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GOP Response to State of the Union; Rescue Attempt in Port-au- Prince; How to Rebuild a Country

Aired January 21, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Let's go to Capitol Hill. Dana Bash is there. She's got some news for us -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We now know the Republican who will give the response to the President's State of the Union Address next week. And that is the Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell.

Why is the Republican Party picking him? Well, there are a lot of reasons, Ali, and this is very noteworthy. It fits right into the message that Republicans --newly and golden (ph) Republicans are trying to send. And that message is, we are back. And we are making a comeback.

You remember, Ali, Bob McDonnell was just elected in the off-year election that Virginia had just this fall. He was actually just inaugurated this past Saturday. But he -- the Republicans hope -- is symbolic and represents again the comeback of the Republican Party that they certainly are hoping is continuing. And they point to Massachusetts as evidence of that.

But one thing I just want to mention to you. Our friend and colleague, Mark Preston, he just sent me an e-mail. And he said, "Remember, the minute Bob McDonnell was elected, people were talking about him as a potential candidate for president in 2012, because in Virginia, you can only serve one term as governor. And this certainly is very big -- it's very important and it is a very big honor for any Republican to be chosen, very high profile, to be chosen to give the national address responding to the president of the United States.

But sometimes it's a mixed blessing, because Bobby Jindal, you'll remember he gave the last one. It wasn't exactly to the State of the Union. This is the first formal State of the Union Address, but he gave the response to the first time the president came here to Capitol Hill, and it didn't go well, and the reviews were not so good. And perhaps it hurt Bobby Jindal, at least the chatter about Bobby Jindal, running for president in 2012.

One source, when I was talking about this -- this was the buzz, that perhaps Governor McDonnell would be the guy that they would tap. One source in the Republican Party here said, well, maybe that wouldn't be such a good career move for him. That would be potentially a graveyard for presidential aspirations.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Although, generally... BASH: But the news here is that the governor...

VELSHI: Generally, Dana, it's thought of as something that advances one's career, choosing someone to play that important a role.

BASH: Absolutely. Oh, there's no question.

I mean, there will be a national primetime address that he will deliver, and that is not the kind of stage and that is not the kind of platform that the governor of Virginia gets. So there is no question that this is an honor and that this is, again, a message that the Republican Party, they're trying to send that he is part of the new generation they hope of Republicans beginning to win again after getting very much hurt last year in the election that Barack Obama swept.

(INAUDIBLE) a lot of Democrats, I think, have changed, as we have been talking about over the past two days, so, so, much in the past year. And Republicans are trying to point out this is a symbol and this is an example of how things have changed.

VELSHI: All right, Dana. It's going to be a big night next Wednesday night. Thanks very much for that.

Dana Bash on Capitol Hill with that news.

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: All right. It's all about jobs, jobs, jobs. President Obama just spoke with and commiserated with the mayors from major cities across America, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, at the White House. He talked about boosting the economy by creating urban jobs.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's just not easy being a mayor. But rarely, if ever, has it been more difficult than it today.

Your constituents are feeling the pain of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, not to mention an economy that wasn't working for a lot of them long before this particular crisis hit. Many have lost jobs, many have lost the health care, some maybe have even lost their homes. And they're looking to you and all of us to regain some sense of economic security. And just when they need more from you, you're stuck with falling revenues, leaving you with impossible choices that keep mounting up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: And remember, unlike other entities, cities, when they have no revenue, have to cut expenses or they've got to figure out another way to raise money. Now, tomorrow, President Obama visits a Cleveland suburb, and he's holding a town hall in the Lorain County Community College, you can see there, just a little southwest of Cleveland. He's going to be visiting a sporting goods factory. He's going to be touring a wind turbine plant.

Ohio has been a very hard-hit state. The jobless rate is not substantially higher than the national average. It's 10.6 percent, while the national average is 10 percent. But Ohio is a heavily industrial state, and the state has lost a lot of jobs.

Cleveland, in fact, has been a city that has been heavily, heavily hit with foreclosures. So, another tour for the president to try and get a sense and tell people what they're trying the do with the respect to helping out urban economies.

The president did mention in his speech to the country's mayors that the cities, when they are hurt, disproportionately affect those areas around them. So that's one of the things that the president is going to be trying to look at when he's in the suburb of Cleveland tomorrow.

