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Fighting Arizona; Shirley Sherrod, Obama Speak
Aired July 22, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: "CNN NEWSROOM" continues right now with Ali Velshi.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: And once again, you are handing me a full plate, Tony, with the Shirley Sherrod story.
As Tony said, I'm Ali Velshi. And I'll be with you for the next couple of hours today and every weekday.
Shirley Sherrod at the center of this controversial phone call that got her to resign -- Shirley Sherrod has had another important phone call. Moments ago, she got off the phone with the president of the United States, something she asked for last night. Something that the White House said wasn't likely to happen. Well, she just got off the phone with the president of the United States.
And our crews were with her. We don't -- we don't have all the details. We didn't roll our cameras on that, she asked us not to. But our producer was there when it happened. She just talked to Tony and she'll talk to us very shortly.
We'll also try and talk to Shirley about what the president told her, whether she's satisfied with the response that she's had from the president. She's already had an apology from the White House. She's had an apology from the secretary of agriculture. She's had an apology from the NAACP. Where does Shirley Sherrod go next? We'll continue to cover that story for you.
The other big story -- by the way, we'll go to the White House very shortly. There will be a briefing within the next half hour and maybe we'll learn more from them.
Look at that. That is the Gulf of Mexico. There is a storm forming, a storm that is headed somewhere toward the Gulf of Mexico, into the Gulf of Mexico. Could it be Florida? Could it be the eastern Gulf? Could it go right where to that oil is?
Chad Myers is following this very, very closely. Whatever happens to this is going to happen within the next three days. So, there are already things happening in the Gulf of Mexico that we want to tell you about. Pay attention. We've got full coverage on that, as we always do when there is extreme weather.
And let's take you to Arizona right now. The new law, the anti-immigration law, is set to take effect one week from today. There are two court challenges taking place today. You are seeing the rally outside the courthouse about that. We're going to get some good detail about that right now.
Let me tell you right now about what's going on. Now, you remember back to April 23rd of this year when Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed S.B. 1070 into law in Arizona.
It's a 17-page bill. It's complicated. But you can almost boil it down to one controversial paragraph.
Let me read that to you right now. It says, "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state -- where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made to determine the immigration status of the person."
What does this mean? This means that police have to have some reason to pull someone over, an unrelated reason. But if in the process of their interaction with the person, they determine that there's a reason to suspect they may not lawfully be in the United States -- a reason to suspect they may be an illegal alien -- they are then compelled to try and determine the immigration status of that person. That is at the crux of this whole issue.
Now, there have been rallies. There have been protests across the country. There have been -- there have been boycotts.
Let me give you a sense of -- this is Arizona Governor Jan Brewer talking with the president about the immigration battle. But there have been rallies -- there have been rallies going on since the beginning -- since this started to happen.
These pictures you're looking at are live pictures right now outside the courthouse. There are two hearings taking place this afternoon, one of them are by groups that are opposed to this. The other one is by the -- by the federal government.
Now, what you can see here, if I can show you what's going on on the wall. What Phil is showing you right now is one of the pro bill 1070 rallies. You can se it's a much smaller rally. I want Phil to look over to the right side of the screen and show you one of the anti-rallies. These were happening in May and June, these were much bigger rallies across the country. But right now, it comes down to the courts.
Casey Wian is standing by. He's going -- he's inside the court right now. But before he went inside the court -- and we'll talk to him when he comes out -- he left us this report to tell us what's happening. Here's Casey.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Two challenges to Arizona's law are being heard by the court today. One is by a group of civil rights organizations, including the ACLU, Latino advocacy groups, and individual citizens. Their main concern is that the law, they claim, will lead to widespread racial profiling by Arizona law enforcement officers. They also worry that it will lead to harassment of U.S. citizens and of legal residents of the United States simply because of the way they look or the language that they speak.
The second lawsuit being heard in the afternoon is by the Obama administration. The basic premise of that lawsuit is that they say the federal government, not states, has the exclusive authority to regulate immigration law. And they say the state of Arizona has no legitimate interest in passing a law regulating immigration.
Now, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has filed a response to those lawsuits. And she says that the state will suffer irreparable harm if this law is not allowed to go into effect. That's because, she says, the federal government has not done its job in terms of securing the U.S. border and controlling rampant drug and immigrant smuggling that continues to plague the state of Arizona.
Now, we spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who's the former governor of Arizona and now the woman who's responsible for U.S. border security, she says that she understands the frustrations of Arizona residents but she says this law is misguided.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: The fact of the matter is the federal government is doing more at the border of Arizona and Mexico than ever has been done before. There are more boots on the ground. There's more infrastructure. There's more technology.
