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Terrorist Returns Home to Hero's Welcome; Politics of Terror; Tom Ridge Pressured to Raise Terror Alert

Aired August 21, 2009 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Did we mention that Rick Scott's former company defrauded you, the taxpayer, out of $1.7 billion?

(on camera): ... were charged against your company while you were there, while you were the boss. And it happened over a period of 10 years. Yes, they were paid after you left, but the accused -- but they accuse them of happening while you were leading the company.

(voice-over): Just thought you would want to know.

And were Americans manipulated by the Bush White House? Did orange really mean, we need you frightened enough to vote for us, even if there wasn't a threat?

We are drilling down on this for you on your national conversation for Friday, August 21, 2009.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Hello again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez. This is the next generation of news, where we don't do a speech. We go through the news together.

And you are about to hear something that involves a joke about cooking a cat and a horrible crash. How do you mix those two up? Two weeks ago, a helicopter careened into a plane over the Hudson River. Now what happened behind the scenes on the day of the accident. Teterboro's air traffic control staff included all of about five employees. That's it. And only two air traffic controllers were on duty.

The supervisor, like Elvis, had left the building. He is now suspended and will likely be fired, we learn. So will the controller I'm about to tell you about.

Here is the newly released Teterboro tower transcript where you hear him joking with a woman on the phone about a dead cat at the airport just as the accident is about to happen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ (voice-over): It starts with the woman saying, "Huh?"

The controller says, "I said we got plenty of gas on the grill." The woman says, "It sucks that we can't -- we won't be able to do it today."

The controller says, "Fire up the cat."

The woman then says: "Disgusting. That thing was disgusting," to which the controller replies, "Chinese people do it, so why can't we?"

The woman says, "Stop it." He laughs. After about two minutes of conversation, the controller radios the pilot of a plane telling him to contact the Newark tower, which is looking for that plane.

The Newark controller says: "Hey, Teterboro, Newark. Would you switch that guy, maybe put him on 220 heading to get him away from that other traffic, please?"

Teterboro controller says, "Say again, Newark."

Newark controller comes in again. He says, "Can you switch that PA-32," the Piper?

Teterboro controller says, "I did keep an eye on him, though," to which the Newark controller replies: "I'm not talking to him, so..."

Now the Teterboro controller who was talking to the woman tries to raid the Piper. "One Mike Charlie, Newark is 27 85. He's lost in the hertz. Try him again."

Newark controller says: "One Mike Charlie, it is Newark."

Meanwhile, the Teterboro controller is back on the phone with the woman that had been talking to earlier about grilling the cat. He says, "Damn."

The woman says, "What's the matter?"

The controller says, "Yes, let me straighten stuff out."

He hangs us. Now the plane and helicopter are about to collide. But he doesn't know it. He is still looking for the plane.

Teterboro says to Newark: "Newark, Teterboro. Did you get him?" Newark says, "Nope. I think he went down in the Hudson."

Now another helicopter pilot in the area chimes in, "Be advised, there was an airplane that crashed into a helicopter just south of the Lincoln Tunnel a minute ago."

The woman in operations, "Did he say what I thought he said?"

The controller, "Yes."

The woman says, "Where at?"

The controller, "Over the river," to which the woman replies: "Oh, my lord. OK, thanks." (END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And, at that very moment, nine people were killed. And it is now expected this -- this man will likely lose his job -- he is already suspended -- and possibly his supervisor as well.

There is one more caveat I have got to share with you on this story. There has been another incident involving New Jersey's Teterboro Airport now. A small twin-engine plane crashed near the area overnight, two men on board. They walked away somehow. Someone later found them dazed, sitting at a bus stop.

What many Americans thought about and comedians joked about but deep down none of us really wanted to believe it could be true, Tom Ridge now says it was true. The Bush administration may have pressured him to raise the threat alerts for political reasons.

Also, a hero's welcome that is not sitting well with families who lost loved ones, nor the White House. The president has spoken about this, did so about an hour ago. How will this affect U.S./Libyan relationships? And what about Scotland?

Also remember the after-show. It's coming your way at 4:00 right here on CNN.com/live. We are coming right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: The president of the United States appears angry today with the Libyan government, and it is all about one image. The lone person convicted in the 1988 Pan Am bombing arrived back home in Libya yesterday to nothing less than a hero's welcome. It was very difficult to watch for many Americans and especially family members who lost loved ones over there.

