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Win Some, Luge Some; Where are the Jobs?; CNN Hero Provides Refuge for Haitians
Aired February 05, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, and that means it's time for Back/Story. This is one of my favorite things that we do. It's a behind-the-scenes look at what happens on location when our crews are out capturing the news.
Michael Holmes steers that ship.
And you've got a great story for us right now. It's got to do with the Olympics.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right.
We ran this on Back/Story on CNN International earlier this week, but you know the luge, one of those weird winter sports where you lay down...
VELSHI: You wonder how that got started. But yes.
HOLMES: It's insane. They go 150 kilometers an hour, which -- what is that in your language? About 100 miles an hour, a little under 100 miles an hour. Insane stuff.
Now, we train our correspondents well these days. They go out on a story, we always get them to shoot a little extra, do a little bit more behind the scenes, for Back/Story.
Now, Fred Pleitgen went out there to do this story on the German luge team preparing for Vancouver, Winter Olympics, and we got his photojournalist to shoot a little bit of Fred having an adventure. So here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All right. So today, we have a special task. We're trying to shoot luge, which is a very fast sledding sport, very popular here in Germany, and these guys are so fast that it's absolutely almost impossible to try to get them on camera.
Let me show you.
All right. Ready to go.
Please tell the bosses I want a raise.
It looks great, doesn't it? Hey, it's pretty good.
OK. We're going to try and do a start on the luge.
OK. So what do I have to do? I feel a little bit like one of those sausages.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like a white sausage.
PLEITGEN: Like a white sausage, yes. The Bavarian white sausage, very famous.
OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So does Mr. Lichtner (ph).
PLEITGEN: OK. Yes. Mr. Lichtner (ph) is now ready to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's start now.
PLEITGEN: So, we go over there?
OK. So now the front guy only sits on this thing, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Only on the front. Now come on.
PLEITGEN: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sit down here.
PLEITGEN: So sit down here like this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
PLEITGEN: I'm sorry. I might be a little bit big for this.
OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now you have to fix yourself here.
PLEITGEN: OK. Am I too fat? That's OK. It's OK. We got it.
OK. Like this, right?
OK. So we lay down like this. It's very tight.
(LAUGHTER)
PLEITGEN: I feel very close to you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, now we will try to paddle.
PLEITGEN: To paddle. OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
PLEITGEN: And then you tell me when to lay down. Right? Like this? OK.
OK. Here we go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. One, two, three, four...
PLEITGEN: One, two, there, four.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now lay down. Lay down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very good.
PLEITGEN: Whoa! Can I get up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
PLEITGEN: No?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay cool.
PLEITGEN: OK.
Whoa! Oh, God, this feels very, very strange. Whoa!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, now go up.
PLEITGEN: OK. Wow.
That was -- sorry. Other side?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
PLEITGEN: OK, good. How do I get out of here?
See, the gloves have nails on them so that when you paddle, you can grip the snow.
Right?
It's a weapon. He says it's a weapon.
All right. Thank you very much. Hold up.
Not quite. There we go. Everything is still in place. Good. Lovely.
Thank you very much for that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, for sure. You're very welcome.
PLEITGEN: Thank you very much. Good. I would like to shake your hands, but -- good. Thank you very much, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
PLEITGEN: Yes. Then you'll call me. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will call you.
PLEITGEN: OK. So if he gets sick, I'll be in the Olympics.
Good. Very good. Thank you very much, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: You can see that Fred is about my size. He's about 6'4".
VELSHI: That poor guy under him.
HOLMES: I know. And we have to say, we were going to put a viewer warning at the head of that. No bottom lugers were harmed in the making of that story.
VELSHI: No kidding?
HOLMES: Yes.
VELSHI: I'm always afraid to do those stories like that for fear that I will look ungainly, or not very athletic, but Fred has just broken some new ground for us.
HOLMES: I think he's a very brave man. Not for the luging, but for wearing the lycra.
VELSHI: Yes. That was something.
HOLMES: And it's a whole new meaning to getting up close and personal with your interview subject.
VELSHI: Right. Well, this is what Back/Story is about, right? It's about getting...
HOLMES: Exactly.
VELSHI: ... behind the scenes. And we use the expression showing how the sausage is made.
HOLMES: Yes.
VELSHI: He's sort of showed how the sausage is stuffed.
