Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Search for Survivors Continues in Haiti; Earthquake Survivor Shot on Suspicion of Stealing; Parts of Arizona Flooded; 43 States See Unemployment Rise; Tsunami Reported by Haitian Fishermen

Aired January 22, 2010 - 13:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Ali Velshi.

ALI VELSHI, CNN NEWSROOM: Tony, thank you very much.

I'm Ali Velshi, on the beat from 1 to 3 p.m. Eastern, every day, breaking down the issues that you need to know about, the issues that will save you money, keep you out of danger, allow you to make a decision about who to vote for, what to -- what to do about something. We're going to bring you the facts ,and we're going to get them into some detail for you.

But first, as always, we're going to bring you the news. And the news today is out of Haiti. Let me bring you up to speed on what is going on right now on day ten after the earthquake.

The Associated Press reports that the Haitian government has plans to relocate some 400,000 people -- 400,000 people -- from Port- au-Prince to other parts of the country where can escape the carnage and perhaps find some refuge. Now, USAID, which is coordinating the relief efforts, estimates that 200,000 Haitians have already fled. They are -- they are leaving on their own. We've had reports of that from Ivan Watson.

Now, let's take a look at the breakdown of aid. This is a chart that shows countries, governments that have given aid. So far -- this is according to ReliefWeb -- the U.S. has donated the most. You can see that: $160 million.

But the No. 2 line, just under that, 130 and change is from individuals. Five hundred and fifty million so far donated, and that is -- that is the biggest single amount of money that has ever been donated for a release -- relief operation.

Let's go to Port-au-Prince to get the latest in the city most affected by the hurricane. Jason Carroll is on the ground for us there with the latest update.

Jason, it's day ten now, and we understand that the search for survivors is still continuing. There are those who are refusing to give up hope and still looking for people who are alive.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is very true. Rescuers still on the ground, still hearing rumors about getting a text from someone saying this person is trapped at this location.

You walk through the city, and then you hear from someone else, saying, "I need help. I heard a noise. I think someone's buried in that particular house."

So, you do still have rescuers here on the ground giving it their all, giving it their best efforts.

It's difficult. It's difficult going. It's difficult for the Haitian people who have been here. This morning two more aftershocks we felt here on the ground. Just when you get to the point where you think it's all behind you, the earth moves beneath your feet, and you realize why we are all here.

But they're -- we also, Ali, have seen some signs of progress. For one, the port. I mean, that's really a significant point of entry for Port-au-Prince, and the port, at least one pier, has been repaired. It is open, and that is significant in that you open that one pier, you get one cargo ship in -- I don't think a lot of people realize, one cargo ship can hold enough goods and materials to fill 12 airplanes.

VELSHI: Wow.

CARROLL: So, imagine the relief now that that's going to have on the congested airport. So, some signs of progress here on the ground, as well.

VELSHI: Jason, what happens with these aftershocks? We're getting them almost every day. What do you feel like? What do the people around you? What's the reaction when there's an aftershock? Do you think this is a big one? Are you worried that where you are is going to tumble onto you?

CARROLL: I'm sorry, Ali, I can't hear you. I've got two things going in my ear here. I'm going to have to ask you to repeat the question.

VELSHI: No problem. I'm curious as to what happens when these aftershocks happen. Where have you been when they happened, and what do you feel like when they're going on?

CARROLL: Again, Ali, I know you're asking me a question. Whoever is there working on the technical end of things, I can't hear you.

VELSHI: OK. No problem. We'll get back to you, Jason. Thanks very much for the update on what's going on in the ground in Port-au- Prince.

And Jason is one of our reporters who's working very, very hard on the ground there to get us as many stories as we can. I can't even count how many amazing pieces our reporters and crews in Haiti have turned out over the past ten days to bring you the story of what's going on and to help you make some decisions about how you want to aid that effort. But I do need to prepare you for what you are about to see now. I need to prepare for this. A man who survived the earthquake dies on the street, shot in the back by police who thought he was stealing. These images are highly chilling. They're very disturbing. But the story does need to be told, and to tell it, here's CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As we drove up to this busy crossroads just beyond the Port-au-Prince airport, we spot two Haitian police officers detaining two young men. Then, a single shot rang out.

(on camera) As we were stopping the truck, more shots rang out, and we clearly saw the two detainees falling to the ground.

(voice-over) This is where we begin rolling our camera.

(on camera) As we got here to the spot, it became apparent that the incident was somehow connected to bags of rice.

