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ATF Agents Testify in Congress About Fast and Furious Operation; Ron Paul Speaks at Republican Leadership Conference; Violence Escalates in Syria; Paul Stanley Discusses Growing Up With Microtia; Defense Attempts to Call Surprise Witness in Casey Anthony Murder Trial; New Study Indicates Less American Dads Living With Children Than In the Past; Newt Gingrich Lashes Out at Media

Aired June 17, 2011 - 15:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: I don't have goldfish, but don't they use goldfish to feed to other fish?

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I don't know. Not anymore, certainly not in San Francisco. No way.

HOLMES: OK. All right.

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: Well, animal lover, you, Randi Kaye, thank you so much. You have a good weekend.

And hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes, in for Brooke Baldwin today.

You remember how this week started? It started with that big debate, that big CNN debate up in New Hampshire, when we saw those potential Republican candidates going at it?. Well, that is how the week started. This is how the week is ending for the GOP presidential hopefuls.

It's ending down in New Orleans. This is a live picture at a conference going on right now. It's the annual Republican Leadership Conference. No, eyes not playing tricks on you. Nobody at the podium just yet. Someone is walking to it, but we are expecting to hear over the next couple of hours from a couple of folks who will take that stage, one of them being Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

She, of course, made a big splash in New Hampshire, got a lot of attention. A lot of people gave her a lot of credit for her performance. Also, in the next few minutes, we're expecting to hear from Congressman Ron Paul, Republican of Texas. Now, you know, when he steps in front of a camera or puts a microphone on, you know he usually has something to say, so we are standing by to hear from Ron Paul. We will be checking in there plenty through the next couple of hours.

But, right now, want to talk to you about Fast and Furious. Not talking about the movies here. I'm talking about an operation that a lot of people right now just cannot believe. Fast and Furious was an operation that let criminals openly buy high-powered guns and ammo in Arizona.

We're talking about things like AK-47s, .50-caliber weapons as well. This is tactics that the authorities were using that's called letting guns walk, and they sure did walk. They walked, many of them, right across the border into Mexico and into the hands of violent drug gangs.

Fast and Furious isn't some two-bit operation that some rookie law enforcement agency came up with. No, no, no, no. This is a U.S. government program that essentially supplied guns to a drug war that has killed 34,000 people in Mexico. Two of those guns were recovered near the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent last December in Arizona.

Some federal agents say they objected to the gun sales, but higher-ups stopped them from arresting the gun-buyers. Those whistle- blowers call Fast and Furious dangerous and deadly and a catastrophic disaster.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER FORCELLI, ATF SPECIAL AGENT: We weren't giving guns to people who were hunting bear. We were giving guns to people who were killing other humans.

JOHN DODSON, ATF SPECIAL AGENT: Rather than meet the wolf head on, we sharpened his teeth, added number to his claw. All the while, we sat idly by watching, tracking, and noting as he became a more efficient and effective predator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, a Justice Department official testified before Congress that he doesn't know who authorized Operation Fast and Furious. Congressman Darrell Issa calls that stonewalling.

Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: If you're going to count pages like this as discovery, you should be ashamed of yourself. That's not discovery. That is saying that nothing within the document requested under any circumstances are we going to be shown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, James Cavanaugh is a retired ATF agent, agent, special agent in charge. He's in Nashville for me.

Sir, good to have you here.

Did this program have good intentions? I guess, what was the ultimate goal? I didn't explain it fully. I just let people hear, yes, they were letting guns walk. Why? What was the idea behind it? JAMES CAVANAUGH, FORMER ATF SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: Well, I think you're right, T.J., that there was probably some good intentions here. I mean, it was a bold new strategy that was implemented by the ATF and the Department of Justice to go after the cartels through the gun traffic strategy.

But, you know, you can't get the king of the cartel in the gun traffic case. I think that's the mistake here. The strategy was too bold, the scale was too big, and it went too far.

HOLMES: And you're hearing this kind of program -- and they have put a lot of emphasis on trying to figure out who exactly would have given the OK. A lot of people are suggesting it had to be somebody kind of higher up. Would you agree with that?

CAVANAUGH: Oh, I certainly agree. It went all through ATF command.

I think it went all the way to the top, and it went to the department. I think ATF, the leaders there will stand by the strategy. And they will say that they implemented it and they directed it. I don't think there's going to be any question of that, probably the same at the department.