HOLMES: Yes, the white sausage.
VELSHI: The white sausage, yes.
HOLMES: Exactly. As he put it there, Bavarian delicacy is our friend. So yes.
VELSHI: There's just so much to say about this. Excellent Back/Story. That is why BackStory is fun.
Michael, good to see you.
HOLMES: Good to see you.
VELSHI: Thanks very much, my friend.
All right. We're going to continue on. We've got a lot of big stories that we're covering right now -- the Toyota recall, the weather going through the Mid-Atlantic, and another story that affects so many of you, and that is the story of unemployment in this country.
Just this morning, we got new unemployment numbers that I want to tell you about, new figures that some say are cause for hope, but not celebration. Let's go through the jobs numbers right now.
The official unemployment rate in the United States for January -- we always get it in the next month -- is 9.7 percent. That's a drop from 10 percent.
Twenty thousand more jobs were lost in January than the month before, but the government did revise the number of jobs lost in the recession in total to 8.4 million. And that's 1.2 million more than we originally thought.
Now, let me put this in perspective for you.
Forget this unemployment rate for a second. Take a look at jobs gained or lost.
Ever since the first month of this recession, January of 2007, we have been losing jobs. Let me show you a bar graph of this.
This is January of 2007. The recession actually started a month earlier, in December, but we gained jobs. We had been losing jobs.
Take a look at this.
Last January, 740,000 jobs were lost in one month. We should be gaining jobs, 100,000 or 150,000 a month. This is what we've been losing.
Now we're here. In November, we actually gained a few jobs, but take a look at this. Look at that V shape.
The bottom line is you can't deny that the trend is changing for jobs. But, still, we wanted to be gaining jobs, not losing jobs.
The bottom line is, for some of you, you're looking for a job. Others are facing a layoff for the first time. And we want to get you some very specific information, whichever case you're in. So we're bringing in some experts.
Brad Karsh joins us from Chicago. He's with JobBound, a long-time recruiter, a resume expert, author of a few books on resumes. Robin Bond is a workplace attorney. She is based in Philadelphia, and she advises people who have workplace problems and have lost their jobs about their rights. So I want to talk to both of you very specifically at this point.
We know what the national trend is.
Brad, if people are looking for a job today, we know the situation is improving, but what is first thing that you want to tell them to do?
BRAD KARSH, JOBBOUND: The first piece of advice I give to people is they must be active job seekers. And one of the biggest mistakes that people make is that when they are looking for a job, they sit behind their computer, they apply to a few jobs, they shoot out a few e- mails, and then get incredibly frustrated because they don't hear back.
They need to get away from the computer. Use that as a first step, but pick up a phone, call people, talk to them, meet people, network your way to a job. And that is the single best way to land a job. Don't just expect it to come magically into your inbox. You need to get out there and work hard at it
VELSHI: OK. You're going to give us a specific tip when we come back on how to do that.
Before we take a break, Robin, I want to ask you, for the tens of thousands of people who face still layoffs on a daily basis, you're in shock when it happens, you may not be thinking all that clearly, what's the thing that you should remember as you get that layoff notice and you're leaving the building?
ROBIN BOND, WORKPLACE LAW EXPERT: Well, the first thing you want to make sure of is, is my discharge characterized in such a way that I am eligible for unemployment compensation? That means you're fired because you did nothing wrong. You know, it's a layoff, a downsizing.
You want to make sure it's not characterized as you quit or characterized as you were leaving for misconduct, because that will make you ineligible for unemployment. You want to make sure you sign on via the Web site to the unemployment compensation Web site and get your application moving the day after you get your termination notice.
VELSHI: OK. You've both got more tips for us. We're not done with either of you. Robin and Brad, stay with us for a moment.
I'm going to break down the jobs picture a little further for you right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Many of you are either looking for work or dealing with the fact that you just lost your work. So I'm going to talk more with Brad Karsh of JobBound -- he's in Chicago -- and workplace law expert Robin Bond, who's in Philadelphia.
I'm going to start with you, Robin. If your company lays you off, they've obviously been thinking about it for longer than you have. They give you an offer. Do you have to take that offer of severance as it's given to you?
BOND: Absolutely not.. And by law, if you are age 40, they have to give you 21 days to review that offer and tell you, you have the right to consult an attorney before you accept it.