We are also, you know, looking at the next week as a very, very busy week for the president. The upset in Massachusetts, where Martha Coakley was defeated by Scott Brown, a Republican, could spell trouble for the health care reform program that the president has got. We're going to be covering all that next week.

Next Wednesday, the president has, as Dana told us, his State of the Union Address on CNN. It's his first, a year after he took office. Our primetime coverage here on CNN begins at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

Now, one of the other stories that we're covering today is Haiti and the question of, after the rescues, after the recovery is over, what do you do to rebuild Haiti? How do you do it? Where do you even start, and how do you make the country better not just than it is now, but better than it was before this earthquake hit?

We'll talk to an expert who is passionate about it when we come back on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Our coverage of news in Haiti continues, and we do have a developing story right now.

Jonathan Mann is next to a rescue, or at least an attempted rescue, that they think there may be somebody buried under some rubble.

John, what have you got?

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ali, I'm speaking quietly to you from the mound of steel and cement that was the Caribbean University, a building that was destroyed in the devastating earthquake. My voice is low because they are using dogs now, the third set of dogs, to try to find out if indeed there is a survivor or if there are survivors inside.

Two different K-9 teams have both given them indications that there are survivors. Text messages apparently emerged from someone in the mound.

This is now a K-9 team from Fairfax County, Virginia, that's on the scene, joining the ranks of Puerto Rican emergency workers, Costa Rican emergency workers, Dutch emergency workers, and there are Canadians here as well. A multinational effort at the grounds, now the ruins, of the Caribbean University -- Ali.

VELSHI: All right, Jonathan. You will keep us posted. You did explain to us earlier that there is an issue where -- there are a few reasons why they think somebody might be there, responses to tapping that were heard, the dogs that seemed to think that somebody is there, and an e-mail you got from somebody in Sri Lanka who had gotten an e- mail from somebody who says that they're trapped.

So there are a lot of reasons to believe that there is at least one person or more in that rubble. Jonathan Mann will stay with that story and we will come to you as soon as we have some information on what's going on in that search that you're looking at right now.

We will continue to stay with that story.

Now, one of the questions that we are trying to get to is the issue of infrastructure, all of the destruction that we're seeing. How do you rebuild that, where do you start, and what, in fact, is the goal? Because just to get Haiti to where it was before this earthquake may not be the final goal.

Our Jason Carroll goes deeper into the story.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Ali, we spent the day with some engineers, getting their assessment of the situation. And they tell us this effort is going to take time, is going to take money, it is going to take discipline -- discipline to make sure that when the rebuilding is done, it is done safely.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): Port-au-Prince is about to face many questions about its future. How does the city rebuild when there's still so much destruction? Should damaged structures still standing be torn down?

Eva Michelle isn't waiting for answers. Her house destroyed, she salvaged what she could and watched as workers started demolishing it.

It's being torn down the same way it was built, by unlicensed workers. No codes to follow on tearing down or, Michelle says, to build.

EVA MICHELLE, HOME DESTROYED IN EARTHQUAKE: No. CARROLL (on camera): None?

MICHELLE: No.

CARROLL: No code?

MICHELLE: No.

CARROLL: No regulation?

MICHELLE: No.

CARROLL (voice-over): Haitians say that's the way it's done. License is not required. Codes, where they even exist, not enforced. It's part of the reason so much was destroyed in the earthquake and why structural engineers like Kit Miyamoto from California are here now.

KIT MIYAMOTO, EARTHQUAKE AND STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Remove those things out, that can go right into.

CARROLL: This is Miyamoto's first full day on the ground with a nonprofit called The Pan American Development Foundation. The goal? Rapid assessment, meaning quickly investigate the structural integrity of 10 buildings a day.

This was the Ministry of Finance. It's symbolic of what went wrong with many buildings, including their presidential palace.

MIYAMOTO: The reinforced ministry wall, right? Because that's the brick and without no rebar. That's dangerous.

CARROLL: Miyamoto says rebar can make a building more flexible when it shakes, but much of the city's businesses and homes use brick without the reinforced steel bar.

(on camera): What do you do? Do you just demolish these buildings and then cart out all the debris and then start fresh?

MIYAMOTO: It depends. For example, this one. Probably it's not solid. But many buildings can be repaired.

