, although he does have the interim police chief tag.
Some of the officers I spoke with say Mayor Nagin is giving himself some options. He can put the name out there of Warren Riley. And, if people react favorably, they don't have any problem with the suspension or his role in the aftermath, he can name him to the permanent position.
If some questions start to arise and he gets some negative feedback about Riley, then he can come back and say, well, it was just a temporary position -- Anderson.
COOPER: And has Superintendent Compass made any further remarks?
LAWRENCE: No. In fact, I talked with some of the officers who know him pretty well, and they say they've talked to people who are very close to him, said he's been holed up and just has not been talking to anybody since that abrupt resignation.
COOPER: Hmm. All right, Chris. Thanks very much, Chris Lawrence.
CNN's Drew Griffin has been covering the allegations of looting by some New Orleans police officers. Today, he talked to the state attorney general, who confirmed that investigations are in fact under way.
Drew joins us now.
How many officers are we talking about, Drew?
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, according to our own reporting, we're talking about at least nine officers in two separate incidents.
But we want to make it perfectly clear what Charles Foti, the attorney general of Louisiana, said today. He has opened up two investigations into two separate incidents of police officers looting. He would not confirm that it was indeed the New Orleans Police Department, only that he has investigations that were launched after he saw pictures on TV that made the allegations we have been reporting on television and showed a clip last night on this show of an incident that took place on the Sunday after the storm.
It is a New Orleans police officer who shuts a door on a reporter, waves a gun in his face. These were allegations made on the 10th floor of a hotel on Canal Street. That, we assume, is one of the incidents that the attorney general is talking about, but the attorney general being very close-mouthed on the investigation and its targets, only to confirm, Anderson, that he has two separate investigations of official police looting during this disaster here in the state of Louisiana.
COOPER: And, in terms of the number of police, in your own investigation that you have been conducting, it is -- I mean, it's a relatively small number of officers compared to all those who remained on their posts and were doing their jobs, yes?
GRIFFIN: Of course.
And we have been -- we have made that point, Anderson, over and over again. In fact, for the first two weeks that you were here and I were here, we were doing stories on these heroic officers that fought against all odds, against crime, against the flooding, against the terrible conditions they were living in, and just even have to scrounge up food, just so they can keep going day to day.
The bulk of the officers of the New Orleans P.D. especially were very brave people. But the person who made the biggest complaint to us, the owner of that hotel, said, listen, that is why they need to find out if there are bad cops, because the good cops, they don't deserve them.
COOPER: Well, it's interesting, because I have actually talked to a lot of police sort of off the record and off duty. And they, similar, kind of say the same thing.
They say, look, if some officers were doing something wrong, they want to know about it, they want it revealed, because they say that's not representative of the work that they were doing. Do you hear that as well?
GRIFFIN: Yes. I hear that very same thing. And they want action quickly, some surprised to see our videotape and wonder why that action has not been taken immediately.
We do know that that was a New Orleans police officer on that tape. It was confirmed to us by an official with the New Orleans Police Department. Why is that officer reaching down, holding a gun, and shoving the door closed on a reporter? That's just not the way official police, they tell us, should act.
COOPER: And the police that you are talking about, this incident with this man on the top floor of that hotel, that is different than officers going to people's homes and reclaiming looted material, which a number of officers have been doing and putting it into trucks to give back to stores. These are officers who seem to be taking items, Rolex watches and the like, for themselves.
GRIFFIN: Yes. This was a story of -- according to the people who told us the story, who witnessed this themselves, this was pure looting. This was going out to stores at night, coming back with the loot, storing it inside this hotel during those very tumultuous days, when all the other New Orleans police officers were out there fighting the floods and fighting the looting. These officers, it's alleged, were out there looting for themselves.
COOPER: All right. Appreciate that very much. Drew Griffin, thanks for continuing to follow that story. CNN's Drew Griffin has been covering that story for quite some time. We will continue to watch his investigations.
We also do want to just point out that we have met a number of hardworking, dedicated police officers, the vast majority of whom stayed on their posts and were working just, I mean, ridiculous hours around the clock. They don't have homes to go back to. Many of them didn't even know what the situation was with their own families. They continue to work.
The police association of New Orleans is accepting donations for officers right now who are in need, who are homeless, officers whose homes have been ruined. One officer has been -- was wounded in the line of duty pretty severely. He's in a hospital.