I say they've made you the first offer, now you look at it and you go back and can very respectfully ask the company to reconsider that offer based on several things. You have to ask yourself, well, what is my leverage? What have I done for the company? How have I increased value?
Have I met all of the objectives for the year? Has that brought a million dollars to the company's bottom line? And if so, perhaps instead of getting six weeks of severance, they would respectfully consider your request for nine weeks. And you just make a argument that is persuasive.
VELSHI: OK. So it's open for discussion. I guess that's the important point.
BOND: It's open for discussion, absolutely.
VELSHI: All right.
Brad, I want to ask you something. When people are laid off from a job, there's that shock period, there's that time when they're looking for something in their own industry. It has been your advice that people should very early on consider switching careers entirely.
KARSH: It's a great time to reassess what your priorities are. And oftentimes, we continue on in our professions, blindly moving along. And sometimes I say a layoff -- not in all instances, of course -- but can be a blessing in disguise.
Now is the time to think about, what do I really want to do? Do I need to go back to school to get some additional education? Do I want to start my own company? Do I want to change fields?
A time like this allows you the opportunity to consider a variety of options. And I always tell people, take that deep breath and decide what you really want to do.
VELSHI: All right. Good advice from both of you.
Brad, people can find you on JobBound, and you help people with resumes and finding jobs and getting into it. We're going to talk at another time, when we've got a little more time, about networking and how you can do that.
And Robin, we'll always have stuff to talk about because, unfortunately, people continue to lose their jobs.
Thanks to both of you.
Robin Bond, an employment attorney, and Brad Karsh, of JobBound. All right. We're going to visit the situation in Haiti. We have been covering this for a while, obviously. We obviously know that CNN needs -- or Haiti needs all the heroes it can get, and one of our CNN Heroes has been answering the call.
You'll meet him when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
VELSHI: Well, more than 1.5 million people lost their homes in the quake. Among those rushing to help them, one CNN Hero.
Anderson Cooper caught up with him.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than two weeks after the earthquake, Boby Duval is overwhelmed. The soccer field he built for kids is now a home for hundreds.
BOBY DUVAL, CNN HERO: It's really something. I mean, where are we going start? We're going to start now? I mean, you know, it's just like, we were already in a hole. Now, we are in a much deeper hole now.
COOPER: Duval was a CNN hero in 2007. He founded a soccer training center called Athletics of Haiti, giving some of the kids from the poorest neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince an opportunity to get off the streets, play a sport, and get a meal.
DUVAL: Some of these kids have witnessed the worst atrocities. They live in the mud and no running water.
COOPER: Before the earthquake, his program served 1,300 kids a day. It was a safe place where kids could play and work on their skills.
DUVAL: The kids never missed practice and they are disciplined enough to keep focused on something positive.
Now, it's basically an after-school program.
COOPER: That after school program is now a lifesaver. Many families of the children who played soccer for Bobby have moved on to the field, nowhere else to go.
DUVAL: What we're trying to do is just keep it clean, give them a little bit of, you know, set up some bathrooms, set up some water and give them care. That's all. Understanding. So they are safe here.
COOPER: Safe and sheltered. Duval provided what tents he had. Those without them have gotten more creative.
(on camera): Are these goalposts, too?
DUVAL: Goalposts.
COOPER: Someone has made a little home out of goalposts.
DUVAL: Right.
COOPER (voice-over): Some kids still play soccer to pass the time. Families are making due the best they can. They cook on makeshift grills, wash clothes in discarded tubs. Duval says this is going to be the way of life here for a long time to come.
DUVAL: Save and serve, yes.
COOPER (on camera): Save and serve?
DUVAL: Save and serve.
COOPER: And that's what's essential right now. Save as many as you can.
DUVAL: Save as many as you can and serve as much as you can. That's it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Relief workers estimate that three million Haitians are still in need of food, water and medical supplies. If you'd like to help, go to Impact Your World. Visit CNN.com/impact.
OK. We're following this blizzard, the heavy weather hitting the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic. There you go, a picture of the Capitol building in Washington. A fairly heavy water-laden snow falling sort of diagonally.