CARROLL: Engineers tell us when Port-au-Prince does rebuild, they have to use new building codes and make sure those codes are enforced.

(voice-over): And engineers like Keith Martin with the Los Angeles County Fire Department say rebuilding, or retrofitting, is not something that can or should be rushed.

KEITH MARTIN, LA COUNTY FIRE SEARCH AND RESCUE: You're talking to be done correctly something that's going to take years to do.

CARROLL (on camera): Years?

MARTIN: Years, to do it correctly. CARROLL (voice-over): Even Michelle says she doesn't have the money right now to rebuild, but if she does, she hopes there are guidelines to show her and the other people of Port-au-Prince a better way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: You know, Ali, the reality is it's going to be very difficult to change old ways. And so the structural engineers that we spoke to say at the very least, Haiti needs to adopt uniform building codes for key buildings such as schools, hospitals, and government buildings as well. But they also recognize it is going to take an international effort in order to get it done -- Ali.

VELSHI: All right. Jason, thanks.

And that's a great setup to continue this discussion with Robert Maguire. He is with the Institute of Peace and the director of International Affairs at Trinity College. He's an expert on Haiti and he has published extensively on all aspects of the country. He served as the head of Georgetown University's Haiti program.

Robert, thanks for being with us. Let's just pick up from the conversation that I was just having with Jason Carroll.

Where do you start here? At some point, we are going to get beyond the rescue mission, and then you're going to have a great deal of rubble. Do you start to try and salvage? Do you start again?

ROBERT MAGUIRE, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE: Well, I think there's another place to start, Ali, and it's not necessarily in Port-au- Prince. You know, Port-au-Prince has grown uncontrollable over the past 25, 30 years by migration off of the land. About 75,000 people a year have been going into Port-au-Prince from impoverished rural areas that have not had any kind of investment or resources, and people piled up on each other in Port-au-Prince with very few opportunities.

We saw what happened with the quake. And now what we're seeing, which I think is really important, really key, is we're seeing a very strong exodus out of Port-au-Prince. And I think it's really important for us to follow that exodus and get ahead of it and help Haiti rebuild and renew itself in that regard.

VELSHI: Well, let's talk about the issues. The countryside has not had any investment. When you talk about investment, you've got a country which, prior to the earthquake, had very, very, very high unemployment numbers that we would not be familiar with in the United States and very, very low wages.

So who would invest to try and rebuild a place like Haiti? How would anybody who reinvested find that they would ever get that money back?

MAGUIRE: Well, actually, the first investment might come from international agencies who can help to build up Haiti's human development resources and the capacity of education and health. You know, there are 25 percent of the Haitian districts, rural districts that have no schools in them, very few clinics. So the human resource capacity has been neglected.

Also, what's been neglected is the agricultural capacity. In fact, Haiti used to be virtually self-sufficient in agriculture up until the late 1970s, and then the focus seemed to be more on rural development and taking advantage of Haiti's cheap labor, and agriculture and agro industries were virtually been ignored.

Haiti, today, has been importing massive amounts of rice from the United States. It had been a little less expensive than Haitian- produced rice, but with the rise and spike of global commodity prices in 2008, that advantage was lost and Haiti was caught between a rock and a hard place.

VELSHI: Right, because they weren't growing that. So, is there an opportunity for the post-earthquake Haiti -- and it's very tough to talk about this right now while we're still looking for survivors and we still think the death count might swell to over 100,000. It's difficult to talk about this, but is there an opportunity for Haiti to rebuild and be stronger than it was before the earthquake?

MAGUIRE: It is. And I think we need to look for any kind of silver linings we can find right now. And I think it's very important for us to focus on the fact that these people are returning to communities that hold the promise of rebuilding themselves as well.

Something like the welcoming centers for people to come in help to put them at work, creating some sort of mechanisms like something similar to the Civilian Conversation Corps, where people can be organized, help rebuild the public works, the public infrastructure and the environment. And a decentralized Haiti will be better for everyone, including those who wish to remain in Port-au-Prince, which should remain the capital, but on a smaller scale.

VELSHI: All right. Robert, thanks for being with us.

Robert Maguire with the U.S. Institute of Peace, talking about how to rebuild in Haiti.