If you'd like to contribute, checks can be sent to PANO at 13544 Minou Avenue in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That's 70809. Or you can call them. The number is 225-756-2886.
And, Aaron, you know, it's a sensitive subject for a lot of police in New Orleans, as you can understand. They have -- they continue to be working these long hours, and many of them just haven't even been able to go to their homes yet, Aaron.
BROWN: It is always a few that make life miserable for the many. Thank you.
Michael Perlstein has been covering the New Orleans Police Department for the "Times-Picayune" newspaper for years, and he joins us tonight.
Long before Katrina hit, this was a troubled Police Department.
MICHAEL PERLSTEIN, "THE NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE": Yes.
The troubles of the New Orleans Police Department are somewhat legendary. In the mid-'90s, we had some notorious incidents of police officers committing murder. Two police officers sit on death row, one on federal death row, and a female officer who's on state death row as we speak.
At some point, it reached almost epidemic proportions and it became one of New Orleans' most pressing issues. A reform-minded police chief was brought in from out of town. And things shaped up quite a bit. By 1999, a third of the force had been removed by this police chief, Richard Pennington, who's now the chief in Atlanta, either through officers being fired, you know, kind of shown the door in early retirement, or indicted and convicted of crimes.
BROWN: Did -- there's actually two kind of separate issues here. One is the corruption within the police department, which has gone on for years and which apparently got a little better -- and, by that, we mean improved -- under Chief Pennington.
And the other is a notoriously bad crime rate, particularly a murder rate, in the city of New Orleans, which I gather, after Pennington left, began to get worse again.
PERLSTEIN: Yes.
And I think those two problems go hand in hand. When you have a Police Department that is beleaguered as the New Orleans Police Department, low pay, you know, at times, weakened hiring standards, it leads to less effective policing, and crime goes up as a result. And I think those two have kind of been in lockstep with a backslide in crime, especially our now nation-leading murder rate per capita.
And you can't ignore the contribution of police corruption to those problems.
BROWN: Mike, thanks. Good to talk to you, Mike Perlstein...
PERLSTEIN: Thank you.
BROWN: ... who writes for "The Times-Picayune" newspaper.
We will talk with the former chief of police in New Orleans, the current chief in Atlanta, Pennington, tomorrow on this program about some of the issues he left behind and why they can't seem to get a handle on corruption in New Orleans.
Coming up, compensation for the victims of Katrina. How much is enough money?
But, first, a little past a quarter past the hour, time for some of the other stories that made news on this day, Erica Hill in Atlanta.
Good evening, Ms. Hill.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good evening, Mr. Brown.
We're going to start off again tonight in Iraq, more bombings to report there in Najaf. A bomb exploded at the house of a bodyguard for Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Iraqi police said it may have exploded while being built. In Tal Afar, an Iraqi woman suicide bomber blew herself up outside a U.S. military office, killing at least five and wounding more than 30. She's believed to be the first female suicide bomber since the war in Iraq began. President Bush has scheduled a meeting at the White House with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. White House officials said the meeting with the Palestinian leader is scheduled for October 20.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has now upgraded the investigation into stock sales by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. The SEC gave investigators subpoena powers by changing the investigation from informal to formal. Frist sold shares in HCA, a hospital company founded by his family, just days before that stock fell sharply.
And Major League Baseball may face some tougher drug-testing policies very soon, in fact, as soon as the end of the World Series. Testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee, players union chief Donald Fehr said he hoped for an agreement on tougher drug standards by the end of the series. It begins in the final week of October, Aaron, a little more pressure being put on baseball today.
BROWN: Yes. Well, and they try and get the World Series over by Thanksgiving. Thank you, Erica.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: We will talk in a half-an-hour.
Much more on the program tonight, starting with a question that sends the head and the heart in opposite directions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We didn't lose our homes. They've lost everything.
BROWN (voice-over): So, should they get what she got after 9/11, special payments from the federal government?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, my son died in Oklahoma City. Where's my check?
BROWN: Nobody said this would be easy. Nobody said this would be easy either.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You simply can't dump money into a church collection plate and say, well, you did some good work.
BROWN: Should the government be using your money to pay church groups for hurricane relief?
Also tonight, he is respected, he is hated, and he is feared. Tonight, the most powerful man in Congress is also under indictment.
