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Banking on Bernanke; Clunker Deadline Extended; H1N1 Flu Fears, Jackson Death Investigation; Milwaukee Mayor Back at Work

Aired August 25, 2009 - 9:00   ET

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

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so there you have from Martha's Vineyard this morning. The president taking a break from his vacation to announce that he will re-nominate Fed chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term. That's another four-year term, in fact.

Good morning to you, everybody, I'm Heidi Collins. Thanks for being with us now in the CNN NEWSROOM.

A lot to talk about this morning. Certainly this nomination to begin with. Let's go ahead and take a moment now to bring in our money team's Christine Romans to talk more about this.

Christine, not a surprise, certainly, that this nomination has occurred today. But I would imagine one of the reasons that the president decided to do this is a matter of consistency. When we're talking about the major economic crisis that the country is going through, probably wants to stick with the same guy.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right. And consistency and a president who's mentioning bold persistent experimentation. You heard that in his remarks.

It's interesting, bold experimentation is what FDR promised in 1932 when he told the nation that he was going to try something and if it failed he'd abandon it and try something else.

So, the president using FDR's language there. Indeed interesting because this is -- would be the second term for Ben Bernanke, and Ben Bernanke, actually, Heidi, in the beginning of this whole process back in 2007, I want you to listen to this sound bite we found for you.

Back in 2007, he was asked many times about the subprime crisis and the housing crisis and if it was going to be a problem for the overall economy. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNANKE: We do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market for the rest of the economy or to the financial system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Now flash forward to today, he is being credited with his -- you know, his actions and his deliberate, as he said, and bold strategies helping to prevent something far, far worse. The second Great Depression. So, a lot has changed in the past couple of years and this is the man who, at first, many say, was maybe a little late to understand the depths and the magnitude of this problem.

COLLINS: Right.

ROMANS: But then got creative and bold and really sought even new tools, things that we had never seen before to try to right the financial system. Now many, many are telling me and for several weeks have been telling me that it would be really unusual for this president to pick someone else, to pick a new course midstream, as they say, that horrible cliche, but pick a new course midstream, when now this Fed chief still has a lot of work to do.

COLLINS: Sure. Absolutely. And I remember all of us talking about what uncharted territory we were in when this was happening with subprime mortgage crisis.

ROMANS: Yes.

COLLINS: And bleeding into other areas of the economy.

ROMANS: That's right.

COLLINS: Of course. But you would still expect the guy at the top, the Fed chairman, to be able to know. A lot of people still saying he was also appointed by the Bush administration. So what does all of that mean?

ROMANS: Right.

COLLINS: What exactly is ahead for Bernanke?

ROMANS: Well, it's not unusual to have -- you know, have different political parties for the Fed chief than the president. That's not unusual at all. And presidents tend to keep their Fed chiefs around. They tend to be isolated. It is an independent organization. It's not a political, not supposed to be a political organization.

Senator Chris Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, a powerful committee, he has said, Heidi, essentially what that sound bite would suggest that Chairman Bernanke was too slow to act during the early stages of the foreclosure crisis, but ultimately demonstrated effective leadership and his reappointment sends the right signals to the markets.

So he could have some of these questions raised in the nomination part of the, you know, a Senate confirmation part of this whole process. But what he has to go going forward, I mean, he has to unwind all of these emergency measures that are now today in effect on the marketplace.

COLLINS: Exactly.

ROMANS: He's got to unwind all of this and do it in a way, if he waits too long, you risk inflation, you risk trouble in the economy that way. New bubbles. All of this money slashing around creating new problems. You do it too soon then you hurt the economic recovery and you face -- you know, you face another dip of, quote-unquote, "double-dip" recession. So, the timing has to be perfect.

COLLINS: Right. I mean we're still right in the middle of the uncharted territory. That's for sure.

ROMANS: Oh yes. It's certainly -- yes.

COLLINS: In fact, you have a really interesting "Romans' Numeral" today. You already mentioned the Great Depression. What's this about?

ROMANS: 1937 is the numeral. 1937, it's a year, Heidi, that is on the lips and on the minds of all of these policy makers, Ben Bernanke, a depression expert. He was the chairman of the Economic Department at Princeton. He knows the depression.