We'll be right back with Austan Goolsbee about the president's conversation with the U.S. large-city mayors about how to rebuild the American cities and try and use that to build a new economy.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. Let's go to the White House right now and have a conversation with Austan Goolsbee. You'll know him. He's the chief economist with the president's advisory council on the recovery.

Austan, good to see you. Thank you for being with us today.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER: Great to see you again, Ali. VELSHI: A couple of things going on with the president. He just spoke to the mayors about how to deal with jobs and economic reform in the cities. But we've also -- you see the stock market down. The Dow is down more than 200 points today, reacting to the president talking about regulatory reform, containing the big banks.

Tell me what's behind that.

GOOLSBEE: Well, as you know, the president has been way deep in putting forward a comprehensive reg reform effort, and we saw that in the House bill coming out in the fall. And today, what he did with Paul Volcker and Bill Donaldson standing there is call for an additional step in which we say somebody who is going to be a bank, banks really ought to be in the business of serving the clients. And so, it would forbid banks from owning hedge funds, from owning private equity funds, or from doing so-called proprietary trading for their own profits. Everything that the bank has to do has got to be client- related.

VELSHI: Austan, you're an economist. You know this well.

Let's look back at this economic crisis. Let's look at the failure of Lehman Brothers, of Bear Stearns, of AIG, of the mortgage crisis.

Nothing you're talking about here would have prevented those things from happening.

GOOLSBEE: Well, not this specific thing. In the president's regulatory reform effort, it's entirely about preventing those things, resolution authority so that we could -- so that nobody would be too big to fail, and we could wind them down, controlling over-the-counter derivatives like credit default swaps so that you don't have this contagion crisis problem.

VELSHI: Right. That would have helped AIG, for instance.

GOOLSBEE: Yes, it would have prevented -- we could have wound down AIG. We could have prevented the growth of credit default swaps that had no capital behind them.

This effort today is on a slightly different topic. It's not about trying to have prevented, say, AIG. It's about what is inappropriate of the U.S. government and American taxpayer giving guarantees and supports to commercial banks. That they then turn around and make investments for their own profits in proprietary trading or owning hedge funds, that's just not appropriate. They should be using it on behalf of their clients, not for themselves.

VELSHI: Austan, in fairness, why is the market reacting against this then? Is this really going to limit the big banks' abilities to make money? You'll notice the community banks, Christine Romans was telling us, are doing well today on the market, but the big banks, the investment banks, are not.

Is this really a limitation on their ability to make money? GOOLSBEE: Well, look, there are 8,000-something banks in the country, and the vast majority of them do not do proprietary trading for their own account, do not own hedge funds or private equity funds. The community banks, for example, so I wouldn't anticipate them being upset at all.

At the very biggest banks, I think you have seen coming out of this crisis, they got special access to the safety net and they have turned around, in some cases, and made very substantial profits by just doing investing and trading of risky assets for their own account. And that is not appropriate, and that's what this rule is intended to prevent. So, for the institutions who are doing that, they will not be allowed to do that anymore.

VELSHI: Austan Goolsbee, good to talk to you. Thank you for joining us today.

Austan Goolsbee, the chief...

GOOLSBEE: Great to talk to you.

VELSHI: Austan Goolsbee, the chief economist on the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, joining us from the White House now.

Now, we're going to Karen McGinnis in a second. We've got bad weather on the West Coast we've been talking about, danger of mudslides. And in Florida, north Florida, we have a tornado on the ground. She's following that, too.

Stay with us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: Casey Wian is live in California. As soon as we come back, we're going to go to him to get more of the situation on the ground with the weather.

Stay with us. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right, we're covering stories all over the country. Let's go back to the West Coast. Casey Wian is at Seal Beach in California, where it looks like the surf's pretty rough behind you, Casey.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it sure is, Ali. The storm is beginning to intensify, the storm that we've been anticipating all morning. The waves behind me are expected to crest at about 15 feet this afternoon, and what's bad about that is that the tide is also going to be high in about the next hour or so, just as the storm begins to intensify.

Now, let me show you what Seal Beach officials have been doing for the last couple of days to prepare for this storm. They built this berm, which is about 15 feet, high with these bulldozers that they brought in earlier this morning and over the last couple of days. They've got the berm up to a point where they think that it's going to be able to withstand this storm surge. I talked to a police official today who said it's not guaranteed that these -- that this berm is going to be able to withstand this storm surge, but they're feeling fairly confident that they're going to be able to.