DICK DEGUERIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR TOM DELAY: When we get to trial, any fair jury is going to find that Tom DeLay did nothing wrong. BROWN: The charges, his chances, the fallout for the president, because, whether it's Washington, New Orleans, or New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: You're looking at some stray dogs roaming around in packs here in Biloxi, Mississippi. It's a sight we have gotten used to seeing. It's always a little bit tense when the dogs come out. When they're roaming in packs, you never -- especially when they've been out this long, you never know exactly how they're going to behave. These ones seem pretty calm, though.
You know, the day after 9/11, a French newspaper ran a very simple headline. It read, "We Are All Americans Now." In that vein, I'd like to think we're all Mississippians and Texans and Louisianians right now.
John Grisham, the best-selling author, happens in fact to be a Mississippian. Now, he's from Arkansas originally, but he lives here, the other end of the state, which really doesn't matter at all anymore. This does. He has motivation and he has money and he and his wife wanted to come here to help. And they've got a name that people notice. He set up a relief fund called Rebuild the Coast, www.rebuildthecoastfund.org. We toured the area with him earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN GRISHAM, AUTHOR: Is it open?
COOPER (voice-over): When John Grisham walked into Biloxi's library today ...
GRISHAM: Oh my goodness.
COOPER: ... the best-selling author was at a loss for words.
GRISHAM: What a mess.
COOPER: The clock remains frozen, a silent reminder of the moment Katrina came ashore here one month ago. The floor is littered by books and debris brought in by the storm. The shelves that once held John Grisham's many best-selling books are empty. Only a few mildewed copies of his work remain.
GRISHAM: I'm in bad shape. I was on the bottom shelf.
COOPER: Grisham first came to this library in 1989. He was a lawyer and a struggling author then trying to sell his first book, A Time To Kill.
GRISHAM: I went to 35 libraries all over the state of Mississippi and we'd have little punch and cookie parties and a good day was like, you know, nine or ten books would sell.
COOPER: Charlene Longino (ph) remembers it well. She's been the librarian here for more than 20 years.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, this was a collection of about 45 to 47,000 just regular books and we probably lost more than half of it. You can see at least the first two or three shelves are wet and just not fixable. And we're hoping the top two and possibly three shelves we can salvage.
COOPER: Charlene is optimistic but says it will be years before this library can reopen.
GRISHAM: You know, the sad part, Anderson, when it comes to rebuilding, you know, your libraries and museums and places like this, you know, homes and schools will get a priority to get people, you know, back in decent housing but libraries and museums are always kind of on the tail end of the funding.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shot this from the third floor.
GRISHAM: I heard about that. Someone told me you were the wild man up there.
COOPER: A city official stops by to show Grisham the video he made when the storm came ashore. Grisham and his wife, Renee, live in Mississippi and have started a campaign to raise money to help rebuild the Gulf.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, we realize that there would be people who would come in early and do things, but we want to be here after those folks are gone because I know with hurricanes in Florida, there's still people trying to get roofs on their house and we want to make sure those people get their roof on their house.
COOPER: The Grishams have donated $5 million of their own money and have already saved many million more. Walking around Biloxi, it's easy to see the needs are enormous.
GRISHAM: Every law firm has the southern report and federal report. This is south report. All Mississippi cases are in the southern reporter from the Supreme Court. Mississippi, Louisiana and this is what's left of the guys -- the guy's law office.
COOPER: Just down the block we meet the Grisham's friend, Bob Mahoney. He's determined to rebuild his family's restaurant.
BOB MAHONEY, RESTAURANT OWNER: This is the bar right here.
COOPER: Bob's restaurant, Mary Mahoney's, has been serving southern delicacies for 41 years now. When I was just eight in 1976 I came here with my dad, a Mississippi native. Bob Mahoney was here then.
MAHONEY: I still remember you walking up here. You just came from the water park and you had your bathing suit on and your towel around you.
COOPER: I remember that.
MAHONEY: And your daddy was sitting in here having dinner.
COOPER: This is the room we ate in.
MAHONEY: This is the room you ate in, yes back in 19, I guess, 76. I want to say when Wyatt Cooper came in the establishment, especially down in Biloxi, Mississippi, in the '70s it kind of got your attention.