(voice-over) Both men lie bleeding, both shot in the back by the police. We saw one officer firing shots while his captive was on the ground. Twenty-year-old Jeantil Cheri (ph) is gasping for breath. He is dying. The other young man is unable to stand. He's stunned but speaking.

He says they didn't steal the rice. They were not looting. "The cops jumped on us. It was a gift. It was a gift," he says, again and again. Five bags of rice are scattered nearby.

"The truck stopped and we jumped on, and the driver gave us the rice as a gift, but the cops shot us," he says.

This patrolman was one of three involved. He won't answer. Minutes after, this police area commissioner arrives. I ask him if the police have a shoot-to-kill order for suspected looters.

"Nobody can do this in any country. Even if somebody was stealing a bag of rice, nobody has a right to do this," he says. He promises to investigate and says he's calling an ambulance. We wait. No ambulance arrives.

Passing United Nations peacekeepers stop a truck and load the wounded men aboard. A small crowd carries another wounded man.

He says he was waiting for the bus when he took a stray bullet in the side. He tells us he's a Christian minister who was going home after applying for a job, as a policeman.

We asked around in the small shops. Witnesses told us nobody was looting.

This store owner says the rice bags fell from the truck, and passersby simply picked them up. Two 1/2 hours after the shooting, and the Jeantil Cheri's (ph) body was still on the sidewalk. Nearby, his mother had come to grieve.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Port-au-Prince.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: We'll, of course, continue the story and the developments in Haiti throughout the afternoon.

Another story that we've been following all week have been the terrible weather on the West Coast of this country, California and the coast. And that weather is still affecting California, but it has moved further in, now affecting Arizona. We're going to have a live report from Arizona to find out what the effects are there and what we can expect for the rest of the week out of this weather. Karen Maginnis will be with us in just a moment.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. We've got a lot going on in weather nationally. It's not just California, even though we've been talking about the West Coast of this country for a few days. California continues to be affected. We continue to have bad weather, and it's moving into Arizona now.

Let me show you some pictures from Wenden, Arizona. This is flooding caused by runoff in Wenden, Arizona. A state of emergency has been declared for all of Arizona. That happened last night. There's some bad flooding and rain in the western part of the state.

In northern Arizona, there's heavy snow, even an aftermath -- even an avalanche warning, believe it or not. This is Sedona. Now, again, we've been talking about California. We continue to have bad weather in California. This is -- this is what is we're looking at here. This is California that we're looking at. So, we've got a lot of all of this going on at the same time.

I want to go to Arizona now and see what the situation is on the ground with Javier Soto. He's a reporter with KTVK in Wenden, Arizona. Those are the pictures we first showed you.

Javi, are you on the phone?

JAVIER SOTO, REPORTER, KTVK (via phone): Yes, I am.

VELSHI: Tell me what's going on where you are.

SOTO: Well, you know, we're here set up at a command center in a tiny town called Salone. This is outside the tiny town that you had mentioned called Wenden. Wenden is actually about 100 miles west of Phoenix.

Well, earlier this morning a two-foot surge of runoff water from last night's major storm flooded the streets, flooded the homes in this community of only about 500 people. According to the La Paz County Sheriff's Department, a couple hundred people had to be evacuated from their homes.

The good news here is that no one has been reported missing, and there are no reports of injuries. We just got done speaking with an emergency crew personnel person who was out there early this morning. He says the deepest part of this flooding is about six feet deep. He described it as a horrible scene, and their house has flooded. Streets flooded.

Again, it's a tiny community, and he says that about three to four blocks are completely wiped out. He said that this flooding was comparable to some more flooding that they had back in 2001.

This community is actually adjacent to a wash by the name of Centennial Wash, and that's where a majority of that water came rushing in. Last night I guess some of the waters started to recede, and just when they were starting to breathe a sigh of relief early this morning, that's when another surge came through and wiped out a majority of these homes.

VELSHI: And we're looking at pictures from Wenden, Arizona. These are not pictures that we're familiar with seeing when you look at Arizona. Javier Soto, thanks very much for joining us. Javi Soto is with KTVK.

For more on the weather situation across this country, the severe weather situation, Karen Maginnis is back with me. Karen, we were warned that this was going to be a tough week, and it continues to be. It is living up to the promise.

KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is. And Ali, we have some unfortunate news also about Arizona. There was a family. They were taking their six sons. They also had a daughter. They were taking them in this Wenden area, which is just outside of Phoenix -- I don't know -- about 50, 60 miles. You take Interstate 10 to the west.

They were driving along the interstate. There was flooding. The family in their pickup truck was caught in the wet weather, flooding rains. The truck was carried off the road. Unfortunately, the 6- year-old son, who was sick, they're now looking for him...