Now, as we walk over here, you can see what the real threat is. You see these homes which are in a very low-lying area, and you see all of this standing water that has gathered below these homes. Officials are furiously pumping this water out from this basin right in front of these homes, up over this berm and out here towards the ocean.

What's interesting is, as you can see these big waves out here -- until just about five minutes ago, you actually had surfers who were still in the water, despite this intensive storm. I guess that just speaks to the nature of the surf community in California here at Seal Beach. They're willing to risk just about everything to get out there in the waves and say they surfed this big storm.

Right now, police officials are looking for places to bring people if they need to evacuate the residents in these low-lying communities. They're talking to local hotels, being prepared for these evacuations, if, in fact, they do happen. So far, no evacuations have been ordered, and so far, police officials have not had to effect any rescues. But they're watching and waiting for the brunt of this storm, which is coming, Ali.

VELSHI: All right, so as you said, people surfing. They'll enjoy it. People skiing are enjoying it further inland because they've got record snowfall in there. But the reality is there are some major urban areas in between all of this that are facing some threat. As of now -- and I know you know the area very well, Casey. As of now, the urban areas seem safe from major disaster.

WIAN: For the most part. A lot of the attention has been focused on the burn areas, as you know. And so far, our understanding is that those burn areas are weathering this storm, if you will, fairly well. But not much attention has been paid to these beach communities. And all up and down the coast of California, you have communities like this that are low-lying, and during, you know, these storms every decade or so...

VELSHI: Right.

WIAN: ... they get flooded, people are forced to evacuate, and there's major damage.

Now, if I could ask my photographer, Tim Hart (ph), to spin around here toward the pier, I want to show you something else. This is another issue here along the coast of southern California. You've got all these piers. This is the Seal Beach pier. Out there is a restaurant at the end of that pier. That restaurant was evacuated yesterday. In previous storms in the past, these piers have been seriously damaged, and that's something officials are watching for, as well. So although southern California has weathered this storm fairly well for the past few days, we're expecting a heavy one this afternoon and there could be a lot of damage to come, Ali.

VELSHI: And Casey's referring to the burn areas because those are areas where vegetation has been removed because of burning. Karen Maginnis referred to it to as "denuded," and that means that it's harder to stop mud from sliding once it starts. We're keeping an eye on that. Casey, thanks very much. You and your photographer stay safe out there.

All right, we all know about this. Cell phones, TVs, iPods, you name it, your kids are wired in a way you probably don't even understand. And a lot of them don't power down unless they're sleeping. Some of them don't even do that. An wake-up call for parents right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right, you probably already know this, but according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, if your kids are awake -- I am not making this up. I'm not kidding. If your kids are awake, they're probably doing something electronic -- Facebook-ing, watching TV, most likely texting on the computer. Kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend -- are you sitting down for this? -- seven-and-a-half hours a day with those kinds of devices. Now, this is according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Kids spend more time connected than most people spend at work.

Now, this is probably not a surprise to kids, and a few months ago, we introduced you to the self-described text addict. Britney Curran (ph) was her name. Take a look at.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just addicting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And this one was 7,633. I had 26.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't imagine that. You know, I get 150, you know, e-mails a day, which seems enormous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: All right, a lot of adults probably feel that way. It's a different way of communicating. Kids use it much more than adults do. Dr. Michael Rich is the director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital in Boston. He's here to discuss this with me.

And Dr. Rich, you make an interesting point here, that there's no point in old farts like us saying that it's the wrong thing to do. That falls on deaf ears. It doesn't matter. It's a different world for kids. We need to approach this from a very, very different perspective. Don't be getting mad at the kids about the fact that they're wasting their time on all of this stuff. We have to look at this very differently, which is what you've done.

DR. MICHAEL RICH, CENTER FOR MEDIA & CHILD HEALTH: Yes, what I'm saying is that we have traditionally taken a values-based approach to this -- you know, This is wrong, this bad -- which plays right into their developmentally normal drive for autonomy and rebellion against those old farts like us.

And instead of sitting around and saying, Oh, we should get rid of the TV and get rid of the cell phone, get rid of the Internet, we need to take a step back and realize that this is the environment in which our kids are growing up. And we need to understand how they affect the kids and how the kids are changed by these media and act accordingly, just as we act accordingly with the information on nutrition or traffic safety or bike helmets.

