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St. Louis Hit By A Devastating Tornado; Lambert-St. Louis Airport Shut Down Indefinitely; Military Opens Fire On Protestors In Syria; NHL Player Fined For Crude Gesture Made At Camera; CNN Hero Rebuilds Homes After Disasters; Republicans Threaten To Not Raise Debt Ceiling Without Spending Concessions From Democrats

Aired April 23, 2011 - 10:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody, from the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, this is your CNN Saturday morning. Thank you for spending your weekend with us. I'm T.J. Holmes.

I need to get you caught up on what's happening in St. Louis this morning. A massive storm ripped through that city last night.

Take a look at your screen, folks. We see this devastation oftentimes after tornadoes, but we are seeing something else this morning. Police in the nearby community are searching door to door right now. And look at that scene. We're seeing some of this and it's just heartbreaking to see people out standing on rule that used to be their home.

Also this is the airport shut down this morning. You see that plane there, it's not going anywhere. A number of the planes aren't going anywhere today because the airport is closed indefinitely and we do not know when the St. Louis international airport is going to open up once again.

Let me give you an idea of what happened last night. The storms hit around 8:00 local time last night. But, again, look at this. This is a man who a lot of them when daylight came today, they're just starting to get a handle on exactly what the devastation is like. We're seeing these scenes. These are the heartbreaking ones, to see people walking through their homes that are now just leveled. You see a man there just trying to collect what he can, trying to salvage some things. We can only guess from the video that we saw earlier, it looked like maybe he was stacking some china there, something that maybe was valuable to him. Look at these other pictures here as well.

What is important for me to tell you is at this point we do not have any reports of serious injuries. We do have some minor injuries reported at the airport. Like I told you, the airport was hit pretty hard last night, so minor injuries there. Five people had to be taken to the hospital. That's according to the public information officer at the airport. But no serious injuries and no deaths reported at this point. That is great to hear.

We're also hearing the stories coming out from some of the people who were at that airport last night. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of a sudden it went pitch black and the windows were busted out. Dirt and debris came flying up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was very, very real, like being inside a movie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sky went totally black. The wind picked the car up maybe an inch or two, dropped it and blew out the windows.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right, that gives you an idea there as we continue to look at these pictures. Neighborhoods around the airport, it appears that maybe the devastation is not widespread across all of St. Louis and into the surrounding area, some of the suburbs, but it looks like a lot of this is concentrated in the north-northwest part of the city where the airport is. The airport there and a few neighborhoods, Bridgton is one of them in particular that we've been keeping an eye on.

We've also been getting help from our affiliates from KMOV from the pictures you are seeing there and KSDK is helping us with the reporting this morning, including, one of the reporters, Courtney Gousman, who listened to our reporting a little bit earlier. Listen to what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COURTNEY GOUSMAN, REPORTER: It was a wild ride last night. Around 8:15 what is believed to be a tornado swept through the area. So many people were affected. We're talking about passengers and visitors here to the airport. It was a very scary scene as passengers and visitors describe that they had literally seconds just to get to safety. Blew out a number of windows.

And what we've been seeing are daylight. Not only are they cleaning, they're attempting to board up windows that were left open by the storm from last night. Some passengers actually tell me they were on planes, they were in terminals. One passenger even tells me his actual plane moved 15 to 20 feet while sitting on the runway.

And the end results are these windows that you're seeing right now actually blown out. This is terminal one. This is the main terminal here at Lambert Airport. Concourse C which was primarily serves as the American Airlines concourse took the brunt of the damage. And check it out, there's water damage from the rain, that's because the ceiling, part of the roof, was actually ripped off. You can see damage on the runways, overturned baggage cars and glass everywhere.

As you mentioned Lambert-St. Louis is closed indefinitely. We've been talking to airport officials who tell us they are working at this point to assess the damage and actually check the sturdiness of the buildings because the last thing they want to do is get everything up and running and then something collapse. So, that's been the focus today. They're going to be assessing the damage kind of going through.

Right now we have no damage totals, but we do expect to have a news conference here at 10:00 local time, hearing from city and county officials to tell us what's next. It's closed indefinitely, no planes coming in or out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right, thanks to our reporter there from our affiliate helping us out.