Scottish authorities released him on compassionate grounds. They expect that he is going to die within months from terminal prostate cancer. But is that even certain?

I want you to listen to a woman that we have been talking to. She joined us here on the air to talk about the daughter she lost on this flight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN COHEN, MOTHER OF PAN AM FLIGHT 103 BOMBING VICTIM: It is absolutely sickening. When you say compassion, I feel ill. I feel physically ill. That is the most misplaced compassion I can imagine. I mean, we could weep, couldn't we, for poor old Adolf Hitler there, gee, and maybe Mussolini, and we should feel sorry for these people, I guess.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Well, just moments ago, here is what the president of the United States had to say about the convicted bomber and this Libyan homecoming. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thanks very much, everybody.

QUESTION: What about the hero's welcome in Libya?

OBAMA: I think it was highly objectionable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Highly objectionable says the president, this after the words he used as well yesterday, telling that -- reporters that he had told the Libyan government that they should not welcome him home in this way.

In fact, he had told them, he says, that he wanted them held under house arrest when he arrived back in Tripoli.

Keeping them honest now, special interest groups on the ongoing health care debate/debacle. We are seeking the truth, the lies, the myths and the falsehoods. We will have that for you. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: A story we told you just a little while ago about what happened in Teterboro Airport and how, instead of having five personnel, they only had two. One of them was out of the room. And the other, while the accident happened over the Hudson, where two people were killed, how that person was on the phone talking to somebody about dead cats or cooking cats or -- well, it's not sitting well with many of you.

Look at this tweet that we got here moments ago. "That might be funny, if it wasn't being dead serious." Well, it was dead serious, because nine people lost their lives in that tragedy.

Now this. There is a new attack ad out today targeting President Obama, his health care plan and his taking time off for vacation. It makes the questionable charge that health care reform will raise your taxes on everything, everything, it says. And it comes from a group whose track record, as revealed on this newscast, is dubious.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD)

NARRATOR: The beach is nice this time of year, but, while President Obama vacations, concerns mount about his health care plan. Why? Because his public option health plan could lead to government- run health care, higher taxes on everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Fair enough, higher taxes on everything, everything, from paychecks to soda, as the commercial says. Let's watch the rest now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD)

NARRATOR: Mr. President, when you go back to D.C., drop your government-run public option plan. Let's get on with real reform to lower costs and protect patients' rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Once again, I believe the words there, quoting correctly, are real reform, lower costs and protects patients' rights. That would be real reform. It sounds great, except it comes from a man who has made millions and millions of dollars with a plan just as it is right now and does not really seem to want the government getting in the way of his profits.

Let me tell you about former hospital executive Rick Scott,. He got rich beyond imagination while his health care chain was ripping off the federal government. And, remember, Scott admitted to me that his company paid a record fine of $1.7 billion for defrauding Medicare.

In fact, why don't we watch part of that contentious interview?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: One-point-seven billion? That's the highest ever paid in the history of the United States that your company ended up having to pay as a result of what you did by defrauding the government?

RICK SCOTT, CHAIRMAN, CONSERVATIVES FOR PATIENTS' RIGHTS: The -- no one went to jail. I was never accused of anything. Now let's think about it: $1. 7 billion sounds like a lot. We had 343 -- 343 hospitals, 150 surgery centers, over 100,000 patients a day.

Now, let's look at the industry. Cleveland Clinic paid big fines. Mayo paid big fines. Yale paid big fines. Now, were they as big? No. How many hospitals did they have?

SANCHEZ: But you're the guy who's sitting here telling us that we can't allow the government to do this because it won't work, and they might take over or do some things that are -- that are wrong. How much more wrong can you be than what you just said? Not only has your company screwed up, and you just admitted to it. But you're saying, "And look at all the other companies, they did the same thing."

By the way, let me ask you a question. Your company was accused of something called upcoding. That means they treated patients for something minor but charged the government, the taxpayers, for something expensive. That was the accusation. Is that true?

SCOTT: I have -- Rick, I have no idea. Rick, I have no idea. I was -- I never did anything with Medicare. I started a company. I bought hospitals. I bought HCA. I bought all the Humana hospitals. Let's go back to...

SANCHEZ: All right. Let me ask you this one then. Here's the other accusation, as I was reading about what some people say your company may have been involved in. Your company would go into a region. They would buy up all the hospitals, and then they would shut them all down except for one to make that one hospital very powerful. I mean, I guess that's a good business plan. But is that good for patients?