We're going to go -- and there's the White House -- we're going to go to D.C. We'll chat with Reynolds Wolf. We'll also check in with Chad Myers, who is monitoring the travel and the weather situation today and over the course of the next couple of days.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Well, if you're not quite sure what to make of this whole Tea Party thing, you're not alone. Let me show you a new CNN/Opinion Research poll that we just brought out.
As you know, in Nashville right now, the Tea Party is having its first convention. They only got started last year, and it was really more of a movement than a party.
Thirty-three percent of those polled have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement. Twenty-six percent have unfavorable view of it. And 40 percent are unsure about what they think about the Tea Partiers.
Many people don't even know entirely who the Tea Partiers are. That's why we have Gloria Borger, to try and break this down for us and help us understand if this is a movement. There were rallies, now they're having a convention, but they don't call them delegates.
What do you think this is, Gloria? And I know you've talked about it a lot, but what do you think it is?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's a very passionate group of people. I think they're the most passionate group we have got in American politics right now.
They are angry. They are united by what they are against, rather than what they are for. And they are against big government, they're against big deficits, they're against big regulation, and lots of taxes. They don't want lots of taxes.
So, they are kind of this movement that you could say that have broken away, largely, I would have to say, from the Republican establishment.
VELSHI: Right. And what does that mean politically? Tell me about that.
BORGER: Well, it's really interesting, because when you talk to people in the so-called Republican establishment, which means members of Congress, what you hear is that they are afraid to criticize Tea Party folks publicly because they don't want to alienate them, because they don't want to get a primary candidate running against them supported by the Tea Party. But privately, they are quite concerned about the Tea Party movement, largely because they are afraid that in the end, they could divide Republican voters and hand Barack Obama, for example, the next presidential election, and hand lots of Democrats congressional seats.
So they are quite concerned about them.
VELSHI: So we keep talking about these dangers, about the Obama administration being kind of out of touch with voters in this groundswell movement. Are you sort of saying that maybe this is OK for the Obama administration and for Democrats?
BORGER: Well, you know, it's interesting, because these are breaking away largely from the Republican Party. The things that I told you they're against are largely kind of conservative points of view.
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: So they are really taken largely from Republicans rather than Democrats.
Don't forget, Barack Obama harnessed just this kind of passion in the Democratic Party when he ran for the presidency. Right? And that's where the passion was.
So, now the pendulum has swung, and so Republicans are kind of nervous. You know, in upstate New York there was a Republican congressional seat, and the voters got split and handed the seat to the Democrats.
VELSHI: You know, we talked to Mary Snow earlier. She's at the convention. And I asked her, sort of, did it feel like a political convention or did it feel like a rally? And she said, yet to be seen, but it's somewhere in the middle. It didn't seem to have that edginess of some of those Tea Party rallies that we saw. And then I interviewed one of the organizers who said that they're maturing and maybe the fringes are falling off. Do you think that's happening?
BORGER: Yes, I think it is. And you had someone on the air earlier saying, look, we don't want to become an independent party. I don't think what you're seeing here is folks who are going to elect leaders to try and establish the independent party. I think what they're trying to do at a local level and state level is affect congressional races and affect Senate races. And they're kind of right now looking for leadership.
If I were to look for leadership of the Tea Party Movement right now, I'd look to the State of Florida where Marco Rubio is challenging Governor Crist for that Senate seat. And you know, he could emerge as a leader of this movement. But right now, it's a group of people who feel really passionately about something, and they're trying to figure out what to do about that.
VELSHI: And what about the big brand name attached to this, Sarah Palin? She's going to be the keynote speaker on Saturday night closing out this thing. Is she the de facto leader?
BORGER: Well, maybe. There really is no leader right now. I think that there are lots of folks who believe that Sarah Palin speaks for them. If you talk to the folks who are going to be listening to her, she clearly speaks for people who feel that they've been disenfranchised from the Republican Party, that they don't like the way Washington works. And she confirms their outsiderism, if you will.
And so, I think that she is to a certain degree a leader, but she's not seeking political office right now. She is not organizing for them. She's getting paid for the speech she's giving. So I think, you know, they may be looking for a leader that wants to get a little more active in their movement. I think Sarah Palin right now has got a lot of other things going on.
VELSHI: Well, you said something, and you've said this a few times, and I love having you on here because you've identified this outsiderism as something interesting. You identified it as something that swept Barack Obama to office or at least helped him to take office. And now, he's been made, by some of the critics, into the ultimate insider who's not changing things in Washington. And he is trying to take his piece of outsiderism back.