COOPER: John Grisham has been eating at Mahoney's for the past 15 years. Grisham even wrote about Mahoney's in his book, The Runaway Jury. Bob has memorized every passage.
MAHONEY: They snack on crab cake, grilled snapper, fresh oysters, and Mahoney's famous gumbo, and all went back to tell about the lovely lunch.
GRISHAM: That's was brilliant. That was good.
(CROSSTALK)
MAHONEY: That's good writing.
COOPER: Bob Mahoney survived Camille. And, despite the damage, he says the restaurant will survive Katrina as well. He hopes to be open for business by Thanksgiving.
MAHONEY: Long term, you know, I just see the casino industry coming back and employing people. That's a big thing. You know, people can't come back and rebuild their homes if they don't have jobs. And, right now, that's -- that's basically our number one economic engine, is getting these people back to work and rebuilding their homes and just getting back to normal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: The Grishams' fund is www.rebuildthecoastfund.org. We will have more in the 11:00 hour of my day spent with the Grishams. You'll meet a friend of theirs, Lucy Denton (ph), who has lost her entire house.
Just ahead also, should the victims of Katrina be compensated, like the victims of 9/11? The damage is greater, the suffering just as intense. What makes a natural disaster any different? We will talk about it with Jesse Jackson, calling for a special government fund.
And later, has the Hammer been nailed? Congressman Tom DeLay indicted.
A break first. From Biloxi and New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ANNOUNCER: You're watching a special edition of NEWSNIGHT: STATE OF EMERGENCY with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper.
BROWN: This is one of those stories that lives in the gap between simple and easy. The simple fact is that tens of thousands of people lost family, lost homes, lost everything in Katrina and Rita.
The not so easy questions include how to compensate their losses. How should we pay? How much should we pay? Should people be left with $2,000 from FEMA and good luck with the insurance company? Many didn't have insurance. Or should the federal government set up a special fund and parcel out relief the way it did after 9/11?
In a moment a conversation with the Reverend Jesse Jackson on this. But first, some background from CNN's John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE BRIDGES, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: Come on. Come on.
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A father stirring his tired son. Joe Bridges playfully nudging Jordan into another school day. It seems so routine, which is what makes it so remarkable.
J. BRIDGES: He owes me five minutes of violin time.
KING: The Bridges family of Falls Church, Virginia, was just a few weeks ago the bridges family of New Orleans, Louisiana. Yes, still stunned by the destruction of their home and disruption of their lives, yet numbed as well by the overwhelming generosity that has allowed them to carry on.
J. BRIDGES: I mean, we were driving here. There were people. They'd look at the license plate, and they were opening up their wallets. And they were, "You need some money for food? Do you need money?"
KING: Joe Bridges was a partner in a small contracting business. Stephanie worked while also attending law school. They have modest savings and consider themselves among the lucky as they sort through what their home and business insurance will and won't pay for.
STEPHANIE BRIDGES, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: But there are a lot of those people who are not in our situation. And they don't have insurance. And for whatever reason. So I don't think that -- I think they need support and they need help.
KING: The National Urban League is among those suggesting that help should come in the form of a government fund, modeled after the program created to compensate families who lost loved ones in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The 9/11 Fund distributed more than $7 billion to some 5,600 people, relatives of those killed in the attacks or individuals injured in the attacks and aftermath.
About 1,100 deaths have been attributed to Katrina, and an estimated one million people displaced.
There is little support for a special Katrina fund at the White House or in Congress. And the man who administered the 9/11 Fund says direct payments to Katrina victims would set a dangerous precedent.
KENNETH FEINBURG, LAWYER, HEAD OF 9/11 COMPENSATION FUND: Congress wisely is somewhat dubious about expanding the notion of individual compensation to natural disasters or other misfortunes, however justified the victims' perception.
KING: Rita, hitting on the heels of Katrina, raises a question Feinburg dealt with frequently: why treat one tragedy differently than others?
FEINBURG: Questions arose all the time. "Well, my son died in Oklahoma City. Where's my check?"
KING: Rosemary Dillard collected from the 9/11 Fund. Her husband was on American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. She believes a special Katrina fund should be established.
ROSEMARY DILLARD, 9/11 FAMILY MEMBER: We didn't lose our homes. They've lost everything. We have our memories and our pictures. They don't have that.