SCOTT: Absolutely. Now, first off, that didn't happen. We did buy 20 hospitals that we consolidated. It goes on every day, and -- not every day. It goes on throughout the country, all the time. It's happened since before I got into the business and afterwards.

But here's the reason why you want that to happen as a patient.

SANCHEZ: OK.

SCOTT: You want to make sure -- you want to make sure that your hospital has the best equipment. So if you have a hospital that has more patients and can afford the best equipment, you want your hospital to be successful. They have the right equipment. They can hire the right employees.

SANCHEZ: Well, I'm reading a report here, though, from "The Post and Courier" that says -- they say your hospitals had consistent dirty facilities. The doctors say the gloves they were asked to used to operate were so cheap they would break. And nurses say they had to treat so many patients they weren't able to handle the demand.

SCOTT: Well, let's look at the numbers. How could I have the lowest cost to a patient? I did. You look at the studies. I had better patient satisfaction in the industry by a long shot, and I had better outcomes. Because we measured everything.

So -- so who probably put that out? No different than what's happening today. The unions put these things out, because they want to unionize your hospitals. But if you look at the facts...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SCOTT: ... lower prices, better outcomes and better patient satisfaction.

SANCHEZ: But you're not saying all of these things are true? I mean, you're copping to the fact that your company had to pay $1. 7 billion, which is still the most ever paid in the history of the United States, right?

SCOTT: After I left, the company paid those fines. The company did not pay those fines when I was there. When I bought -- when I bought...

SANCHEZ: But hold on. No, no, no, no. You're playing -- you're playing with the facts, sir. Let me tell you what happened.

SCOTT: No.

SANCHEZ: These charges were charged against your company while you were there, while you were the boss, and it happened over a period of ten years. Yes, they were paid after you left, but the accused -- but they accused them of happening while you were leading the company? You know that.

SCOTT: And, Rick -- and, Rick, it was covering time frames before I bought those companies, and it covered time frames afterwards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: By the way, we should share with you this. Rick Scott appeared last night on a conservative news program, and he agreed with the suggestion that, under the British health care system, which he maintains the United States will adopt, health care has become so scarce, that mothers are now forced to give birth to babies on sidewalks.

And, as you might expect, that statement went unchallenged.

You will watch as a tornado forms and destroys parts of a community. But it is where it happens that may surprise you. It's in photos.

And then did the Bush administration try to use the color orange for political ends? Was Jon Stewart right? You are going to hear from him. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every month, new fitness products are hitting the market that offer to help you get fit faster and easier. The latest craze: fitness shoes that claim to build your calves, hamstrings, and glute muscles. But do they work?

Sports medicine expert, Dr. Amadeus Mason, says -- probably not.

DR. R. AMADEUS MASON, SPORTS MEDICINE SPECIALIST, EMORY UNIV.: The main thing that makes one shoe better for another -- one person versus the other is the comfort of fit.

GUPTA: The EasyTone is just one example of these new rocker shoes. Reebok claims lab tests show a marked increase in muscle activation due to the mini-balance balls underneath the shoe.

MASON: The type of technology that they're using, people use that to rehabilitate ankles and work on your position's stance, not your fitness or your strength. And so, to think that that would then make you the more fit with your regular activity, I have a hard time kind of buying that.

GUPTA: Then, there's the Fit Flop, that claims added support for your feet leads to a fitter, more fabulous you.

Mason's verdict?

MASON: It does give good arch support. It does give cushion to the heel. And there is some support to the mid-foot, which you don't see in a lot of flip-flops. If you are buying it because you want a stylish pair of comfortable flip-flops, absolutely. I think that that would be a good purchase.

GUPTA: Both Reebok and the makers of Fit Flop say, while their footwear may not be the magic pill to get you fit, they can help release pressure on your feet and toned muscles that women and men care about.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We welcome you back. I'm Rick Sanchez.

Remember the days, the months, even the years after 9/11, when you and I and, in fact, most of the entire country, we lived in a state of virtual fear, scared sick that this or something worse could happen again in this country? And remember how the Bush administration continually reminded us about 9/11 at every turn that they could as it sold us on the war in Iraq?

It also talked about mushroom clouds, the specter of nuclear strikes by Muslim extremists, which struck some people as, well, in some cases, over the top, as did this.

Remember the color-coded threat system that seem to spring right from the pages of George Orwell? Remember wondering about the timing, of asking yourself, but really not ever wanting to believe it? Remember thinking that maybe the real reason we were being warned about threat levels could possibly be purely political?