That was the year of that second horrible dip of the Great Depression. You had an economy that came out of a bad recession, was starting to recover, and then because of blunders made by the nation's leadership, by blunders made as the economy was starting to strengthen, it went right back down again and was very terrible and painful for a lot of people.

So the recession -- the depression was really two big terrible events and now a lot of folks are watching what we do next to make sure we don't have the same mistakes made right now in this episode.

COLLINS: Absolutely. All right. From our money team, Christine Romans in New York this morning. Christine, thanks for that.

Also Ben Bernanke, as the chairman of the Federal Reserve, his decisions affect your wallet, of course, and your financial well being. As you know just a few moments ago, President Obama formally called for him to remain in his position to steer the country out of its worst recession in decades.

In fact, CNN White House correspondent Dan Lothian is traveling with the president. He's joining us now from the vacation spot of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Dan, good morning to you. I thought the president wanted a news- free vacation here. I guess he couldn't skip this one, huh?

(LAUGHTER)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's true. And you know, he pointed out as he started his remarks here that he was apologizing because indeed the president had encouraged the press to go out and take a nice walk on the beach and to give the family some privacy.

I did talk to the administration official who told me, though, that they felt that this was the right time to come out and make the announcement because they felt that, you know, re-nominating Bernanke would really cause some stability in the market, was good for the marketplace, so they really wanted to come out and make that announcement now.

But as you've been pointing out, there's still a little bit of perhaps bumpy road ahead while there's the conventional wisdom that he will be approved by the Senate during the process. There is some concern that there'll be tough questions about what he did or what he didn't do early on to perhaps prevent such a freefall and perhaps the mortgage crisis.

Yes, he's been credited with helping to keep the economy and this nation from falling into another Great Depression, but there's still a lot of questions about whether he acted soon enough, could've done much more, to prevent sort of the deepening of the crisis that we saw in the housing market.

So those are no doubt some of the questions that will be coming up during the confirmation process, Heidi.

COLLINS: Understood. All right. Yes. Very good point. He still does need to be confirmed by the Senate, of course. Dan Lothian, sure do appreciate that live from Martha's Vineyard this morning. Thank you.

Here's a look now at some fast facts on Ben Bernanke. Then President George W. Bush first appointed him. He was sworn as the Federal Reserve chairman on February 1st, 2006. He took over the post from Alan Greenspan who served in that role for 18 years. Bernanke earned his bachelors degree in economics in the Harvard University and his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

We will be keeping a close eye on Wall Street, of course, this hour. Stocks peaked early yesterday and then sort of sputtered out towards the close. And those gains earlier in the day, though, pushed NASDAQ, the Dow, and S&P 500 to new highs for the year.

The reason for the rise continued optimism about the economic recovery and the accompanying increase in oil prices, too. In fact, the S&P 500 is up more than 51 percent from its low on March 9th. The Dow up 45 percent during that same period.

At the bottom of the hour, we will go live to Wall Street for today's opening bell. We're keeping our eye on those numbers for you.

A few more hours to get Cash for Clunkers, but don't get too excited, it's only for the dealers. The government is extending the paperwork deadline for dealers until noon today. You remember we talked about this. The rush of applications shut down the government computer system before last night's original deadline.

The Transportation Department says they have received 625,000 vouchers so far. That covers $2.5 billion of the $3 billion allocated for the program.

New numbers now on the possible toll from the H1N1 swine flu. A government panel says 30,000 to 90,000 people could die from the flu strain this fall. The 90,000 is a worst-case scenario. A worst-case look at what the flu could do. This new H1N1 strain is expected to take its biggest toll on children and young adults. The first doses of the new vaccine are expected by mid-October. We've been talking about that quite a bit, too. That government panel also suggests as many as 40 percent of people could suffer from swine flu symptoms.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joining me now to put all of this in perspective for everybody. So how do these numbers match up once again against that regular seasonal flu? I think I remember having it ingrained in my head, 36,000. Right?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. 36,000 deaths from seasonal flu. So let's take a look. Sometimes it's easy to see the numbers when they're one on top of another.

COLLINS: Yes.