VELSHI: OK, so let's talk about this. Let's, first of all, take a look at what kids own right now. These numbers are a little amazing. Sixty-six percent of these kids in this survey -- and remember, it skews from 8 to 18, so you can see that. Sixty-six percent own cell phones. Seventy-six percent own an iPod or an MP3 player. Seventh-grade to twelfth-graders with a social media profile, 74 percent of them. The last one, which you can't really see here, 23 percent read a newspaper.

I don't know what to make of that because they can access it on line. They may not be going to "The New York Times" on line, but they can get it. What do you say? How do you say we approach this from the an outcomes perspective? What are we supposed to do to help the situation?

RICH: I think we have to look at media use not as a given, but as a choice, and a choice that is one that has both risks and benefits. They can benefit a lot from many of these media, from connecting with others through social networking, through communicating, through researching the world. They can live in a much larger world.

But they can also get themselves into a lot of trouble if they are exposed to media content that convinced them that the world is a place that is violent or a place where everyone has sex without consequences, where people use substances for fun, and that these are...

VELSHI: So what do parents do? What should they do? Because the reality is kids are watching daily four-and-a-half hours of TV, listening to music for two-and-a-half hours, on the computer for one- and-a-half hours, and so on. What is a parent supposed to do to address what you're saying?

RICH: Well, I think they have to look at these media not as something benign, but as something that has a powerful effect on their kids and then choose the effects that their child wants, both in terms of duration -- which is an issue around should they be watching TV or should they be doing homework or playing basketball or sleeping -- but also in terms of content. What is it that they're spending time on line with? What is it that they're learning and what is it that they are putting out in terms of their own communications to the world about who they are and what they're like? And they can get into a lot of trouble by doing this in a way that's not mindful.

VELSHI: OK, you and I have to continue this conversation because I think we can get a lot deeper and we can give people specific ideas as to what they can do, very interesting way of looking at it. Dr. Michael Rich, thanks very much for coming on and talking to us about this.

RICH: Thank you.

VELSHI: All right, just a while ago, I spoke to White House economist Austan Goolsbee, who admits that the announcement that the president made today that they are going after some of the big banks -- they're trying to regulate them -- wouldn't have solved the economic crisis that we are in right now. So why is the president putting his political capital behind that? Who better to tell us but Ed Henry? So coming up after the break, "The Ed Henry Segment."

Plus, follow me on Twitter so I do not have to take abuse from Ed Henry about how he has more followers on Twitter than I do -- @Alivelshi. I'm coming right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right, it's time now for "The Ed Henry Segment." President Obama steps up his crackdown on the big banks. We need to make sense of what this means. He and the head of his economic recovery advisory board, Paul Volcker -- he's the big, tall guy you'll see in the picture with the president -- they're seeking tougher regulation of the nation's biggest banks.

Let's make sense of this with Ed Henry, who joins us now from the White House with "The Ed Henry Segment." Hello, Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Ali. You know what's -- yes?

VELSHI: Make sense of it for us. Go ahead.

HENRY: Well, I mean, I think the bottom line is that the president is not very popular right now. Who's less popular than him? Bankers. And so he's going to be going after Wall Street big time. He did it today at this event with Paul Volcker, where he was basically -- I think the most important part of the whole thing was not just laying out the regulations, which are going to try to curtail banks so they're not getting into all these kinds risky situations again and get us into another financial crisis, but it was a point where the president said, A lot of people on Wall Street don't want to change the rules of the road. They may want a fight. You know what? If they want a fight, I'm ready for the fight.

This is about this president, especially coming out of the Massachusetts results, trying to show that he's going to step up for the little guy and that he's...

VELSHI: And yet...

HENRY: ... for reform, he's for change...

VELSHI: But the...

HENRY: That's what he was talking about last year.

VELSHI: I talked to Christine Romans about it earlier. I talked to Austan Goolsbee about it a little while ago. And they all say that with everything the president wants to do, if it had been in place two years ago, it would not have avoided the financial crisis we got into.

HENRY: Right. The regulations they're talking about today. However, there is a bigger regulation package that Austan Goolsbee was talking about that has passed through the House. They're waiting for action in the Senate. It's one of those classic like we've seen on health care. You don't like to see the sausage made because it's a mess up there on the Hill.