And even more significantly, there's more on the way. It's not just the National Guard. The president has asked for Congress to appropriate another $600 million.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIAN: The law is scheduled to go into effect July 29th, one week from today, barring a court decision that would block it.
Casey Wian, CNN, Phoenix, Arizona.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: And as I said, Casey is in the courtroom for this. He'll come out. We'll talk to him a little later. Then there'll be another hearing this afternoon. We'll keep you posted on what's going on.
Remember, in Arizona, there is one name fully associated with fighting what he calls illegal immigration: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Well, for 17 years, he's had this tent city going on. His aim has been to ensure that the government spends as little money as possible on criminals.
Well, in honor of S.B. 1070, this bill, 1070, Joe Arpaio has decided that will be the name of the section of his tent city that is used to house illegal immigrants, illegal aliens, who are found under this -- under this law.
All right. We'll keep you posted on that. Severe weather is brewing in the Caribbean right now and it's got the Gulf oil cleanup crews checking their contingency plans. We'll check in with Chad Myers to see how bad it could get.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. You are looking at live pictures of the White House. We will momentarily have information from the White House about the phone call that just occurred between Shirley Sherrod and the president of the United States. We know that phone call just took place.
Our producer Julie O'Neill was with Shirley Sherrod. She asked us not to tape the interview, the conversation that went on between the two of them. But we did -- we did get her before that and after that.
Here we go. I'm just getting information from the White House, what the White House has said took place from their side. I'm going to read this out to you.
"The president reached Ms. Sherrod by telephone at about 12:35 today. They spoke for seven minutes. The president expressed to Ms. Sherrod his regret about the events of the last several days. He emphasized that Secretary Vilsack was sincere in his apology yesterday and in his work to rid USDA of discrimination. The president told Ms. Sherrod that this misfortune can present an opportunity for her to continue her hard work on behalf of those in need. And he hopes that she will do so."
That has just come to us from the White House, the response from the White House or their version of the conversation that just took place between Shirley Sherrod and the president of the United States. We are expecting a White House briefing at 1:30, about 20 minutes from now. We will, of course, bring that to you when it happens. Stay with us.
The other story that we're following very closely right now -- Chad has been following it for days.
And that is the development of a storm system in the Gulf of Mexico and now, some clearer projections about where it might be going in the course of the next three days or so.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I believe the projections are better today because of something we call a G-4 mission.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: Gulfstream jet, the Gulfstream four. It takes out the error that no one lives there.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: See, no one lives there, no one lives there, no one lives there.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: So, they can't put up weather balloons. We don't really know what's happening about that site. This G-4 takes off and flies back-and-forth --
VELSHI: And takes readings.
MYERS: -- sometimes, dozens of factors (ph), back-and-forth, and drops weather balloons.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: Well, kind of. They are weather parachutes.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Because they are going from hot, right? So, they're going down and not up. But while they are flying, while these things are going down, this direction, the speed of all these parachute, things can all be detected.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: And then put all into the computer models and then the computer models theoretically are better.
VELSHI: It comes out with a lot more accuracy than what we had yesterday.
MYERS: Better than garbage in, garbage out which we had yesterday.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: Here is the storm.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: This is Haiti right here.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: They did not get the convection yesterday in Haiti. They didn't get the thunderstorm activity in Haiti that they had 48 hours ago, which is good because we really though that there could be some significant flooding, potential, if the storms popped up. In fact, the storms popped up very close to Guantanamo Bay.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: And -- because Here's Cuba here.
The forecast is for this to continue on its westward kind of almost a little bit north of westward track. And that's how it happens in the next few days.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: What we don't yet know is what the storm is going to look like way out here.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: This is Saturday morning, this is Sunday morning. Probably the computer forecast saying onshore sometime Sunday afternoon, maybe west of New Orleans.
VELSHI: Now, let me just be an amateur for a second. The way it rotates if it's out here means oil slick possibly pushing on to land.
MYERS: Bad news.
VELSHI: That wasn't the good news. The good news was if it were this way.
MYERS: Correct.
VELSHI: OK. And there's another bad news here because this is all the oil producing, the refineries and things like that?
MYERS: Yes. But at the 50-mile-per-hour --
VELSHI: They are not in much danger.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Yes, right.
MYERS: You can actually go on to see where all of these oil derricks are, all of these offshore rigs are. And they start really about western Florida and then they go this way.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: And so, yes, this thing will travel right through, but at 50 miles an hour, you don't have to evacuate these rigs.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: You can keep some men on.
VELSHI: You do have to get all those boats out of the way that were in Gulf of Mexico, the skimming operations.