COHEN: So let's take a look at a graphic that we have. The projection by this group is that there will be 30,000 to 90,000 deaths from swine flu alone in the upcoming flu season. Again, as Heidi said, there are 36,000 deaths annually from regular old seasonal flu.

Now an important distinction here. Swine flu deaths would be on top of regular flu deaths. It would not be instead of. So this would be sort of an extra. So basically what they're saying is that we're likely to see more deaths from swine flu this year than from regular flu.

Now, as far as illness goes, this report projects that between 30 and 50 percent of Americans will become ill with swine flu and that regular flu every year is between 5 and 20 percent.

So you can see, again, that according to these projections, more people will get sick from swine flu than from regular flu. This is not shocking in that this is a virus that most of us have no resistance to.

COLLINS: Right.

COHEN: Our bodies have never seen anything like this before. And again, these are projections. Nobody knows for sure. We can't really tell, it's just people sort of working off of the epidemiological models.

COLLINS: Yes. All right. Well, in fact, the first question a lot of people probably have when they see numbers like this and worst- case scenarios, what about the vaccine? Because we're going to be hoping that it would be ready by October. A lot of people saying that was a lofty goal.

COHEN: Well, I think there will be some by mid-October. They're still hoping for that, but there certainly won't be enough for everyone who needs it. So they're hoping to have about 50 million doses by mid-October and then another 200 million doses by the time the calendar year ends. Hopefully this will be enough to get them the shots to the people who need it. So we're talking pregnant women, young adults, you and I have talked about that many times.

COLLINS: Yes.

COHEN: But certainly if there is a mad rush for vaccine in mid- October, there are going to be problems.

COLLINS: Yes.

COHEN: Because there won't be enough right at that moment.

COLLINS: Yes. And I remember it's not just one shot. You have to go back...

COHEN: It's true. Right. You got a shot, you come back three weeks later for another one.

COLLINS: Definitely. Also a reminder, but we can never say it too much, steps to prevent swine flu. At least your best chances...

COHEN: Right, exactly. What you can do yourself. The first thing you can do is wash your hands frequently, soap and water or hand sanitizer. Don't go out if you're sick. Don't get other people sick. Stay home from work. Keep your kids home from school.

Also cough or sneeze into your sleeve. Someone described it as the Dracula cough, which I had never heard of and they sort of like...

COLLINS: I think they teach that in the elementary school.

COHEN: Yes. I think it's...

COLLINS: They like to call it like Count Dracula.

COHEN: Yes. Exactly. It's sort of -- it worked, it's a good description. Those aren't going to guarantee that you're going to stay healthy. But it's certainly, basically all, you can do.

COLLINS: All right. Very good. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

COHEN: Thanks.

COLLINS: Thanks for the update. Appreciate that.

Meanwhile, a chilling timeline laid out of drug after drug with Michael Jackson reportedly wanting more. We have the preliminary findings from his autopsy.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I'm Rob Marciano in the CNN Severe Weather Center. The shuttle launch last night scrubbed due to weather. They'll go at it again tonight. Plus they're gassing up the hurricane hunters. Bill is gone, but another area of disturbed weather heading towards Florida. That's all coming up later in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Michael Jackson has been dead two months today. No official word yet on what killed him. But preliminary findings suggest it was an overdose of a powerful sedative, one of several drugs in his system.

Here now CNN's Thelma Gutierrez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This 32-page document released in Texas reveals there was lethal levels of the powerful drug Propofol in Michael Jackson's blood at the time of his death, according to preliminary findings of the Los Angeles coroner.

The police affidavit says Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal physician, told detectives he had been treating the star for insomnia for six weeks, giving him an IV drip with 50 milligrams of Propofol diluted with lidocaine every night.

Murray worried Jackson was becoming addicted to Propofol. In an attempt to wean him off, Murray put together other combination of drugs which succeeded in putting Jackson to sleep for two nights prior to his death.

On June 25th, when those drugs failed, Murray told detectives what he did hour by hour. He said around 1:30 in the morning, he gave Jackson 10 milligrams of Valium. At 2:00 a.m., he injected him with Ativan, an anti-anxiety drugs. An hour later, the sedative Versed. At 5:00 a.m., more Ativan. At 7:30, more Versed.

