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Debt Deal Nearing?; Murdochs Appear Before British Parliament; Alleged Serial Killer Speaks; Murdoch's Wife Jumps to Defend; Rupert Murdoch Under Fire; Bride Arrested on Wedding Day; Chihuahua Thwarts Robbers; License Plate Debate; One Lucky Winner

Aired July 19, 2011 - 16:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back. Here we are, top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And let's talk debt, shall we? The clock is ticking, two weeks until that August 2 deadline until the nation would potentially default.

And I want to welcome Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican of Utah, to be on with me today. He's here in the midst of this raging debate about a potential default.

As I mentioned, the federal government here now 14 days away, sir. Senator Hatch, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R), UTAH: Well, thank you. Glad to be with you.

BALDWIN: Let me ask you this. What do you make of the announcement we heard from the president, what, two hours or so ago that the Senate gang of six bipartisan has resurrected itself and has sent him a debt reduction package he can work with? He mentioned it's time to talk turkey and this could be some good news.

Sir, is this cause for hope?

HATCH: Well, you never know.

The intentions of the gang of six may be on the side of the angels, but the devil is always in the details until we have a rough draft or outline of what they would like to do. And I would just like to ask the president, where is his idea on this? And he has indicated he's quite interested in this. So, that's a good sign right there.

BALDWIN: He has. And gang of six, as you know, bipartisan. You have folks from both sides of the aisle trying to hammer this thing out.

HATCH: Right.

BALDWIN: But I have to tell you, Senator Hatch, there are folks out there, including conservatives, saying President Obama has already offered Republicans the deal of their dreams, $4 trillion in debt reduction, primarily through massive...

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: I hear you laughing -- massive cuts to the size of the federal government. Hang on.

Stay with me here.

HATCH: I am. I am.

BALDWIN: Because I want to read to you -- this is from the opinion pages of "New York Times" this morning. This is from conservative columnist David Brooks in an article he titled "The Road Not Taken."

And I just want to read part of it. He says: "Republicans will come to regret this missed opportunity." He goes on, "Fortunately, there are still practical conservatives in the GOP who believe in results, who believe in intelligent compromise."

So, Senator Hatch, that sounds like you, right? You have a reputation of intelligent compromise. At this moment, is your Republican Party able to compromise? Because conservative David Brooks here from "The New York Times" is kind of wondering that himself.

HATCH: Well, we will have to see.

Our party doesn't want to raise taxes because we think we're taxed enough. We think taxes at this time -- we agree with the president that he said last December, that you don't raise taxes during a bad recession like this or a bad economic time like this.

And I agree with that particular statement. But ever since, all he seems to want to do is raise taxes. Well, the way the gang of six tries to get around this is by doing away with what are called tax expenditures. Well, that's not as easy as you think, because tax expenditures are things like charitable deductions, things like home interest, mortgage -- home mortgage interest payments, 401(k) plans, health care given to you by your employer.

These are not little things that -- they were enacted by the Congress because they were needs that were necessary in our society. But I'm open to really looking at this. And I want to compliment the gang of six because they have met for months and months now. They have tried their very best, but basically all they have is an outline.

And like I say, a lot of that has got come to the Finance Committee, where I'm the Republican leader. And the devil is in the details. We're going to have to look at it, see what we can do. By the way, the president's $4 trillion in hoped-for cuts, we learned that back in 1990 when we agreed to tax increases that occurred immediately. And then all of the so-called spending reductions were to occur over time. None of them came about.

BALDWIN: Well, I do want to talk a little bit about raising taxes and looking at the Clinton administration and sort of what happened. And I do want to go there in a moment.

HATCH: Sure.

BALDWIN: But I do want to talk about this impending deadline, right? So we're staring essentially over the cliff at a potential government default. And maybe that's business as usual here, i.e., compromise, not beginning to look -- is it not beginning to look more appealing by comparison? Because a lot of folks are saying the current, you know, "my way or the highway, I have to got it all" climate in Washington is really unworthy of the USA and makes us look like a banana republic.

HATCH: Well, I think that is true. I don't think it should be my way or the highway.

