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Iranian President Faults U.S. for 9/11; Stephen Colbert Goes to Washington; Field Workers for a Day; CNN Poll Spells Trouble for Dems/Tweeting Over Facebook Outage
Aired September 24, 2010 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Don Lemon. Tony is off today. It's the top of the hour right here in the CNN NEWSROOM and of course, anything can happen. Here are some of the people behind today's top stories.
Immigrants work in the fields for owners. They say Americans don't want those jobs, well will a celebrity comedian's appearance on Capitol Hill change anything about their lives?
A group of economists declared this week that the recession ended more than a year ago. What do you have to say about that?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess the top economists don't live in the typical communities everybody else lives in. I think the recession is ongoing. I think there's some communities it's more like a depression.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: You are online right now and we are, too. Josh Levs, of course, following what's hot.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, you know, what? The U.S. and more than a dozen other countries are holding an earthquake drill today to see how effective social media can be n helping. Details are here from signonsandeigo.com.
LEMON: All right, thank you, sir.
Let's get started right now with our lead story, a strong reaction today from President Obama to the Iranian president's controversial remarks at the United Nations.
Mahmoud Ahminedjad faulted the United States for 9/11.
CNN's Dan Lothian is with us now from New York.
Strong words. Tough words, Dan.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And no surprise, because Mahmoud Ahminedjad has sort of made a career of making outrageous comments. And yet again, he makes these comments about the United States being responsible for 9/11.
The president reacting to those comments. I'll tell you about that in just a second, but let's take a listen to what he said yesterday here in New York.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): -- that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime. The majority of the American people, as well as most nations and politicians around the world, agree with this view.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOTHIAN: Now, President Obama, in an interview with BBC Persia, which will be airing at 1:00 Eastern Time, said the following: "Well, it was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as a seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable."
The reason why President Obama sat down for this interview with BBC Persia, according to White House officials, is that he wanted to speak directly to the Iranian people, because what this administration is trying to say to all of the people in Iran is that the U.S. wants to engage, wants to make sure what their nuclear -- what their nuclear ambitions are, are simply for peaceful purposes, that the U.S. doesn't have a problem at all with the people themselves. And so the president really wanted to reach out to the Iranian people in a very personal way.
That's the reason he sat down for this interview, was asked the question, and then reacted to those comments that Ahminedjad made yesterday -- Don.
LEMON: White House Correspondent Dan Lothian joining us from New York.
Dan, thank you very much.
We're going to stick with politics right now, and really a comedian, a funny man, but a serious subject. The two collided just today on Capitol Hill.
Comedian Stephen Colbert appeared before an a congressional subcommittee focusing on immigrant farm labor, but what lawmakers got was Colbert's satirical take on that issue.
CNN's congressional correspondent Dana Bash joins us now live from Capitol Hill with what happened.
I imagine you've gotten some reaction now, Dana. What are lawmakers saying about Stephen Colbert? DANA BASH, CNN SR. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was very interesting. John Conyers, who is the chairman of the full committee that held this hearing, he, during this hearing, surprised even the woman who was actually chairing it, the subcommittee woman, Zoe Lofgren, by saying that he wanted Stephen Colbert to leave. Before he even opened his mouth, he said, "I think you should leave."
And I just ran into Mr. Conyers just moments ago, and I said, "Why did you say that?" Because it was a little bit confusing. And he said, "Because I thought it was going to be a circus."
And I said, "Well, was it a circus?" And he said actually said, "No." At the end of the day, he thought that what Stephen Colbert said was "profound."
And the issue that we're talking about here and the issue that he came to testify about is the whole question of migrant workers, jobs in the agriculture sector, farm jobs in particular, seasonal jobs, and whether or not there should be a guest worker program to allow illegal workers to stay here legally to do these jobs, because as many Democrats on this panel argue, that they're doing jobs Americans won't do because the wages are too low.
That is the nub of the discussion. That is certainly what was going on in a very serious way, for the most part, when Stephen Colbert wasn't talking. But he did, at the very end, add his two cents on this issue. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDIAN: So, what's the answer? I'm a free market guy. Normally, I would leave this to the invisible hand of the market, but the invisible hand of the market has already moved over 84,000 acres of production and over 22,000 farm jobs to Mexico, and shut down over a million acres of U.S. farmland due to lack of available labor, because, apparently, even the invisible hand doesn't want to pick beans.