And we continue to get new pictures in. These are some of the latest that we have gotten. We are seeing several neighborhoods, several houses that look like this. And it's typical during the tornadoes and the aftermath. You see one home that seems sometimes not even to be touched and the one right next door sometimes can just be flattened.

But this is one neighborhood we've been keeping an eye on. This is just northwest of downtown St. Louis in the area of the airport where we are seeing a lot of this devastation. Some of the pictures that are more striking or the most striking, I should say, this morning are, yes, it's one thing to see this devastation. It's another to now see the people come out when the daylight hits and they are walking through the rubble literally trying to piece their lives back together.

Literally people have been picking up small items, boxes, dishes, and things like that trying to salvage what they can in some of this. The need is going to be great.

Jessica Willingham is with the Red Cross in the St. Louis area, she's on the line with me once again. Jessica, we were trying to get a handle, it's still early, but trying to get a handle on just how great the need is going to be. What is it?

JESSICA WILLINGHAM, RED CROSS, ST. LOUIS CHAPTER, (via telephone): Well, the needs so far have been the Red Cross is here to make sure that people have a safe place to stay overnight and they've had food and that their emergency needs are met. What we're shifting into now is with the daylight comes the realization of the extent of the damage. And more people are coming to the Red Cross as they realize that they cannot stay in their homes.

So, we are -- the Red Cross is not only helping by keeping the shelter open in Maryland heights at the heart of the disaster area, but also going into the communities to assess damage. We've got over 600 volunteers in St. Louis that are already trained to do this kind of work, and a lot of them are working right now. Many of them are in standby as more needs arise.

They're also in the communities doing bulk distribution of supplies like shovels and rakes and tarps. And then soon we will have folks out there in our emergency response vehicles handling mobile feeding so that we can get food to people that need it. HOLMES: And ma'am, you mentioned your shelter, that's set up in one of the hardest-hit areas, but from what you've been able to gauge and since I talked to you last, we're trying to get a handle on how widespread the devastation is. We've seen mainly north-northeast, northeast of the city or downtown of St. Louis at the airport area and some neighborhoods there. But is that what you're getting as well, it appears it's kind of concentrated, if you will, in one particular area outside the city?

WILLINGHAM: Yes. It's concentrated in north St. Louis County which includes the towns of Bridgton, Berkeley, Dellwood, and Maryland Heights. But that being said, we are seeing damage reports popping in from around the area. As you know with the spring storms and tornadoes, they can hop around, and one home can be fine and another one damaged.

HOLMES: The number is 1-800-redcross, a lot of people want to help but some want information. Will that number do both?

WILLINGHAM: Yes, that number is to get help and give help, and they can find the information on redcross.org.

HOLMES: Again, Jessica, I know it's a busy morning for you guys. We appreciate you giving us the update and allowing us to get the information out to people who will need it this morning. But, Jessica, I'm sure we'll check in with you again. Thank you very much.

WILLINGHAM: Thank you.

HOLMES: I want to bring in our meteorologist Karen Maginnis as we continue to see the pictures, we look at them for a couple of hours, but we continue, every picture that pops up, and we say wow. We've been covering tornadoes for years in this business, and it never ceases to amaze me.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: When you see semis overturned, vehicles turned upside down, whole houses that look like they literally exploded, it just tells you how powerful this system was.

And, yes, this was in a concentrated area, around St. Louis metropolitan area, and trees sheared off, power lines down, I saw the upper portion of a roof that looked as if it had been picked up and laid to rest on the ground. They're saying that homes were destroyed, but then right out in the yard there looked to be some play toys, children's toys, that seemed to be untouched.

If go back just about a week ago, we saw three days of severe weather that broke out from Oklahoma to Jackson, Mississippi, to near Raleigh, North Carolina, and into Virginia. We had some 45-plus fatalities reported from those storms. And here we are Easter weekend, another round of severe weather breaking out.

I believe this is the church coming out of the St. Louis area. They were saying near interstate 270, where this tornado touched down, that a portion of that had been closed. Now, the airport is closed. I don't know if we still have some pictures of the airport from our affiliate KDSK, but they were saying that terminal one and Concourse C were the most -- had the most damage.