VELSHI: Oh, wow.

MAGINNIS: ... in the floodwaters.

Here are some of the rainfall totals. These don't look staggering.

VELSHI: Sure.

MAGINNIS: We've seen rainfall totals much greater than this.

VELSHI: But not typically in these places.

MAGINNIS: No. VELSHI: Right.

MAGINNIS: This is so much water in one event.

VELSHI: Yes.

MAGINNIS: In some cases we're looking at just about half of the rainfall total in some of these areas. I lived in Tucson, Arizona. To get 2 inches in a day is significant.

VELSHI: Yes.

MAGINNIS: Want to move on and show you some of the wet weather. Now, believe it or not, there are blizzard warnings in southern Arizona, but that's across from the mountain peaks. The snow levels are dropping down to around 4,000 or 5,000 feet. Just to let you know, that Wenden area, take Interstate 10 and go to the west. It's just about in this region.

VELSHI: Those are the pictures we were looking at.

MAGINNIS: Exactly. And for Southern California, this region of Arizona has been so overlooked and so overshadowed, because we've concentrated across Los Angeles. But all the way from the Bay Area down to Los Angeles to San Diego, you can kind of see this is broken up just a little bit. But still nonetheless, we're looking at pockets of heavy rainfall here and there.

The other area we're focusing on, the Northern Plains. We've got -- could see a foot of snowfall over the weekend, Ali, so this another area we'll watch over the weekend.

VELSHI: All right. It's going to be another -- it's going to continue to be a busy rest of the week for weather.

MAGINNIS: Yes, yes.

VELSHI: Thanks, Karen. We'll continue to keep in touch with you on this.

Now, every month on the first Friday of the month we get the national unemployment report. We tell you all about that. But every two weeks after that, and that's today, we get the unemployment rate for states across the country, and the majority of states in this country increased in unemployment in the last month. Find out if your state is one of them next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: So many you have lost jobs or know someone who has in the last couple of years, that it gives you a little hope, or despair, to find out exactly what's happening with everyone else in the country. That's why we go out of our way to tell you where the trends are.

Now, we've been looking at the unemployment rate nationally. We do that once a month. But on the other once a month, two weeks later, which is today, we get numbers about how the states are doing in terms of unemployment. And that's a little closer to you than a national number, so we want to talk about that with my co-host from our weekend show, "YOUR $$$$$." Christine Romans joins me now from New York City.

Christine, you have crunched those numbers. What's the bottom line?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The bottom line is you probably live someplace where the unemployment rate rose in the month of December. Look, 43 states had the unemployment rise, Ali.

And digging even further, I can show you a map that 10 -- or 17 states, rather, have an unemployment rate that is now above 10 percent. These are those states. If you live somewhere where there's that blotch of red, you already are feeling some pretty serious situation and circumstances here now.

A couple of things, Ali. These are disappointing numbers, no question, that 43 states saw their unemployment rate ride and that those 17 states -- one of them is the District of Columbia -- 16 states and the District of Columbia have 10 percent or higher. But one of the reasons why it's rising might be that people -- you and I talked about this a lot, right? People are starting to enter the workforce again.

VELSHI: Right.

ROMANS: They're sensing an end to the bloodletting in the labor market, and they're sensing there might be opportunities. And so that's actually driving the rate up.

VELSHI: Christine, this is important, and maybe we can see that map again to take a look at something. Obviously, you can see the trend on the map. You've got those states on the west, and then you've got the whole southeast. And then you have industrial states where manufacturing jobs have been lost.

You can see Michigan. You can see Ohio where the president is, things like that.

The reality here is that in the middle, which we don't show very well, those middle states, those mountain states, they have substantially lower than the national average unemployment.

ROMANS: And the North Dakota -- and North Dakota has an unemployment rate, believe it or not, of 4.4 percent. Think of that.

VELSHI: Wow.

ROMANS: Compare that with the worst state, which is Michigan, 14.6 percent. Imagine: these states are just so wide apart in what's happening in their economies, it's incredible.

I wanted to point out Ohio, too, because the president is going to be here today, and you're going to have that. The president in Ohio on the job stump. His issue No. 1, his job No. 1 is your job.

In Ohio the unemployment rate has gone from 7.4 percent a year ago, in December of 2008, Ali, to 10.9 percent now. I mean, that's a really big jump.

So, the president is going to the belly of the beast, really, the industrial Midwest, to try to explain how his clean-energy technology and how his plans are going to jump-start jobs. But we know that jobs are still a very significant issue for this president in his second year.