(CROSSTALK)
MYERS: What do they say? It's like 3,000 boats now, 3,000 vessels in this area trying to get this oil and you have to get them all out there. You can't get them out, you can't leave them out there with 50-mile-per-hour winds.
VELSHI: Yes. Fifty miles per hour -- is this a problem with the wind blowing the oil? I mean, does that become an issue?
MYERS: Without a question. And I believe 45, 50 is very conservative.
VELSHI: OK. We'll stay on this. And we'll check in with you as we get more and more information.
MYERS: All day.
VELSHI: All day and for the next few days. That's Chad.
All right. Listen, another story that we're following down here in the Gulf of Mexico -- well, actually, we're following the story of the vice president who is down in the Gulf of Mexico. He's going to be in Theodore, Alabama, today. He's checking in on the cleanup, he's talking to residents there.
He's going to be speaking at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll bring you those comments as well, what he's got to say.
Theodore is in Mobile Bay, Alabama. It's on the eastside of Mobile Bay, Chad. BP has a decontamination site there. There are crews there that are cleaning up those booms that are saturated with oil. There are ships working on the spill out of Mobile Bay. You will recall President Obama was there on June 14th.
So, a little over a month later, Vice President Biden will be there and we will bring that to you.
OK. Another story that I think you'll find of interest: $110 billion of your tax dollars wasted, flat-out wasted. And now, President Obama is saying: enough is enough. We're going to tell you exactly what that's about -- when we come back.
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VELSHI: All right. We've been telling you about Shirley Sherrod and the conversation that she just had. But I'm going to tell you about the $110 billion in just a minute.
But, first, I want to get back to the story of the fact that Shirley Sherrod has had a conversation with the president of the United States. She did it from her cell phone. Our producer Julie O'Neill was next to her when it happened. Julie is on the phone with us.
Julie, tell us what happened.
JULIE O'NEILL, PRODUCER, CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATION UNIT (via telephone): Shirley got a text message saying from someone in the Obama White House, saying that the president was trying to reach her. She called them back. They gave her another number and asked to call back in 10 minutes. So, about 12:30, 12:35, she called that number and spoke to the president for several minutes after that.
VELSHI: Now, the White House sort of released some information about what they talked about. It -- again, it sounds like the president reiterated his apology to her and said she could have a role to play in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. You were on the receiving end of that, you were on Shirley's end of that thing. What did that phone call sound from her end?
O'NEILL: You know, it sounded like she was very pleased. And she -- I think the president did most of the talking. She said afterwards that the president supported her and talked about some of the issues she's brought up and how this compared to some of the things that he's experienced in the past.
And I think the funniest thing she did say when I said, what it's like talking to the president. She said, you know, he is the president of the United States, but I felt like he's just, you know, talking to an easy going person like he could be sitting in the front seat of his car.
So, it was very good, laid back conversation from this end. I think she's very happy with it.
VELSHI: You know, she was pretty angry about what happened to her, obviously. But one of the things she said is that she felt such shame when she had to resign because she thought: what will her grandchildren say that the first black woman to reach her position in the U.S. Department of Agriculture had to resign or was forced out of her position by the first black president of the United States of America.
And I wonder: when you combine her level of anger and frustration with the fact that she clearly thinks that Barack Obama is a very big deal, was she more deferential than tough on that conversation or was it hard to tell?
O'NEILL: You know, I think it was a little bit hard to tell. And she's -- she's been saying all morning, you know, President Obama is my president. You know, I support him. I asked if, you know, he mentioned that the pressure of her resignation came from the White House. And she said they didn't get into that.
I think she wasn't expecting a phone call from him or for him to reach out. So, I think she just accepted it. She wants to move on. She wants to look at it for the good things that come out of this situation and not dwell on the bad.
VELSHI: Julie, I know you well enough from the times we worked together, to know that you wouldn't have left off without asking her whether she was satisfied or how she felt about this whole thing after it was done. Do we have any sense of the next step for Shirley Sherrod? Is she likely to stay on at the U.S. Department of Agriculture? Is this fight finished for her?
O'NEILL: I asked her that. She said she wasn't sure what her next step was. She is very tired, wants to take some time to sort of think about it. But she just really -- a decision has not been made, that's what she told me.
VELSHI: Shirley Sherrod is a remarkably interesting woman. We've all learned a lot about her in the last few days, yet one more interesting development of the story.
Julie, great work. Thank you for joining us to tell us about it.
Julie O'Neill on the phone with us -- she was with Shirley Sherrod when it happened.
OK. Moments ago, I showed you $110 billion. You know, one of the things about this financial crisis we've been through is there are numbers that nobody ever knew anything about.