There were airplanes sitting at their gates, passengers reported that the planes got shifted around and bumped around. You can better believe that they are going to really investigate those planes to see if they've been dented, damaged, if the intake portion of the engines have any debris or dust or any kind of material in them.

And they have dumpsters at these airport concourses where they are literally shoveling out the debris and having that has fallen into these concourses and terminals to kind of clean up, because they just don't know when they're going to open the Lambert-St. Louis international airport again, which has been -- the last time it was shut down or closed was back in 1982, T.J.

HOLMES: This airport has been going through a renovation. It's a really old airport, goes back to the '30s, I believe, but they have a newer terminal there as well, but right now they are just trying to clean up a mess right now.

So, folks, a lot of you might not be flying into St. Louis or out of St. Louis, maybe you think it doesn't really affect you, but we're talking about American Airlines, Air-Trans, Southwest, a number of major airlines fly in and out of there. So this could affect you in some way, form, or fashion, because St. Louis -- it's rare, sometimes we get delays, sometimes we get ground stoppages. Not that often that we see an airport is closed indefinitely.

MAGINNIS: Yes, and due to non-winter weather. This is a springtime event.

I wanted to point out one thing, at this hour national weather service surveyors are going out to assess the damage. They will give us a number, it will be EF-1, EF-5. It's hard to say. I hate to speculate. I'm guessing this is about an EF-3 if I had to guess, and that tells us just how strong the winds were associated with this.

We don't know the extent of the path of this. We don't know how wide it was, but there certainly were tornadic super-cells reported on Doppler radar that the local St. Louis meteorologists at the TV stations and the weather service did spot. There was a warning issued at 7:36 p.m., that is central time, at 7:56 they issued another tornado warning. And at about 8:15 p.m. is when we think that this tornado touched down.

HOLMES: All right, so, and, again, another news director was telling us a little earlier here on the air that, in fact, they knew this storm was coming, they were getting people prepared, and it sounded like people -- the more the warning, the better. But it sounded like they did get some warning. And maybe that's why at this point, folks, we don't have reports of serious injuries or death. Let's hope that's the case. Karen, thank you so much this morning.

I want to let our viewers know, you all help us tell the stories. Sometimes you are right there and can get us the pictures or the video. Please, if you do have those iReports that you're able to share and help us tell the story and help us better understand the damage there in St. Louis, send them to us and we'll certainly use them right here.

I also want to let our viewers know we're 50 minutes away from a scheduled press conference at the airport. Again, a lot of activity at the airport last night, a lot of activity today, but it's just cleanup. No passengers there. It's closed indefinitely, but they do have a news conference planned for 11:00 a.m. eastern time, live. When that happens, we will bring that to you.

We do want to know as we get to 15 minutes past the hour we continue to see these pictures, again, daylight has really, really given us an idea what happened in St. Louis. We're watching people just starting to pick the pieces up literally in St. Louis. We are keeping a close eye on that.

We do have other breaking news stories out of Libya, Syria as well. We will bring that all to you. Stay with us here on this CNN Saturday Morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back to this CNN Saturday morning. We are keeping a close eye, and boy, our thoughts are with our folks in St. Louis right now devastated some areas of St. Louis, particularly north-northwest of the city where several neighborhoods got hit last night with severe storms, tornadoes as well. The airport there got hit pretty hard as well.

Only minor injuries right now to report, and right now the airport there, the Lambert International airport, is closed indefinitely. We're not going to go too far away from that story as we continue to get new developments in and also new pictures in, we'll continue to bring them to you.

But at 17 minutes past the hour now I do want to pause and let you know about, well, what you already know about is, of course, the royal wedding coming up. We're less than a week away. We've got new information about the wedding this morning. We'll get to all of that with our Zain Verjee who is at Westminster Abbey for us.

Zain, good morning to you, once again. With the new information we got out, you call it a big booklet about what will happen at the wedding next week, there's going to be a massive security effort there as well. Now, I guess what's going to be better protected, the Olympics coming up in 2012 in London or this wedding?