We never wanted to believe it, but we did joke about it. Let me take you back five years, if I possibly could right now. Five years exactly this month, George Bush is running for reelection, just as the Democrats have finished their convention and gotten quite a spike from that convention. Here is a guy named Jon Stewart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART," AUGUST 2, 2004)

JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART": With the Democratic Party now in the spotlight, many people are wondering -- yes, oh, this just in. I'm sorry. Terror warning.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: OK. All right. Well...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

STEWART: I guess they will have to stop...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

STEWART: So, unlike previous scares that seemed vague and suspiciously timed to undercut an opposition, this one seems relatively specific. Maybe the war on terror is finally becoming depoliticized.

TOM RIDGE, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY CHIEF: And we must understand that the kind of information is as a result of the president's leadership in the war against terror.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: That was Tom Ridge -- keep that name in mind -- August 2004.

Now let's fast-forward to November. It's days before the election. And today we can tell what was actually going on behind some closed doors in the Bush administration, thanks in part to Tom Ridge.

CNN's Ed Henry picks up the story from here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Friday before the 2004 election, only two or three points separated Democrat John Kerry from President Bush. Suddenly, a twist. Osama bin Laden released a shocking new videotape. And it played nonstop on the Arab language network Al-Jazeera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 2004)

OSAMA BIN LADEN, AL QAEDA LEADER (through translator): Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: The next morning, just 72 hours before the polls opened, the president's top security advisers, including Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft, huddled for an urgent meeting to decide whether to raise the color-coded threat level from yellow to orange.

Then Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge reveals in an explosive new book, "A vigorous, some might say dramatic, discussion ensued. Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level, and was supported by Rumsfeld."

He goes on: "There was absolutely no support for that position within our department, none. I wondered, is this about security or politics? Post-election analysis demonstrated a significant increase in the president's approval ratings in the days after the raising of the threat level." The Bush campaign was already pushing the envelope on frightening voters. Listen to then Vice President Cheney just 10 days before the bin Laden tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, OCTOBER 19, 2004)

RICHARD B. CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But the ultimate threat is the possibility of their succeeding and getting, say, a biological agent or a nuclear weapon, smuggling it into the United States, into one of our own cities, and raising the specter of -- of being able to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: In the summer of 2004, just a few days after the Democratic National Convention, the White House had raised the threat level, drawing charges of political manipulation that were sharply denied by Bush officials, like Ridge, at the time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, 2004)

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: But now, at that tense meeting the weekend before the election, Ridge writes that it -- quote -- "seemed possible to me and to others around the table that something could be afoot, other than simple concern about the country's safety."

In the end, however, the threat level was not raised, after Ridge claims he and others pulled Rumsfeld and Ashcroft -- quote -- "back from the brink." But Ridge says the episode left him disillusioned. He writes: "I knew I had to follow through on my plans to leave the federal government." He tendered his resignation within a month of the election.

He concluded, "I considered that episode to be not only a dramatic moment in Washington's recent history, but another illustration of the intersection of politics, fear, credibility, and security."

(on camera): But other Bush officials in the meeting, including CNN contributor Fran Townsend, insist Ridge is wrong. Townsend says politics was never discussed at the meeting and the discussion was based solely on intelligence.

Ed Henry, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: We are going to bring you reaction from the Bush administration on that report.

Also, when I come back, "Newsweek" correspondent Mark Hosenball is going to join me to take us through how Americans are going to deal with this, this seeming evidence that they may have been manipulated for purely political reasons. It is an important conversation.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Boy, we are getting a lot of comments.

Joining me now from Washington, a frequent guest on this show, "Newsweek" investigative correspondent, who, frankly, I have talked to many times before on several subjects since the early 2000s: Mark Hosenball.

It's good to see you. Good afternoon, Mark.

MARK HOSENBALL, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, NEWSWEEK: Hello. How are you doing?

SANCHEZ: Fabulous. You've covered this administration probably as much as anyone, I'm talking about the Bush administration.

HOSENBALL: I covered these events that you are talking about.

SANCHEZ: As well. Right. Does the revelation by Tom Ridge that he was pressured politically to manipulate the terror threat level, does that surprise you?

HOSENBALL: Not at all, really. I certainly suspected things like this. I think we've all suspected things like this for quite some period of time.