But the president, in fairness to him, didn't just start this week. He has been pushing since he first came into office for major Wall Street regulations. But I think the problem for him is that he spent a bit more time on health care reform over the last year than he did on Wall Street reform and he's maybe suffering from that right now because this Wall Street reform is a little bit stalled in the Senate right now. We'll see whether they can get it through in the next few weeks.

But he is trying to step up, and that's why he's going tomorrow, as well, to Ohio. We're going to be there as part of his...

VELSHI: Are you going with him?

(CROSSTALK)

HENRY: Yes, he's going on the "White House to Main Street" tour, he calls it, and he's going to be in Lorain (ph) County. He's going to be at the Riddell (ph) Sporting Goods factory, where they make football helmets. He might, you know, need one of those helmets if these elections start -- keep playing out like they have for Democrats.

VELSHI: What is that -- that "White House to Main Street" tour about? I mean, what's the point, the president's trying to get out there and feel the pain, or is there some purpose to it?

HENRY: Yes. Yes, I think it's about, you know, "I feel your pain" because this is all also about setting up next Wednesday's State of the Union, where some of the big themes are going to be about hitting Wall Street, about trying to clean up the situation and prevent another financial crisis, but also realizing that unemployment is at 10 percent. People are looking for jobs, and they want some answers. They want solutions. This president passed a stimulus early on last year, but he's now talking about maybe a second recovery plan. A lot of people around the country, especially in states like Ohio, want to see that, Ali.

VELSHI: All right, but it is populist. The bottom line is both today's move and tomorrow's visit...

HENRY: Absolutely.

VELSHI: ... are about playing the politics.

HENRY: Yes, that's what it's all about.

VELSHI: All right, Ed Henry, good to see you, my friend. Remember, you can follow Ed, Edhenrycnn, or you can follow me, Alivelshi.

HENRY: Who's winning that now, Ali?

VELSHI: Make your choice.

HENRY: Who's ahead?

VELSHI: One of us -- one of us has to win.

HENRY: One of us? Oh.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: See you, Ed!

All right, we're coming right back. We're going to talk to Brianna Keilar. Scott Brown, the new -- or the incoming senator from Massachusetts, was on Capitol Hill today, meeting and greeting people. We'll talk about it when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Well, when Republican Scott Brown was running for his Senate seat, he said he'd waste no time becoming the 41st senator, the 41st Republican senator, and he didn't. He's already in Capitol Hill. CNN's Brianna Keilar caught up with him -- literally. And she joins us now -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Ali. We talked a lot with Senator-elect Brown today. We had many opportunities to ask him questions. And you know, one of the things that he kept reiterating was he is not for an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to health care because that's really the big question. Now that the tables have turned, Republicans have this newfound power, this 41st vote in the Senate, when it comes to health care reform. How is this going to play out? He said he's not for an all-or-nothing approach. He ran and part of his platform was an opposition to the Democrats' sweeping reform of health care.

And so as Democrats scramble for a way forward on health care reform, one of the avenues they could take -- and we even heard President Obama talk about this yesterday -- is paring down their efforts, trying to find some common ground with Republicans and moving forward with that. That begs the question, what would Republicans find as common ground, and what would Senator-elect Brown see as common ground? We asked him.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

-- pare down some of their -- if Democrats would pare down some of their ideas for health care, are there any elements that you would go along with?

SCOTT BROWN (D-MA), SENATOR-ELECT: Well, I'd like to look at the bill, but I'm not in favor of higher taxes, cutting Medicare half a trillion, affecting medical coverage for veterans and basically having a one-size-fits-all. So I know what I don't want. Now I'm looking forward to reading the bills, as I have the others, and coming up with a plan because, you know, if it's something the president feels is important, I'm certainly willing to look at it.

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: And Ali, we're going to keep trying to pin him down on that question because he was pretty savvy, like his other fellow senators, saying a whole lot but not revealing a whole much -- a whole lot on that question.

I got to tell you, as well, we heard from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today, and there was another avenue that we'd heard talk of that maybe Democrats could use to push health care reform through, if the House were to pass the Senate bill. She shut the door on that today. She said that's not going to happen.