Murray says he monitored Jackson's vital signs the entire time. According to documents, at 10:40 a.m., after repeated requests and demands from Jackson, Murray administered 25 milligrams of Propofol and Jackson finally went to sleep.

After 10 minutes, Murray says he went to the bathroom and was gone for two minutes. When he returned, he says, Jackson was no longer breathing. Murray says he administered CPR until paramedics arrived, but those efforts proved futile.

(on camera): Dr. Conrad Murray's attorneys released a statement saying, "Much of what was in the search warrant affidavit is factual. However, unfortunately, much is police theory. Most egregiously, the timeline reported by law enforcement was not obtained through interviews with Dr. Murray as was implied by the affidavit."

Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Milwaukee has its mayor back. He's still on the mends, recovering from a brutal attack. Now he's talking about getting back to business. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Four more years, minutes ago, President Obama renominated Fed chairman Ben Bernanke for a second term. Bernanke played a key role in the government's response to the recession and the banking crisis. Bernanke's first term ends on January 31st. Now, of course, the Senate would still have to confirm him for that second term.

A new report warns of the widespread and deadly implications of a swine flu outbreak this fall. A presidential advisory panel says up to 90,000 deaths are projected as part of a plausible scenario involving a variety of factors. Those factors include large outbreaks of schools and the virus peaking before vaccinations actually have time to work.

The shuttle Discovery's mission to the International Space Station will have to wait at least another day. This morning's launch was scrubbed due to bad weather. The crew will try again early tomorrow morning and Discovery will deliver thousands of pounds of supplies, including NASA's new treadmill named after comedian Stephen Colbert.

Huh. Interesting.

So we want to know what you think about something else. The CIA interrogation tactics that we were talking about this yesterday, of course, and earlier in this show. I want to know if you think the government should launch an investigation into the CIA. That is the topic of my blog today. We'd love to hear from you. Go ahead and post your comments on CNN.com/heidi.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Quickly want to get you over to Rob Marciano who is in the Severe Weather Center now. Apparently there's quite a few storm clouds off the Cape, yes?

MARCIANO: Yes, the cape down across the south, that's where you're talking about they had to scrub that shuttle launch.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COLLINS: There used to a -- the soup down there. I just haven't heard you use that meteorological term before. I like it. All right, Rob, we'll check back later and thank you.

MARCIANO: See you, Heidi. OK.

COLLINS: Milwaukee's mayor is back at work nine days after being brutally beaten. Mayor Tom Barrett was trying to help a woman who was being attacked when he was then attacked himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR TOM BARRETT, MILWAUKEE: We had a Cabinet meeting when they stopped in, going over the budget stuff, and had a lot of correspondents that I was going through. Slowly will get back in the saddle. So it feels good to get back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Barrett was hit several times with a tire iron when he tried to call 911. He had cuts, bruises, and a broken hand. The suspect, a 20-year-old man, is charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors.

Accusing the president of fraud. A candidate in last week's Afghan elections warns that if nothing is done, the U.S. mission could be at stake.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Live in the CNN NEWSROOM, Heidi Collins.

COLLINS: Yesterday was a pretty slow day on Wall Street because there wasn't really any economic news. But today, it's a different story. We have new readings on the housing market and consumer confidence, and of course, there is that reappointment of Fed chief Ben Bernanke, of course, pending Senate confirmation.

Stephanie Elam is at the New York Stock Exchange with a look now at how investors are expect to, yes, through it all.

Hi, Stephanie.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi. Yes, we are expecting a higher open today. Probably like yesterday. We'll have to see if it comes true.

COLLINS: Yes.

ELAM: Yesterday a retail bank still got hit because of concerns about the commercial real estate market. But today we are expecting consumer confidence to rise, and, of course, confidence is really important is key to economic recovery. That report is due out at the top of the hour. Of course, we'll be keeping our eyeballs on it.

Now, in the meantime, the Case-Schiller report shows home prices in the 20 big cities rose 3 percent in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. That's the first quarterly increase in three years. It's a sign of stabilization, but we do have a long way to go because home prices are at -- still at 2003 levels.

Now in corporate news, something to tell you about. Burger King, their quarterly profits jumped 16 percent. That did beat estimates. Sales fell and the fast food chain opened more than 100 stores in the three-month period, but Burger King still came out on top because it managed its costs well.