But when the president talks $4 trillion, he doesn't outline what those are. I presume a lot of that will come from defense and from a lot of programs the Republicans would have difficulty with.

Now, I will say this for the gang of six. Under one interpretation of dynamic scoring, it would be over $4 trillion, the savings. Under another baseline -- there are at least two baselines in that -- in their recommendation. Under the other baseline, it would be about $3.7 trillion.

So, either way, at least they're making suggestions, but it's going to have to be up to the Finance Committee and the Ways and Means Committee I guess in the House, the Finance Committee in the Senate to figure out how do you do all of this and who actually is going to have to pay for this.

(CROSSTALK)

HATCH: Go ahead.

BALDWIN: No, I just know, and I have talked to a number of Republicans on this show. And they talk about raising taxes and how that's a job killer. But I do want to point out as I did just last week with Senator Broun that raising taxes did not kill jobs during the Clinton administration.

You know the history. Bill Clinton raised taxes. The economy created 23 million new jobs. Just take a look at the numbers, an eight-year post-war record. Then George W. Bush, he cut taxes, created -- there's the number -- three million jobs.

So those are real numbers. They come to us from the Census Bureau. What do you make of that?

HATCH: Yes. And that's an interpretation that I think is faulty, because, yes, he raised taxes, but it was also the first Republican Congress in over 40 years. And they actually forced a balanced budget on the president.

And to his credit, he went along with it. Now, remember, he vetoed the welfare bill. I had a lot to do with that, with passing that bill. He vetoed it twice, and then he finally agreed and passed it. And of course, that was a great incentive to the economy as well, because people realized we're not just going to keep throwing money down the drain.

So it wasn't because he raised taxes that the economy took off. And in the case of George W. Bush... BALDWIN: He also, though, did inherit a pretty tough economy himself.

HATCH: Well, he did. There's no question about that. And so did -- you know, so did President Obama, he says.

But the fact of the matter is, what Obama doesn't acknowledge ever is that the Democrats have taken over Congress two years before he became president and they started the big spending programs again. In the Bush administration, he did have problems because we got into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think and history will show that we were right to get into those. And we have had fairly good results so far from them, although they have been very costly.

BALDWIN: Yes, I just always think it's important to look at history to then bring us to the president.

HATCH: Right.

BALDWIN: As we come back here to 2011 and specifically your role, sir, in this, I know you're a staunch conservative. But you have compromised in the past. Are you, Senator, are you able to lead the way and compromise today, given the fact that you are up for reelection and the Tea Party, they are watching your every move, sir?

HATCH: Well, it looks like this is going to be thrown over to the -- if it passes, it will be thrown over to the Finance Committee and of course we are going to have to work it through and see what we can do to do this without raising taxes, but also by doing appropriate cuts that really should happen, and by reforming some of these programs so that they work better, cost less. There will be less government, less regulations.

BALDWIN: I think a lot of Americans would agree with you, but, sir, would you be willing to compromise, given you're up for reelection and you have got Tea Partiers taking a very close look at you?

HATCH: Well, the fact of the matter is, I have always been willing to work things out, but they have got to be worked out on a basis that makes sense and I think does not raise taxes.

We're taxed enough. In fact, the gang of six, their approach towards taxation is to lower the rates in three different areas, not -- and to lower the corporate rate down into the 20s. And, frankly, those are steps in the right direction.

I have got to give them credit. I want to praise them for the good work they have done. It's a bipartisan work, but, like I say, the devil is in the details, because all they have basically given us is an outline. But that's important.

BALDWIN: Many of us will be looking to those details and potentially compromise on both sides.

Senator Orrin Hatch, I appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much.

HATCH: Well, thank you. Thank you. I will do my best. BALDWIN: Thank you.

And back to Rupert Murdoch. He and his son were supposed to be the focus of a British Parliament committee hearing today in London. But they were upstaged by this intruder, did you see this, who somehow managed to essentially rush the room, get very, very close to the Murdochs, and in fact as you're about to see much too close. Watch what happened.