BORGER: Right. He's the reformer again. He's the guy who wants to change the tone in Washington. You know, he's trying to get back to what it was that got him elected in the first place. People believe. And probably lots of those folks in the Tea Party Convention believe that Barack Obama has been doing too much business behind closed doors.
He promised to bring in the C-SPAN cameras on the health debate. He didn't do that. He has been cutting deals with the labor unions, cutting deals with senators to try and get health care reform through. So, he is going back to his roots right now because that's what people found so appealing about him.
The problem is that he's also got to lead a governing majority. He has to find a way to get things done. And he's got a base in the party that's going to be pretty upset with him if he starts cutting deals with Republicans. But he just might do it because he's going to probably lose a bunch of the seats in the midterm elections, so he's going to be forced into it anyway.
VELSHI: Gloria, great to talk to you. Senior political analysts, Gloria Borger. Thanks for joining us.
BORGER: It's snowing here.
VELSHI: Oh, yes, we've got a lot of cameras outside. We're looking at the Capitol. We're looking at the White House. Stay warm and make sure you're stocked up on stuff. There you go, a picture of the Capitol.
BORGER: It is beautiful.
VELSHI: It is beautiful. It's going to stop traffic for a while, but it's beautiful. Thanks, Gloria.
All right, we're going to keep track of another story that's slowing people down and that is the story of Toyota. That's the chairman of Toyota issuing an apology two weeks into what has become a massive crisis for that company.
Poppy Harlow has been on this case since the beginning. She's going to give us the latest. She's spoken to some more dealers and she'll bring us an up-to-date report on what's going on with Toyota.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYS)
VELSHI: I'm liking the D.J. on this show.
All right, for two weeks now, he's been a virtual no-show. Now, Toyota's president and CEO has finally stepped up to the plate and apologized and has sort of shown his presence. Let's go to Poppy Harlow at CNNMoney.com who's been following this along with the Money.com team.
What have you got, Poppy?
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: Well, Ali, what an interesting press conference, by the way. The head of Toyota coming out on a Friday night at 9:00 in Japan. From what I've read, it was quite an unusual press conference. But what's key is that he apologized. Finally, he apologized. The first public appearance we've seen from him in two weeks saying, "There's no solution yet for the brake problem-- potential brake problems in the Prius. No recall yet, but we are looking into it. I shall also note that we learned in the last 24 hours, there may be an issue with the brakes in the Lexus hybrids."
But he insisted in this press conference, Mr. Toyoda, that Toyota quality is key. He said, "Believe me, Toyota cars are safe." That was the message he wanted to send. Let's take a quick listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AKIO TOYODA, PRESIDENT & CEO, TOYOTA MOTOR CORP. (through translator): We are speaking with one voice at Toyota. The reason why I have come out at this time of night is to appeal to our customers directly through the media and say we have put our customers as our first priority.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: So obviously they're putting their customers at the forefront of all of this. Ali, as we talked about for weeks now, quality is key with Toyota. They have built their brand around the world on this. Therefore, he also said they're setting up this quality commission to further investigate and protect against issues like this in the future-- Ali.
VELSHI: All right, now, you've been talking to people. You were at a dealership. And I know you've just gotten off of the phone with a Toyota dealer. What have you learned?
HARLOW: Yes. I have. I spoke to the same dealer that I visited on Wednesday.
VELSHI: This was in Brooklyn, right?
HARLOW: Yes, in Brooklyn, New York, exactly. This is the biggest dealership in Brooklyn, New York to talk to him about what has happened since this Prius news broke. And he's frustrated, Ali. He said, "Well, you know what, this is a witch hunt of sorts." That's what he said. He said this is a sort of all out gang busters against Toyota.
He said all of my customers are calling not because they're having problems with the brakes but because they're hearing you, the media, talk about it. Bt I told him that we have to relay this message.
I will tell you what he said that I thought was very interesting, talking about how he is getting through this, how the dealer is getting through this. He said, essentially, I'm telling all of my salesmen and women do whatever it takes to sell those cars, go as low as you need to because we want to get Toyotas out the door. We don't want to lose market share. If we lose money in the interim, that's one thing. We can't lose market share. We can't afford to lose that loyalty.