SANCHEZ: Did you, like a lot of us Americans, not want to believe it though even when you suspected it?

HOSENBALL: No. I kind of believed it.

SANCHEZ: Did you really?

HOSENBALL: Yes.

SANCHEZ: What was leading you to believe that these guys would be capable of doing something like this -- which seems on its face to be, well, I guess, nothing else, a distortion of the truth, right?

HOSENBALL: Well, I mean, I remember -- and your piece just now alluded to this, what happened right at end, literally, I think, the day after John Kerry's nominating convention ended in Boston, which was that they announced this big terror arrest in England and raised the terror threat level. And certainly, that looked kind of political.

And then, the administration -- as I recall -- put out a very, very heavy full-court press to try and convince anybody -- everybody -- it wasn't political. And I was involved in some of that sort of spin or at least receiving some of that spin. And I knew quite a lot about the case that they were talking about there.

And, you know, it's a case involving some people in England who the government in both England and the United States had known about for a long time. There was certainly a question in my mind at that time as to why that case was being broken up then. And, in fact, there were some complaints from the British side that I remember that the Americans have pressured them into moving ahead with that -- the series of arrest that precipitated that alert-raising before the British were ready.

So, you know, we had some suspicion that politics were being played with this issue. Now, you know, all you kind of say to Governor Ridge's or Secretary Ridge's revelations now is kind of now he tells us. You know, the revelation is a little bit moot now, I guess.

SANCHEZ: Well, here's what Frances Townsend said and she's speaking obviously in defense of and on behalf of the former Bush administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANCES TOWNSEND, FMR. BUSH HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISOR: Not only do I not think that it played -- politics played any part in it at all. It was never discussed. In fact, the only thing that was discussed was the summer of that -- earlier that summer, there had been a threat against the financial district, there was the bin Laden tape, and then there was another tape, Kiran, by Adam Gadahn, a U.S. citizen who was a member of al Qaeda and it was a very threatening tape. And so, the discussion really revolved around what the intelligence was. There was no discussion of politics whatsoever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: I'm interested in your reaction to that. She did name some specifics there. The threat against the financial district, the bin Laden tapes -- is she right? What do you make of it?

HOSENBALL: Well, I mean, I have a lot of respect for Fran. I regard her as a very honest person. My recollection to this issue about the threat of the financial district, this is the case I was talking about that they made a big deal about right after John Kerry's convention was over. And, in fact, the threat against the financial district was, in fact, the threat that went back several years. In fact, before 9/11, they were actually just busting people who had been involved in drawing up plans to attack the financial district and (INAUDIBLE) the Washington, right next to my office. Some years ago, the plans were actually drawn up before 9/11.

So, as I said earlier, there are questions in my mind as to why that particular issue was trotted out at the time that it was trotted out. By the same time, if Fran says that she didn't hear at some particular meeting any discussion of politics, I believe her. She doesn't make things up.

SANCHEZ: Is this something that the current president of the United States can act upon? Do you think people within his own party will say enough is enough and even Republicans will join together with Democrats to say, if they were doing that, if they were saying things and trying to convince the American people of things that weren't really happening, there should be some kind of justice for this?

HOSENBALL: I don't think there is any appetite for, you know, opening another line of inquiry into the politicization of this stuff or politicization of intelligence...

SANCHEZ: So, we just let it go? We just pretend it didn't happen and move on?

HOSENBALL: Well, on the other hand, to say what Obama is doing -- I mean, in fact, he has set up a committee on which Fran Townsend, of all people, is one of the leading members to review this whole issue of the color-coded terror alerts. And so far, I think, I've seen and so far as I think you've seen, the Obama administration hasn't used any of this mumbo jumbo since they came to office. And from what I can tell, they want to get rid of it.

So, if you get rid of it and make the sort of terror alert system more to the practical or more targeted at particular industries -- if there's a genuine threat, then, you know, that eliminates at least some of the ability to manipulate people in simple ways. Because the whole idea of this color-coded terror alert was to make the threat or understanding of the threat simple in a way that everybody could understand that things were more dangerous now than they were yesterday even though, you know, we don't really know whether any of those alerts -- how real they were.

SANCHEZ: Well, let me ask you a question that I think a lot of Americans are going to tussle with -- because I think a lot of people who are going to be watching us have this conversation, you and I, Mark, and they're going to say, well, you know, politicians are Machiavellian. They're always going to try and push things to the edge. They're always going to try and do things for political reasons. So, what's the big news here, fellows?