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this, T.J., is really going to be kind of a dry run for the Olympics next year. There is some serious pressure on the police and security forces here. And it is going to be a really tough operation. You're going to have something like two million Britons here out on the street and almost a million tourists to be protected.

What the police have said basically is that they have about 5,000 police that are going to be out there during the course of the day. They're going to be having some aerial security sweeps as well by helicopter. They'll be looking at rooftops, at railways. They'll be searching crowds and monitoring the situation.

What they've also done is blocked off a large chunk of the central London part itself in order to try and deal with some of the security issues there as well. What they're saying, too, T.J., is that they really are watching out for anarchists, protesters, any militant extremists or Al Qaeda-inspired attacks, and they are also saying they need to look at the odd crazy, as well, just people out there that can create trouble, because they think this is the last chance to stop Prince William from getting married. There may be people running around, crazy people like that.

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: You know what, you bring up a good point. There might be some out there as well.

Also we'll get to this next hour. We did get new information this morning about the guest list and where people will be sitting and a lot of new details that were out this morning. You're joining us again next hour. I know I got to let you go and you've got some responsibilities with other networks as well, but we'll talk to you next hour as well, all right, Zain?

VERJEE: All right, T.J., see you then.

HOLMES: All right, thanks so much.

And, of course, the countdown to the most anticipated wedding in decades is on. CNN reports it like nobody else, Sunday at 8:00 a.m. eastern time, we'll take you behind the scenes with CNN presents "The Woman who would be Queen." Celebrate William and Kate with family and friends and the entire planet literally, the royal wedding experience. DVR. That thing, just participate. It's part of our global viewing party.

Also, you can check out CNN.com, a special royal wedding page. You'll find a complete guide to the wedding with inside looks at the fashions, the food, you name it. Check out CNN.com/royalwedding.

And, again, we do have a number of breaking news stories we're keeping a close eye on, but we're also keeping a close eye on what's happening in St. Louis. And just the idea we are getting now, the real idea, of just what they went through last night, tornadoes hitting the area, people literally starting to put their lives back together.

It's 20 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right, 21 minutes past the hour now.

These are more of the latest pictures we are getting. Our affiliates helping us with these pictures, KPLR, KTBI with their helicopters above St. Louis right now. This is outside St. Louis, most of the devastation and damage north-northwest of the city. This is one of the neighborhoods hit last night by these severe storms and tornadoes.

The upside we can tell you, if there is one this morning, is that we can only report minor injuries. Those, we're told, were at the airport. There could be other injuries we find out about later, but right now it's good news to hear only minor injuries, none serious, and no deaths to report.

But the pictures will just break your heart this morning as people, we're starting to see them trickle into their neighborhoods and try to figure out where to go from here. We'll keep a close eye on what's happening in St. Louis, bring you all the latest updates, and they do continue to come in.

Also expecting a live press conference in about 40 minutes from the airport officials. Again, that airport closed indefinitely, and we'll bring that to you live when it does happen.

We do have other stories to tell you about overseas, the situation in Syria, growing more serious by the day. A witness telling us security forces shot and killed five demonstrators in a Damascus suburb today. This happened as people turned out to mourn people killed in anti-government protests in several cities yesterday.

One especially deadly confrontation took place in the city of Harasta, that's a suburb on the south side of Damascus. Take a look and take a listen to this on the streets.

(VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, of course, right now reliable figures about numbers of dead difficult to come by. Syria is not allowing CNN to report from inside the country. Amnesty International, though, saying at least 75 people were killed. CNN's Anderson Cooper asked the former U.N. ambassador from Syria do these people stand a chance against government security forces?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC 360": Do these people stand a chance against such brutal violence?

TED KATTOUF, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SYRIA: Well, first of all, you have to admire their courage. I can't tell you how much I respect what they're trying to do. But at the same time, unfortunately, repression if used repeatedly, ruthlessly, brutally, can work. We saw that in Iran. And I'm afraid we could see it in Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now President Obama condemning the government's actions saying, quote, "This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," end quote.

Also, developments out of Libya this morning, word that the Pentagon is confirming the first use of predator drone attacks in Libya. The Pentagon will not comment on whether an air strike on the parking lot outside Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli was from that drone.