My old friend Josh Levs is back. I guess it's me who's back. You've been here, right?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're back. I've been here everyday.
VELSHI: Oh, fair enough.
LEVS: You are the one who had to go a continent away.
VELSHI: Josh is here with an interesting story about improper payments. Tell us about this.
LEVS: Well, the president is talking about it, right, because he wants to do something about it. Before we get to that, look at what we're talking about. So, they are saying $110 billion in fraud last year. Now, that is a massive sum.
VELSHI: This is money from the government.
LEVS: This is government money that went to ridiculous places. Here's a couple of examples, all right?
Over the past three years, this is the figure they gave us here: $180 million went to 20,000 dead Americans. Here's another one: $230 million, your federal tax dollars went to 14,000 fugitives or incarcerated felons who are not allowed to even getting this benefit money in the first place.
VELSHI: Right.
LEVS: Something has to be done. There's all sorts of fraud in the system and where the government is spending its money.
So, today, the president signed something. Here's what he said:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This just isn't about lines on a spreadsheet or numbers in the budget, because when we fail to spend people's tax dollars wisely, that's money that we're not investing in better schools for our kids or tax relief for families or innovation to create new industries and new jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVS: So, the president is saying he wants to do something about that. I want to emphasize to you, $110 billion that they know of --
VELSHI: Right.
LEVS: -- that's because the auditors went to and found them. That doesn't mean that's all the fraud in the system.
VELSHI: Right.
LEVS: There could be a lot more. So, clearly, you know, there is some huge -- that's what the law today is about.
VELSHI: Why is there a law about this? I mean, is this something you just fix? Shouldn't this just be happening?
LEVS: It should. And it's not. And that's what they're saying. I'll show, these things -- they're showing like some of the improper payments. What happens is people who are ineligible get money, sometimes it goes to the wrong person, the wrong amount, or at the wrong time, even the wrong year. So, they are saying, look, right now, the system isn't working. They decided they need a new law.
One of the few things Republicans and Democrats agreed on, right?
VELSHI: Yes.
LEVS: This is pretty much bipartisan and unanimous. And they pass this way. And what they want to do is offer a whole bunch of new incentives. They're actually -- the way it will work is auditors will make more money if they find fraud.
VELSHI: Oh, that's good.
LEVS: Financial incentive.
VELSHI: And where is most of this waste happening? Are there departments that are particularly --
LEVS: Yes, there are. Yes, take a look at this: Medicare fee for service last year alone: $35 billion, Medicare Advantage: $12 billion last year, Medicaid: $18 billion.
VELSHI: That looks almost like the bulk of it. Wow.
LEVS: Can you believe this? And unemployment insurance is $12 billion just last year, retirement, survivors, and disability: $2.5 billion. It's a lot of these places where benefits get dole out, in some cases, as the president said today, is fraud with people purposely organizing to get this money and sometimes it's just because of bureaucratic mistakes.
VELSHI: Yes. Very interesting story. I just don't understand why it's laws as opposed to -- like they don't make a law that you have to come to work. You have to come to work, that's kind of a deal, right? You work for CNN, you have to come to work.
LEVS: Well, you know, when in doubt, make a law -- sort of modern times.
VELSHI: All right. Well, very nice of you to be here, because normally, this is where Christine Romans comes in for "YOUR MONEY." She's pretty preoccupied right now with her, you know, addition to her family. So, it's always a pleasure to have Josh Levs on here.
Be sure to watch "YOUR MONEY" this weekend and every weekend, Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Sundays at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. We get into to all these money things in even greater detail.
OK. In the legal spotlight today, this one is interesting, competitive cheerleading. Should it be a varsity sport? A judge's ruling could have a ripple effect across the country. We'll give you details and I give some of my best cheers when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. Many of you know about Title IX and its role in sports, particularly collegiate sports. So, an interesting ruling. A federal court has --there's been a federal ruling that could have an impact across the country at colleges and universities involving Title IX.
And as you know, Title IX is a 1972 law. It was renamed in 2002. But it mandates equal opportunities for men and women in education and athletics. Under Title IX, the criteria for a sport is that it needs to have coaches, it needs to conduct practices, it needs to have competition. During a defined season, it needs to have an organization.
Now, here are some key points of the case that we're talking on right now. And this involves Quinnipiac University in Connecticut and women sports teams. Last year, Quinnipiac said it's cutting off women's volleyball. It's cutting women's volleyball for budgetary reasons and it would replace it -- in order to maintain its Title IX funding -- with competitive cheerleading. The volleyball coach and some players sued the university, arguing that the school was violating Title IX, it was sort of fudging the rules here.