It's almost like parsing, you know, a white lie, a big lie or a damn lie. Where does this fall?

HOSENBALL: You know, this is -- it's not exactly a white lie. It's a -- it's a manipulation. It's an exaggeration. I wouldn't say it's the worst thing I've heard in politics. It's the kind of thing that people would do and I wouldn't put it past any politician of any stripe to play these kinds of games.

You remember Bill Clinton, as I recall, bombed Iraq just about the time that he was due to give his deposition in the Monica Lewinsky case. And we are pretty cynical about that and I think justifiably so. So, you know, to particularly attribute this kind of behavior to one stripe of politician is probably a little bit unfair.

SANCHEZ: I think you are absolutely right. And as I recall back what happened during the Bill Clinton administration, I thought to myself, what was the term -- there was a movie over it, right? HOSENBALL: It's called "Wag the Dog."

SANCHEZ: Wag the dog. Thank you. I was going to say wag the tail. Wag the dog.

HOSENBALL: And there's a new movie out which is kind of from England called "In the Loop" which is telling stories along the similar lines. So, if you want to be entertained, there are some things that could entertain you.

SANCHEZ: Machiavellianism is omnipresent. Thank you for letting me sound real smart with those multi-syllabic words.

Mark Hosenball, always a pleasure. You're a smart guy. Thanks for coming on.

HOSENBALL: Thank you very much.

SANCHEZ: Naked and confused. And it's happening more than you think on airplanes these days. What the feds do about this case. You're going to see it.

Also, new troubling details about the crash of a plane and a helicopter over the Hudson. And now, we have a better idea why these two workers we heard so much about have actually been suspended. Did you hear what they did? Did you hear the conversation? We've got it for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Boy, we've got a lot of reaction from you. I'm going to be sharing it in just a little bit.

This is our top story. This is the one that upset many of you of. Two air traffic controller workers are suspended. One was a supervisor, wasn't even in the room when a plane and a helicopter collided over the Hudson River. The other being on the phone talking to somebody while he was supposed to be helping and watching the pilot of a plane that crashed with a helicopter. Nine people died.

Now, here's a cut from the transcript, as I read this to you earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: "I said, we got plenty of gas on the grill." The woman says, "It kind of sucks that we can't, we won't be able to do it today." The controller says, "Fire up the cat." The woman then says, "Disgusting. That thing was disgusting." To which the controller replies, "Chinese people do it, so why can't we."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: He was referring to a dead cat found at the airport and he was talking about cooking the cat because -- well, you heard what they talked about. Well, here's what you've been telling me about this in no uncertain terms. Let's start over here if we possibly can, Robert, with Facebook. Wendy saying, "Fire him or make him take sensitivity training. At the least, the sensitivity training will have enough hate in the world without people like him sparking more."

Let's go over to the Twitter board now and you'll see just how many people have writing it on this as well. "Work ethic has hit a new low for Americans." "I think he should be replaced." "Wow, so many more reasons to fire the ATC's, sorry tailfeathers." Interesting word choice.

"I think they should go to jail." Both of them, they say. "Sounds bad and seems like negligence if the time line is correct."

Thanks so much for your comments on that story.

Let me tell you something else, I've got a boat, but I don't have this kind of boat. You ready? Look at this. They call them unsinkable by the way. No, that doesn't mean they are uncrashable. Ouch. Fotos -- fotos is next.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: It is usually on takeoff that most passengers are least comfortable. Not in today's "Fotos Del Dia." The place where foto intersects with loco.

And you have to be loco to do what this man did. Imagine you are taking off all your clothes all the way down to your birthday suit just as the plane is starting to take off. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's a language issue with this guy. Maybe they said, he thought that they said take it off instead of take off.

By the way, the plane went back to Oakland, California. A naked man was taken off the plane. Do you notice it's the people you least want to see naked that get naked? Just asking.

Here is Dolce, Ontario, Canada area, as Dorothy would say, we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. You may as well be from the likes of this twister. It's scary to look at -- even scarier in a photograph. It left tens of thousands of people without any power and it actually killed one person.

And finally, there is something else to add to the list of car chases. You've seen 'em here. Car chases with pets, car chases with horses, car chases with cars, car chases with hummers, car chases with pick-up trucks, I could go on and on. But watch what happens when you are dumb enough to try and get away from police when while you're pulling a boat. Did you see that? Now, who didn't see that thing coming?