But, you know, it was disheartening to watch the hearings the other day with -- certainly, you know, your heart goes out to Agent Terry's family, and they deserve some answers. But, for me, it was disheartening to watch the agents, who I thought were all very credible, talking about being pulled off an actual surveillance, where they'd watch the guns and the money switch hands.

And this wasn't at the beginning of the case, when certainly, there can somebody latitude and some risk trying to build a case, but this is deep into the case. I mean, one agent testified maybe 1,200 guns into the case, while they watch the purchase, the money and the guns change and they follow the guns and they're called off.

They don't lose the surveillance, but they don't make a good- faith effort to try to get the surveillance and then miss it. What they do is they're told not to follow the guns. So that was very disheartening to me.

HOLMES: Well, James, we're hearing here that -- and we're just hearing about this particular program, but is it possible, in your estimation, that this plan or this idea was really dreamt up by someone there locally and this is a first-of-its-kind, if you will, or this is just the first one we're hearing about?

CAVANAUGH: Well, I think a lot of it was driven top-down.

You know, the inspector general wrote a report in 2009 very critical of ATF for only getting low-level gun traffickers and gun rings. And I think ATF overreacted to that report, in my view. They should have really just put it on the side. They overreacted.

Also, the department pushed the cases more toward, you know, big drug cases, organized crime, drug task force-style cases. In fact, this was worked out of the drug task force. And you cannot work gun traffic cases the same way you work a gun traffic case. They're completely different. And when you try to use those techniques, this is what you get. So, you know, when --

HOLMES: And --

CAVANAUGH: I'm sorry. Go ahead.

HOLMES: No, no, no, James, just quickly here to wrap up, is this something that reaches a level of something criminal that was necessarily done here, or just we need to learn from our mistakes and we don't need to do this again?

CAVANAUGH: Yes, I don't think there's any bad people involved.

HOLMES: Yes.

CAVANAUGH: I don't see criminal activity involved, but I think there will be some shakeups in Washington and we need some new orders and new policies, because we do have a very vulgar war in Mexico and our border.

HOLMES: All right, James Cavanaugh, we appreciate you taking the time, again, a story that's not going to go away. Still trying to get some answers. We appreciate you. You enjoy your weekend.

CAVANAUGH: Thanks, T.J.

HOLMES: All right.

As I was mentioning just a few minutes ago, we were expecting -- and there he is -- Congressman Ron Paul, who is a candidate for the Republican nomination, speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference down in New Orleans. Let me listen in to him for a quick second.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

REP. RON PAUL (R), TEXAS: Congress intervened, of course, and spent nearly $1 trillion bailing out the people who were making a lot of money and were bankrupt and deserved to go bankrupt and shouldn't have been bailed out.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PAUL: But what a lot of people didn't know about it and still a few have difficulty understanding it, there was a much bigger bailout by the Federal Reserve. They created about $5 trillion out of thin air, and then they went and they bailed out the banks and the big corporations in total secrecy. And guess what?

All those bad assets, those derivatives and all the assets that were worthless, that nobody could sell on the marketplace, guess what? We, the taxpayers, ended up buying those with money printed out of thin air to the tune of about $2 trillion. The Federal Reserve during that period of time -- and they're capable of doing it. And the reason why we have to address this subject, they can create more money and spend more money than the entire Congress. Curtailing Congress is one thing, but if the people in the Congress do not curtail the Federal Reserve, you won't touch the problem. And that is why it's so important.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PAUL: We have had some hearings in my subcommittee on the Financial Services Committee dealing with the Fed. We have gotten more information than ever before. We do not have the audit-the-Fed bill passed yet, but we will.

But we have found out that, of all those trillions of dollars created by the Fed, guess what? One-third of those funds went to foreign banks. Makes no sense.

(BOOING)

PAUL: And we find out that some of those funds actually went to banks partially owned by Gadhafi.

Now, if that can make any sense, I don't understand it. But I think the people, once they know about this, will be outraged and are outraged at what has been going on with our monetary system. But, today, we are facing another crisis. The next crisis that's coming is a result of the Federal Reserve creating all this money. And that will be the inflation tax.

When they create money, they inflate the currency, they devalue the currency, and prices will rise. And prices are rising. That is a tax. And that will come. It is coming. It has started and it's going to be much worse next year. It's going to a big issue in next year's campaign.