BK shares are on the upside by 2 percent in the pre-market and right now they are up about 5.5 percent. So, taking a look at the early goings, we are in the green. The Dow is on the upside by 30 points, so up one-third of a percent, at 9540. Nasdaq better by 7 at 2025, S&P 500 also up right now.

One thing I've got to mention Heidi, we're not really expecting much market reaction to the reappointment of Fed Chief Ben Bernanke. As one analyst has pointed out if the President did not reappoint Bernanke that could have sparked a response because the market does not like uncertainty and Wall Street does like Bernanke.

So for now, we're off to a positive start, not a major positive.

COLLINS: Yes.

ELAM: But a positive so we'll take it.

COLLINS: Yes we will, as always. All right Stephanie, we'll check back later on. Thank you.

ELAM: Yes, thanks.

COLLINS: A special prosecutor will now look into CIA prisoner abuse cases after Attorney General Eric Holder decided to open an investigation.

Our Elaine Quijano is joining us live now in Washington with more on this. Elaine, why does Holder want to look into these cases now?

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you noted, the attorney general has now asked the federal prosecutor, Heidi, to review whether interrogations under the Bush administration broke the law.

And he says his decision was influenced by the newly released CIA inspector general report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUIJANO: Interrogators threatened to kill the children of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. The 2004 CIA inspector general's report, though still partially redacted, says quote, "According to this interrogator the blank interrogator said to Khalid Sheikh Muhammad that if anything else happens in the United States, we're going to kill your children."

The report also reveals a technique not previously disclosed, that an interrogator quote, "Reportedly used a pressure point technique with both his hands on the detainee's neck, blank manipulated his fingers to restrict the detainee's carotid artery until the detainee started to pass out."

And new information about a gun and a power drill used to scare Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, suspected of plotted the deadly bombing on the USS Cole. Quote, "The debriefer entered the cell where al-Nashiri sat shackled and racked the handgun once or twice close to al- Nashiri's head." And later, "The briefer entered the detainee's cell and revved the drill while the detainee stood naked and hooded. The debriefer did not touch al-Nashiri with the power drill."

The report's release comes after a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, which called the details outrageous.

JAMEEL JAFFER, ACLU: If threatening a prisoner with an electric drill isn't torture, I'm not sure what is.

QUIJANO: The report also suggests water-boarding got Khalid Sheikh Muhammad to talk, saying he quote, "Provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the water-board." Late Monday the government released other declassified documents former Vice President Dick Cheney requested arguing they would show the interrogation program saved lives.

The CIA analysis says information from detainee interrogations helped thwart a number of al Qaeda plots and arrests disrupted attack plans in progress. What's not clear from the heavily redacted documents is whether that information was obtained through controversial techniques like water-boarding.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUIJANO: Now in a sign of the political pressure surrounding this issue, the ACLU said it is disappointed with the Attorney General's decision not to launch into a full investigation calling a preliminary review without a commitment to prosecution quote, "Simply anaemic" -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Well on the ID report, I have to wonder what the CIA is actually saying about these incidents.

QUIJANO: Yes, well in a memo to employees, CIA Director Leon Panetta said that the agency makes no excuses for behavior, however rare, that went beyond the formal guidelines on counter terrorism. He also said in that memo Heidi, that obviously he is interested in the future not necessarily looking backwards -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Ok, very good, Elaine Quijano, thank you.

Meanwhile Eric Holder's decision could draw the administration into a long battle at a time when the White House doesn't need any distractions. The panel on "Anderson Cooper 360" last night questioned the strategy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I'm not a career prosecutor, but these guys actually take seriously into question and their career prosecutor's mind is not was it this or that? Is it against the law? They are taught from the get go, the mind of a prosecutor is, "I'm here to enforce the law, was this legal or illegal? If we think it's illegal, then we're duty bound by our oath to pursue this." I tend to agree with Jeffrey Smith, who was the General Council of the CIA during the Clinton years that this is a place not to.

FRANCES FRAGOS TOWNSEND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: I am a former career prosecutor and I agree that if people actually broke the law and committed crimes, they ought to be prosecuted for them. I don't have a problem with that.