Now, I'm not a fan of the government doing anything, but I've got to ask, why isn't the government doing anything? Maybe this ag jobs bill would help. I don't know. Like most members of Congress, I haven't read it.
But maybe we could offer more visas to the immigrants who, let's face it, will probably be doing these jobs anyway. And this improved legal status might allow immigrants recourse if they're abused. And it just stands to reason to me that if your coworker can't be exploited, then you're less likely to be exploited yourself, and that itself might improve pay and working conditions on these farms, and eventually Americans may consider taking these jobs again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: That was actually Stephen Colbert's opening statement. And it probably goes without saying, Don, this was an incredibly controversial decision by Zoe Lofgren to invite Stephen Colbert here.
They actually went to the same farm in New York to go out with the farm workers to see what it was like to be a migrant worker. That's why she said she wanted him to come here.
But she told me coming in, before this even started, she wasn't clear which Colbert was going to show up, whether he was going to come as the satirical character that we know, satirist that we know and we see every night on television, or whether or not he was going to come and just be serious on the issue. And he certainly did surprise all of the panel by throwing out his written statement that he had submitted earlier, which was kind of milquetoast, and instead giving that and much, much more, which was more classic Colbert -- Don.
LEMON: Yes. I think the answer is we got to see both. We got to see both.
Dana Bash, thank you. We really appreciate your reporting.
(NEWSBREAK)
Mideast peace or dire consequences. A leader predicts what will happen if the current round of talks fails.
First though, our "Random Moment" in 90 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right. That is the way the ball bounces during a "Random Moment of the Day."
I want you to take a look at this.
You know what? That is the world's largest dodgeball game -- 1,745 college students jammed a gym at the University Of California, Irvine to smash the Guinness World Record. They trumped the old mark of 1,200 dodgeball players set by Canadians.
And that's the ballgame. That's the "Random Moment of the Day." It would have been better if they had done it at Global Gym, right?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Expect another war if the current round of Mideast peace talks fails. Well, that dire warning from Jordan's King Abdullah. A major sticking point in the talks is the issue of Israeli settlement- building in the West Bank. A moratorium expires Sunday, and the next round of talks could start soon after that.
King Abdullah says if the settlement issue is not resolved, the talks are likely to collapse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN: The discussions we had in Washington started out better than any of us could have expected. Both sides have made a lot of ground. And if the issue of settlements is still on the table on the 30th, then everybody walks away.
And if they do, how are we going to be able to get people back to the table? And I don't see that happening in the near future. So, if we fail on the 30th, expect another war by the end of the year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, the White House has called for extending the moratorium on settlement-building.
Harvesting grapes in the hot sun, it is tough work, often done by immigrant laborers. Comedian Stephen Colbert went to Capitol Hill today to talk farm work and immigrant labor. He gave a satirical statement about his days spent picking beans and packing corn.
CNN National Correspondent Gary Tuchman takes a more serious look at a day spent with immigrant workers in the field.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before dawn, migrant laborers in the California desert. Despite triple-digit temperatures still to come, they wear long sleeves, scarves and bandanas to protect themselves from the sun and from dust.
Their job today? To pick the purple grapes you will snack on tomorrow. They're all veterans, and they're all Mexican, except for me --
(on camera): Me llamo Gary.
(voice-over): -- the rookie American who is joining them for a full day of work, the only person in short sleeves, the only person who doesn't know what he's doing.
But I have been assigned a partner.
(on camera): Como se llama?
BENJAMIN RODRIGUEZ, MIGRANT WORKER: Benjamin.
TUCHMAN: Benjamin?
RODRIGUEZ: Benjamin.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Benjamin Rodriguez has worked in the California fields for 32 years. He knows his grapes, which are called "uvas" in Spanish, and he is teaching me the trade.
(on camera): Here's what I'm learning. You have got to get rid of the green ones, but sometimes the green ones are way down. And if you miss them, and they get to the grocery store, and then you go to the grocery store to buy grapes and see green ones, you will complain to the store. The store will complain to the ranch, and the ranch will complain to me, the worker. (voice-over): You make $8 an hour, minimum wage, and split 30 cents per each big box of grapes you pack between three workers. The third is Benjamin's wife, Maria, who is loading up the grapes for the grocery store.
She tells me it makes her back hurt and it's hot, "But we have to work hard. It puts food on the table. We have to do it."
(on camera): Benjamin is my partner today. If I don't work fast, I cost him money. So, there's some pressure. It's not just doing a story.