No official word yet as to who this man is. Watch him, bottom left, plaid shirt. That's the guy. We know he yelled "you greedy billionaire" at Mr. Murdoch, pushed a plateful of shaving cream into Murdoch's face before he was grabbed, first by Murdoch's wife, Wendi -- she was the one in the pink jacket -- and then by police.

Rupert Murdoch wasn't hurt. They did take a quick break after this whole thing. He did continue on, jacket off, to answer questions before Parliament's Committee on Media, Culture and Sport.

Now, here's what the members wanted to know today. How much did Rupert Murdoch and his top executives know about the phone hacking by reporters on his payroll? They also wanted to know how closely he followed the day-to-day operations at the newspaper that has now been closed because of this scandal, and finally, how responsible he feels about this whole thing.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Murdoch, do you accept that ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco?

RUPERT MURDOCH, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, NEWS CORPORATION: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are not responsible? Who is responsible?

R. MURDOCH: The people that I trusted to run it, and then maybe the people they trusted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you familiar with the term willful blindness?

JAMES MURDOCH, CHAIRMAN, NEWS INTERNATIONAL: Mr. Sanders (ph), would you care to elaborate?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a term that came up in the Enron scandal. Willful blindness is a legal term. It states that if there is knowledge that you could have had and should have had, but chose not to have, you are still responsible.

J. MURDOCH: Mr. Sanders, do you have a question?

Respectfully, I just -- I don't know what you would like me to say.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... whether you aware...

(CROSSTALK)

J. MURDOCH: I'm not aware of that. I'm not aware of that particular phrase.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But now you are familiar because I have explained it to you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Sanders.

R. MURDOCH: I have heard the phrase before. And we were not ever guilty of that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

J. MURDOCH: Mr. Chairman, we have been very clear that serious allegations of wrongdoing have been leveled about the "News of the World," and we believed that the "News of the World," the actions of some reporters and people some years ago have fundamentally tarnished the trust that the "News of the World" had with its readers and this is a matter of huge and sincere regret, mine, my father's, and the company's.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Just a couple of minutes ago, I talked to CNN's Richard Quest, who's been watching the testimony play out today, about the chances that Rupert Murdoch's testimony today will hurt him professionally. And you know what Richard Quest did? He chuckled. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The laugh is it's a really foolish person that would say that Rupert Murdoch is down and out. He may have been 80 and some of the pauses that he gave today you probably had time to drive a double-decker bus through, they took so long.

However, however, when he did speak, some of those comments, they just went straight to the heart of it. When asked about -- his final statement, it is wrong to phone hack. It is wrong to pay the police. No excuses. Time and again, when it mattered, Rupert Murdoch actually came out with the strong, hard answers.

Now, of course, then there was the other moment which you must not forget, Brooke, when somebody decided to throw a plate -- a plastic plate of...

BALDWIN: Shaving cream.

QUEST: ... of shaving foam in his face which also -- yes, which caused a certain amount of commotion. But Rupert Murdoch just carried on. He reminded us he had 200 papers. He's been in the business 57 years. It is a foolish person that actually thinks Murdoch is down and out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Richard Quest for me in London.

Now, the top dogs at News Corp. say they had no idea what their own reporters were doing. So, is this a case of executive ignorance or straight-up lying? And who will take the fall?

Coming up next, I'm going to talk about the legal implications of the Murdoch hacking scandal with Sunny Hostin, including how the Murdochs may have been coached, prepped before going into the fire this morning.

Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Today we saw media giant Rupert Murdoch grilled by a committee of Britain's Parliament, the Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. And what they wanted is they wanted to know just how high the U.K.'s phone hacking and police bribery scandal actually reached.

Now, Murdoch put plenty of distance between himself and all those charges of illegal activity going as far as to say people he trusted are responsible for this, not him. At one point, he described himself as, quote-unquote, "not really in touch" when asked about his day-to- day supervision of his news and entertainment empire.

The Murdochs on the hot seat today and on the case. And as always, we go to Sunny Hostin, joining me from New York.

And, Sunny, hand on a second, cause I want to explain what everyone is seeing there on the right-hand of your screen. We just made this entire list, and we're just going to scroll it just to really show the empire that is News Corp, all the different corporations that fall under that umbrella. So you can watch that, we'll listen to you.

