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Senator John McCain Lays Out Oval Office Goals; President Bush Overseas and on the Attack
Aired May 15, 2008 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY FORTIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Low in sodium and fat, high in omega three fatty acids and loaded up with fruits and veggies. Keeping up with regular breast exams, pelvic exams and pap smears, also important. And some women may want to consider adding more calcium to their diet for strong bones. In their 40s, women are generally encouraged to begin getting regular mammograms. Although there has been some controversy on this topic, the American Cancer Society says mammograms are the best way to find breast cancer early. In their 50s, women should get colonoscopies for the detection of colon cancer and keep up with regular checkups. As for Trisha, she says that being a healthy modern mom can be difficult sometimes.
TRISHA: I think that there are those moments when your child, you are thinking oh, you know, I - I need to be around for her. And then on the other hand, you are focusing on that child, you're focusing on, you know, your family, making sure your child eats right and does everything. And you kind of put yourself a little bit on the back burner.
FORTIN: But she tries to slip in a little me time to stay healthy so she can enjoy being with her family for years to come. Judy Fortin, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning again, everyone. Welcome back to the NEWSROOM. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Tony Harris, stay informed all day in the CNN NEWSROOM. Here's what's on the run-down. John McCain, what's his road map for America? The Republican lays out his Oval Office goals live in just minutes.
WHITFIELD: President Bush overseas and on the attack. The target? Barack Obama. He suggested the Democrat wants to appease terrorists.
HARRIS: Tornadoes, violent thunderstorms. Torrential downpours. We are tracking severe weather in the south today. Thursday, May 15th. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.
WHITFIELD: Any moment now, John McCain's vision of year 2013 in a speech this hour, the Republican candidate outlines what he foresees at the end of a first term with him as president. He envisions Osama Bin Laden captured or killed. The Iraq war won. And most U.S. troops back home. And McCain's vision calls for reaching across party lines and including Democrats in his administration. And he envisions going before Congress for British-style question and answer sessions. When that speech begins, you will see it right here in the NEWSROOM.
HARRIS: President Bush oversees firing a shot at the presidential campaign back home. And what a shot. During the speech in Israel today, the president suggested that Barack Obama wants to appease terrorists and radicals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals. As if some ingenious argument will persuade them they had been wrong all along.
We heard this before foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939. And an American senator declared lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler. All this might have been avoided. We have an obligation to call this what it is. The false comfort of appeasement which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: The Obama campaign shot back accusing the President of launching a false political attack. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is in Grand Rapids, with reaction and Suzanne, the President to this point has stated pretty clearly that he didn't want to get involved in presidential politics. He made a different decision today, didn't he?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He absolutely did, Tony. My colleague Ed Henry who is actually traveling with the President said that while Barack Obama was not necessarily mentioned in President Bush's speech, he talked to White House aids who said that that is in fact who he was referring to when he talked about that policy of appeasement. Really, quite an extraordinary situation where you think about it, the President, at the floor of the Knesset in Israel at the anniversary to bring up this very hot topic, hot political topic and it really underscores looking forward to the general election, what is going to be one of the main issues.
That is going to be national security. The Republican John McCain taking no most likely Barack Obama if he becomes the nominee over this very issue. Now we heard from Robert Gibbs, communications director of the Obama camp lashing out simply saying that this is more of a past rhetoric, the frustration from the Bush administration that has not moved the ball that much forward in the Middle East peace process and is also a different philosophical approach to reaching out to other leaders. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOICE OF ROBERT GIBBS, OBAMA CAMPAIGN: This is an unprecedented political attack on foreign soil. It is quite frankly sad and astonishing that the President of the United States would politicize the 60th anniversary of Israel with a false political attack. We have come to expect, and we have seen from this administration over the last eight years, this type of cowboy diplomacy. Again, we have come to expect it. But over the past eight years, it made the country far less safe than we were.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: And Tony, I know John McCain is getting set to speak. So, we are going to make this real quick here. Obviously, it underscores that it's going to be a very important issue coming into the general election. Tony.