VELSHI: Yes. All right, Christine, you and I are going to talk every day. I was sad to leave you in New York, because we spent so much time together, but I think we're having -- we're spending more TV time together every day. So, I appreciate that.

You can watch Christine and me every Saturday and Sunday, Saturdays at 1 p.m. Eastern, Sundays at 3 p.m. Eastern. And we will continue -- as Christine said, by the way, we are going to go to Ohio at the top of 2 p.m. where the president is speaking in Lorain County.

All right. We're going to continue our coverage of Haiti. Ivan Watson has been on the beat the whole time for us in Haiti. He is in Petit Paradis, where a group of fishermen have talked to him. Let's find out from Ivan what's going on.

Ivan, what have you got?

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm in Petit Paradis. It means Little Paradise in English. And it got hit hard by this earthquake. We're getting the first descriptions and reports of a tsunami-like wave, a deadly tidal wave, that struck here, from the locals.

Now, if you look over my shoulder -- Dominick's going to pan -- there's a lone tree out there and some bushes a little bit further out. And the locals say that the land, the beach, used to go out that far until the afternoon of the 12th, when the earthquake struck. And you can see, there's no beach there anymore. At all.

And I'm with Steve Baddio (ph). He's one of the fishermen. His canoes were destroyed on the day of the earthquake by falling walls, and these people are extremely poor. It's very difficult to get by, losing their livelihood. In addition to that, he described this wave striking shortly before sunset on the 12th. I'm going to ask him in French.

(SPEAKING IN FRENCH)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FRENCH)

WATSON: So, Steve says there was a sound of a rumbling, like a helicopter, and you heard him make the noise.

VELSHI: Yes.

WATSON: And he said the water receded and then came up at a height of more than 12 feet. And then it swept over here, destroying a number of houses on this coastline. And it swept away his father, Ali, and two of his nephews.

And I've spoken with another man here, also a fisherman. He says his sister was doing laundry by the water, and she, too, was swept out to sea. And tragically, in addition to this, they haven't been able to hold a funeral for their loved ones, because in more than a week, they still haven't been able to find their bodies -- Ali.

VELSHI: Ivan, this is remarkable. What he's describing sounds -- the water that recedes and then comes up -- it sounds a lot like a tsunami. I know that after the earthquake there was a tsunami warning that was then canceled, but that's the type of wave that that seems to sound like that he's describing.

WATSON: Absolutely. And I -- I inspected just a couple hundred yards up the coastline here. There are huge cracks in the earth not for far from the sea. There are houses that have been just leveled basically.

And in addition to that -- in addition to these -- the first time we're hearing these kinds of accounts, the U.S. military has staged a landing just around this point. Amphibious vessels have landed since we've been here. I believe they're Marines. And they landed yesterday, and they're distributing some water to the locals.

But, again, the first reports we've heard so far of a deadly tidal wave...

VELSHI: Yes.

WATSON: ... that has taken the lives of at least four people in this fishing village.

VELSHI: All right, Ivan, I'm glad you're there to bring us that story. We're going to look deeper into this to find out whether there was actually a tidal wave or tsunami that we didn't think there was, but that definitely sounds like what they're describing. And it doesn't sound like they're in a circumstance to make that up.

Ivan, thanks very much for bringing us that story. Yet another piece of information that we're getting from Haiti.

I want to tell you about something else we're covering right now. About 2 p.m., we're expecting the president -- 2 p.m. Eastern -- we're expecting President Obama live from Lorain County Community College in Ohio outside of Cleveland. We're going to break down why he's there, what we're expected to talk about. We're going to talk a little bit this as soon as we come back from the break.

Stay with us. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right, make sure you're going to watch that next Wednesday night, 8 p.m., the State of the Union address and, of course, the Republican response by the governor of Virginia.

Now, the president is holding a town-hall meeting at the Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio, about 2 p.m. Eastern this afternoon. We're going to have good coverage of that. We've got Ed Henry on the ground there. He's going to be breaking it down for us and telling us what's going on.

But let's talk about what the president is doing there. So he's in Lorain County Community College. He's also toured a wind-turbine plant in Ohio and a Riddell Sporting Goods factory.

Now, the wind-turbine plant, it's important, because Ohio is trying to become a center for alternative energy.

It's part of a series of visits by the president to areas that are hard hit by the recession. Ed Henry was telling us about this yesterday. It's called the White House-to-Main Street tour.