Some of you may remember the stagflation of the '70s. It will be worse than the stagflation of the '70s because the economy is weaker now than it was, and you will see prices rising.

So, for us and for the sake of America, we have to deal with this problem. I have said many times, as other candidates frequently say, we have to do something. We can't dump this on our children and our grandchildren. I use -- I address that slightly differently now, because it's the current generation, it's us today that are suffering.

We don't have the jobs. People are unemployed. And we're getting hit with inflation. We're suffering from the overextension of the wars in -- around the world. So, it is today we are suffering from this, and, therefore, not only should we worry about the next generation, but we have to worry about today's generation.

The most precious thing that we can do for our next generation, the debt is a concern, but the most valuable thing that we can give the next generation and allow this generation to have is to have our freedoms back. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PAUL: I have talked a whole lot about foreign policy for a good many years, and it is very, very important, because it's the foreign policy originally of the Republican Party, of Robert Taft and others, of nonintervention, of that of neutrality, minding our own business.

What the founders taught and what the Constitution says, don't get involved in entangling alliances, don't get involved in internal affairs of other nations, don't get in the business of nation- building.

And, besides, we don't have the money. Now, you know, if somebody's interested in looking at this in detail, one of the most significant pieces of writing that I have ever read about this subject came from Ronald Reagan.

And everybody knows, you know, how he stood out in standing up to the Soviets and all. But in the early '80s, Ronald Reagan put some troops, Marines, into Beirut -- 241 Marines were killed, a real tragedy, and it wore heavy on Ronald Reagan.

So, what you want to do, if you're interested, is read what he said in the memoirs. What he said in the memoirs was that he said -- and he used these words -- he said, I would not turn tail and run.

But when he found out how irrational politics was of that reason -- in that region, he decided it was necessary to get out. He said, if I had followed, if he had followed a policy of neutrality and a policy where he was more neutral, he admitted, he said those 241 Marines would still be alive.

And I take it good advice from Ronald Reagan on this because he was courageous enough to admit the mistake and say -- and advise us on what we should do.

Robert McNamara, when he wrote his memoirs -- and he was the one that built up the Vietnam War. What a tragedy. I was in the military for five years in the 1960s. I did not have to go to Vietnam, but I was in the service.

HOLMES: All right, listening in to Congressman Ron Paul, who of course is vying for the GOP nomination to become president of the United States. He is one of a number of GOP hopefuls who are addressing the Republican Leadership Conference going on right now in New Orleans.

It's a three-day event, kicked off yesterday. We have seen Newt Gingrich already speak, Herman Cain another of the candidates. Also, Rick Santorum will be there, also Michele Bachmann. We're expecting her in just about an hour. We're going to dip into that. She of course has gained a lot of steam since the CNN debate earlier this week. A lot of people gave her high marks for her performance there. So, when she does step to the podium, we will take her live as well.

Meanwhile, the violence escalating in Syria, more people literally running for their lives. And, today, many of them who have run for their lives got a visit from Angelina Jolie. She is at the border, and CNN's Arwa Damon is there. Talk to her next. Also, House Speaker John Boehner, he is getting ready for a high-profile bipartisan meeting -- maybe I should say outing -- with President Obama, a golf outing. Find out if anyone's joining them and also whether they will even tell us who wins, also, which of the two more likely to break under pressure.

That is coming up. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, at least five people are dead and dozens wounded as protests unfolded across Syria today, defying the country's military crackdown.

Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of some of Syria's largest cities in what has become a weekly show of defiance of President Bashar al-Assad. As people flee the fighting, the number of refugees crossing the northern border with Turkey has swelled to nearly 10,000.

And actress Angelina Jolie has been visiting refugee camps on the Turkish side of the border. And she is at the camp in her role as the U.N.'s goodwill ambassador for refugees.

And CNN's Arwa Damon is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: T.J., behind me is the camp that Angelina Jolie visited, where she spent around two-and-a-half-hours speaking to refugees.

And before she arrived, there was a small demonstration inside, with people chanting their gratitude to Turkey, but also imploring the United Nations to help them -- one man holding up a sign saying that the Syrian military was killing its own people and to please make it stop.