HARRIS: Wow. All right. Suzanne Malveaux. Grand Rapids, Michigan for us. Suzanne, great to see you. Thanks.
WHITFIELD: And let's go right now to Columbus, Ohio where John McCain there, the presumptive Republican nominee. He is now speaking about his vision of America four years after his first term if elected.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ...it's a little bit critical for candidates or reporters to criticize these deficiencies because they are our creation. Campaigns and the media collaborated as architects of the modern presidential campaign. And we deserve equal blame for the regret we feel from time to time over its less than inspirational features. Voters, however, even in this revolutionary communications age with its 24-hour news cycle, can be forgiven their uncertainty about what the candidates actually hope to achieve if they have the extraordinary privilege of being elected President of the United States.
We spend too little time and offer too few specifics on that most important of questions. We make promises, of course about what kind of policies we would pursue in office. But they are often -- often, they are obscured, mischaracterized and forgotten in the heat and fog of political battle. Next January, the political leadership of the United States will change significantly. It's important that the candidates who seek to lead the country after the Bush administration define their objectives and what they plan to do and what they plan to achieve, not with vague language, but with clarity.
So what I want to do today is take a little time to describe what I would hope to have achieved at the end of my first term as President of the United States. I can't guarantee I will have achieved these things. I'm presumptuous enough to think I would be a good president but not so much that I believe that I can govern by command. Should I forget that Congress will, of course, hasten to remind me. But the following are conditions that I intend to achieve. And toward that end, I will focus all of the powers of the office, every skill and strength I possess, and seize every opportunity to work with members of Congress who put the national interests ahead of partisanship and any country in the world that shares our hope for a more peaceful and prosperous world.
By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in our freedom. The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy. Although, still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs. But it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented. Militias disbanded. The Iraqi security forces professional and competent. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated. The government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders.
The United States maintains a military presence there. But a much smaller one. And it does not play a direct combat role. The threat from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced but not eliminated. U.S. and NATO forces remain there to help finish the job and continue operations against the remnants of Al Qaeda. The government of Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. and successfully adapting the counterinsurgency tactics that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan to its lawless tribal areas where Al Qaeda fighters are based. The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama Bin Laden and his chief lieutenants. There's no longer any place in the world Al Qaeda can consider a safe haven.
Increased cooperation between the United States and its allies and the concerted use of military, diplomatic, and economic power and reforms in the intelligence capabilities of the United States, has disrupted terrorist networks and exposed plots around the world. There has still, still, it is not a major terrorist attack in the United States since September 11th, 2001. The United States and its allies made great progress in advancing nuclear security, concerted action by the great democracies of the world, has persuaded a reluctant China and Russia to cooperate in pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and North Korea to discontinue its own. The single greatest threat facing the west, the prospect of nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists, has been vastly diminished. The size of the army and marine corps significantly increased and now - and are now better equipped and trained to defend us.
Long overdue reforms to the way we acquire weapons programs, including fixed price contracts and created sufficient savings, to pay for a larger military. A substantial increase in veterans educational benefits and improvements and their health care. As aided recruitment and retention. The strain on the National Guard and reserve forces has been relieved. After efforts to pressure the government in Sudan over Darfur failed again and the U.N. security council, the United States acting in concert with a newly formed league of democracies applied stiff diplomatic and economic pressure and caused the government of Sudan to agree to a multinational peacekeeping force.
With NATO countries providing logistical and air support to stop the genocide which made a mockery of the world's repeated declaration that we would never again tolerate such inhumanity. Encouraged by the success the league is now occupied with using the economic power and prestige of its member states and to end, end other gross abuses of human rights such as the despicable crime of human trafficking. The United States has experienced several years of robust economic growth and Americans again have confidence, confidence in their economic future.