Now, Elyria, Ohio, and I hope I'm saying that correctly. But you viewers are very vigilant, so if I'm not, you will e-mail me about it, I'm sure. Elyria, Ohio, is a suburb of Cleveland. It's southwest of Cleveland, a population of about $55,000 -- 55,000 people.

As you know, Cleveland, very, very hard hit by the economy, a center of foreclosures. Very tough economy there. Lorain County in particular has been hard hit by auto plant and supplier layoffs.

Ohio -- we often talk about Michigan when we talk about the auto industry. Remember, Ohio is a major center of auto manufacturing, or certainly was. And as a result of that, it's a major manufacturing state.

The unemployment rate, as Christine Romans was telling us a few moments ago, the unemployment rate in Ohio has increased, and it's now at 10.9 percent, surpassing the national rate of 10 percent. Now, that is not as bad as neighboring Michigan, which again, Christine was telling us, has an unemployment rate of higher than 15 -- 14 percent.

But the reality here is that -- is that unemployment is the biggest issue to all of you right now, to Americans. This is a CNN/Opinion Research poll that asks, what is the issue -- what is the most important economic issue facing the country today?

Look at this: 50 percent of respondents say unemployment. Less than half of that, though still a significant number, 22 percent say the deficit, which means we're going to have to cover the deficit a lot to understand what the options are, how to fix it and how it's going to affect you. Seven percent say it's the mortgage crisis, largely because while there are still foreclosures, a lot of that is behind us. We've seen what the effects are.

And just 6 percent of you are worried about taxes, which is interesting, except taxes are very tied into the deficit. So maybe you're worried about the deficit because you're worried your taxes are going up. You may not be as worried about taxes of as an independent story. We'll, of course, continue to break down all of these things. And in about half an hour, we'll be in Elyria, Ohio, where we are going to be talking to Ed Henry and then listening to the president.

The other thing we're going to bring you up to speed on, ten days after the earthquake, what is the tally of what's going on? How much money? How much aid? Who's helping? We're going to tell you more about the Haiti earthquake and where we stand at the end of the second week of it when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: And amongst the tragedy and the misery that we've been talking about in Haiti, there is hope. There are miracles, still searching for survivors. Even yesterday, live people pulled from the rubble.

There's another miracle here, and it's how you have responded to the requests for help. In fact, around the world people have responded. We were looking at a chart of the countries that have donated. The USA as a government is at the top of the list, having donated $163 million, almost $164 million, but individuals and organizations, including many Americans are number two on the list, coming in at $104 million. All across the board, more than $500 million has been raised for direct aid to Haiti.

Now, one of the things we're going to see tonight is another opportunity for you to join the relief effort in Haiti when you watch the "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon. You can't miss it. If you are near a TV tonight, it is not on a CNN thing. This is on more than 25 networks, including CNN. Anderson Cooper is taking part live from Haiti.

There will be a lot of people involved: Beyonce, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, Rianna, Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Will Smith, Ben Stiller, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep. There are going to be a lot of people.

You saw the star-studded telethon on "LARRY KING LIVE" on Monday where you reached out and you raised $9 million. So, it is important. This is another opportunity for you to easily help out in Haiti. You can go to the Web site, hopeforhaiti -- hopeforhaitinow.com. The money that you donate will go to the American Red Cross, Yele, Oxfam America, U.N.'s World Food Program and Partners in Health, which operates ten relief programs -- medical relief programs, in Haiti.

That is the telethon tonight. It is the "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon tonight on 25 different networks at 8:00 p.m. I know it's a Friday night. I know you may have other plans. It is really worth canceling those plans and watching this tonight. This is important for the world.

All right, well, he is one of the bigwigs of the Obama administration, and he is a long way from home. We'll tell you who is making a surprise visit to Iraq when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. Let's go to the Sundance Film Festival. Our own Brooke Anderson is there. Brooke is our CNN entertainment correspondent. She's also the co-host of HLN's "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" and she looks magnificent against snowy Sundance, Utah. Brooke, what have you got for us?

BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It's a beautiful backdrop for this festival, Ali.

And I want to talk about one of the documentaries being showcased here at Sundance, because it's particularly timely and relevant, because it's about Yemen. It's the story of two brothers-in-law in Yemen and their former associations with al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Of course, Yemen, as we know, is a flash point, a major focal point, in the war on terror after that failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of a U.S. plane. The suspect said he had had training in Yemen.

The name of the documentary is "The Oath," and I am joined by its director, Laura Fortress. Good to see you, Laura.

LAURA FORTRESS, DIRECTOR, "THE OATH": Good to be here.