Sunny, I want you two cents on this. You know, I talked to Jeff Toobin about this today and he called it ignorance is bliss. Richard Quest said Murdoch played it direct, no nonsense. You've seen these kinds Q&A's. How did Rupert Murdoch, and also his son James, how did they handle themselves?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think they certainly they were coached, right? I mean, he is a media titan. He is in the business of the news, the business of television. He can afford the best and brightest attorneys in the world. So there's no question in my mind, Brooke, that he was coached.

He was defiant. He did try tried to distance himself, but I don't think you can distance yourself from the facts. Something went terribly wrong. Something terrible here happened over and over and over again, and he can't distance himself from the fact that he is the face of News Corp.

And so, while I think he did OK, he was certainly coached, I don't think it's homerun by any stretch of the imagination.

BALDWIN: You know, he, Rupert Murdoch, prepared this statement that he actually had to wait till the very end to read. And the second line in he says, "This is my most humble day of my career," words like humble, mistakes, regret. Do you buy the sincerity, Sunny Hostin?

HOSTIN: You know, he certainly said the right things -- again, I think he was probably coached -- but I don't think you can change the facts here. I don't know that you can be willfully blind. I don't think you can use this "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" and have that work in a government investigation.

BALDWIN: What happens when this investigation -- because look, it's headquartered in Manhattan, News Corp, it's an American company with clearly a global reach, but, you know, U.S. lawmakers, FBI they're all calling on different investigations here within the U.S. What might that mean for his companies?

HOSTIN: Well, I think your point is a great one, this is a publically held U.S. company, and it's not going to fly with government regulators that these alleged horrible activities occurred in a land far, far away. That really doesn't work when it comes to federal investigations.

So there are two issues that I see here, Brooks. I mean, one is that the allegedly the phones were hacked of 9/11 victims. That would be, in my view, sort of an illegal wiretapping. Now there's a five-year statute of the limitations for that, so perhaps that's not going to be that problematic for News Corp.

What I think could be problematic are some of the allegations that journalists paid, bribed, basically, police officers. Paid police officers in Britain for information. In my view, that would be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and that would be very problematic.

You can't put a corporation in prison, right? But you can find the chief executives responsible for it. Sometimes in cases like this, Brooke, there's a federal monitor put in place to change things.

I mean, bottom line is we want good corporate citizen, right? And we want corporate governance. So we want the folks on top, we want the Rupert Murdochs of the world to take care of business, to make sure that their companies are doing the right thing.

And so, I think that would probably be the thrust of the investigation here, maybe a change in leadership perhaps.

BALDWIN: Who knows? I talked to Richard Quest and he laughed and said, you know, there's no way he'd go down, at least not go down without a fight.

HOSTIN: That's right. BALDWIN: But that's a good point, right, Sunny Hostin. That's a good point. Thank you so much.

And coming up next, this is a tough story we covered a coup of years ago. Inside Cleveland's house of horrors. Do you remember this? Secret interrogations of a man accused of killing nearly a dozen women and living with their bodies on his property -- in his walls, in his backyard. Folks, the chilling details, you will hear them, do not miss this right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Chilling new insight into an alleged killer's actions from the man himself. Anthony Sowell is accused of killing and hiding the bodies of 11 women in what many have dubbed his "house of horrors." This is Cleveland, Ohio. You might remember this story, we covered it extensively a couple of years ago; the details are gruesome. Police found these victims bodies in various places. Two rotting corpses found on a bed. Others stuffed inside a wall, in the basement, in the backyard. A skull found in a bucket.

So this morning, Sowell's lawyers rested their case without calling a single witness or presenting any evidence. Prosecutors wrapped up their case yesterday by showing the jury an interrogation tape that police made a day after Sowell was arrested back in 2009.

Now in it, Sowell told investigators he sometimes heard -- and I'm quoting him -- "bad voices" in his head, and he said he dreamed about strangling his victims. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what you did to these six girls, you choked them.

ANTHONY SOWELL, ALLEGED MULTIPLE MURDERER: I think yes. All I can do is tell you what come to mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But specifically, you didn't stab them or cut them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Manually., with your hands.