VELSHI: You know a lot about it in the industry, it's not just about losing the profit on one sale. It's that once you've taken a Toyota dealer and made them a Ford driver or a GM driver, you may have lost them for the next car sale and the next one after that.
HARLOW: Well, that's exactly right. You might have. So you know what he said he's doing, Ali? That he's eligible for $60,000 from Toyota to help him and his dealership get through the deal. He said, "I'm buying people lunch. I'm driving them home, anything to make a sale." The dealer is desperate at this point in time. And they're the lifeblood of this company. If they can't sell the autos, what's Toyota...
VELSHI: Right. And you and I have covered the auto industry for a while. And I have a great deal of sympathy for autoworkers and auto dealers. I think Toyota has got to stop blaming the media on this one. They could have been out of there two weeks ago. But I feel the pain of dealers who are not moving cars. They don't need to suffer anymore than they've suffered in the last couple of years.
Thanks for staying on the story with your team at Money.com. Poppy Harlow in New York continuing to stay on this story. Go to CNN.com/Toyota by the way for all the detail that you need on this recall.
Checking the headlines now, an unexpected drop in the nation's unemployment rate. It was 9.7 percent last month. That's January, the latest month we have numbers for compared to 10 percent in December. But the government also reports that 20,000 jobs were lost in January. The Labor Department revised its numbers going back to the end of 2007 when the recession started. It now says 8.4 million jobs have been lost since the recession began. That's 1.2 million more than we initially thought.
In Haiti, those 10 Americans arrested there want help. It's not going to get much of it from the secretary of state's office. Hillary Clinton says it's a matter for the Haitian courts to decide now. The 10 missionaries face charges, including kidnapping. They're accused of trying to take 33 children out of the country, claiming that they wanted to help them.
I Langley, Virginia, we don't know their names but we know what they sacrificed. President Obama attended a memorial for seven CIA officers and contractors earlier today. A suicide bomber killed them all in Afghanistan back in December. The service was closed because the victims' identities are still secret.
All right, when we come back, we're going to down-- there he is. There he is. Nothing will keep him out of the way of that camera. That snow is coming down. It weighs three times as much as normal snow, but Ed Henry is braving it for that Ed Henry segment that's coming up right after this break.
Stay there, Ed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYS) VELSHI: All right, Ed Henry is braving the elements on a Friday afternoon in Washington where there's really nobody to be seen in the place especially as a massive winter storm moves in. But, Ed is not going to budge.
What are you doing out there, Ed? It's snowing. It's Friday. It's Washington. Why are you there?
ED HENRY, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Ali, I've got to be here for you, first of all. But, you know, people in Washington-- you want to know why the government is paralyzed in Washington, I've got to tell you that, people go crazy when they hear about a blizzard. We are expected to get a lot, I should say, in fairness.
But last night, I was trying to take my kids to get some pizza in Bethesda, Maryland, this great, little place. And bottom line, I couldn't even park my car to get to the pizza place because about a block and a half away was a giant supermarket and cars were lined up from the supermarket all the way down to the pizza shop because people were desperate to get milk, eggs, toilet paper. That's all they do. It just goes crazy.
We have some stills, in fact, from a local D.C. blog. There's a Whole Foods market less than a mile from the White House here on 14th Street. The shelves are wiped out. There's a Trader Joes on the west end of Washington.
VELSHI: And that's what we're looking at right now, empty bread shelves.
HENRY: Empty break shelves at the Whole Foods. Then, we've got one with people lined up. What those people are doing, they're not just shopping. They're online for the cashier but they're snaked around an aisle or two because there are so many people.
Then this morning, I went for a workout and I was trying to park my car in a garage and I couldn't find a parking spot.
VELSHI: Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Hold on, just rewind that tape for a second. Did you just say, "This morning, I went for a workout?"
HENRY: I did. Yes, I did.
VELSHI: Carry on.
HENRY: All right, and so I was basically in the garage trying to find a spot, and all of the sudden, I can't find one. I said, "Why?" It's because the club shares a garage with Petsmart. And so, people were bringing their dogs. And I saw Rover and everyone else coming in. And people were stocking up on pet food. So they're not even just stocking up on human food. They're rushing out there, of course, getting kitty litter as well for the snow on the ground. But there's an insanity that takes...