ANDERSON: You've got two protagonists. You've got the Osama bin Laden's former driver, who over the course of the documentary is jailed at Guantanamo Bay. You've got his former bodyguard, who is now a free man and is a taxi driver in Yemen. Quickly, why did you want to tell their stories?

FORTRESS: I went to Yemen to make a film about Guantanamo and I met (INAUDIBLE), and this was an amazing opportunity to understand the inner workings of al Qaeda, and I feel as an American we need to understand the nature of the threat. And I think the film provides insight in to how we can better fight this fight, because personally I feel that we've made some mistakes.

ANDERSON: You said that Americans cannot really confront and contain terrorism until they understand it on a human level. Is that what you hope to accomplish with this movie, and do you think you did that?

FORTRESS: It is not just a human level. It's also about understanding that America's reaction to 9/11 have radicalized a new generation that have now come to arms and we need to rethink our foreign policy. So, I think Guantanamo, the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib photographs, all these things have radicalized a whole new generation, and I think the attempted bombing at Christmas was a product of that.

ANDERSON: And the aspect in the film of Guantanamo Bay is also extremely relevant right now. President Obama, huge controversy surrounding his proposal to send -- bring prisoners from there to Illinois. What are your thoughts on that proposition, after having spent time there and after having done this movie and focused on this particular prisoner's story? FORTRESS: Personally, I believe that Guantanamo is a national nightmare and that we need to close it and we need to find a solution. And there are solutions to deal with these 200 people. There are avery few that need to go to court, and the majority have never been charged with anything that have been held in detention for eight years and they need to come -- they need to be released.

I mean, when did America start detaining people without charge, without any due process? So, I think we need to find a way to charge those who have crimes, they're charged with crimes, and those that are not need to be repatriated.

ANDERSON: Sundance Festival founder Robert Redford has talked a lot about his respect for documentary filmmakers for a number of reasons, including how you guys really put yourselves in harm's way, and in the movie, "The Taxi Driver," John Dahl said a lot of times he did not feel safe because he had turned his back on al Qaeda. Did you ever feel like your life was at risk making this movie?

FORTRESS: I mean, I spent the last film -- I was eight months in Iraq and on this film, two years back and forth to Yemen, and I feel like there's a different type of storytelling that needs to be done that's much more complex, that's not just about political theater and current events, but that tries to understand things in a complicated way. And, of course, it's dangerous because I'm an American, and I know I'm a target. But also I feel the story needs to be told.

ANDERSON: Well, it's really well done. It's a great job. Laura Fortress, thank you so much for speaking to us. And, Ali, "The Oath" working towards a spring release. So, maybe it will be released this spring.

VELSHI: And Brooke, Robert Redford will thank me for calling it Sundance, because for the time during the festival, Park City kind of becomes all about Sundance. But you are in Park City, Utah. Thanks for being with us, Brooke.

ANDERSON: It certainly does.

VELSHI: Let's check in on your top stories. And let's start in Baghdad. Vice president Joe Biden is trying to keep Iraq's election on track. March 7th is the day scheduled for that vote. Hundreds of candidates have been blacklisted because of suspected links to Saddam Hussein's regime. The White House is afraid the move will feel violence in Iraq.

In India, airports are on high alert after a terror warning. Officials say they have specific intelligence about a hijacking plot involving a flight from somewhere in south Asia. That means increased security, tougher screenings and more air marshals.

In Washington, abortion opponents are picketing outside the Supreme Court, part of the annual March for Life. It marks the 37th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Abortion rights activists are staging a counterprotest. And when we come back, we're going to talk about a change that's taking place today on Capitol Hill that's going to allow you to claim your donation to Haiti relief on your 2009 tax return. You can get your money back early, under certain conditions, which we're going to tell you about when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Okay. On the left of your screen you are looking at Elyria, Ohio, and some guy who just walked into our TV shot. We are getting ready to take the president, who is going to speaking there in Elyria -- I think it's Lorain County Community College where the president will be speaking after he toured a wind turbine factory and a sporting goods factory.

Ed Henry is there with the president. We'll chat with him as well after we hear from the president. That should be happening in just a few minutes. The president is going to talk about jobs.

We're going to talk about Haiti and the amount of money you've given to Haiti. The deductions, those contributions, as you know, contributions are tax deductible. Typically when you make a deduction in 2010, which is when this incident happened, you would claim that when you claim your 2010 taxes in 2011. But that's all changed. Let's go to Brianna Keilar, who is on Capitol Hill with this story. Brianna

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bottom line here, Ali, you don't have to wait a year to claim the tax deductions. The House and the Senate, they passed a bill, and they are expecting the president to sign it that says you can go ahead and write off these donations on your 2009 taxes. Which I'm sure everyone out there is already getting busy getting ready for the April 15th deadline, right?