A reduction in the corporate tax rate from the second highest in the world to one on par with our trading partners, the low rate on capital gains, allowing businesses to deduct in a single year, investments and equipment and technology. While eliminating tax loopholes and ending corporate welfare have spurred innovation and productivity and encouraged companies to keep their operations and jobs in the United States of America.
The alternate minimum tax is being phased out with relief provided first to middle-income families. Doubling the size of the child exemption has put more disposable income in the hands of taxpayers. Furthering -- further stimulating growth. Congress has just passed by a single up or down vote, a tax reform proposal, that offers Americans a choice of continuing to file under the rules of the current complicated and burdensome tax code are using a new, simpler, fairer and flatter tax with two rates and a generous deduction.
Millions of Americans and taxpayers are expected to file under the flat tax and save billions in the cost of preparing their returns. After exercising my veto several times in my first year in office, Congress has not sent me an appropriations bill containing earmarks for the last three years. I can't tell you how much I look forward to it. A top to bottom review of every federal bureaucracy has yielded great reductions in government spending by identifying programs that serve no important purpose and instigating far reaching reforms of procurement and operating policies that have for too long extravagantly wasted money for no better purpose than to increase federal payrolls. New free trade agreements have been ratified and led to substantial increases in both exports and imports. The resulting growth in prosperity and countries from South America to Asia to Africa has greatly strengthened America's security in the global progress of our political ideas.
The U.S. tariffs on agricultural imports have been eliminated and unneeded farm subsidies are being phased out. The world food crisis has ended, inflation is low and the quality of life not only in our country but in some of the most impoverished countries around the world is much improved. Americans, Americans who through no fall of their own lost jobs in the global economy they once believed was theirs for life, assisted by reformed unemployment insurance and worker retraining programs. Older workers who accept lower paying jobs while they acquire new skills, provided assistance to make up a good part of the income that they have lost.
Community colleges and technical schools all over the country have developed worker retraining programs suited to the specific economic opportunities available in their communities and are helping millions of workers who have lost a job that won't come back and finding a new one that won't go away. Public education in the United States is much improved thanks to the competition provided by Charter and private schools. The increase of quality teachers, the increase of quality teachers through incentives like merit pay and terrific programs that attracted the classroom enthusiastic and innovative teachers from many disciplines. Like "Teach for America" and "Troops to teachers." Wonderful programs. Educational software and online teaching programs endorsed by qualified nonprofits are much more widely in use. Bringing to the smallest classrooms in America some of the greatest Math, English, and Science teachers in the country.
This revolution, this revolution in teaching methods has especially benefited rural America. Test scores and graduation rates are rising everywhere in the country. Health care has become more accessible to more Americans than at any time in history. Reforms of the insurance market, putting the choice of health care into the hands of American families rather than exclusively with the government or employers. Walk-in clinics, walk-in clinic clinics, alternatives to emergency room care. Paying for outcome in the treatment of disease rather than individual procedures. And competition in the prescription drug market has begun to ring out the runaway inflation once endemic to our health care system.
More small businesses offer their employees health plans. Schools have greatly improved their emphasis on physical education and nutritional content of meals that are offered in school cafeterias. Obesity rates among the young and the disease they engender stabilize and beginning to decline. The federal government and states have cooperated in establishing backstop insurance pools that provide coverage to people hard-pressed to find insurance elsewhere because of pre-existing illness.
The reduction in the growth of health care costs have begun to relieve some of the pressure on Medicare. Encouraging Congress to act in a bipartisan way to extend its solvency for 25 years without increasing taxes and raising premiums only for upper-income seniors. Their success, their success encouraged a group of congressional leaders from both parties to work with my administration to fix social security as well without reducing benefits to those near retirement. The reforms include some form of personal retirement accounts and safe and reliable index funds. Such as has been available to government employees since their retirement plans were made solvent a quarter of a century ago.