A judge yesterday ruled that competitive cheerleading is not an official college sport, also ruled that this school was improperly manipulating its roster. We'll get a little bit more on that from our guests.
Now, we got this statement from the university in response to the judge's ruling that it violated Title IX. "The university naturally is disappointed that the court has disallowed competitive cheer as a varsity sport. We will continue to press for competitive cheer to become an officially recognized varsity sport in the future consistent with our longstanding plans to expand opportunities in women's athletics. The university intends to add women's rugby as a varsity sport beginning in the 2011-2012 academic year."
I'll bring somebody in who knows more about this than I do. Joining us from Jacksonville, Florida, now is Nancy Hogshead-Makar. She is the senior director of advocacy for the Women's Sports Foundation. She's also a law professor at the Florida Coastal School of Law. She teaches sports law. She was a collegiate athlete herself.
Nancy, thank you for joining us. I tried as best as I could to explain this situation. What's at the heart of this thing legally?
NANCY HOGSHEAD-MAKAR, WOMEN'S SPORTS FOUNDATION: Sure. Quinnipiac was engaged in a number of practices that actually a lot of schools around the country are also doing. So, it wasn't just the cheerleading issue.
The three main things that they were doing is they were requiring girls but not boys to participate in three sports, so they could say that they were having three separate teams but it's the same kid in each one.
Two, is they were undersizing men's teams intentionally and oversizing women's teams. And that kept Quinnipiac from actually having to start new teams for women.
And then third is, it elevated competitive cheer to being a sport when it's just not ready, just hasn't -- just hasn't developed enough as a sport. The athletes who did compete this past year actually competed under five different sets of rules.
VELSHI: Right. Cheerleading at the college level tends to be clubs. It tends organizations as opposed -- but there's a group of universities that started varsity cheerleading and Quinnipiac was one of them.
HOGSHEAD-MAKAR: Yes, there aren't very many that have started it.
VELSHI: Yes.
HOGSHEAD-MAKAR: And the NCAA does not recognize competitive cheer as even an emerging sport. It's not even on that list yet.
There are a number of steps. In order to have any varsity sport the heart of sports, the OCR, the Office of Civil Rights has said that the heart of sports is competition. And so, you have to have people to compete against.
VELSHI: Right.
HOGSHEAD-MAKAR: So, if you haven't yet developed the sport enough, then there is no competition. There is no real place for them to be able to grow.
VELSHI: You were pointing out a few different things that went on. One of them was the that manipulating of the roster. What's the bigger deal here? Is it that cheer is not a competitive sport or is this other stuff that Quinnipiac was doing?
HOGSHEAD-MAKAR: Well, as I was just saying there are very few schools that actually have competitive cheer on their books as sort of offsetting if you will from boys experiences.
But certainly this roster management is a very common practice. Something that I see a lot of where they tell the women's coach they say you have to keep this very large number of women on their team and tell the men you have to keep the men undersized.
What that does is keeps the school from having to start a new sport for girls. That is sex discrimination when you treat those two very differently. If a team is very, very large, you can imagine they don't have as much coaching time. There aren't as much one-on-one time.
Many times they will have as Quinnipiac did, they had a very large, I think it was 30 women who were on the track and field team, but only I believe it was 16 of them actually traveled to different competitions. So you can have these numbers, but they don't get to do very much. They don't have opportunity to actually be able to participate.
VELSHI: You generally agree with the judge's ruling in this. You've seen this elsewhere. What is the way around this? Because obviously universities have - some universities have funding problems and they want to try and keep their title line eligibility.
What is the best way around this? How do you give people the opportunities that title line designed for them and at the same time manage your budgets.
HOGSHEAD-MAKAR: Well, sure. I think sort of the bigger picture that we always need to keep in mind here is that the research is outstanding at what a sports experience means to both boys and girls, what it means for them for the rest of their lives.
So we need to make sure that girls have those same opportunities. I have a 9-year-old son and 4-year-old twins and, you know, the idea is that anybody should be able to go into an athletic department and be able to say that what is going on here is fair, that they are treated the same way, they get that same educational opportunity.
VELSHI: By the way, you are an Olympic gold medal winner and a swimmer. I didn't give you your full due. Congratulations for that. Nancy, thanks for joining us.
HOGSHEAD-MAKAR: Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it.
VELSHI: The Tea Party, race relations in America and President Obama's job performance. A new CNN poll takes a look at all of it. It is really interesting. We're going to get into it and go between the lines. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We love taking the pulse of the nation here at CNN. CNN Opinion Research Corporation just released a new poll on race, politics and President Obama.
CNN Senior Political analyst, Gloria Borger joins me now live from Washington to get into this a little bit and see what it all means.