This is quite a unique opportunity for Angelina Jolie, given that both the national and international media have been prevented by Turkish authorities from entering inside these camps, as have organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

She was able to get a firsthand look at how the refugees are coping with life outside of their country. Now, some children did manage to sneak underneath a tarp that was set up. They were chanting anti-regime slogans, but also holding up a sign saying, "Stop killing the children."

And while this was unfolding inside the refugee camps in Turkey, inside Syria, the uprising that led to the influx of refugees has continued, with activists reporting demonstrations across the entire country, where, in a number of places, they did again turn violent, causing casualties. This most certainly has been the case in the past. Now, we have also been seeing the military offensive in the northwestern part of the country continuing, with activists reporting that the Syrian military appears to be inching even closer to the Turkish border, and that news has been sending tremors of fear amongst the Syrian refugees still stuck in their own country -- T.J.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: All right. Thanks, as always, to our Arwa Damon.

Meanwhile, journalists not being allowed into places like Syria, so the world is relying on folks on the ground to tell the story. In most cases, they're risking their lives, and we're seeing those risks online.

Here now, our Amber Lyon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMBER LYON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To protest government corruption, a 26-year-old fruit vendor set himself on fire in a rural town. The images of his burned body were posted online and instantaneously available worldwide through the Internet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard about this the same day and it was on Facebook.

LYON: And the offline battle began. Lina Ben Mhenni, a 27-year- old teaching assistant, was one of the foot soldiers who would spread the flames. Armed with only a computer and her camera, she drove to the center of the protest in rural Tunisia.

(on camera): What finally inspired you to get in the car and drive there?

LINA BEN MHENNI, TEACHING ASSISTANT: The fact that the traditional media wasn't doing their job. They were either hiding reality or telling lies.

LYON: The reality was shocking. Lina said she learned that the government was opening fire on the protesters.

MHENNI: When I entered the first house, I just started crying. My hands were shaking, especially when I saw the corpse of a young man, of 20 years old. His family, his mom who was crying.

LYON: Within days, thousands of blogs, tweets and re-tweets turned into hundreds of thousands of people in the streets.

But the mainstream media never picked up on the story.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Well, Sunday night, go with CNN to Tunisia, Bahrain, and Egypt for the "I-Revolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring." That's 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

Well, you remember we have seen the president plenty of times, it seems. We have seen him play ball. Look at him draining a three there. But he's about to be under some real pressure when he golfs with House Speaker John Boehner. So, is that same under-pressure, clutch, three-point-shooting Barack Obama going to show up?

Well, CNN's Brianna Keilar is going to join me next, and I give you my word, Brianna Keilar can beat them both at golf. She's coming up next.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right, at long last, it's going to happen, President Obama teeing it up with the House speaker, John Boehner, this weekend.

These two men, as you know, they certainly have their differences, but this is something, at least, they do have in common, a passion for golf.

And so does Brianna Keilar.

Now, I teed this up, Brianna. A lot of people might not know this, but you have been playing golf since, I don't know, you were 1?

(LAUGHTER)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Ten.

HOLMES: But you have been playing for a while. And Brianna is an excellent, excellent golfer. So, that's why I said that.

But let's move on to these two men playing golf this weekend. You go, you play with your buddies, people that you're very close with. Now, these two, what actually do we know about their relationship? How friendly are these two men?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, they get along. You said it, T.J. Politically, they're very far apart. Are they BFFs? No, but they do get along certainly.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: They have had a good rapport. And they have had -- even though during most of the first two years of the Obama presidency, they didn't really spend a lot of time together, they have recently.

That budget battle that narrowly averted a government shutdown, that really came down to negotiations between the president and the speaker. So, they were spending quite a lot of time together. And, also, right now, there is this kind of battle going on right now about whether to raise the debt ceiling. The expectation is, it's going to come down again to the speaker and President Obama. So, I guess you could argue that this comes at a really good time, and it's really the first time that we will have seen them spending, I mean, hours together, right, perhaps five hours or so, in a really informal setting.

HOLMES: But is anything going to get done in that five hours, or will they just be -- I mean, when you go out there, you're talking about, you know, not a lot of business, sometimes, when you go with your buddies. You're talking golf. And we do know Boehner, I believe, is clearly supposed to be the better golfer here.

KEILAR: Yes.

HOLMES: So, will it be just golf and a good time amongst the fellows, or we expect some business to be done?