KING: What the Bridges want most is to come home. Joe Bridges built this house himself. And as they wait for schools and other services to reopen, they are somewhat divided on whether government help to Katrina victims should include a lump sum payment.
S. BRIDGES: For me, yes, a fund is needed.
J. BRIDGES: I'm kind of at a crossroads with that. Personally, I don't think money solves everything.
KING: As this debate plays out, the Bridges are adapting to a new city, a temporary home and schools, trying to deal with such extraordinary change by making the things they can control seem routine.
John King, CNN, Falls Church, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So how do you help people who have lost at least almost everything, and how do you help the people who didn't have much to start with and lost that? Is there something you can fix, should fix with money?
We're joined tonight from Detroit by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the president of the Rainbow Coalition. It's always good to see you.
REV. JESSE JACKSON, PRESIDENT, RAINBOW COALITION: Good to see you.
BROWN: Here's -- here's what I don't get. I get job training, and I think we must as a country do that. I get low interest or no interest loans to rebuild homes or to -- I get housing; the government should pay for that. But what I don't get, honestly -- I can't figure out a reason to do this -- is start writing out checks to people simply because they got caught in a natural disaster.
JACKSON: Well, you know, in New York there was a victims' compensation fund, two to three million dollars per victim. And this was a case of almost all -- almost all employed people, almost all people with insurance, almost all educated people. So for those who had some sustaining means we gave up $10 billion, and I might add it was a combination of government, insurance, and charity, but 90 percent government.
BROWN: Reverend Jackson, with due respect, first of all, I'm not sure I thought that was a very good idea. But simply because we did it once doesn't necessarily argue we should do it always. There's going to be an earthquake in California. Tornados are going to hit in Minnesota or in Arkansas. Something's going to happen someplace. It always does. And is the answer to be writing checks?
JACKSON: But victim relief should correspond with the nature and character of the crisis. We always designate disaster areas, for example, some form of compensation or some form of adjustment.
Of course, what happened in the -- in this Katrina hit was an unusual level of destruction, of people and property, and the poorest of the poor are further victimized.
What I think happened in this case, Aaron, that would be mighty good, if we determined that all those who have been survivors of Katrina had the human right to return home and that those persons had preference on government -- government jobs, job training and contracts. That would give them a new lease on life. The opposite of that form of compensation is taking place.
BROWN: Well, if what you argue is we ought to make sure that they have homes to come back to, I'm with you. If what you're arguing is they ought to have job training. We ought to -- we taxpayers ought to help subsidize that because the nation took a hit, I'm absolutely with you on that.
But if you're arguing we ought to write a check and just hand people some money simply because something bad happened to them, I think you've got trouble.
JACKSON: Well, money does matter. And I submit to you that those -- need should be the basis of making a determination. Of course, those in New Orleans were also victims of a broken levee, where the government had people living at nine feet below sea level and did not have an adequate levee to protect those persons.
In some sense the government is more vulnerable in New Orleans than it was in New York. We did not know we were going to take the hit in New York. We were surprised with that hit. But we in some form of negligence left people nine feet below sea level trapped in New Orleans. BROWN: And the country for that negligence, if that's in fact what it was, is about to pay some $60 to $200 billion to clean it all up and rebuild it all. It's good to talk to you...
JACKSON: But the terms is that if Mr. Bush is going to -- if he's going to suspend prevailing wages and if the contracts for rebuilding goes to no business from the outside, it seems to me that the victims of Katrina should have preference on job training, jobs in reconstruction, and not $100 million no-bid contracts for those who have no effect at all except to make more money and be more greedy.
BROWN: I knew we'd find a place where we agreed on this, and we have. Thank you. We absolutely agree on that.
JACKSON: Thank you.
BROWN: Thank you, Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Still to come on the program tonight, should churches and other religious groups be repaid for the charity they provided during Rita and Katrina? Is there a constitutional problem there?
Also, a month after they fled their homes to save their lives, facing what's left of the life their left behind.
We'll take a break. From Biloxi, Mississippi, and New York, New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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COOPER: Welcome back. We're live in Biloxi, Mississippi.
You know, it ought to come as no surprise that Katrina and Rita have triggered an outpouring of help from individuals and private organizations, much of it from groups affiliated with religious organizations. This is America, which means that whether it's a local mosque or the Salvation Army, there is a great and good tradition of lending a hand.
There's another tradition as well: keeping an eye on what happens when the federal government enters the picture, and it has this time. Big-time.