VELSHI: Right. I mean we don't want to minimize the fact that there's a storm coming in, but I mean flights have been canceled. It's going to be hard to get around. But I mean, Chad's been saying, if you're stationary like you are, you've got some food at home. It's going to end in a couple of days.
HENRY: You've got a couple of cans of dog food in the closet, I think. I mean you would think.
VELSHI: What's this about a workout? Does that happen much?
HENRY: Yes, it does. By the way, I wanted to ask you, a friend of mine, he's doing a production here in Washington pretty soon of "Guys & Dolls." And he saw your suit today and is wondering if you'll star in the show.
VELSHI: You know, anything for a little extra exposure. I mean I got to work it a little harder until I get my name on the show.
Talk to me about the Super Bowl. I mean for Super Bowl viewers, this is going to be a great weekend, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. They're stuck at home.
HENRY: Yes, it's a great time to watch the Super Bowl. The president last year, remember, had a little bipartisan party. That was in the first 100 days when he was doing the whole...
VELSHI: That's not going to happen again.
HENRY: Well, you know, it's interesting is he's -- you know, both sides sort of went away from each other in the last year after that Super Bowl party. Now, they're sort of coming back. The president's invited some Republicans, like Congressman Cao, a Republican from Louisiana rooting for his New Orleans Saints, is planning to come here to the White House. We don't know if his flight's going to make it in. We understand he was trying to fly in. We'll see if that actually works.
He also has some Indiana Democrats of course rooting for the Colts. So there's going to be another bipartisan party. It's funny. Robert Gibbs today was telling reporters, all of the snow -- while everyone else was racing around, it's not really going to affect the president very much because as Robert joked, he doesn't shovel snow anymore. I mean he's the commander in chief. But his daughters are going to love this because Robert Gibbs said they'll probably be out sledding as they've done in previous storms.
And a couple of nights ago, we had a little less snow and I was late working here and I ran into Bo the dog just over here actually. And he was basically playing on that lawn, running around in the snow. And so, I think the happiest puppy in town is going to be Bo the dog because, you know, he's got 16 acres here at the White House.
VELSHI: The president had a warning about the snow, in fact.
HENRY: Yes, well, you know, he got the warning and his motorcade, we're told, it was -- here's what he said. Take a listen first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: All right, thanks, guys. Stay out of the snow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: The president really likes to tease people who have lived in Washington longer than him because since he's originally from Hawaii but then via Chicago, he, David Axelrod and Robert Emanuel like to tease all of us that, you know, a couple of inches here, even a foot of snow here is nothing for the Chicagoans. They're used to real snow storms.
And so, you know, the president, we're told, didn't take the normal limousine that he takes. He actually took a big Suburban today when he went out to give that speech about the economy and jobs because the bottom line is the limo might not have worked too well in the snow today.
VELSHI: And he didn't want to get stuck. Ed, the one bad thing -- and there's the picture of the Suburban that the president was in. The one bad thing about the weekend is after months of -- we seen each other every day on TV but after months of not seeing each other in person, we were actually going to be meeting up this weekend. And the storm has kept met out of your part of the country, so we'll just have to reschedule it.
HENRY: I know. We're going to invite you back. I wanted to maybe watch the Super Bowl with you. It's not going to work. Maybe there'll be some other -- I don't know.
VELSHI: Maybe I can show up where you are and I can be in the Ed Henry segment.
HENRY: You know, that would be cool if like T.J...
VELSHI: Right, he was anchoring and I was there.
HENRY: ...and you like walked into the shot the way Katie Couric did the other day.
VELSHI: We're going to work that out. Ed Henry, stay dry, buddy, and I hope you don't get to miss the gym for too long because of the storm. The Ed Henry segment.
All right, the storm is affecting a lot of people and how they're traveling. So we're going to tell you about. It is real snow that's coming down. But as long as you stay out of it, you'll stay safe. We're going to check in on it one more time when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right, let's take a look at some pictures. On the top left, I don't have to tell you what that is. That's the U.S. capitol with snow coming down fairly heavily in Washington. On the top right is Central Park, the view from CNN actually in New York at Columbus Circle.
What's the bottom left there? Is that Philly? Yes, it looks like Philly to me, yes. The snow is not going to start in Philly until after dark tonight. But boy, there will be snow there.
What are we looking at in the bottom right there? All right, I don't know what that is in the bottom right.