KEILAR: You know, we don't know. It could come up -- and we have heard from the White House spokesman, Jay Carney -- some of these issues that they're dealing with -- Libya, of course, a big issue right now between Speaker Boehner and the president.

So, definitely, it could come up, but there is no agenda. That's what Jay Carney said. I think that here, at the very least, you have these two leaders who are frequently at odds on issues, and they're at least going to spend some time together.

And I think a lot of people would say that's a -- it's a good thing. Some people might say, why are they playing golf? We know that some people have raised that issue.

HOLMES: Yes.

KEILAR: But at least it's some time for them in an informal setting they haven't had.

HOLMES: OK. I'm going to bring back some video here, and a lot of people will remember this. You certainly will. But the president, we have seen him play under pressure. Now, basketball -- this was him. He was visiting troops, no warmup, no nothing, launches a three, sinks the thing. People go crazy.

KEILAR: Boom.

HOLMES: All right, that's great stuff. All the cameras on him. That takes a lot of pressure.

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: But then we remember this other moment, Brianna. He was playing -- look -- not playing -- he was bowling, and just gutter ball. He ended up, I believe, with a 37 is what he shot, or something like that.

So, which Obama is going to show up tomorrow? Will there be a lot of cameras in his face, first of all? KEILAR: Well, this is what's interesting. We know, T.J., that we just found out today there are going to be cameras at least to capture part of this.

HOLMES: OK.

KEILAR: I wonder, what are we going to see? Are we going to see them tee off at the first hole? Because I feel like it's a tremendous amount of pressure to be -- you know, this is the one shot maybe that the cameras are going to catch. We will see. But -- so, we're going to get a chance. And we're also, perhaps, the White House says, going to see the score, so we will get a sense. But I think, look, your money here is probably going to be on Speaker Boehner. I think you have the numbers, right, on their handicaps?

HOLMES: Yes. Let's go -- you go ahead and put meantime, -- you go ahead and take us through them. And I will put them up for the viewer here.

KEILAR: Yes.

HOLMES: But we're explaining it's clear who -- yes, according to this, at least, who the better golfer is.

KEILAR: The numbers don't lie here, President Obama 17 and the speaker is about an eight. So, there you go.

HOLMES: All right.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Money on John Boehner.

HOLMES: And they have two others joining them, we should mention as well.

KEILAR: That's right. And Vice President Joe Biden will be there.

He's actually the one to watch, because he is, I understand it, a six. And, also, one of our White House producers, Alex Mooney, has it on very good sourcing that he has been hitting the range this week, the driving range, almost as much as he's been up on Capitol Hill talking debt ceiling with members of Congress.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: He's been at the range a couple of times this week. And then Ohio Governor John Kasich, he's the guest of the speaker. So, that's the foursome.

HOLMES: I don't know if the vice president wants that to get out, that he's actually been doing more on his golf game than he has on the debt ceiling here lately, but still.

KEILAR: Maybe a little less, I understand. HOLMES: A little less.

All right, Brianna Keilar, good to see you, as always. We will see what comes of it this weekend. Thanks so much.

Also today, there was a pretty major scare near the Pentagon after police find a man who was acting a little weird around Arlington National Cemetery, the investigation unfolding right now. We will tell you what they are finding.

But first here, every week, we bring you stories of overcoming major medical hurdles and, despite the odds against them, insist on succeeding.

In this week's "Human Factor," our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, brings you the story of Paul Stanley, front man of one of the most famous rock bands out there, KISS -- his mission, helping young people preserve their hearing. He knows firsthand what it's like to have a hearing disability.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To rock 'n' roll all night and party every day, that's always been Paul Stanley's dream.

PAUL STANLEY, KISS: If somebody had told me at 58, 59 I'd be running around on stage without a shirt, you know, and in tights and high heels, I would have said what drug are you taking.

GUPTA: But the road to rock stardom as the front man for Kiss was difficult. Few people know it, but Stanley was born with a condition that should have steered him away from music.

STANLEY: I had a physical deformity called a microtia.

GUPTA: One of his inner ears, the ear canal which conveys sound to the brain, never developed. Figuring out the direction of sound was particularly challenging, and he was also born with an underdeveloped outer ear.

(on camera): Did you get teased a lot? Where there tough comments?

STANLEY: It was horrible. You know, I have to say that childhood was not fun.