Gloria, great to see you. I was poring over this poll. They're big and they're very detailed, trying to sort of get sense out of it. I pulled a few bit out of it.
Let's take a look at this one. The question is how President Obama is handling his job as president. This doesn't have to do with race. It's just an approval/disapproval rating. More people disapprove than approve at the moment.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes and he's kind of hovered around 47, 48, 49, 50-percent point for quite some time now so there's really no surprise in this.
VELSHI: No major deterioration?
BORGER: Pretty much the same. He's always been -- no major. Maybe, you know, just basically pretty much the same.
VELSHI: But, Gloria, going into midterms, what does that mean? I mean, we know that there is a great deal of disapproval of Congress. So the president still for the Democrats is still the leading man in this one?
BORGER: Yes. I mean, the president still polls better than Congress does. But, you know, the president's not up for re-election this time around.
And so Democrats, you know, have a real decision to make which is do they have President Obama into their districts where he may be less popular particularly in moderate districts or do they decide to go it on their own without him?
VELSHI: All right, let's take a look this one. This one really underscores the differences between how different people see the president.
Do you approve of how President Obama is doing his job as president? We divided it up into different categories. Look at that, blacks, 93 percent approved of the president's job as president, Hispanics 57 percent, whites 37 percent. Give me your look into the tea leaves about this one.
BORGER: Well, of course, this is really interesting. African- Americans clearly approve of this president, Hispanics less so. You know, we haven't passed immigration reform yet and I think that's something they are looking for.
But that 37 percent number, that's the number that really worries Democrats as they head into the congressional elections and the folks at the White House because their real problem, Ali, is not with women, but white men.
If they don't win over white male voters particularly the independents some of whom went for Barack Obama in the presidential election. If those voters now become disaffected, it's going to trickle down into congressional races and white men may just decide to vote Republican.
So that - you know, that is a problem the White House has always looked at. Barack Obama has always had a problem with and it continues and gets worse.
VELSHI: And if you wonder whether race relations are getting better or worse in this country, here is a poll question that we repeated from 2008. We asked the same question.
Are relations -- will relations between black and white always be a problem. In 2008, 44 percent of blacks thought so, now 59 percent of blacks think so, 41 percent of whites thought so now 47 percent of whites think so. So everybody thinks there is less of a future for harmonious relations.
BORGER: Well, you know, of course, the irony is - I mean, I think people were much more optimistic when we elected our first African-American president particularly African-Americans were more optimistic.
Look at the week we have just been through with Shirley Sherrod for example. So you can understand in many ways why African- Americans are feeling a little less optimistic about race relations in America.
I think there was a sense once we elected our first African- American president that some of these issues would disappear. And, of course, they haven't disappeared and, you know, there are some folks who believe that Barack Obama ought to take on race more directly as he did with Reverend Wright during the campaign.
And some say, you know what, he is president of the United States. He is president of all people. He cannot do that. It is a very hard balance for him to strike.
VELSHI: Interesting polling, interesting study. Gloria, great to see you as always. Thank you. BORGER: Good to see you.
VELSHI: Gloria Borger, our CNN Senior Political analyst. Listen, if anyone has earned their retirement, it is this guy. Hanging it up at age 79. I will tell you who he is when we go "Globe Trekking" right after this.
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VELSHI: You know those people who keep retiring from their jobs, but never end up stopping work. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa is one of them. He says he is retiring again. I want to take you "Globe Trekking" here.
He had retired. He retired as the archbishop of Cape Town in 1996. He was part of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He retired from that in 1998. One wouldn't think he's got anything to retire from, but he's 79 years old or he's going to be 79 in October and he says he is stepping down from public life.
He is a Nobel Peace prize laureate. He was an active anti- apartheid activist. He is known for his fantastic smile, great sense of humor and his remarkable laugh. During the fight against Apartheid, he was one of the few people who could actually speak because he was a member of the church.
Desmond Tutu says that he has not been growing old gracefully. He says, it's time to slow down, sip some tea, watch some cricket and visit his kids and grandkids. He will devote one day a week to work of the elders, which is a council of statesmen and women working on the world's biggest problem.
And he said to reporters, no more interviews after October. Don't call me, I will call you. Let's take it over to Tehran now. See. Whenever I touch this board funny things happen. Let's go to Tehran.
Do you remember that whacky story last week about an Iranian double agent. He's a nuclear scientists who said he was kidnapped by the CIA, then he said he wasn't, then he was. OK, so the take out of Tehran now, the semiofficial take it was all part of an Iranian master plan.