The United States is well on the way to independence from foreign sources of oil, progress that has only begun not only to alleviate the environmental threat posed from climate change but greatly improved our security as well. A cap in trade system has been implemented. Spurring great innovation in the development of green technologies and alternative energy sources. Clean coal technology is advanced considerably with federal assistance. Construction has begun on 20 new nuclear reactors thanks to improved incentives and a streamline regulatory process.
Scores of judges, scores of judges, have been confirmed to the federal and district and appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court who understands that they were not sent there to write our laws but to enforce them and make sure they are consistent with the constitution of the United States of America. There are judges of exceptional character and quality who enforce and do not make laws and who respect the values of the people whose rights, laws and properties they are sworn to defend. Border state governors certified and the American people recognize that after tremendous improvements to border security infrastructure and increases in the border patrol and vigorous prosecution of companies that employ illegal aliens, our southern border is now secure.
Illegal immigrants who broke our laws after they came here have been arrested and deported. Illegal immigration, illegal immigration has been finally brought under control and the American people accepted the practical necessity to institute a temporary worker program and deal humanely with the millions of immigrants who have been in this country illegally.
Voluntary national service has grown in popularity in part because of the educational benefits used as incentives as well as frequent appeals from the bully pulpit of the White House. But mostly, mostly because the young Americans no less than earlier generations understand that true happiness is much greater than the pursuit of pleasure and can only be found by serving causes greater than self-interest.
Scores of accomplished private sector leaders have joined the ranks of my administration for a dollar a year and have instituted some of the most innovative reforms of government programs ever known. Often in partnership with willing private sector partners. Sense of community. A kinship of ideals has invigorated public service again. This is the progress I want us to achieve during my presidency. These are the changes I'm running for president to make. I want to leave office knowing that America is safer, freer, and wealthier than when I was elected. That more Americans have more opportunities to pursue their dreams than at any other time in our history. That the world has become less threatening to our interests and more hospitable to our values. That America is, again, as she always has, chosen not to hide from history but to make history.
I am well aware, I'm well aware, I can't make any of these changes alone. The powers of the presidency are rightly checked by the other branches of government and I will not attempt to acquire powers our founders saw fit to grant Congress. I will exercise my veto if I believe legislation passed by Congress is not in the nation's best interests. I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I signed by making statements that indicate I will only enforce the parts of it I like. I will respect the responsibilities the constitution and American people have granted Congress. And I will, as I often have in the past, worked with anyone of either party to get things done for our country.
For too long now, too long, Washington has been consumed by a hyper-partisanship that treats every serious challenge facing us as an opportunity to trade insults, disparage each other's motives and fight about the next election. For all the problems we face, if you ask Americans what frustrates them most about Washington, they will tell you they don't think we are capable of serving the public interests before our personal and partisan ambitions. That we fight for ourselves and not for them.
Americans are sick of it and they have every right to be. They are sick of the politics of selfishness and stalemate and delay. They despair when every election, no matter who wins, always seems to produce four more years of unkept promises and a government that's just a battleground for the next election. Their patience is at an end for politicians who value ambition over principle and for partisanship that is less a contest of ideals than an uncivil brawl for the spoils of power. They want - they want to change not only the policies and institutions that have failed the American people but the political culture that produced them. They want to move this country forward and stake our claim on this century as we did on the last. And they want their government to care more about them than preserving the privileges of the powerful.
There are serious issues at stake in this election. And serious differences between the candidates. And we will argue about them, as we should. But it should remain an argument among friends. Each of us struggling to hear our conscience and hear its demands, each of us, despite our differences, united in our great cause and respectful of the goodness in each other. That's how most Americans treat each other. And it's how they want the people they elect to office to treat each other. If I'm elected president, I will work with anyone who sincerely wants to get this country moving again. I will listen to any idea that is offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not make them worse.