GUPTA: You decided to grow your hair out, and that's become a signature look of you and the band. Was that in part because of wanting to hide your ears?

STANLEY: Absolutely.

GUPTA: You grew your hair out to do that?

STANLEY: Absolutely. GUPTA (voice-over): Strength and a bit of defiance got Stanley through the taunting.

STANLEY: Something told me inside that I could do music. And interestingly, being deaf in one ear was not something that I saw as a hardship or something that was a hindrance at all.

GUPTA: Eventually, offstage hearing loss did become a hindrance. So Stanley had surgery.

STANLEY: Basically, you take a power drill and aim into the head.

GUPTA: The surgery was successful, but it does not equal self- acceptance. That Stanley learned over time, and by working with kids.

(on camera): You talk to kids who have microtia. So they're -- right now, they're like I'm getting teased on the play ground, I'm not the rock star.

STANLEY: And how cool it is for them to hear somebody say I was there and look what I did?

You can get through this, and you'll find out how much something means to you by how hard you're willing to work to overcome it.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: An area around the Pentagon under lockdown earlier today has reopened. Authorities had closed several roads between Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon after a vehicle was found abandoned by the side of the road. Police have now detained a man with an Ethiopian background. Citizenship right now is unclear.

There was nothing suspicious or explosive was found in that vehicle, but FBI agents are trying to determine an unfamiliar substance found in his backpack. Next hour, our Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence, joins us with more on this arrest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let him go! Let him go!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: A bit of a brawl breaking out. Where? Outside of what some are calling the trial of the century. Also there, a surprise witness for Casey Anthony's defense holds a news conference. That is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HOLMES: Well, it may or may not turn out to be the trial of the century, as some have called it, but the Casey Anthony murder trial turning into almost as big of a circus as we saw during the O.J. Simpson trial. I want you to take a look at something that happened outside the courthouse today. A brawl broke out. Look at this, and then I'll explain what this was all about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: Let him go! Let him go! Let him go! Hey!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is wrong with you? You put him in a headlock! You put him in a headlock!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, he hit me. He hit me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You put him in a headlock, I saw you!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Yes, these folks are literally fighting for position to get inside the courtroom for a murder trial. This was outside the court, when apparently, what happened here, two men cut in line, trying to get a spot inside to watch the trial, and this is what happened.

Also today, inside the courtroom now, the surprise witness the defense put on its list this week, convicted felon Vasco Thompson. What he says, the defense's claim that he's linked to Casey Anthony's father is a surprise to him, too.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VASCO THOMPSON, POTENTIAL DEFENSE WITNESS: I have no idea who George Anthony is. I've just seen him on TV. I never talked to George Anthony. I'm not going to say I never -- I don't know him. And the phone number they got in question, I didn't have that phone number until February of '09. And I don't know why they got me involved in all this mess.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Well, yes, one of the witnesses there kind of having his own press conference outside. You're seeing live pictures. This trial, again, as you know, going on right now. Live pictures of what's happening there. They have one camera that's always fixed on Casey Anthony, as you see there, the other one showing a witness on the stand right now.

Let's turn to David Mattingly. He is there with us. David, let's go with what's happening inside the courtroom for a change. It seems like so much is happening outside, but inside the courtroom today, what kind of a day was it for the defense?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Inside, not as exciting as what we've been watching outside, T.J., but interesting nonetheless. We've been listening to an entomology expert. This is an expert in bugs, insects, and how they interact with decaying or decomposing bodies. And it's his expert opinion, he says that the bugs in this case tell him that there was no body in the car belonging to Caylee Anthony. He says they did find evidence of insects, but not in the quantity that would tell him that there was ever a body hidden in that car. Listen to what he has to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY HUNTINGTON, FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGY CONSULTANT: If we assume there is a body in a car trunk, you would expect to find hundreds, if not thousands, of these adult blowflies. Given that each one of them has six functional legs, assuming that they're intact, you've got hundreds, or 6,000s of legs that are attached to these flies.

A fly does not enter in an enclosed container, lose a leg, and then figure out a way to get out. They're in there, they die there, they're stuck there. I would have expected to find, as I did in these experiments, hundreds, thousands of whole dead insects not only in the trunk of the vehicle, but also in the passenger compartment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And it's been just like that almost all day long, but it did liven up a little bit when the prosecution did get up to cross examine this witness for the defense. And they were hammering away at him, trying to get him to talk about the research and how he's basing his expert opinion on this. He did a lot of research using pig carcasses, and they're saying, the prosecution's pointing out this case did not involve a pig. It involved a small child in the Florida sun wrapped up in a blanket and possibly wrapped up in multiple trash bags stuffed in that car.