The government says it will allow tribal leaders to deal with opposition forces in Misrata, but an opposition spokesman kind of laughed of that idea that tribal leaders would actually attack the rebels.

We're 25 minutes past the hour now. I'm telling you these pictures continue to come in to us literally every minute. We're getting new pictures out of St. Louis. This is the airport you are seeing there that's just north of downtown St. Louis, sustained extensive damage last night. People literally were running for their lives. Some of them even had to evacuate from planes that were about to take off.

We will have the very latest from St. Louis. And right now the key development is that no one has been seriously injured, at least that's what the reports are saying so far, and also, no reports of anyone killed. Let's hope it stays that way.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right, we're getting close to the bottom of the hour. You know what, I keep telling you that we get new video. I'll ask you to re-rack this if this is what we're looking at here. I'm trying to set this up for our viewers. We keep getting new video of what was going on last night in St. Louis. We are getting scenes of the aftermath of the tornadoes. We're getting videos from inside the terminals as the storm was happening. Let's roll it here and let you listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out! Go back inside!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right, again, this is something we are just getting. This was already posted to YouTube. This gives us an idea of what was happening inside as the winds were starting to whip outside. A lot of people outside the terminal not really sure of what was going on. A lot of these were visitors to the city. I'm sure they were watching some of the news reports, but maybe they didn't have a good handle on exactly how serious the situation was.

A lot of people were sitting on the planes, on the tarmac and whatnot, they had to be evacuated off planes, had to rush them inside to seek shelter.

Only reports of minor injuries at the airport. We are told at least five people -- here's the aftermath, part of the roof torn off of one of the terminals there. But at least five people taken to the hospital to be treated, but their injuries not described as serious. Also several people had to be treated at the scene. Minor injuries described there as well, but nothing serious so far to report and no deaths to report.

Also it's important for you to know that the airport there, the international airport in St. Louis, closed indefinitely. And as of just a couple hours ago I was told by an airport official that they were running on a backup generator. So, power was not restored. We'll get an update from them, expected to, in about 30 minutes when they do have a press conference that's scheduled.

HOLMES: Also this morning, remembering tragedy with good deeds. One New Yorker says he'll never forget 9/11 or the help that poured into the city from around the country, so he's paying it forward with the help of new friends. And that makes him a CNN hero.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF PARNESS, CNN HERO: September 11th was a very tough time for the fire department. I lost some friends. Guys I went to the academy with. Afterwards people came from everywhere to help us out. It was incredible. You knew you weren't alone.

As a New Yorker to see the outpouring of kindness and generosity was more powerful than the terror that happened. It really changed me. I'm Jeff Parness and I just want to show the world that New Yorkers will never forget what people did for us following 9/11.

Every year on the 9/11 anniversary, we take volunteers from New York and send them to some part of the country where they had a disaster and help folks rebuild.

The whole thing there is the grain silo. It's definitely a little culture shock. Rebuilding homes or barns or churches is our way to say thank you. Now it's more than half our volunteers are not from New York. People from all the small towns that we helped, they keep showing up to help the next community. They're from Louisiana and California and Indiana and Illinois. Every year you see more and more t-shirts from more locations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got to pitch in as much as we can. After Katrina we jumped on his bandwagon. The whole paying it forward thing is just contagious.

PARNESS: It's like this big dysfunctional family reunion of all the disaster survivors who get together to do a barn raising.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're banging nails and doing something, but it's the relationship that helps you heal.

PARNESS: It's by using the 9/11 anniversary to celebrate the volunteer spirit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll see you next year.

PARNESS: People say thank you for doing this. I say you want to thank me, show up on the next one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And just remember, CNN heroes nominated by you. Go to CNN.com/heroes to nominate that hero you know. You can also follow CNN heroes on Facebook and Twitter.

And we do want you to know we are keeping a close eye on what's happening in St. Louis right now. We're starting to get more information in about exactly what they went through last night. The devastating pictures, ah, look at that folks. That's a neighborhood. These people are going back to their neighborhoods this morning and seeing that.