(voice-over): Maria and Benjamin have five children, two of them grown. They, like all the other workers here, won't discuss their immigration status.
But, if you're legal, you would usually seek a less punishing occupation. Either way, taxes are taken out of all the paychecks. They each make a base rate of $64 for the day. After taxes, it's about 45 bucks for the eight hours.
As the hours go by, the workers sing to help make time pass, to take their minds off the heat. They're aware many people believe Mexican immigrants take away American jobs, but, over the years on this ranch --
(on camera): (SPEAKING SPANISH)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
I asked him how many Americans he has seen in then his 32 years in the field. He has said zero.
(voice-over): Santos Montemayor is the man who does the hiring in these fields.
(on camera): So, for 15 years, you have been hiring labor crews to do agricultural work.
SANTOS MONTEMAYOR, LABOR CONTRACTOR: Right.
TUCHMAN: How many Americans have you hired over the 15 or 16 years?
MONTEMAYOR: None, not one.
TUCHMAN: I mean, has one ever expressed interest?
MONTEMAYOR: No. Not since I have been working the fields, no.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): The temperature has now climbed to 102.
(on camera): As it gets hotter and the sun gets brighter, your mind starts playing tricks with you. Is it purple? Is it green? You start not being able to make out the colors any more. These are purple, though. (voice-over): The trucks start getting loaded up with the grapes we're picking. I'm doing some wheelbarrow duty, which can't be good for the back.
(on camera): I realized before this day started this work would be hard. What I didn't realize is just how monotonous it would be. These people do it six days a week.
(voice-over): I've never looked at my watch so much. And it's not even lunch-time yet. (on camera): Delicious grapes. Hot off the vine.
(voice-over): The afternoon goes slower than the morning. Benjamin stays on top of me to get rid of the green grapes. At 2:30 p.m., eight and a half hours of a we started, our final load of grapes.
(on camera): This is the last.
(voice-over): It's quitting time and it's a mass exodus. Benjamin, Maria and I have done 100 boxes. That's a $30 bonus for the two of them. I wish Benjamin and Maria luck and they head home as quickly as possible. They have to do it all over again at 6:00 a.m.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Galeno (ph), California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. This just in to the CNN NEWSROOM, and it involves actress Lindsay Lohan. It's just coming off the wire.
So we know that she was in court today in Beverly Hills. There she is entering court earlier. Entering court, but then she left and was sent directly to jail because the judge there has ordered her to remain in jail without bail until October 27th, when there will be a probation hearing.
She was taken from the courtroom in handcuffs, we are told. She was in court this morning because she failed a drug test and the judge revoked her probation earlier in this week and ordered a bench warrant for her arrest.
All of this stemming back to 2007, when she was on probation for drunk driving, a drunk driving conviction. And then she went to drug rehab earlier this year, and she was told that she had to get her act together and stay off drugs.
She failed a drug test recently. The judge ordered her into court. And then today, he is ordering her to jail until October 27th, no bail.
Lindsay Lohan, in cuffs, behind bars.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT) LEMON: Wait no longer. You can go ahead and exhale right now, because Terry McMillan stops by CNN to talk about her new book, the sequel to her 1992 bestseller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WAITING TO EXHALE")
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The one man I love is married with a kid. And there's my life in one little sad nutshell.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Men do leave their wives.
(END VIDEO CLIP, "WAITING TO EXHALE")
LEMON: The ladies commiserating.
Guys, you know you're in trouble when that happens.
But they are back -- Savannah, Berndine, Gloria and Robin -- characters we first met almost two decades ago. Getting to happy is what we're doing in today's "What Matters" segment. Terry McMillan pens the next chapter of the best-selling novel and movie "Waiting to Exhale." And our Fredricka Whitfield sat down with the author to talk about the sequel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: People have been waiting to know if there was going to be something, a sequel to "Waiting to Exhale." And so here we are, "Getting to Happy."
What happened in your life or in these women's lives that you felt like it was time to see what's happened 15 years after?
TERRY MCMILLAN, AUTHOR: Well, it wasn't what happened to them. It was due to what happened to me.
I had no intention of writing a sequel. After my divorce, I was really bitter and angry, and I started meeting a lot of other women in my age group, mid-40s to late 50s, who were just sad.