So, they're talking about different scenarios here, and it's all going to come down to, T.J., whose story here, the prosecution or the defense's, is the most credible with the jury?

HOLMES: Yes, and it looks like, again, to our viewers, live pictures you're seeing there on your screen, Casey Anthony, it looks like that bug expert's still up there on the stand, David.

But let's move outside of the courtroom now. We have been seeing this since the trial started, people ling up trying to get just those few, I guess around 50 spots, in the courtroom. We've seen people running. We've seen a few scuffles break out. But this one we saw, this latest one seems to be one of the worst we have seen. Are they going to allow this to continue to happen or are they going to come up with a better system for letting people line up to try to get into court?

MATTINGLY: Well, that incident this morning was sort of the back-breaker. You're not going to see that anymore here. You're not going to see the lines forming in the middle of the night. You're not going to see people standing in line hour after hour after hour just to get into that courtroom. What they've done, they're going to start a new system where people line up starting today at 4:00 in the afternoon. The first 50 people in that line, they will take their information, they will look at their ID, and then they will come back in the morning just to take, very calmly, show their ID and take their seat. It's going to be a lot more civilized and a lot less more difficult to get into that courtroom now. You're not going to see these marathon lines overnight as we've seen for the past couple of weeks of people trying to get in there. So a rule change to make sure we don't see anything like we saw this morning.

All right, David Mattingly for us covering this Casey Anthony trial. David, we appreciate you, as always. Thanks so much.

Also coming up next here, America apparently has two different types of dads. That's at least according to a new study. And the trend could be a disturbing one. Stay with us.

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HOLMES: Well, as you all know, it's Father's Day weekend this weekend. Chances are, when many of you were growing up, your dad lived at home with you. Times have a changed, though. Take a look at this. In 1960, 89 percent of kids had their dad at home. Well, these days, in 2010, now it's closer to 73 percent.

Some new research tells us what we might have guessed, that dads who don't live at home don't get to spend as much time with their kids as dads who do live in the house. So, what does all this mean? Let me bring in Jeff Gardere, a clinical psychologist and host of the show "Dad Camp." Good to see you, as always, Jeff.

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Good to see you, T.J. Thank you.

HOLMES: Help me understand here. Is this a new reality that we will just adjust to and fathers will learn to adapt, or is this something that needs to be addressed or even corrected in the future?

GARDERE: I think it's a combination of both. The reality is you gave some startling statistics as to how many fathers live with their kids now versus in the early 1960s. Of course, a lot of this is being impacted by this almost 50 percent divorce rate that we have.

So, the reality is, dads are not going to be living with kids as much as they did, but also that they are going to have to make the adjustments, because this Pew Research study shows once and for all something that we've always known, that fathers are important to the lives of their children. And if they're lucky enough to live with them in the home, the chances are that they'll be much more involved and do much more things with them.

HOLMES: OK. What is that impact, then, and what will it be, if you can give a wider view, even, not just in that one home -- what will the impact be if we start to see fewer and fewer dads living in the home with kids? Just societally, what might we start to look like?

GARDERE: Well, what we are going to start to see, if there are less dads there, there's less of the influence of the father, which means that many of these kids will have issues as far as self- discipline. They'll have issues as far as trust. They may even have issues as far as how they pair with other people with regard to marriage later on in their lives.

And let's face it -- kids look to their parents for guidance. And if both parents are not around or one parent, it's a one-parent home and that parent is out working, then a lot of these kids are going to be on their own, and perhaps won't make the right decisions, especially when we see the impact of the Internet and how that's taken over the lives of many of our kids and how they can be led astray by some of the very destructive things that are on the Internet.

HOLMES: Are we finding as well, though, that dads are starting to make up for not seeing the kids every day? We certainly have technology, whether it's the cell phones and texting constantly, you've got the Skype and you can still lay eyes on them in some way.

But can you ever really -- and I guess the survey showed as well that dads who aren't in the home with their kids are more likely to think they're bad dads. Are they giving themselves really a bum rap there, if you will? You can't help but feel that way, but I guess, can you be a good dad from a distance?