And, quite frankly, there are plenty of homes that are worse off than that one is this morning. It's heartbreaking to see people walking through rubble where their homes once stood.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: It's 34 minutes past the hour now. One of the big stories, if not the big story we're keeping an eye on, St. Louis. Daylight brought us these new images and helped us get a better idea of the devastation from last night's severe storms that whipped through that area, damaged the airport, which is now closed indefinitely, and also damaged a number of neighborhoods just north of downtown St. Louis.

A church in Ferguson, a suburb outside of St. Louis, also got hit. The members have been out assessing damage there. Take a listen to one member of First Baptist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN BOUAS, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF FERGUSON: We were out last night, boarded up the windows so we're secure, but we've still got a lot of roof damage, a lot of windows broken out, and our disaster recovery company will be back out this morning to help us cover that up.

We have a lot of our members are coming over this morning to help us clean up and get things put back together. If we get power restored from UE, we'll be having a service in the morning because our sanctuary building is not damaged. But we won't be doing much else other than that because we do have a lot of damage to our other buildings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And, again, the airport there, which you're seeing there, part of the roof off. A lot of people were in there last night. Injuries to report, minor from the airport, even though some people did have to go to the hospital, five we're told. But injuries described as minor. No serious injuries to report. Also, no deaths to report. But right now the St. Louis international airport, Lambert International, right now is closed indefinitely. All right, at 36 minutes past the hour, let's turn to some politics, shall we? Strong warnings this week from Republican leaders in Congress about what it will take to get them to approve an increase in the debt limit. Topping the list, some major spending cuts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-VA), MAJORITY LEADER: Specifically what we're asking for from this president is to join us in making sure that we guarantee to the people that elect us that we're not going to let spending get out of control again. And there are all kinds of different measures that are being considered here on Capitol Hill to make sure we put the brakes on spending.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So, will America's credit reputation be held hostage to the political fight over the best way to reduce the deficit? Let me bring in my folks to talk power politics this morning, a Chicago Republican analyst Leon McAlister, and in Washington, Democratic strategist Maria Cardona.

We're going to get back to the debt here in a second, but I like to start off with you guys the same way every week, which is to ask you what do is the political headline of the week. Maria, what was yours?

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think the political headline of the week was that president Obama is -- wants to reduce the debt and balance the budget in a fair, equitable manner, sharing the burden and sharing the sacrifice, while the GOP wants to do it on the backs of seniors and the most vulnerable in the country.

HOLMES: She sounded like a good democrat there, didn't she, Lenny? You want to be a good Republican and tell me what your headline of the week was?

LENNY MCALISTER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Oh, my. Failure of leadership, challenge to lead.

HOLMES: Well, you sound like a good Republican, too.

All right, well, let me go back to you, Maria, help our audience with this. In your opinion, compared to the fight we just saw over the 2011 budget, was that nothing compared to what we're about to see with this debt ceiling fight in tone but also in what's at stake here? Are the stakes a lot higher?

CARDONA: The stakes are definitely a lot higher, T.J., and I do think that it bodes for a very robust debate. But what I'm hoping is that the GOP will understand that they should not hijack this debate, because the faith and credit of the U.S. government is too important to play politics with. And that's exactly what they're doing.

Look, we are all for spending cuts and reducing the debt and reducing the deficit. Like I mentioned, president Obama has actually put forward a very aggressive plan to do that in reducing $4 trillion of debt over the next ten years. But let's not play with the full debt and credit and faith of the U.S. government in order to -- in order to appease a conservative GOP agenda.

HOLMES: Well, Lenny, I don't know if you would put it in the same terms as she did, but holding the debt ceiling, holding that hostage, do you see it that way, or are Republicans just trying to get what they can get out of the president?

MCALISTER: Well, the Democrats were liberated during 2009 and 2010 when they had a super majority in the Senate and a huge majority in the House of Representatives. It wasn't that important then. We rushed the stimulus package that has yet to keep the unemployment at 8.0 percent.

We just passed fiscal year 2011 under Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. If this was so important to not hijack and the number one priority for Democrats, why didn't they get it done when Nancy Pelosi was the speaker of the House?

The truth of the matter is, Republicans were more concerned and more focused on getting spending down and getting our fiscal responsibility back in line. And therefore, yes, it will take more cuts in order to address the debt ceiling. It's the perfect approach to take, and the Democrats had a chance to do it and they failed to do it, T.J.