Coming up next: Arlen Specter tells jokes. I'm not kidding. Arlen Specter, he does stand-up for charity. And his topics include Bob Dole, Bob Dole, and teen sex, teen sex, and Trent Lott and coloring books? Trent Lott and coloring books. That's next. His words.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (D), PENNSYLVANIA: I'm glad to be with you. (INAUDIBLE).

(LAUGHTER)

SPECTER: Trent Lott came back, (INAUDIBLE), his house had been destroyed by a hurricane and it destroyed his entire library. Both books.

(LAUGHTER)

SPECTER: And he wasn't finished coloring one of them either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: He said he destroyed his entire library, both books, and he wasn't even finished coloring one of them. That's kind of funny.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is funny.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: If you thought that was funny, you got to hear what he said about Dan Quayle, what he says about Sarah Palin, what he says about -- what's going on here? Bob Dole. He's going after Republicans. We're going to share more of that comedy routine in our after show today, CNN.com/live in just a couple of minutes.

So now you're wondering why I'm talking to Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth is going to be joining us in just a little bit, and there are very important questions that we want to -- you know, for a long time here, we've been taking on this debate about what's really going on with this health care plan. And so many people have told us, I still don't get it. I don't understand half the time what you're talking about because it's all politics. And one side is screaming at the other side and the other side...

COHEN: And look at this.

SANCHEZ: Oh, my goodness.

COHEN: This is the Senate and the House health care bills. Of course, they don't get it. Who could get all this?

SANCHEZ: Here's one of the things that we're going to talk about. When it comes to cancer treatments, specialized surgeries, rare disorders there's likely no better health care system in the entire world than ours. If we enact health care reform, will we lose that? Maybe we'll be as good as other countries but will we lose that dominance?

She's going to join us to talk about that and your questions, as well. Stay with us. That's a lot of paper.

COHEN: That is. It's a lot of paper. OK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Milking a profit from a dairy farm is not easy. The price of milk is dropping, but the cost of running a farm isn't getting any cheaper.

(on camera): Well, how about one of these cows like 3095? What is her day going to be like?

DAVE STANTON, HERDSMAN: She's going to need to eat about 100 to 110 pounds of food.

WOLF (voice-over): Shawn Saylor owns this fourth-generation farm in Pennsylvania, and he's finding creative ways to make ends meet.

SHAWN SAYLOR, HILLCREST SAYLOR DAIR FARM: That's one of mechanical scrapers to scrape the barn.

WOLF: It's not scraping dirt, it's scraping something else. What's it scraping there.

SAYLOR: A large pile of manure.

WOLF: All for power.

SAYLOR: Yes.

WOLF (voice-over): That's right. Sailor's 600 milking cows help power the farm. Their waste is flushed into a big digester and stored for about 16 days to create methane gas.

SAYLOR: The digester is just another high-efficiency stomach.

WOLF: And the gas created inside of it generates enough electricity to power Hillcrest Saylor Dairy Farm and a dozen neighboring homes. Converting waste to power saves Saylor almost $200,000 a year.

SAYLOR: So, you're talking system, project cost, over $1 million dollars to build the system, but payback in five years or less.

WOLF (on camera): If your great-grandfather, who started this operation, if he were alive today and you were to say, "Grandpa Saylor, we are powering our farm with cow waste"?

SAYLOR: Probably disbelief. It would be more like science fiction to him.

WOLF: Reynolds Wolf, CNN, Rockwood, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: OK. Here's what we're going to do. We've got our CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. She's standing by right here. And I want to go as fast as possible.

COHEN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: You're going to be answering questions on our Twitter board.

COHEN: That's right.

SANCHEZ: We collected a bunch of them and people are asking great questions.

We're also starting something today. It's called "The Rick Sanchez After-show Tour." People who take a tour of the CNN Center are now visiting us. There they are right there. You see them? Ain't that cool?

Hey, guys. Wave. Hello! Mike? Who's Mike over there? Raise your hand, Mike. There's two Mikes.

Who's Mike Mullen who's 68 years old? My God, you didn't look a day over 18. Unbelievable.

Mike asks this question, so we're going to start with Mike. Mike wants to know if his Medicare is going to be affected or if it's going to go away if we were to pass health care reform. He's concerned.

COHEN: You know what, Mike, your Medicare is not going to go away under health care reform. Health care reform in many ways -- you can think of it as sort of reform for the rest of us. Medicare is here. It exists. It's in many ways an example of a social program that works, right? People over the age of 65 are pretty well taken care of.