SOWELL: I'm saying -- yes, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You strangled these girls?

SOWELL: That's what I dream about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Stan Donaldson is a reporter with the Cleveland "Plain Dealer," he has been covering the trial, tweeting about it, watching -- watching it, you know, every single day. And I know on a monitor, really since this thing started last month. And, Stan, you say this video, piece of which we just saw really gave the jurors a glimpse into the mind of Anthony Sowell. Why do you say that? And how damaging do you think the video will be?

STAN DONALDSON, "THE PLAIN DEALER": I think the video will play a big role in whatever the jurors decide. The prosecution left that the last bit of evidence they showed to jurors. They started out with very -- very big testimonies, important testimony from relatives of the victims and then also from five women who claimed that Sowell either raped or attacked them. But that video -- it's the first time the jurors have been able to hear his voice.

So up until this point they haven't heard him. He's showed a little emotion in court, but for the most part, this is -- they're actually hearing his voice, they're hearing him talk about his dreams, they're watching his mannerisms inside the interrogation room where police detectives Melvin Smith (ph) and Lem Griffin (ph) tried to get a confession out of him.

BALDWIN: Stan, let's play one more clip. And I think it's also important to point out, this is when police are interrogating him. They found six bodies in his home, they were still to find five more.

Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOWELL: Do you think I can just -- and everything is so -- it's not clear like that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why isn't it?

SOWELL: I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: It's interesting. He's sitting there, kind of up and down, agitated.

The jury didn't hear from Sowell in person, but the interrogation tape shows him, you know, looks like sort of going from one emotion to the other, Stan. Talk to me about that, what more we see, what you take from this.

DONALDSON: Well, during the interrogation, there were points where he got very frustrated and he didn't want to talk anymore.

There are actually two tapes. One was recorded I believe Halloween evening of 2009 and the next tape was recorded -- I believe it was December 2, 2009. And in the second video, he appears in the video, he's in a jumpsuit. He kind of asked for cigarette, the detectives tell him this isn't a party, and he immediately shuts down and then he asks to go back to jail after detectives began to question him more about, give us evidence, tell us something, tell us something about these women, help us give these families closure. He -- the more and more that they tried to get information about the identity of the victims, the more he would change the subject. He would shut down at times.

BALDWIN: Talking about blacking out, right? Wouldn't exactly remember what exactly happened, had these bad voices in his head. And as you've been watching this whole thing play out, how has that, how has that sat on members of the jury, just looking at their faces as they leave court each and every day?

DONALDSON: Well, I've been watching the trial from a live feed. The judge has only -- he's had some restrictions for the media, Judge Dick Ambrose (ph), so I've been watching from a live feed. I haven't really --

BALDWIN: Got it, no access to jurors.

DONALDSON: Yes. The jurors reaction to things.

But from what I've heard, some of them have shaken their heads. They've looked at the pictures. The pictures that the prosecution showed were very gruesome. They showed the decomposed bodies of 11 women, and I'm sure that it's had an impact on them. But in terms of watching their reaction, I have not seen that.

I have seen a little bit of Anthony Sowell's reaction during the trial. As I said before, he's been calm pretty much throughout the course of this trial, but there were moments during the trial where he would laugh a little bit.

Some of this came about as his relatives testified in court. He has a half brother who talked about how their father was a rolling stone. Anthony Sowell, he chuckled when his brother said that to him.

Also, he also has a step-grandmother who is elderly. And she saw him in court and said hello, Anthony, and Sowell stood up and he waved to her.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: So it sounds like he had a much different appearance, not quite as agitated in court as we saw him in the interrogation tapes.

Stan Donaldson, I just want to give everyone your Twitter handle because you have been tweeting up a storm. It's @PBSowelltrial. Stan, appreciate it. We're going to follow this right along with you.

DONALDSON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Coming up next, if you count on restaurant menus to count your calories, you may be in for a big surprise. A brand new study says what you see -- surprise, surprise -- not always what you get.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: If you're one of those people who eat out maybe sometimes a little too much - guilty! Watch your weight. Listen up here. What you see is not always what you get. I'm talking about those calorie counts given on many restaurant menus. Or sometimes you can go to the Web to get the caloric intake.