And so, in trying to explore what it might take for us to get back to happy, so to speak, I just came up with four different scenarios that I know a lot of women have to deal with. I realized that I had already told a story with four female protagonists, and then I realized that those women were the perfect candidates for this story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WAITING TO EXHALE")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll be 21 on my next birthday, so that makes me 20. And you are?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Forty.
(END VIDEO CLIP, "WAITING TO EXHALE")
WHITFIELD: When people read "Stella Got Her Groove Back," they thought that was your experience, but then you shared that deception.
So it was interesting, because you talk about you were in a place. You were upset. Your husband wasn't what you thought he was.
Why is it you made a decision, I'm going to do a continuation of these women's lives, as opposed to write specifically about what happened to me?
MCMILLAN: Even telling the story of Stella, only about 95 percent of that did not happen. But I was compelled to tell the story, and I knew that to some extent that nothing is promised.
When he decided to tell me what he thought he was, and I said, I know what thinking means, and then, of course, all the other ugly stuff started coming out -- when you've been deceived, when you've been lied to from someone that you trusted, I don't care who they are. When it happens, you don't care. You're just angry.
WHITFIELD: At what point did you say, you know what, I'm tired of being mad?
MCMILLAN: I was swearing a lot. I was grinding my teeth. And it was not who I was. And it just started dawning on me how much energy it takes to be angry.
I have since forgiven my ex-husband, and we are actually friends now. I don't think you allow your past to destroy your present.
Even writing this book, you know what? Hold up a minute here. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to have some joy in my life. And this story, I wanted to try to dramatize what happens when you do, and when you don't rely on someone else for all of your happiness.
WHITFIELD: It sounds as though you've sprinkled your life, your experiences, into all of these women's lives in some capacity.
MCMILLAN: I take observations and personalize them through my characters. And it doesn't mean that it had to have happened to me. But when I write it through these characters, through their eyes and through their hearts, it feels like it did.
WHITFIELD: Is this likely to be a movie?
MCMILLAN: Well, 20th Century Fox bought the movie rights about five months ago, before it was actually a book. And before you ask, three of the four women seem to be very, very interested in reprising their roles, and we are praying and hoping that Whitney will, too.
WHITFIELD: So, to kind of summarize with these women, Savannah, she's kind of the first character you tackle. What's the breaking point for Savannah? How does she get to this point on this journey of getting to happy?
MCMILLAN: She just discovered something about his behavior that I think sort of angered her. Not anything that was as deep as finding out that your husband is gay. And she just decides to take a risk on herself and take a risk on even going solo. But she is not, nor have I, given up on love or men.
WHITFIELD: Gloria?
MCMILLAN: Gloria just -- she has experienced a different kind of a loss that I don't want to say. She has to go through her own form of grief and just start to begin to heal her life.
WHITFIELD: And Bernadine?
MCMILLAN: She has forgiven her first ex-husband for the way he treated her. They are actually friends in this story. But Bernadine has had an experience that has made her bitter, and so she has to learn a lot of things in terms of forgiving herself and forgiving other people.
WHITFIELD: And Robin?
MCMILLAN: Robin tried to be a good single parent, and her attitude is that you should look for a man the same you do a good pair of black pumps. Keep trying them on until you find the one that fits.
(LAUGHTER)
WHITFIELD: And so these women are now breathing?
MCMILLAN: I would like to think they are, yes.
WHITFIELD: Not just exhaling, but they're breathing?
MCMILLIAN: No. You can exhale more than once.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: And to read more of "What Matters" to all of us, make sure to pick up the latest issue of "Essence" magazine. It is on newsstands right now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Oh, we know. Josh Levs. Money.
So, why don't we talk some money as -- he's laughing over there. Let's talk money. CNNmoney.com.
The big headline here: "The bulls are back." Stocks are surging. That's what CNNmoney.com says. Let's look at it. Let's see. The Dow is up 180 points right. NASDAQ, 44. Up 44.
The recession officially ended 14 months ago, right? But it doesn't feel that way to a lot Americans facing high unemployment and a crippled housing mark. A lot of us -- a lot of us -- are in that category.
CNNmoney.com's Poppy Harlow joins us now from New York. Poppy, a lot of skepticism about whether the recession is really over. People just aren't feeling it.
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: Not at all. Look, earlier this week, we got sort of the technical definition of the end of the recession from a group of economists who say it ended 14 months ago. Not the case across the country. Even Warren Buffett in an interview this week saying he doesn't really think the recession is over when it comes to how the average person in this country is feeling.