GARDERE: Well, and this is what's happening. When they looked at the dads who were living at home and asked them, do you feel that you're a good dad, nine out of ten said yes, they were good dads. The one living away from them, only 49 percent said they were good dads.

So, I think a lot of the dads who are living apart from their kids, they're starting to feel very guilty about it. They know that there's a lot more that they can do. But just as you alluded to, here's the good part about the Internet. Now they can Skype. They're able to do face-to-face transactions with their kids, they can text their kids as often as possible, and that's what the dads are doing.

And dads are learning a lesson, T.J., they're saying, OK, if I live apart from you, then it's not about the quantity of time, it's about the quality of time. So, even though I need to spend more time with you because I'm not living with you, that because I'm not living with you, that time that I spend with you, it's going to be a rich amount of time and we're going to make it count.

HOLMES: Jeff Gardere, always good to talk to you. Interesting findings in this study. I'm going to send it out, people will be interested to read it. Some interesting findings, but it certainly looks like the face of this society is changing in at least this way. Jeff, good to see you, as always. You enjoy your weekend, all right?

GARDERE: Always a pleasure. Happy Father's Day to everyone.

HOLMES: Coming up, a growing problem that could affect whether your flight is safe. I'm going to tell you, also, show you what drug smugglers are now doing at night. And what they're using to do it. The video is next.

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HOLMES: Well, I want you to take a look at something here. You can barely hear this, but you can't really see it. You hear that noise? It doesn't have lights. What you're seeing here, the middle of your screen there, it's actually smuggling illegal drugs into the U.S. it's a plane.

And planes like this are called ultra-lights. They're really small, fly at night with no lights, so it's easy to maybe evade authorities, but also easy to collide with other planes, hit phone or radio towers, or just crash.

The planes, as they're trying to get the drugs in, don't actually land anywhere, so the border patrol agents are trying to catch the people who are picking up the drugs that are dropped on the ground.

It was during a speech in New Orleans, Newt Gingrich warned people that what he was about to say would shock the news media. Wolf Blitzer with me next to tell me if she was shocked.

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HOLMES: All right, time to get the latest from the political ticker. For that, we turn to Wolf Blitzer. He joins me now from Washington.

Wolf, hello to you.

We've got a number of presidential hopefuls speaking in New Orleans. Newt Gingrich, one of them, said he was going to shock us or had some aggressive words. Just how aggressive were they?

WOLF BLITZER, HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": They were pretty aggressive against the mainstream national news media, T.J. He's at that GOP leadership conference in New Orleans. A lot of the Republican presidential candidates are there. And he really blasted the mainstream media for the criticism that he's been hearing lately involving not only some of his business dealings, but also his wife, Callista.

And he really went after the president of the United States. Once again, saying this. He said, I got criticized a little bit in the elite media because I said Obama's the most successful food stamp president in American history.

Then Gingrich said, well, guess what? Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history -- not backing away at all. He was really tough on the president, tough on the mainstream media.

We will see how that plays out in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination.

Another key candidate, Tim Pawlenty is now saying he made a huge mistake at the CNN debate Monday night when he really didn't -- when he avoided lashing directly out at Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney, when he was governor of Massachusetts, had a mandate program for health care reform in that state.

The president of the United States says that was a model for Obama's and the Democrats' health care reform plan. Now Tim Pawlenty saying he should have -- he should have slammed Romney directly. He made the point, he said, "I don't think we could have a nominee that was involved in the development and construction of Obamacare and then continues to defend it."

He says he simply made a major mistake in not really slamming him Monday night after the Sunday before he talked about Obamneycare, if you will, going after Mitt Romney. So there's a battle going on, obviously, between Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty.

Michele Bachmann, by the way, is going to be live in "THE SITUATION ROOM" right at the top of 5:00, T.J. So, we have got some good questions for her. We will see where she stands, some of these economic issues, some of the other issues coming up in the campaign, so lots of presidential politics as we get closer and closer to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, all those states.

HOLMES: All right. You said she's going to be with you just coming up at the top of 5:00, "SIT ROOM." We're also expecting to hear from her, Wolf, here in just a second. She's speaking at that Republican Leadership Conference. Going to dip into her speech here live.

So, Wolf, appreciate you, as always. We will see you here shortly.