I will seek the counsel, members of Congress from both parties, informing government policy before I ask them to support it. I will ask Democrats to serve in my administration, my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences, weekly press conferences. I will regularly brief the American people on the progress of our policies made and the setbacks we have encountered. When we make errors? I will confess them readily and explain what we intend to do to correct them. I'll ask Congress, I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions and address criticisms. Much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons.
We cannot, again, leave our problems for another unluckier generation of Americans to fix after they have become even harder to solve. I'm not interested in partisanship that serves no other purpose than to gain a temporary advantage over our opponents. This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end.
(APPLAUSE)
We belong to different parties, not different countries. We're rivals for the same power. But we are also compatriots. We are fellow Americans, and that shared distinction means more to me than any other association.
I intend to prove myself worthy of the office, of our country and of your respect. I won't judge myself by how many elections I've won. I won't spend one hour of my presidency worrying more about my re- election than keeping my promises to the American people. There's a time to campaign and a time to govern. If I'm elected president, the era of the permanent campaign will end. The era of problem solving will begin.
(APPLAUSE) I promise you, from the day I'm sworn into office, until the last hour of my presidency, I will work with anyone of either party to make this country safe, prosperous and proud. And I won't care who gets the credit.
Thank you very much.
WHITFIELD: All right, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain there in Columbus, Ohio. Setting the stage, painting a picture -- the year is 2013. And he said this is what America, this is what the world will be experiencing four years after his term if elected president here in 2008. 2013, he says, Iraq war will be over. Al Qaeda in Iraq will be defeated. No attacks will have taken place on the U.S. The country would be enjoying a robust economy. The world food crisis would be over. Illegal immigrants who broke laws after coming to this country would be arrested and deported.
John McCain there in Columbus, Ohio, taking a different approach to his candidacy for presidency. Instead of promising what he would do, instead reflecting if elected four years later, this is how America would be enjoying this country. This is what he will have done.
Meantime, former Presidential Candidate John Edwards, making his voice be heard. Again, three months after he drops out of the race -- now, throwing his support behind Barack Obama. Find more on the candidates overall at CNNpolitics.com. CNNpolitics.com is your source for everything political.
HARRIS: Race ageist time in China. Three days after a massive earthquake, what rescuers are finding now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: An army of firefighters gaining ground on wildfires along Florida's Atlantic coast. Schools in Palm Bay and nearby Malibar that were closed for two days reopened today. Police say an arson suspect arrested yesterday is, in fact, cooperating. Fires destroyed 22 homes and damaged 160 others. Meantime, seven wildfires in 14 counties have burned more than 17,000 acres. Just a reminder here as we get to Rob Marciano in the severe weather center, that we are going to stand-by here shortly for a news conference.
The latest information, 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, when we will get the latest information from the chief of police there, Bill Berger in Palm Bay.
(WEATHER REPORT)
WHITFIELD: President Bush on the road and on the attack. Earlier this morning, the president spoke before the Israeli parliament marking the 60th birthday of the Jewish state. He took a swipe at his political rivals back home, including presidential candidate Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We've heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Obama and his campaign leaders quickly denounced the President's remarks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, OBAMA CAMPAIGN: Obviously, this is an unprecedented political attack on foreign soil. It's, quite frankly, sad and astonishing that the president of the United States would politicize the 60th anniversary of Israel with a false political attack. I assume he also is going to come home and fire his secretary of defense who was quoted in the "Washington Post" just yesterday saying -- quote -- "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them," them being Iran. Look, we have come to expect and we have seen from this administration over the last eight years this type of cowboy diplomacy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Those are the comments from Robert Gibbs, who's representing the Obama camp. Well now, just a short time ago, we actually heard from Obama who said that President Bush has carried out a false political attack. And in his words -- quote -- "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists," end quote.
Of course if you are a political junkie -- who isn't these days, right? -- CNNpolitics.com is the place for you. Check out our interactive delegate counter game where you can play real-time "what if" type scenarios with the delegates and the superdelegates. CNNpolitics.com is the place to be.