Take a look at these numbers. Probably not a surprise to you by now, but we have about 15 million people in this country out of work. Some of them for more than a year. And about 9 million people that are underemployed, not making enough just to get by.
When you talk to people across this country as we did from California to the Midwest to New York, their personal recession is anything but over. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess the top economists don't live in the same communities everybody else lives in. I think the recession is ongoing. I think for some communities, it's more like depression.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's nowhere near over. I do some inspections for people, housing inspections and I feel that the market -- it's going to take four or five years to recover.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a law student right now so until I get a job or get a job interview, it's not over.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a master's degree and haven't found a job yet. I graduated in May, and I'm working retail. And I also -- my other roommates work retail and we live paycheck to paycheck.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jobs are very hard to get, and a lot of people don't want to get jobs because they're getting too much given to them for not working.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look around. I don't know. I don't see many people here at the restaurants. It may be coming back, but it's coming back slow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Coming back slow to say the least, Don. And you know, the government's sort of unprecedented efforts here to put Americans back to work, a more than $7 billion stimulus package. Just this week, a $42 billion bill to aid small businesses. That was just passed.
And finally, the big question, what is the private sector going to do? They're the engine of job growth in this country. What we know is that they've got $1.7 trillion. These companies have cash on the sideline. They're not hiring. They don't know what their taxes are going to be. They don't know what the overall economic situation is going to be. But the private sector needs to start hiring for this recession to feel like it's over, Don.
LEMON: And from those people you talked to, real talk. Real talk there. Thank you, Poppy Harlow.
HARLOW: Real people. Yes.
LEMON: Two bizarre medical mysteries. Two of them. The doctor detectives, they find answers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Let's take a look at your top stories right now.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, taking a swipe at the GOP's Pledge to America. Last hour, she branded House Republicans' promise of what's to come if they win control of Congress. She said it's showboating.
Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg says he is donating $100 million toward improving public schools in Newark, New Jersey. The social network guru is 26 years old and has an estimated net worth of almost $7 billion.
Actress and bad girl Lindsay Lohan is heading back to jail. A judge has ordered her to remain in custody without bail until a probation violation hearing on October 22nd. The judge revoked her probation earlier this week and signed a warrant for her arrest. Lohan has admitted failing a drug test during her probation.
All week long, our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, took us inside the National Institutes of Health Undiagnosed Diseases Program. He introduced us to a six-year-old girl with debilitating twitches and tremors, and a 53-year-old mom whose muscles are painfully growing out of control. Now Dr. Gupta shows us if the doctor detectives have solved either of these baffling medical mysteries.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No one -- no doctors, no specialists, no researchers -- could explain what was happening to Sally Massagee. At 53, her muscles had grown grotesquely large and hard, like rocks underneath her skin.
SALLY MASSAGEE, PATIENT: It became increasingly difficult just to walk. At some point I knew if it continued it would kill me.
GUPTA: Steroids were ruled out so, no explanation, no diagnosis. That's why she was accepted into the Undiagnosed Diseases Program, the UDP here at the NIH.
DR. WILLIAM GAHL, UNDIAGNOSED DISEASES PROGRAM, NIH: Trying to put this together is a difficult thing.
GUPTA: Dr. William Gahl runs the program.
(on camera): For a lot of patients, as we're, you know investigating this, really got the sense that this ends up being a place of last hope or last resort for them. That's a lot of pressure.
GAHL: It is. We try to be realistic about it and get our patients to be realistic about the issues, too.
You've been to the best places in the country. Now you're coming here. We only have a 10 to 15 percent success rate, so I don't want you to get your hopes up really too, too high. But on the other hand, we don't want to take all hope away.
GUPTA (voice-over): For one week, Dr. Gahl's team of world- class medical experts probe and collect exhaustive scans, blood work and a tissue sample from Sally's bicep.
GAHL: We do, like, the sort of detective work but remember, a lot of detective work takes place after the patients have gone.
GUPTA: After five days, the patients go home. And despite the odds against success, they are less desperate.
MASSAGEE: I took that disclaimer and I heard it, and I still had a strong dose of hope.
GUPTA: What would be months of an exhaustive search for clues to solve Sally's mystery was just beginning.
GAHL: Bottom line, the bones are not involved, it's not acromegaly. It's just confined to the muscle. What in the world could this be?
GUPTA: It's also what everyone is asking about 6-year-old Kylie McPeak.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you doing today?