Here's CNN's Tom Foreman.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ever since Katrina, church groups have been pouring assistance into the south: food, water, shelter, school, and medical supplies.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The medications are in there.
FOREMAN: The St. Vincent De Paul society of Baton Rouge has helped 50,000 storm victims like Clifford White.
CLIFFORD WHITE, STORM VICTIM: I do appreciate it. Believe me, I do appreciate it.
FOREMAN: And the unprecedented effort has drained the church group's bank account.
MICHAEL J. ACALDO, SOCIETY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL: We just took a leap of faith that donations would be forthcoming, which they have been. But there's so much service that's needed.
FOREMAN: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is pressing for even more private assistance.
MICHAEL BROWN, FORMER FEMA DIRECTOR: And in my opinion it's the responsibility of faith-based organizations, of churches and charities and others, to help those people.
FOREMAN: But now FEMA says it will reimburse some religious groups for the aid they are giving to storm victims. And since some spread their religious beliefs while helping, advocates of church- state separation are steaming.
BARRY LYNN: You simply can't dump money into a church collection plate and say, well, you did some good work, we won't even ask the question whether you also used this money to try to convert people to your religious beliefs.
FOREMAN: The largest faith groups are wary of taking tax money and donations from taxpayers. The Southern Baptist Convention and the Salvation Army say they will not ask for government aid. But if charities must take over a significant share of rebuilding...
MAJOR GEORGE HOOD, SALVATION ARMY: We will entertain from the federal government opportunities to be subcontractors to support them and to work with these families over an extended period of time.
FOREMAN (on camera): And you're saying charity groups alone just can't do that?
HOOD: Can't do it by ourselves. Nor can the donor public underwrite all of the expenses.
FOREMAN: The folks at St. Vincent De Paul's will take any help they can get right now, because they are giving until it hurts.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: There are so many in need tonight.
Ahead on the program, mean-spirited politics, criminal indictments, vendettas, a gumbo of charges and countercharges involving the Republican leader of the House. It's been a day on Capitol Hill. This is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: Still ahead in this hour, the top Republican in the House of Representatives faces a legal battle. And a political storm.
But first, at about a quarter till the hour, time once again to check on some of the other stories that made news today. Erica Hill is in Atlanta. Good evening again, Ms. Hill.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And good evening again to you Aaron.
The Santa Ana winds blasting through southern California at up to 50 miles an hour, are fanning some very dangerous brush fires. Flames there have spread now on both sides of the 118 freeway near Chatsworth. More than 100 firefighters and three helicopters are battling the blazes you're seeing there. They cover more than 100 acres, and they're destroying -- they've already destroyed one home and threatening at this hour dozens more.
Meantime, in the nation's capital it looks as though Judge John Roberts will become chief justice of the United States when the Senate votes tomorrow. Roberts sailed through confirmation hearings with very little of the partisan infighting some had expected. And today enough Democrats indicated their support to guarantee his confirmation by a comfortable margin.
And it's not quite get out of jail free for John Gotti, the man they call "Junior," and the late -- the son of the late Dapper Don John Gotti, but he is out of jail, released on $7 million bail after a mistrial was declared on most of the charges against him.
Junior remains under house arrest in Long Island, waiting for the beginning of another trial on the remaining charges including extortion, loan-sharking, and attempted kidnapping. And it looks like a balloon there for the welcome home, I think.
BROWN: Well, or anything else he wants. Anyway, he said he's gone straight. So...
HILL: Hey, more power to him.
BROWN: Turned over a new leaf.
HILL: There you go.
BROWN: Can't always be responsible for what your daddy was like, we always say.
Still ahead, the man they call the hammer is now in a vice. Tom DeLay and the criminal charges he's facing. And the political fallout it represents.
This is NEWSNIGHT, giving a different definition of state of emergency.
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ANNOUNCER: You're watching a special edition of NEWSNIGHT: STATE OF EMERGENCY, with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper. BROWN: The majority leader of the House of Representatives, as you may have heard by now, was indicted today by a grand jury in Austin, Texas. If you're not a student of this sort of stuff, the details may be a bit hard to follow. But in essence, the prosecutor says Tom DeLay illegally used corporate donations to fund re-election campaigns.