But she did indicate that they may be looking at this kind of complicated situation where maybe they could use a parliamentary maneuver to still send a form of comprehensive health care reform over to the Senate, but only really requiring the Senate to pass that with a simple majority, with 51 votes instead of the 60 that they normally need. Ali, this is pretty complicated and the details haven't been worked out on that. We're trying to figure out exactly...

VELSHI: Brianna...

KEILAR: Yes, Ali?

VELSHI: When does he get seated? When -- how soon will he -- will he take his seat, will he be sworn in?

KEILAR: He said today as soon as next week. Bottom line, we heard Democrats like John Kerry say they're doing nothing to slow it down and they want him seated as quickly as possible.

VELSHI: All right, Brianna Keilar, you'll stay on top of it for us. Good work trying to track him down today and get him to answer a question. Now he's going to be a senator, he'll be having to answer a lot of questions. Thanks a lot. All right, passwords, a big issue for a lot of people. A lot of on-line passwords are easy picking for hackers. We're going to talk about how not to get caught. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK, pay attention to this. We see this story every year, but it is important. You have to protect yourself against hackers, at least the lazy kind of hackers. A company named Imperva, which is an Internet security company, did a study that analyzed 32 million passwords. They did this because some company had been hacked, so they had access to that information. They didn't hack your password.

Take a look at the five most popular passwords. This is incredible! Number one is 123456. Number two, 12345. Number three, 123456789. You getting the gist? Number four is the password "password." And number five, "Iloveyou." What's wrong with you people?

Why is this important? Because hackers gain access to one account every second, a thousand accounts over the span of 17 minutes. So the fix to this is don't use dictionary words. Use at least eight characters. Use different characters. Use upper and lower case. Mix in numbers and special characters. I know, the hard drive's full. You don't have space for all that kind of information. But the fact is, you do need to mix it up a little bit.

All right, it's almost time for "RICK'S LIST." Rick Sanchez joining me now. Rick, you're talking about a topic that we've been talking about today, and that is the president's announcement that he's going to get tough on the big banks.

RICK SANCHEZ, HOST, "RICK'S LIST": Here's what -- what do you think? I mean, the president really -- let me read you something. This is the president of the United States today talking. I'm going off of this thing over here, my Googles.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: "So if these folks want to fight, it's a fight that I'm ready to have."

VELSHI: Right.

SANCHEZ: That's the president of the United States talking to those Wall Street bankers. What do you make of that?

VELSHI: He makes it easy for us journalists to understand that this is motivated by politics. It is not -- it's not one of the reforms that's altogether going to be that important. It would not have solved the financial crisis. But the bottom line is it's politics. It's saying, We're getting tough on Wall Street.

SANCHEZ: But it's true! I mean, this guy has gotten Summers, Geithner -- he's gotten people in there to fix the problem who were part of the original problem!

VELSHI: Well, you'll be interested to know that the person leading this effort, the guy who's been talking about this particular change today, has been Paul Volcker. And if you look at the video of the president's announcement today, Paul Volcker -- you always can see him...

SANCHEZ: Yes, yes!

VELSHI: ... big, tall guy...

SANCHEZ: You know, you got to listen to him. He's nine feet tall!

VELSHI: Right. He is the guy who's been pushing this. You don't see the influence of Geithner and Summers. In fact, Larry Summers has said that this particular change would not necessarily have prevented the mess that we're in already.

SANCHEZ: But look, the point to be made here, Ali, is -- and you and I both know this -- half the people who may have voted against the president, as we're told by all the Republicans in Massachusetts -- it wasn't so much about health care as it was about this. They're angry...

VELSHI: Very angry.

SANCHEZ: ... because they're still out of work. They still can't get back into their homes and they're looking at people at Wall Street who are cashing in on their bonuses!

VELSHI: And voting somebody is the only effective thing you can do when you're losing economic power, unfortunately.

SANCHEZ: So this is part of the president's becoming a populist politician again?

VELSHI: Well, I think -- look, I think it's part of larger reforms, but yes, I think today was a bit of populist activity, trying to maintain his place by saying, I'm on your side, not their side.

SANCHEZ: I'll tell you, I'm fascinated by this! This is a good discussion.

VELSHI: You're going to talk a lot about it?

SANCHEZ: Yes. I am.

VELSHI: Rick Sanchez, RICK'S LIST coming up now. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.

SANCHEZ: All right.