The news agency says that Iranian intelligence orchestrated his U.S. odyssey and it worked to perfection. He provided valuable intelligence about the CIA. Unnamed U.S. officials, however, are calling the claim a joke.
I want to take you -- there is his picture. I want to take you to Great Britain now. A story that I don't really fully get because I can't really get it to go there. Stonehenge, you all know about Stonehenge, right?
Well, apparently, there has been another discovery at Stonehenge. Using ground penetrating radar and other technology, archaeologists have found another henge structure. See if I can move this. They found another henge structure that's believed to be about 4,500 years old.
Stonehenge is right there. It's nearly by except this one this structure is believed to be made of wood. They're going to have to dig it up. It appears to be a circular ditch, surrounded -- this is underground.
It seems to be circular. It has smaller circles inside where the timbers would have stood. Scientist say it's the biggest Stonehenge find in 50 years. Here is a rendition of it, by the way. It's sort of Stonehenge E if you're into that sort of thing.
OK, Arizona, we have been there all day. Taking Arizona to court, that is what civil rights groups and the Obama administration are doing right now. Two hearings, right now, a week to go before the state's tough immigration law kicks in and the challenges have started picking up. We are following it in detail. We'll have more for you when we come back.
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VELSHI: We've got a lot going on this afternoon. I want to go to straight to Port Fourchon, Louisiana. That's Doug Suttles. He's the chief operating officer of BP. Let's listen in.
DOUG SUTTLES, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, BP: People like this who were dedicating themselves to make this better and fixing this problem. So the real purpose of the trip was to say thank you to these guys.
Just a few comments about what's going on in our activities. There will be more briefs later. I think Admiral Allen is going to speak fairly soon. BP will do its normal technical brief as well. So you'll get more details as the day goes on.
But probably the big issue at the moment is the weather. As you know, there is a storm brewing. We are working closely with NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to determine will it build into a storm and what path will it take?
Because as we've explained numerous times if we have a storm that threatens the - either the Gulf Coast we are working on or out at the site, we have to take actions because we have to make sure the people are safe. That is the first priority.
So we are in constant contact with the National Hurricane Center and with NOAA and with others as we plan our activities. But right now, we are having some delays as we prepare for the weather, but our planning and our contingencies are still in place.
And working with the Coast Guard, local and state authorities we have an extensive severe weather plan so I'm confident that will work. Of course, it was a week ago today we got the capping stack in place and closed it in. Once again, this vessel and this crew played a critical role in that.
It has been a week since we've had any new oil flow into the Gulf. When you fly over the Gulf of Mexico, you see a dramatic difference over the last week. Just to give you some sense of that, the week before we got the capping stack on, we were seeing skimming volumes everyday of approaching 25,000 barrels.
Every day since we have had it on, they have dropped and yesterday, we only skimmed 56 barrels. A great deal of the oil that was on the surface has been collected or naturally dispersed in help from mother nature so things are looking better.
But we should recognize that our capability to fight this spill is still as big as it has ever been. We almost have 800 skimmers available to us today.
Lastly, I would just mention we are far from finished. We have clearly made progress offshore, but we've got much more to do offshore. We will be pursuing with approval with Admiral Allen and the government, we hope to pursue the static kill when the weather allows us to do that.
We have to finish the relief well. We have to finish getting the oil on the water. We have a lot of work to restore the Gulf. So the point about all of that is we will be here for a very long time. We are absolutely committed to this cleanup and this response and this restoration activity.
So with the great progress we've seen over the last week, there is a lot more work to do and we'll be here a very long time. So with that, I would be happy to take any of your questions.
VELSHI: OK, that's BP Chief Operation Officer Doug Suttles. Obviously our crews are listening to this. There are a lot of these press conferences and we're on top of them and we will bring you any new information as it comes to you.
But once in a while we want to dip in just to see if they've got anything remarkable and different to say. Doug Suttles did say it's been a week since there has been oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and that they're testing continues.
OK, we've got this great big eye coming up for you. This one is truly fascinating. If you want to take a trip into space, it won't cost you $20 million anymore. It won't even cost you $1 million. Your journey to the stars could be getting a whole lot cheaper. I'm going to tell you about it when we come back.
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VELSHI: It should come as no surprise that we like space around here. Every day we bring you something called the big I, a big idea that's going to take us further and change the way we do things. Let's talk about space for a second.
There are two kinds of space travel. There's orbital space travel, which we're used to with the space shuttle. You go into space and orbit around. You stay there as long as you want to stay there and then you have to make some effort to actually get back into the atmosphere and land and that's an expensive deal. It's $20 million, $35 million or more.
Then there's suborbital space travel. That basically requires a quick hop into space, you know, flight time is about two hours or so. You're only in space itself, beyond the atmosphere for a little while, but it's a lot cheaper.