I don't think we see an indication of that here. And by the way, career prosecutors have already looked at this and made a judgment that a prosecution is not appropriate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: Once again, that panel on "AC360."

A suspected enemy combatant released from Guantanamo Bay is now back home in Afghanistan. Mohammed Jawad (ph) accused of killing two U.S. service members in Afghanistan in 2002. A federal judge ordered his release saying the U.S. had been illegally holding him for seven years. The judge said Jawad who may have been only been 14 years old at the time was coerced into confessing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMED JAWAD, RELEASED GUANTANAMO DETAINEE (through translator): I'm very happy, I can't even fit into my clothes. I spent a long time in jail. Thanks to God I'm very happy to be back with my family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Jawad's attorney tells the Associated Press, Jawad met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai shortly after his arrival.

"We shall always be proud of their courage and sacrifice," Major Brigadier General Eric Tremblay said that after four U.S. troops were killed today in southern Afghanistan. Military officials say it was a roadside bomb. So far this month, 41 U.S. service members have been killed there. Last month, 44 U.S. troops died.

Partial results are just in from last week's Afghan presidential election and they show a slim margin between the incumbent and his leading challenger. Election commission workers are continuing to certify results in their Kabul office. With 10 percent of the vote in, President Hamid Karzai has a small lead over his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. That candidate is charging the President with fraud and warning of possible fallout.

CNN's Atia Abawi reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIA ABAWI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Intimidation, violence and ballot stuffing. Afghanistan's elections were marred from the start and now allegations of fraud are flying. Presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah alleges that President Hamid Karzai's campaign is blatantly stealing the election in front of the world's eyes and the repercussions will be severe.

DR. ABDULLAH ABDULLAH, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, AFGHANISTAN: I think the survival of Afghanistan is at stake. And I don't see a future for this country. The level of disappointment of the people had reached a stage that you cannot reverse it.

ABAWI: Already hundreds of complaints have poured into the electoral complaint commissions as several dozen labels as high priorities. The ECC chaired by a Canadian says, it will delay results announcements until they have investigated each complaint.

Dr. Abdullah warns that it's not just democracy that will fail in the eyes of his countrymen if fraud is not addressed. But the international mission in Afghanistan itself will be at stake.

Here at a pre-election rally, the energy and excitement was overwhelming as thousands showed up in support of Dr. Abdullah. The fear now among officials is that this positive energy will turn into something more violent if the results are seen as illegitimate.

For his part, a spokesman for Karzai's campaign says it has its own concerns but it is not airing its grievances publicly.

WAHID OMAR, KARZAI CAMPAIGN SPOKEMAN: They are making irresponsible comments and this is disrespectful to the process, this is disrespectful to the mechanism, which is in place, which is the institution and this is disrespectful to the votes of the people.

ABAWI: Here at a store in the capital, Afghans are worried.

"If fraud was involved in the election," Weis says. "I don't think the situation in Afghanistan will improve. It will probably get worse than it even is now because everyone is looking out for their own needs, not the country."

Dr. Abdullah says that he will do what the people ask him to do.

ABAWI: When your silence breaks down, what will you do?

ABDULLAH: I'll try to prevent that. I'll try to prevent that, but all I can promise that I'll be with the people.

ABAWI: Potentially ominous words if the people choose to take to the streets. Afghan and international diplomats want to prevent such a scenario and are hoping to make a deal. But Abdullah says, "Deals with the Karzai government is what has prevented the country from moving forward."

Atia Abawi, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: President Obama makes it official; he wants Ben Bernanke to remain as the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Less than an hour ago, the president announced Bernanke's nomination for a second four-year term.

Bernanke is credited with a largely successful response to the nation's financial crisis and the worst recession since the 1930s.

Google revealed her identity to the world. Now blogger Rosemary Port plans to sue for $15 million over it. Port on the right says Google did not do enough to protect her identity. She was talking trash about the other woman you see there, model Liskula Cohen on her anonymous blog "Skanks of New York." Cohen sued Google. A judge ordered the company to reveal of course, identity.

Dire predictions on the scope of the swine flu: a new government report says as many as 90,000 people could die from the H1N1 flu this fall. That is the worst-case scenario. Officials say the vaccine is on track for mid-October, but there will only be around 50 million initial doses available.