VELSHI: Right.

KEILAR: Here's what you have to do to make sure you can write this off for 2009. First, you two have to donate before March 1st (AUDIO GAP) February, that's your last chance. And if you're texting your donation in, your phone bill is going to be good enough to serve as a receipt for your taxes.

VELSHI: Brianna, hold that thought for a second. We've got to go to Elyria, Lorain County Community College, where the president is taking his stand. We'll come back to you, Brianna, on the tax issue. Very important issue. Let's go to Lorain County Community College and the president.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Everybody, please relax.

(LAUGHTER) OBAMA: We'll be here for a little bit. You know, everybody take a seat, if you have -- if you have a seat. It is great to see you. Can everybody please give Jodie a big round of applause for the introduction?

(APPLAUSE)

Everybody's a special guest, but we've got a few that I just want to mention. First of all, obviously, you've got one of the finest governors in the country in Ted Strickland. Please give him a round of applause.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: My former colleague when he was in the Senate, nobody fights harder for working people than Sherrod Brown. Give him a big round of applause.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: You've got a dynamo pair of members of the House of Representatives, who are so committed to their districts and committed to this state, Betty Sutton and Marcy Kaptur.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: I've had a wonderful time in town. And your mayor has just been a really nice person. He and I shared a burger over at Smitty's. Give Bill Grace a big round of applause.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: And somebody, who I'm hugely impressed with, because I'm just so impressed with this institution, and his leadership obviously has been critical to it. Dr. Ray Church, your president here at Lorain County Community College.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Well, listen, it is great to be here in Elyria. Thank you so much for the great hospitality, the wonderful reception. Look, it's just nice being out of Washington. Let me say.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: I mean, there are some nice people in Washington, but it can drive you crazy. Am I wrong, Sharrod?

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: You know, for two years, I had the privilege of traveling across this country, and I had a chance to talk to people like you and go to diners and sit in barbershops and hear directly about the challenges that all of you are facing in your lives, and the opportunities that you're taking advantage of and all the things that we face together as a nation. And the single hardest thing -- people ask me this all the time. The single hardest thing about being president is that it's harder for me to do that nowadays. It's harder to get out of the bubble.

I mean, don't get me wrong. The White House is a wonderful place to work. You live above the store, which means I've got a very short commute. I'm having -- I see my daughters before they go to school, and I see them at night for dinner, even if I have to go back down to the office. And that makes everything so much better.

But the truth is, is this job's a little confining. And that is frustrating. I can't just go to the barbershop or sit in a diner. I can't always visit people directly. This is part of the reason why I've taken to the practice of reading ten letters out of 40,000 that I get every night, just so that I can stay in touch and hear from you.

But nothing beats a day where I can make an escape. I -- I break out. And so I appreciate the chance to come here and spend a day. Before I came here, I visited the EMC Precision Machine -- Machining Plant. I saw the great clean energy job training program here at Lorain County Community College, and I'm obviously thrilled to be able to spend some time with you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you!

OBAMA: I love you back. Thank you!

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Now, look, now, look, let's be honest. These are difficult and unsettling times. They are difficult times here in Elyria, and they are tough in Ohio, and they are tough all across the country. I walked into office a year ago in the middle of a raging economic storm that was wrecking devastation on your towns and communities everywhere.

We had to take some difficult steps to deal with that mess and stave off an even greater economic catastrophe. We had to stabilize the financial system, which given the role of the big banks in creating this mess, was a pretty tough pill to swallow. I knew it would be unpopular, and rightly so. But I also knew that we had to do it, because if they went down, your local banks would have gone down, and if the financial system went down, it would have been taken the entire economy and millions more families and businesses with it. We would have been looking at a second-grade depression.

So, my first months in office, we also had to save two of the three big auto makers from liquidation bankruptcy. Complete collapse. Some people were not happy about that, either. I understand that. They felt like if you are in a business and you make a bad decision, you ought reap the consequences just like any business would. Problem was that if we let Chrysler and GM go under, hundreds of thousands of Americans would have been hurt, not just at the companies themselves, but at auto suppliers and other dealers and companies in Michigan up and -- or here in Ohio, up in Michigan, all across this country. So, we said, if you are willing to take some tough and painful steps to make yourselves more competitive, we are willing to invest in your future. And earlier this week, we heard that the auto industry plans to make 300,000 cars and trucks in North America in the next three months, which is up 69 percent from the first three months of last year.