And in the case of the one I'm going to tell you about, it could be about $200,000, about six people on the flight and could be coming to you very shortly.
Now, let's talk about commercial space flights. The first sort of sub orbital spacecraft that we saw was called "Spaceship 1." It was brought to you by Virgin Galactic. It was part of the X prize back in 2004. It was the winner of that prize and that "Spaceship 1" now hangs in the Smithsonian.
The second spaceship, "Spaceship 2" is completing test flying this week and I want to bring in George Whiteside. He's the CEO of Virgin Galactic. Joining us now to tell us about how close we actually are to suborbital commercial space travel that I might be able to buy a ticket on.
George, welcome to the show. Tell us about it.
GEORGE WHITESIDES, CEO, VIRGIN GALACTIC, PART OF VIRGIN GROUP: Thanks very much. Well, yes, I mean, this is an exciting thing. This is sort of the new space age. This moment when space is open to a much larger audience of people, people who previously couldn't afford space travel are soon going to be able to take their own trip to space and Virgin Galactic is excited to be able to do that.
VELSHI: All right and $200,000 roughly is that what you're estimating it's going to cost per person, six people in the shuttle?
WHITESIDES: Yes, that's exactly right. So it's $200,000 and we have over 350 folks who have put down a deposit on that ticket. And you know, that shows the tremendous amount of interest that there is out there for people to actually get a chance to go into space.
VELSHI: When is the first flight going to be?
WHITESIDES: Well, you know, we don't give out a date. We want to make sure the test flight program has plenty of time to do what it needs to make sure that we have very safe vehicles.
But, you know, what we can say is we're about to enter the glide test phase of our test flight program. Right after that will be the rocket-powered phase where we actually are testing out the rocket motor and then we're going to be going into space with commercial service soon after that.
So I think, you know, we plan to be going into space next year.
VELSHI: What do you get for the $200,000? Do you only get a few minutes technically in space, but the ride takes a while? WHITESIDES: Well, that's exactly right. You know, I mean, I think the way that we like to think about it is that we're fulfilling people's dreams to go into space.
The experience that they'll have is, of course, several days of training, astronaut training where they're able to go through, you know, the various tests and acclimatizing procedures to make sure that they're ready to take advantage of this amazing once in a lifetime experience that they're going to have.
Then when the big day comes, they'll get in the spaceship, which will be carried up to about 50,000 feet with our carrier vehicle called "White Knight 2." The vehicle is then released at about 50,000 --
VELSHI: Just kind of interrupt you for a second because we've got all these developments at the White House. Hang with me for a second. Let's just go to the White House right now. The briefing is beginning with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
ROBERT GIBBS, PRESS SECRETARY: Is there a parliamentarian -- any objections? Go ahead, I'm sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. The president has expressed to Miss Sherrod his regret. Is it accurate to say that he apologized? Personally apologized?
GIBBS: Yes. Reclaiming your time?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he lobby for her to take her job back or take a new job?
GIBBS: Look, that was not what the call was about and not what happened on the call. Obviously, the president said as to readout discusses that she has a unique set of experiences and a unique opportunity to continue using those experiences to help people.
That's what he said to her and obviously a decision about what she's going to do is up to her, and I think she is supposed to talk with the Department of Agriculture at some point today.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She did accept his apology?
GIBBS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe I missed this, but why couldn't she just have her old job back?
GIBBS: I would point you to USDA in terms of -- they're handling the jobs discussions with Sherrod. I would say that - I think what Secretary Vilsack offered was something that allows her to, again, as the president said, use some unique experiences to help root out what we know is a long -- a department that has struggled with discrimination. She's a plaintiff in the Pickford discrimination case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the president invite her to the White House?
GIBBS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it clear why the president wasn't able to reach her yesterday? Apparently, he tried and she's been all over TV, why wasn't she reachable?
GIBBS: It may have been because she was all over TV. The White House operator tried on at least two occasions last night and was both unable to reach her and unable to leave a voice mail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the White House comfortable with the fact that she has been on a lot of television shows?
GIBBS: She's free to do and say what every other person in the country is free to do and say.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would like to ask you about energy.
GIBBS: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator Kerry said it could be very tough to get the energy bill passed, and there's been talk that it could be scaled down and become more of a referendum on offshore drilling. I was wondering what response you had to that, and also any comment on what chances do you think there is of getting the bill done?
GIBBS: Well, I will say, you know, that I think that Senator Reid is, and Carol Brown and other members of the administration are on the Hill now with Democratic senators to discuss how best to move forward on energy legislation and --