Health care overseas, we take a look at how it is handled in Ireland. Dr. Sanjay Gupta checks out what went right and what went wrong for them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Less than a week left in this make or break month for health care reform, and you still have a chance to speak your mind for or against this issue. There are town hall meetings today in Reston, in Fairfax, Virginia, Oklahoma City, and Germantown, Maryland.

Meanwhile the public debate for health care reform rages on here. We are taking a look outside the United States to see what works and what doesn't for other countries.

Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is in Dublin, Ireland, where it's an even split between private and universal coverage.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Heidi, I am at the Global Cancer Summit here in Dublin, Ireland. It's been an interesting few days, but I couldn't help but think about health care reform back home.

You know about five years ago, Ireland found itself in the same position in some ways that the United States is in now, trying to reform their health care system. I took advantage of a unique opportunity to sit down with the health minister and find out where Ireland stands; what went right, what went wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: In Ireland, everyone has access to health care, via a taxed public plan, but half choose to spend additional money on a private plan.

Why does that happen? So if you have access to the public system, is it not good enough for 50 percent of the people like you say? MARY HARNEY, IRELAND MINISTER OF HEALTH: They do it for choice of facility or choice of doctor or choice of accommodation, better quality accommodation; single rooms in private hospitals, for example. And speedier access in many cases, more routine and procedures can be done much more quickly and if you have access to private health insurance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the public sector, one can wait up to three years for a hip replacement or a corneal lens transplant.

GUPTA: Mary Harney says many waiting lists have been cut from years to just months. But tough choices still have to be made.

If you look at sort of the silos of how they predicated health reform, they talked about decreasing costs and increasing access. Can you do both? If you increase access, can you really decrease costs across the board, as well?

HARNEY: It's possible only if you reduce the number of procedures or the cost of those procedures.

GUPTA: Some will say that's rationing.

HARNEY: No matter how much money you put into health, no matter how good your system is, you'll always have more patients than you have capacity at any one time. And it's a question of how quickly can you prioritize and the treatments for all patients whether they're urgent or not so urgent.

GUPTA: No matter what country you're from, Ireland or the United States, it seems to always come down to cost.

Some say the Medicare system in the United States is going broke; they say it'll be broke by the year 2017. It's very expensive and hard to maintain budgets, same problem here in Ireland?

HARNEY: Yes. And we have -- we spent this year -- we would spend over 40 percent of the money we will raise in taxation in the country on public health care.

GUPTA: Forty percent?

HARNEY: It's an incredible amount of money and therefore if we're going to do that within existing budgets, then we have to get smarter and in the way we provide treatment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: And Heidi, it's worth pointing out that all physicians in Ireland are mandated to accept all types of insurance, including the public insurance. And overall Minister Harney thinks things have gotten better here in Ireland, waiting times are shorter and everyone is now insured.

As you can see there, it's come with a tremendous cost.

Heidi, back to you.

COLLINS: All right, Sanjay, thanks for that.

Protests against a popular grocery chain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boycott Whole Foods!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Shoppers aren't mad about what's being sold in the stores, but rather what's being sold by the company's CEO.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Winds calm down and firefighters gain ground on the wildfires burning around Athens, Greece. They say they've managed to get one massive fire near the capital under control there guarding against flare ups. About 1,000 acres have burned since the weekend. A very early estimate has 150 homes destroyed.

Rob Marciano standing by now to talk a little bit more about possible storms to be worrying about here in the U.S.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Couple things Heidi to talk about. A little front here that's trying to get across the upper Midwest heading towards the Great Lakes and that is starting to spawn some showers and thunderstorms.

And then also across the Deep South, this is an area that has been really troublesome, especially for the folks at NASA; thunderstorms around an area of low pressure and a little front that kind of stalled out down there. This time of year, this area is in the soup and you get the thunderstorms that pop in the afternoon especially with a little bit of a sea breeze.

But right now we're clear, but later on this afternoon and tonight, there may be some thunderstorms popping up again. They scrubbed the shuttle launch last night because of weather and they have about a 30 percent chance of a "no go" tonight, so we'll see if we can get in that window.