There might be some changes to try to make it more efficient. Medicare is a bit wasteful right now, but the Medicare will not go away as Mike knows it.

SANCHEZ: It's here to stay.

COHEN: It is here to stay.

SANCHEZ: My question then we got to the Twitter board. My question is this: we have something wonderful in the United States. There's no place in the world where you want to be if you get a rare disorder, if you get cancer, if you have some freakish kind of injury. We can deal with that. In Canada, for example, they're not good at that. They come here to get treated for that, people in Canada, but they're really good at broken ankles, bad colds and the owies and the stuff that we take care of. How do we adjust our system to have what they have, which we don't have, but not lose what we have, which is the best critical care in the world?

COHEN: Right. That is absolutely the trick. I mean, there is a reason why rich Saudi princes come to the United States for their medical care, right?

SANCHEZ: Because our system is fabulous.

COHEN: Right. It's fabulous in many ways. It's great for those really difficult to attack big problems like you describe. So, that's the trick with reform. How do you keep that but try to do the other parts better?

I'll give you an example. When a woman has a baby in England, she has a nurse coming to her every day to make sure that she and that baby are doing OK. On a regular basis, she gets that visit. Here, a new mom is pretty much on her own at home.

SANCHEZ: Routine.

COHEN: Yes. It's the little things that we don't always do so well here.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: But aren't those little things important? Because if you do those little things, you can prevent the big things down the line?

COHEN: Exactly. If you take a diabetic and call them everyday and say, "Mrs. Smith, how are you glucose readings? How are you doing, Mrs. Smith?" or, you, know, God forbid, go visit her and say, "Mrs. Smith, how is it going?" -- you can prevent that incredibly expensive surgery that she might need 10 years down the road. That is the trick, is to make our health care more efficient so that we can do those little things.

And you know why we don't do those little things very well?

SANCHEZ: Why?

COHEN: Because nobody makes money off them. No big pharmaceutical company, no big imaging company makes money when you call Mrs. Smith and say, "How's your glucose doing?" So, nobody really pushes it.

SANCHEZ: Broken ankles, getting checkups, preventive care, all that stuff, you don't -- it's not as profitable?

COHEN: Oh, absolutely not as profitable.

SANCHEZ: Interesting.

COHEN: Absolutely.

SANCHEZ: Interesting.

All right. Let's go to the Twitter board. We're going to start with this. A lot of people are talking about tort reform. Wouldn't there be huge savings if we could somehow stop the lawyers from suing doctors?

Here's the way they phrase the question. "Tort reform would equal huge savings. Why isn't the president talking about it, and why isn't it part of the health care reform package?"

COHEN: You know, tort reform -- doctors want tort reform because they hate being sued and they say, "Look, when you sue us doctors, we have to jack up the prices so that we can pay for our insurance and our lawyers, plus, we start practicing defensive medicine, which isn't good for anybody."

However, President Obama and others, this is their thinking -- yes, tort reform in some ways would be good, but you know what, on the other hand, that would also mean it would be harder for you to sue your doctor. If your doctor amputates your right leg instead of your left, don't you want to be able to sue them?

SANCHEZ: Or...

COHEN: Shouldn't you be able to sue them for gigantic amounts of money?

SANCHEZ: Or heaven forbid, I know how much you love your kids and how much I love my kids. If something happened like that to my kid, I would feel like defenseless, like I'd want some kind of justice.

Let's go to the next one before we run out of time because I think we're down in one minute. This is great by the way and we're going to continue on the after-show on CNN.com/live.

COHEN: Great.

SANCHEZ: "Given such favorable support by Americans in polling data, why aren't we hearing about single payer?"

COHEN: Ah, the single-payer groups. I think Exador23 (ph) is one of them. There's this group of people in the United States who feel very strongly that we should go to a single-payer system like they have in other countries, where the government runs the health insurance in the whole country and they're the only ones who run it. They're a single payer. That group is extremely vocal.

However, it's not on the table. Sorry, guys. Nobody's seriously...

(CROSSTALK) SANCHEZ: It's not going to happen.

COHEN: It's not -- right -- not going to happen. It's not in these bills. President Obama hasn't talked about it as much as they might like it.

SANCHEZ: Stay right there. We'll coming right back.

In the meantime, toss it to Wolf, will you?

COHEN: Hey, Wolf, great to see you. How's your show going?