(WEATHER REPORT)
VELSHI: All right, back to D.C. right now. Reynolds Wolf is on the National Mall covering the story. It's coming down a little more than it was last time we checked in with you about an hour ago, Reynolds.
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Oh, it certainly is. And we're seeing some pretty sizable flakes that are coming down. We're coming to you from the corner of Jefferson and 3rd Street. Over here is the American Indian Museum. And I'm going to cross this street right here. Yes, we're doing OK, not breaking any laws, not jaywalking, of course. And over here on this side, you've got the mall and it looks pretty, just beautiful sites here for the time being. But I'm telling you, it is rough stuff on many of the roads.
Roads here in D.C. are just fine, but around the state, especially in high elevations, we've had some places where it's a bit more icy. Two fatalities on the roadways. You really got to be careful out there.
And in terms of the roads themselves, they've got all kinds of crews out there. The salt spreader has been out there. They've got trucks that have been putting out that brine solution. The plows are getting ready although they really don't have a whole lot to move off of the streets because what we're seeing right now mostly just wet conditions. The problems are really going to pick up later on tonight, Ali, as the temperatures continue to drop. And the snow will also begin to pile up possibly to two feet in some locations.
Mow, Chad was talking earlier about the visibility and also talking about the airports. Well, I can tell you that we haven't heard a lot of noise from planes coming from Reagan National or of course, Dulles and BWI, certainly, the same deal. But in terms of visibility here, you can barely see the Capitol's dome. You can see the bottom half of the building but the top, don't even bother.
And of course, the Washington monument, which -- you can barely see through the trees anyway, you're not going to see due to the heavy snow fall there. Again, heavy stuff occurring overnight and into tomorrow morning and certainly, possibly beating a few records here and there. And the dogs, people out, having a great time enjoying it, but a different story by tomorrow when the shoveling all begins.
VELSHI: And a different story if you're trying to get around there. We've heard from United, from Delta, from Southwest. Planes going into BWI, Reagan, Philadelphia. Those airports not landing a lot of planes at this point.
WOLF: Oh, absolutely. And then begin to think about, you know, other people trying to get here. Rough stuff.
VELSHI: So it's developing. It doesn't look that serious. Reynolds' been in worse, but it's going to get a lot snowier where he is. We'll check in with him again. We'll check in with Chad.
Stay with us, we're coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: "Rick's List" with my friend Rick Sanchez is coming up in less than three minutes.
What do you got, Rick?
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm trying to find out what's going on with the situation with Michael Jackson and Dr. Conrad Murray. We're hearing all kinds of stories over the last 48 hours. We thought the guy was going to surrender. Suddenly, there was some kind of snafu between prosecutors and the police and the lawyers for Dr. Murray.
What happened? I mean, what caused these negotiations to fall apart? We're hearing there may be a news conference. If it happens during our show, you're going to see it here live. We're going to follow this thing and we'll let you know what's going on, Ali.
VELSHI: We'll stay with you. "Rick's List" coming up in less than two minutes.
Now the XYZ of it, 24 years ago, you'll remember this. The space shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds after liftoff. The shuttle was caring seven astronauts, all of them died. And now, brand new home video has surfaced. One of the most amazing things about this clip is the commentary from the man who shot. And we're just going to let this one breath.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There it goes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's brighter than usual.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that's it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right over those trees. I saw it when it went through that hole.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't remember it being that bright and that big. What was that part? That must have been one of the boosters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, look, there's two. It's going off into two. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that trouble or not? They're not having trouble, are they?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I've never seen anything like that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's trouble of some kind, George. That's trouble of some kind, isn't it or not?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, there it goes again. I think I'll go in and listen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They got troubles.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to go listen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Here's the back story. This video was shot by optometrist, Jack Moss, on his brand new Beta Max camcorder back in 1986. About a week before he died last year, he handed the tape over to the Space Exploration Archive.
1986 was the year of the first laptop computer, the year the word e- mail was first defined, when the Internet was first developed for businesses. Cell phone and video and uploading to the internet, they weren't even possible yet. And that is likely why this video never made its way out to the public until now. If this had happened today, it would be streaming online. It would be uploaded nearly the instant it happened. It would be on every network in every country around the world, but that was many years ago.
Over to "Rick's List" now.