Mr. DeLay says the prosecutor, whose a Democrat, is on very thin ice and he's conducting a political vendetta. The prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, says he's simply doing his job and has, in fact, prosecuted Democrats over the years, as well.
If anyone can help make sense of this, politically and legally, our two guests can: CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield here in New York, and from Austin, Texas, tonight, Wayne Slater, the senior political writer for "The Dallas Morning News."
Wayne, as simply as you can, what does the prosecutor have to prove to get a conviction?
WAYNE SLATER, SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER, "DALLAS MORNING NEWS": Basically, the prosecutor in this case has to prove that Tom DeLay was involved in a conspiracy. That is to say, he knew about, directed, or in some way was involved with two other co-conspirators to take corporate money that couldn't be spent in Texas directly in political campaigns, send it to Washington, and bring it back to Texas to elect Republicans.
If the prosecutor can improve that, then he's got Tom DeLay. But in order to do that he presumably has to have at least conversations, testimony, ideally a paper trail that shows that DeLay was involved in the conspiracy.
BROWN: Very briefly, is there any question here that money was in fact laundered? Is it just a question of whether Mr. DeLay was running the washing machine?
SLATER: I think there's no question money came from Austin, corporate money, into one account, went to Washington, and money came back in essentially the same amounts and went to the campaigns of various Republican candidates. That's a fact, whether DeLay had anything to do with it is a matter of conjecture.
BROWN: That's why we have juries. Jeff, there are all sorts of juries, and one is the American public in this. I was looking at a headline in the "Washington Post" tomorrow, "For GOP, A Troubled Year Gets Worse. Is this a big political problem, a medium political problem, or do we need to see it in some broader context?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think you need to broaden the focus. First of all, there's a whiff of trouble in a lot of different ways involving some Republicans. The top procurement official for the Office of Management and Budget has been charged with concealing his relationship with Jack Abramoff, a very powerful lobbyist, who's been the subject of news stories...
BROWN: A buddy of Mr. DeLay.
GREENFIELD: Big buddy of Mr. DeLay, who it is charged disguised the source of money that went to furnish very lavish trips, golfing outings and -- you could relate to that, Aaron.
BROWN: Why? He's not financing any golfing outings for me.
GREENFIELD: I understand. The golf part.
You've got Bill Frist, who is facing questions about the sale of his stock. You've got Randy Duke Cunningham, a Republican congressman who says, "I'm not going to run again" after charges of a sweetheart deal.
Some of these are more comprehensible than others. I think Wayne indicated that trying to follow the money trail can be tricky and not politically resonant. A big shot disguising the fact that he paid for a political big shots' trip, if that were to stick, that kind of stuff think could be trouble particularly given the fact that we're facing an unpopular Republican president right now.
BROWN: Is there -- does this tarnish the president in any way?
GREENFIELD: Well, it's his party, and I guess maybe he'll cry if he wants to. The problem is...
BROWN: Lesley Gore rarely gets quoted in the program.
GREENFIELD: I know. I'm looking at our demographic.
The problem is it's all of the piece. It's a troubled time. If the president had 65 percent approval ratings, he might choose to distance himself from Congress. He needs the Congress to pass his agenda. He's got conservatives in the Congress already attacking him, the president, for spending too much.
You add all these things together, and it's trouble, and the biggest thing he has going for them is it's a year and a month before the congressional elections.
BROWN: I want to go back to Wayne in a second. Let me ask you one more question. Is Mr. DeLay now actually defanged, or is he defanged in name only? Is he still someone to be feared by mostly Republicans, actually?
GREENFIELD: You know, the congressmen who -- and women who rally today in his support I think said in so many words he's still going to be a very influential member. This is one of the most effective party leaders of either party in Congress in decades. And a lot of Republicans owe their seats in the Congress to him. So they're not going to run away from him anytime soon.
BROWN: Wayne, last word. Ten seconds. What's the betting in Houston? Is he going down on this or not?
SLATER: I think the betting is that he probably will get away and not go down, but I wouldn't absolutely bet a lot of money on it. Ronnie Earle has something, and whether he can convince a jury in Austin that he can convict Tom DeLay is something that we won't know for at least a little while.
BROWN: Good to see you. Jeff, thank you for coming in, too.
Coming up in the next hour, how Hurricane Katrina brought prisoners and pets together. Take a break first. From Biloxi and from New York, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
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