So, this new study has analyzed restaurant food only to find out the numbers don't always add up. Elizabeth Cohen, talk to me about the study. I'm afraid to ask what it finds.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, we trust those numbers, right? If a Web site says --

BALDWIN: It's official.

COHEN: Right, it's official, it's there in black and white. A salad has 400 calories. You expect it to have 400 calories. But I spent the day with some Tufts University researchers, and they said that's often not the case and they actually said they were really shocked by the numbers they found. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Lorein Urban is on a secret mission, and it has to do with what's in this bag. She's a nutrition researcher and restaurants don't know she's checking up on them.

Back at her lab at Tufts University, Urban grinds up the food, turns it into a powder and analyzes it to find out how many calories there are.

LOREIN URBAN, RESEARCHER, TUFTS UNIVERSITY: The sample we're going to take to actually put in the balm calorimeter needs to be a representative sample of the entire dish.

She found that one in five restaurant dishes has at least 100 calories more than what the restaurant says it does. That means when you look on the restaurant's Web site, you can't always believe what you read.

SUSAN ROBERTS, RESEARCHER, TUFTS UNIVERSITY: One food had more than 1,000 calories more than it was supposed to. More than 1,000 more. It was just shocking.

COHEN: Urban and her colleague, Susan Roberts, wrote up their findings in this week's "Journal of the American Medical Association."

ROBERTS: It's enormous. It shouldn't happen.

COHEN: Several restaurants had dishes with a calorie count in the lab that was higher than what was on the restaurant's Website, including Chipotle Mexican Grill where a burrito bowl had 249 more calories. The chicken and gnocchi soup from Olive Garden had 246 more calories. And a chicken dish from Boston Market, 215 more calories.

ROBERTS: I think restaurants have got a lot to answer for here.

COHEN: The National Restaurant Association points out on average, the calorie counts given by the restaurants are accurate. Chipotle and Olive Garden told us their dishes are hand prepared and cooked from scratch, which means calories may vary. Roberts says those extra calories may add up.

ROBERTS: If you have 100 calories more than you think every day, just 100 calories, that's something like 10 to 15 pounds of extra weight you've gained over the course of the year.

COHEN: Ten to 15 pounds, and unless you had a lab, you would never know why.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: More than 1,000 calories off in one instance. I mean, you would hope to trust those, and I guess you can't. So, the issue, thus the salad here, is that a lot of the discrepancies were found in salads, which, you know, you're trying to eat when you're on a diet.

COHEN: Right. This is the go-to food when you're on a diet. So, this is a side salad from Outback Steakhouse. Guess how many calories it was off by, according to the folks at Tufts?

BALDWIN: Was off by? Well, if she said 1,000, I'm going to guess like an 800?

COHEN: Very close, 659.

BALDWIN: Wow.

COHEN: So this salad had 659 more calories than what you would get from the information on the Web site. That's according to the folks at Tufts.

Now, Outback says the folks at Tufts goofed and got an entree-sized salad instead of a side salad, but the folks at Tufts said no, that's not true. And Boston Market also says there were, you know, accuracy issues with their food -

BALDWIN: Why? Why the discrepancies? Is it because they're throwing more blue cheese in the salad?

COHEN: Exactly. These are made by hand. So, if the guy who happens to be making your salad is - I mean, look at this.

BALDWIN: A little bit more generous, right.

COHEN: A few more shakes and you've increased the calories by hundreds.

BALDWIN: So, what do you do as a diner and you're trying to trust these numbers and now we know we can't.

COHEN: I've got three words for you. On the side. Get things on the side.

BALDWIN: We have to be those annoying diners who asks for everything on the side. COHEN: Yes, yes. Like what was that movie - "When Harry Met Sally." Right exactly. On the side. Well, she was on to something. Like, I don't know if you can get close enough to this, but there's all these bacon bits and blue cheese. It really does look delicious. But if you can ask for the bacon and the blue cheese on the side, you control what's in it instead of the guy who's in the back making --

BALDWIN: Really, Elizabeth Cohen? You're going to make me say I want the almond on the side and the blue cheese on side and the onions on the side and the tomatoes on the side --

COHEN: I mean, if you're watching the weight, not that you should - but if someone is watching their weight - I mean, not the onions or tomatoes. They're not going to do anything to you. But blue cheese and bacon bits, yes.