HARRIS: A big jump in the estimated death toll in China. State run media now reporting 50,000 people may have been killed in Monday's massive earthquake. China is ramping up recovery efforts. Officials are dispatching thousands more troops and medical teams to the hardest hit areas, and deploying more than 100 helicopters. China is also admitting expert teams from Japan and other countries.
We're hearing scattered stories of survival, but relief workers say the window is actually closing for the tens of thousands still trapped. Search teams have been pulling one lifeless body after another from the rubble of collapsed schools. Officials say -- and listen to this number -- more than four million homes were damaged or destroyed in the quake.
WHITFIELD: Office worker learns how to take down a terrorist.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY WARD, FED, EMERGENCY MGMT. AGENCY: I don't often shoot at people. So that's probably the most vivid for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Crash course for career employees at Homeland Security.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Wow. Looking for a little adventure? How about zipping over the Swiss Alps at 186 miles an hour, in your own jet-powered suit. How cool is this? Rocketman flying high, before the top of the hour in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(BUSINESS HEADLINES)
HARRIS: Playing with the boys until somebody remembered, hey, she's a girl.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some people, maybe male and female, I don't know, have an issue with a girl playing on the court and competing successfully in a program for boys.
HARRIS: She's got game. Six feet tall in the sixth grade, in the NEWSROOM.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: A CNN Security Watch now. Ahead of the presidential handoff, top Homeland Security employees now taking part in terror drills.
More in this exclusive report from Homeland Security correspondent, Jeanne Meserve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is mayhem, as law enforcement hunts down and takes out a lone gunman. It's also fake -- a training exercise. Part of a crash course for more than 100 Homeland Security career employees who will step into tough jobs when political appointees leave during the presidential transition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How confusing it in that environment? Very, right?
MESERVE: They see one scenario after another. Get a tutorial on picking out a suicide bomber.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does he look the part? There is no look to the part, right?
MESERVE: They get hands-on instruction on how law enforcement clears a room. They even get to stop a hijacker.
NANCY WARD, FED, EMERGENCY MGMT. AGENCY: Well, I don't often shoot at people. So, that's probably the most vivid for me.
MESERVE: Nancy Ward will take over the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, during the transition. Ward says she now has a better understanding of the 21 other agencies in DHS.
WARD: This is the first time that I've really ever been able to see what they do on a day-to-day basis and understand how they do, and why they do things the way they do.
MESERVE: It's also a chance to meet key players like Wayne Parent, who runs the department's operations center and would critical guidance in a catastrophe.
WAYNE PARENT, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We see all the chess pieces and we provide context for them. We tell him if the piece is in the right place or wrong place.
MESERVE: Critics say DHS has relied too much on political appointees and contractors and should have prepared a cadre of career employees to take over long ago.
P.J. CROWLEY, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I don't think you can create in three days what you failed to do in five years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: The Homeland Security Department says it knows of no specific threat related to the presidential transition. In other countries terrorists have struck just before or after government changes.
(WEATHER REPORT)
HARRIS: Still to come in the NEWSROOM this morning, an unlikely community for alleged sexual assault victims forming on the Internet. Why one girl went there, ahead in the NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, this could be you -- who hasn't fantasized about flying? Just take a look at someone who went beyond fantasies, he's actually doing it. Rocketman, Yves Rossy, swooping over the Swiss Alps. He's French that's why I said it that way. He's a former fighter pilot. His flying machine has four small jet engines attached to eight-foot foldable wings. No kidding.
He zipped and swooped back and forth over the Rhone Valley. And you know this isn't easy. He is steering after all with his body. And at one point he did a perfect 360-degree roll. The crowds cheered -- of course he probably didn't hear them because he's that far up -- as Rocketman accelerated to 186 miles an hour. And then of course there's landing, you know. He merely folds the wings up and pulls a rip cord on a parachute. He is one daredevil.