HOLMES: You say more cuts, but all those cuts aren't necessarily popular. I want people to listen now to Paul Ryan, of course, he wrote the budget, the 2012 budget, for the Republicans. He's out and he's trying to sell this, just like the president's trying to sell his reduction plan. But listen to what happened when he went back home and tried to sell some of his strategies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN: We do have the power --

(BOOS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, this is just a snippet. And I'm sure a lot of representatives are going to get this when they go out and try to speak, but we just pulled this one out, and Lenny, let me come to you here. Is it going to be a tough sell, no matter what the tough choices are, when you talk about messing with Medicare, a very popular program, you are going to get booed. How do you make that sell?

MCALISTER: Well, you're going to have to sell it to the fact that seniors today are not going to lose their benefits. But, yes, the generation-x out there, our generation, we'll have to look at the fact we'll have to do it differently by the time we advance in age or else we're not going to have the America we want to have.

And you know what, that will be unpopular. But we've made choices that have been unpopular before, but it's been for the betterment of this country, and that's one of the tough sacrifices we'll have to make. There are a lot of Tea Partiers who don't want to do it either, because they're older in age. But if you're talking about a sacrifice, it has to be an American sacrifice, not just on select programs.

HOLMES: Maria, a lot of times I don't have to ask a follow-up question. I just see you shaking your head. So, go ahead.

CARDONA: If it should be an American sacrifice, why is the GOP not asking millionaires and billionaires and the biggest corporations in this country to do their part --

MCALISTER: Here we go.

CARDONA: -- in actually giving back the trillions of dollars of tax cuts and the billions of dollars in tax giveaways. That is why it is a completely impossible sell. How can Paul Ryan or any GOP representative, for that matter, go to town hall meetings, look seniors in the face and say we're going to make you pay more than $6,000 more on your health care, because, by the way, I want to cut taxes for Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and ExxonMobil. It doesn't make sense.

HOLMES: Lenny, I heard you say "Here we go." What do you mean by that, a lot of people hear these folks are getting a tax cut, and these folks who are vulnerable, that's how people are putting it together, but the vulnerable are getting cuts to the programs. That's how people hear it, and that's a message that's easier to succinctly explain to people.

MCALISTER: We're talking about millionaires and billionaires, but the line is at $200,000, $250,000, we're talking about small business owners as well. We need those folks to recreate jobs in America. That was the whole point in bailing out the banks so that credit can be freed up so that small businesses can get back on track.

We need those folks to create jobs. We need innovators, we folks who are entrepreneurs to get out there and help re-stimulate the American economy. You will not get it from people making $25,000 a year. Those people need the people making $400,000 a year to create more jobs.

So, why would you put any incentive in place that's going to discourage that? You want to keep as many primers in there as possible to encourage people to create jobs, and it's not going to come from the bank of the Americas of the world. It will come from the mom and pops on the corners of the world that will recreate jobs and get the economy back on. So, you don't want to put things in place to stymie that.

HOLMES: Maria, I'll give you 15 seconds for the last word.

CARDONA: So 98 percent of the small businesses in this country make less than $250,000 a year. So let's just put that fact out there. That will not affect all of those small businesses, which I agree with Lenny, are the ones who do create jobs in the country. They're the engines of economic growth.

The president has actually given more than 16 tax cuts to small businesses so they can employ people, so they can give them health care, so they can basically create jobs, and that's why we've seen more than 15 straight months of private sector job creation. What the GOP is putting forward will actually kill that job creation momentum in this country, and we cannot afford that right now.

HOLMES: Well, we know, of course, the guy sitting across from you and there are plenty of others out there who disagree with the sentiment, but plenty agree with it as well. I never feel like we have to leave the conversation because we always get to pick it back up at some point. Guys, it's always good to see you two, guys, you all enjoy the rest of your weekend

CARDONA: Thank you, T.J., always a pleasure.

HOLMES: Looking forward to getting you into the studio with you folks.

We're getting close to the quarter of the hour here, of course, one of the big stories we're keeping a close eye on this morning, our folks in St. Louis hit, and hit hard, last night. We'll give you an idea and give you the very latest from the pictures and also the information coming out of St. Louis after a nasty line of storms and tornadoes ripped through the northern part of that city.