There's a whole bunch of criteria that they go after; 1:10 is the scheduled launch for tonight. They deal with wind, they deal with temperature, those should be fine but it's the thunderstorms and visibility clouds around the area that they're going to have to deal with.

Temperatures in Texas -- record-breaking temperatures and up in over 100 in some spots yesterday. Today, they'll be 98 degrees in Dallas. It will be 88 degrees in Memphis, Atlanta, Kansas City, Tampa; it's crazy I guess. It's wild. 85 expected in Chicago.

And, again, here is that front, the two fronts right there. High pressure, just gorgeous little strip of beautiful weather from the northeast all the way down to Texas, although, it's a tad warmer in Texas.

All right this is the one thing I want to show you. The National Hurricane Center is watching this area, disturbed weather. It's tropical wave and it's heading in this general direction.

Right now running a little bit of sheer but it's getting better organized and they give it a better than 50 percent chance of developing into our next tropical cyclone. So it would be a depression first and then possibly a tropical storm and, obviously, we're looking at Florida; that is real close to that. That always makes people a little bit nervous.

Watch that, Heidi, just as we said good-bye to Bill, we are getting into more of a primetime hurricane season, once September gets here. First couple weeks of September are definitely nerve racking.

COLLINS: Yes, no question.

All right. Well, we know you're on top of it. Thank you Rob. We'll check back later on.

Meanwhile, a whole lot going on in the NEWSROOM this morning and our CNN correspondents are ready to break it all down for you.

Let's begin with Elizabeth Cohen. Hi there, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there. Could 90,000 people die from swine flu this upcoming flu season? That's what one government panel says. I'll try to put that in perspective for you at the top of the hour.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I'm Christine Romans in New York. Are the best days of this country behind it? The United States government is engaged in a far reaching and very expensive set of programs to make sure that doesn't happen. I'll have that story at the top of the hour.

POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: And I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. The Cash for Clunkers party ends in two hours when those dealers have to submit their final paperwork. What happens to the U.S. auto industry after that? How sharp of a sales decline is the industry bracing for? We'll have more on that, Heidi, at the top of the hour.

COLLINS: Yes. A whole lot of paper work.

All right guys. Thanks so very much.

We also take a snapshot of health care on the border states. You'll hear about the challenges facing doctors and nurses about the patients they see and what they say they need.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: Op-ed push back. The CEO of Whole Foods is taking a stand on health care reform and prompting a protest from some of his store's customers. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has the story. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Many who shop at Whole Foods say it's easy to justify spending a little extra money to feel you are staying healthy and maybe living longer. So why are so many people so upset?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boycott Whole Foods!

FEYERICK: Price isn't the problem. At issue is an editorial appearing on the "Wall Street Journal's" conservative opinion page. Written by Whole Foods chief executive officer, John Mackey (ph), he argues universal health care is no more a right than food or shelter.

MARK ROSENTHAL, ACTIVIST: This is about a CEO using one of the most progressive brands in this country to murder any discussion of health care reform and health insurance reform.

FEYERICK: Among Mackey's suggestions, deregulation, Medicare reform and allowing higher deductibles, positions similarly advocated by John McCain, Newt Gingrich and conservative groups.

Mark Rosenthal is a playwright, activist and former Whole Foods loyalist using Facebook, twitter and other social media he says he has recruited more than 27,000 people to boycott Whole Foods saying the CEO has betrayed the ideals which helped build the health food chain.

ROSENTHAL: It is about a brand that has been built up by progressive dollars being used as a Trojan Horse for some of the most discredited lies that we have poisoning this debate on health care right now. Lies about deregulation and lies about people who are sick not taking personal responsibility.

FEYERICK: Whole Foods provided a statement saying the chain quote, "Has no official companywide position on the health care reform" and that the CEO was, quote, "expressing his own viewpoint and providing constructive ideas to support reform, as President Obama invited America to do."

So, how badly will the boycott hurt sales, if at all?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My money says I should give it to someone else who is actually in support of health care and he's not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It wouldn't stop me from buying. People are allowed their own opinions.

FEYERICK: Rosenthal is not organizing the protest, per se. He is encouraging people who want to make a difference to hand out copies of the editorials at Whole Foods stores around the country and let shoppers vote with their wallets.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)