We also passed a Recovery Act to pull our economy back from the brink. Now, there has been a lot of misunderstanding about this Recovery Act. Sherrod and Marci and Betty and I were talking about this on the way over here. If you ask the average person what the Recovery Act, the stimulus package, they would say the bank bailout.

So, let me just be clear here, the Recovery Act was cutting taxes for 95 percent of working families. Fifteen different tax cuts for working families, seven different tax cuts for small businesses, so they can start up and grow and hire. The Recovery Act was extending an increasing unemployment insurance and making COBRA available at a cheaper rate for people who had lost their jobs so they could keep their health care.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: We gave aid directly to states to help them through tough times. Ted can testify the help it provided to the Ohio budget so we wouldn't have to lay off teachers and firefighters and police officers all across this state.

And we made the largest investment in infrastructure since the creation of the interstate highway system, putting Americans to work rebuilding the roads and bridges and waterways and doing the work that needs to be done in America.

Now, today, because we took those actions, the worst of this economic storm has passed. But families like yours and communities like this one are still reeling from the devastation that left in its wake. At one of the companies -- at EMC, where I went today, a wonderful company and passed on through generations -- they have hung on with their precision manufacturing high value-added. They can do things that can't be shipped off to China, because they are so attuned to their customer's needs, but they had 77 employees and now they have 44. Now, they want to start hiring back, but it is going to take a little time. The good news is that they are starting to see the orders pick up just a little bit.

But it is tough. Folks have seen jobs that you thought would last forever disappear. You have seen plants close and businesses shut down. I have heard about how the city government here is starting to cut into bone and not just fat. You can't get to work or go buy groceries like you used to, because of cuts in the county transit system.

And this all comes after one of the toughest decades our middle class has faced in generations. I mean, think about what has happened over the last ten years, even before the crisis hit. This is a decade where some folks made tons of money. But so many others were just pedaling faster and faster, but they were stuck in the same place, sometimes slipping behind. The average wage, the average income over the last decade actually flatlined. In some cases, it went down, and that is before the crisis.

So, for many of you, even as you found your paychecks shrinking, even as after the crisis, you found the biggest value, asset, your home, falling, the cost of everything else going up. The cost of groceries, the cost of sending your kids to college, the cost of retirement, and you have also faced the break-neck unrelenting climb of cost for your health care needs.

Now, here is the message I want you to take away. We are going to have a lot of time for questions, but I want to make this absolutely clear. I did not run for president to turn away from these challenges. I didn't run to kick these challenges down the road. I ran for president to confront them once and for all.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: I ran for this office to rebuild our economy so it works not just for the fortunate few, but for everybody who is willing to work hard in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: To create good jobs that can support a family. To get wages growing an incomes rising. To improve the quality of America's schools and lift up great community colleges like this one so that people are constantly learning, constantly retraining for the jobs of the 21st century. To make higher education affordable for the children of working families. And yes, to deal with the problem of runaway health insurance costs that are breaking family budgets and breaking business budgets and breaking our national budget.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Now, since this has been in the news a little bit this week...

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: ... let me say a little something about health care. I had no illusions when I took this on that it was going to be hard. Seven presidents had tried it. Seven Congresses had tried it. And all of them had failed.

I had a whole bunch of political advisers telling me, this may not be the smartest thing to do. You have a lot on your plate. Biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, two wars, you know, you may not get a lot of cooperation. You're going to have a lot of pushback from the insurance companies and the drug companies. It is complicated. Don't do it.

Now, let me tell you why I did it. I knew that insurance premiums had more than doubled in the past decade. I knew that out- of-pocket expenses had skyrocketed. I knew that millions more people had lost their insurance, and I knew that because of the economic crisis, that was only going to get worse. When you lose 7 million jobs like we lost over the last two years, what do you think happens to those folks' health insurance? What happens when their COBRA runs out?

I took this up because I wanted to ease the burdens on all the families and small businesses that can't afford to pay outrageous rates, and I want to protect mothers and fathers and children by being targeted by some of the worst practices of the insurance industry that I had heard time and time again as I traveled through this country.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Now, let me just dispel this motion that somehow we were focused on that and as a consequence not focused on the economy. First of all, all I think about is how we are going to create jobs in this area. All I think about is how are we going to get banks lending again. I have been doing that for the entire year, and folks like Sherrod and Marci and Betty. But I also know that health care is part of the drag on the economy. It is part of the eroding security that the middle-class families feel.