GUPTA: Shortly before her fourth birthday, the mystery began. Something was attacking her body.
KYLIE MCPEAK, PATIENT: I have to eat. I have to do shots.
GUPTA: How serious is Kylie?
GAHL: Well, she's, I would say, real serious. I think that she has a disorder that will threaten her life. It's essentially the issue here. We're sort of racing against time.
GUPTA: Kylie has already been at the UDP for a week.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And swallow.
GUPTA: Dr. Gahl and his team have been sifting through all the data they've amassed on her.
(on camera): Do you have a diagnosis for Kylie?
GAHL: We don't have a diagnosis, no. But we have a few good leads.
GUPTA: For a time they suspected a rare brain disorder called epilepsia partialis continua. It affects the brain's motor strength (ph). But as tests came back, clues showed the electrical charges in Kylie's brain were not coming from just one area but, in fact, from all over. So they were back to square one.
GAHL: You try to differentiate whether this is something that was genetic or something environmental, in other words, that happened to her. Really that's the dichotomy here.
GUPTA: In time, an analysis of Kylie's DNA revealed the genetic clue. They found a mutation in a particular gene that makes a protein called laforin.
(on camera): Is it possible that what we're talking about here with regard to Kylie is truly something that's never been described before?
GAHL: It's very possible.
GUPTA: Brand-new.
GAHL: A brand-new mutation and maybe identifying a gene that is -- is not known previously to cause a human disease.
GUPTA: Back home in Reno, Nevada, Gina and Steven are trying to focus on enjoying the time they have as a family. Although Kylie is deteriorating, she's happy.
STEVEN MCPEAK, KYLIE'S FATHER: Maybe someday we'll get that phone call, "Hey, we think we might know what it is."
GUPTA: In Bethesda, Maryland, the doctors at the undiagnosed diseases program are digging deeper into that genetic clue. They're doing a DNA analysis of Kylie's parents and sisters. They know it is now a race.
GAHL: Every new case that comes to us brings with it a human story. I think the important thing is for us as professionals to look at the successes that we have and to try to not dwell on the failures we have, because we fail so often.
GUPTA: But not always. Luckily for Sally Massagee, the experts at the UDP solved her mystery.
MASSAGEE: I expected miracles from them and they gave them to me.
GUPTA: The tissue sample hit the jackpot. In the Congo-red (ph) staining of the biopsy, scientists at the UDP found the presence of amyloid, abnormal proteins that come from cells in the bone marrow.
GAHL: That was a huge hit for us.
GUPTA: Mystery solved. The diagnosis -- AL amyloidosis. It is a rare disease in which proteins deposit themselves in a patient's organs or tissues. Sally's was a mystery because the proteins here manifested in her skeletal muscles.
(on camera): You get mysteries you don't solve and you get mysteries you solve. This is one that you get to put a check in the solved column?
GAHL: Yes, yes, it is.
GUPTA: That's got to be a pretty good feeling.
GAHL: It was the best. Basically it's -- it sort of justifies our existence.
GUPTA (voice-over): But for Sally, a diagnosis meant only that now she had a chance for survival. There is no cure for this disease.
In June of last year at the Mayo Clinic, she underwent chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant in the fight of her life.
MASSAGEE: There were times in the process when I thought it was real possible I would die.
GUPTA: Today, Sally Massagee is far from 100 percent.
BUDDY MASSAGEE, SALLY'S HUSBAND: Every day she's a little bit stronger, and every day she walks a little bit further. You just sort of have to smile because these are things that were inconceivable a year ago.
GUPTA: Doctors don't know if Sally's body will ever return to what it was like before the disease struck. But for Sally, that's not what's important.
MASSAGEE: I was cooking last week one night in the kitchen and everybody was around you and they're singing and Louie Armstrong came on the radio singing, "What a Wonderful World", and I just started to cry, because those routine, ordinary moments of life are so wonderful and are so precious. And I have them, and I'm so grateful. At my age, they not only found it but they found it just in time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: A new CNN poll may spell trouble for Democrats. Your "CNN Equals Politics" update straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: It is about that time again. It's time for your "CNN Equals Politics" update. Our senior political editor, Mark Preston, "The Best Political Team on Television," joins us now live from Washington. Mark, what do you have for us?
MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR: Well, Don, before we get to some real serious news, look who -- I have a friend here who's in town for the Stephen Colbert testimony. It's Pete Dominic (ph). He actually used to work for Stephen Colbert as his warm-up comedian. He actually went up to hear Mr. Colbert testify today on the Hill. Now, he doesn't -- he can't hear you, Don. He's going to give me three words, though. Pete Dominic's going to tell me what he thought the testimony looked like today.
PETE DOMINIC, COMEDIAN: Hey, Don. I'll give you three words. Impactful and important -- that's two -- hilarious --
PRESTON: All right, that's it. That's three.
DOMINIC: -- and -- but some might say inappropriate. I say I love him!
PRESTON: Well, there we go. So --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: He needs to learn how to count.
PRESTON: Yes, well, Pete certainly --
(CROSSTALK)
PRESTON: Yes, he needs to go back to math class. You'll see more of Pete Tonight on "JOHN KING USA." Pete on the street, and of course, our own Dana Bash was there, as well. So Chuck Todd, CNN --
LEMON: Settle down, Pete.
PRESTON: He's getting applause.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Settle down now.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESTON: All right, let's get to the real news, as they say. Bad news for Democrats. Perhaps they want Pete back. The new CNN Opinion Research Corporation poll is out. The generic ballot shows that Republicans have a 9-point lead right now over Democrats. We have 39 days until the mid-term elections. Of course, last hour, we told you that President Obama's approval rating is at 42 percent. Two good numbers for Republicans, two bad numbers for Democrats.
Moving on, Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, is motoring across the country, 48 states, doing a little campaigning. He'll be back here -- be back in Annapolis on October 29th. Our own Peter Handy (ph) has a story up. Some people think it's a good idea that he's out doing it. Other people think that it's a waste of money. But you really got to read that story on CNNpolitics.com.
And you know, Don, who needs Colbert? Maybe Pete on the street does, but I've got you some Gaga. Kareen Wynter from HLN has got you some Gaga. In fact, Kareen has a story up on HLN right now where she looks into what role Lady Gaga's playing in the political realm right now, in this intersection of politics and Hollywood. We have the report on CNNpolitics.com. And in fact, this is what she says. "Gaga is inspiring young Americans to make political noise of their own." Pretty good stuff.
LEMON: Mark Preston and Pete, thank you, sirs. Appreciate it. Your next political update coming up in hone hour. For the latest political news, make sure you go to CNNpolitics.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right, ribbing Facebook when it is down and the newest financer on the Internet. Josh Levs joins us with what's up. I enjoyed the break, I have to say, for a little bit, from Facebook --
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
LEMON: -- and when Twitter goes down, I enjoy --
LEVS: Well, the thing is, this outage of Facebook yesterday got people talking about joking about the ridiculous extent to which it plays in our lives, the role it plays in our lives. Look at what Huffington Post did. They pulled together some of the funniest tweets about the outage.
"Breaking news, Facebook down due to the explosion (INAUDIBLE) composter, 5 million people forced to work."
Here's one, a fake one from al Qaeda. "Not sure if we did that, but we should claim credit anyway, hitting the infidels where it hurts," et cetera.
Here's another one. "Facebook users are roaming the streets in tears, shoving photos of themselves in people's faces and screaming, Do you like this? Do you?"
Let's get in one more. Even "like" buttons are down on Facebook. "We can't live in a world where we can't arbitrarily like things. The end is nigh."
Before we go, we're about to disappear here --
LEMON: Oh, my God! I see it.
LEVS: -- we got to get this funny video.
LEMON: Yes.
LEVS: -- this dad -- take (ph) the video -- this dad in Lithuania dancing behind his two daughters.
LEMON: Poor girls!
LEVS: Are they too young to be embarrassed by dad? LEMON: Oh!
LEVS: So, like, he's now the new (INAUDIBLE) dancer (INAUDIBLE) 780,000 views in just (INAUDIBLE)
LEMON: Look at these little girls! They're, like, Oh, Dad! And then there's one of him dancing with his shirt off.
LEVS: Oh, Lord!
LEMON: It comes up next.
LEVS: Well, he's going to be a new -- a new, famous dancer now. Congratulations.
LEMON: Not good, Dad!
LEVS: No. Way to go viral.
LEMON: Thank you, sir.
LEVS: See you.
(LAUGHTER)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: You know, I'm enjoying my time today at work here at CNN, but it's just not the same with out Ali Velshi! So Ali, hurry home, but enjoy. Take it away from New York City.