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HOLMES: Well, we always like to take a quick break and bring in HLN sports Ray D'Alessio with a couple of stories that may be off the radar with sports. This is a doozy here.

RAY D'ALESSIO, HLN SPORTS: I'm still laughing at this.

HOLMES: You get caught on camera flipping somebody off and you say I didn't do it.

D'ALESSIO: There are times when you throw up your hands and say, I'm busted, you got me. But not Ryan Ference with the Boston Bruins. This is the past Thursday night, Ference playing the Canadians, he comes over and you see him there at the bottom of the screen clearly puts up his left hand and we've actually pixelated it for you, but there you go. You can even tell that's the one-finger salute.

But Ference he said, look, it was a simple fist pump. If it was a bird, it was unintentional. The NHL disagreed and said no, buddy, we're fining you $25,000.

HOLMES: Isn't that kind of low?

D'ALESSIO: It's kind of brave especially if you're on the road and --

HOLMES: The amount of money, isn't it low, $2,500?

D'ALESSIO: For these guys. It's pocket change for them, let's face it.

HOLMES: Maybe the glove was stuck.

D'ALESSIO: Sure, if that's what you want to believe. What do you do?

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: A lot of people, this gives a whole new meaning to being thrown under the bus. We love this.

D'ALESSIO: Real Madrid, talk about a great story. They win the prestigious Copa del Rey cup, and they are celebrating in Madrid, and a player on top of the bus, drops the cup, slips out of his hands, goes underneath the bus, gets absolutely crushed.

We have an after picture for you, like the results of what the trophy looked like, one of the four players actually tweeted this picture. Mangled, the jeweler who made the trophy heard the story, he goes, yes, right, like that really happened. No, it did. He saw this picture, he said, wow, I've got a lot of repair work to do.

HOLMES: Anytime there's a jeweler involved with the trophy, it's a big deal.

D'ALESSIO: How embarrassing, huh?

HOLMES: Always good to see you, always good to have you here with us.

D'ALESSIO: OK.

HOLMES: It's not long, folks, before the summer travel season is upon us. If you want to save money on airline tickets, we all do, of course, we will tell you the actual days, the best days, to buy.

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HOLMES: It's almost time for that summer travel, folks. CNN's Rob Marciano reports in this edition of "On the Go" a little planning goes a long way to saving you some big bucks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Traveling during the summer can be pricey, but you can score hot deals with careful planning.

MARK ORWOLL, TRAVEL + LEISURE: One of the ways you can reduce the cost of your airfare is by timing when you purchase your ticket. Generally speaking the sweet spot is about three to four months before your departure date. Another thing you can do to keep your airfare at its lowest is to travel on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

MARCIANO: Stay flexible on where you go, and get more bang for your buck. ORWOLL: If you have really no particular inkling on where to go, let the deals drive you. Southwestern U.S. from the Scottsdale, Arizona, to Las Vegas, triple digit temperatures, yes, but that's when you get to see the mega-luxury resorts drop their rates 50 percent to 60 percent.

MARCIANO: Buying a vacation package may save you money, but confirm what's included.

ORWOLL: A lot of these extras, taxes, and fees sometimes are not in the advertised price. The trick with these vacation packages is knowing what you're getting and not getting with these packages.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And we are watching the devastation, the heartbreak as well in St. Louis and the surrounding area where severe storms and tornadoes hit last night. But right now, the death toll is at zero. We're hoping it will stay that way, but a lot of developments to tell you about.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: As we approach the top of the hour, that kind of tells the story this morning, folks. This was heartbreaking for us to see and probably for you as well. That is a man you can only assume standing in the rubble of what used to be his home. This is outside of St. Louis, an area that was hit and devastated as you see by tornadoes and strong storms last night, the man trying to salvage anything he can. It looks like he was stacking china, had a box in his hand.

A lot of people are going through this in the area right now, the St. Louis area. Also we can tell you, no deaths to report, but also that the international airport there is closed indefinitely.

Quick break. We're going to reset, have the very latest for you at the top of the hour in just minutes.

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