BALDWIN: No, it's a good point. A lot of people. Look, we all are so often watching our weight, aren't we, Elizabeth Cohen.

COHEN: Everybody at some point, right?

BALDWIN: Thank you very much.

And still to come here, is this Texan ready to throw his hat into the presidential ring? All eyes set firmly on Texas governor Rick Perry as he hints about a run for the White House. We'll go to CNN's Jim Acosta who is in Texas with the governor. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Time now for your CNN Equals Politics update. And for that, we're taking you on the road.

Jim Acosta with the latest news fresh off the political ticker. And there he is. Jim, you're in Austin, Texas, following governor Rick Perry. I'm careful not to say presidential hopeful. At least not yet. What's the governor been up to the last couple of days?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, he has been really going through the motions here of a serious presidential contender in the making here. He is weighing whether or not he can raise the funds to actually make a serious run for the White House.

There are already several candidates in the race. People like Rick Perry, people like Michele Bachmann, who are raising lots of money. So, he's talking to donors. He's going to be having a meeting in Austin with some potential presidential donors, having dinner with them.

Earlier in the day, Brooke, he was doing a satellite remote meeting with some pastors in South Carolina. South Carolina is obviously one of those early voting states. And he said something early in the weekend to "The Des Moines Register" in Iowa newspaper. He said he is starting to feel like he's being called to run for president. And that got all the political press buzzing about whether or not this is actually going to happen, and it's starting to look like it's going to happen, Brooke.

BALDWIN: When I hear you say South Carolina, dinner with donors, it does make you think, is he really seriously flirting with this idea to make an announcement to jump into the race. Any specific news on that front, as far as an announcement?

ACOSTA: Well, his aides say that he's going to have an announcement by the end of the summer. One thing interesting that's happening with Rick Perry is he's probably not going to jump into the race before August 6. And there's a key reason why. Governor Perry is hosting and leading a national day of prayer down in Houston at Reliance Stadium, a very big football stadium, where he's call on Christians all over the country to come to the stadium and pray with him for what they consider to be a nation in crisis. And it's a very interesting move.

You know, there's some critics of this event who say wait a minute, this is blurring the lines, separating church and state. Rick Perry is saying no, no, no I'm called by my faith to do what I can to get this country in order. And he's defending this event on August 6 down in Houston. He's going to go forward with it. He told us yesterday at a press conference, he makes no apologies for it.

And I think after that event happens, Brooke, we're going to start to hear something pretty serious about an announcement.

BALDWIN: Okay, we keep talking about August 2 -

ACOSTA: One way or another.

BALDWIN: But August 6 with regard to Governor Perry. OK, Jim Acosta, thanks very much.

And coming up next, we're going to take you inside the mind of Rupert Murdoch. A CNN insider tells us more about the man behind this massive media empire.

Plus, his wife jumped to his defense today when that attacker sort of rushed the room during that hearing. You're going to hear her story, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: In case you missed this, I want to show you this video again. Watch the bottom left-hand side of this screen. You'll see this attacker approaches Rupert Murdoch with a shaving cream pie during his hearing today in London. And we're told as he was shoving this in his face, he said "You're a greedy billionaire" after he went after the head of News Corp.

Now, I want you to watch, bottom left, there's a woman in a pink jacket. And she doesn't waste too much time or effort going after this attacker. So who is that woman sort of coming to Murdoch's rescue? Well, it's his wife, Wendi. There she goes. And it got us wondering exactly who is this woman who literally stood up for her man? Let's go to Felicia Taylor. She's live outside News Corp headquarters in New York. And Felicia, what is Wendi's back story?

FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wendi Dang came from Shandong (ph), China and she studied there early on as a medical student. She then actually ended up coming to the United States, and she ended up graduating from Yale with a business degree. Wendy started working for Rupert Murdoch back in the '90s. She was an intern at Star TV in Hongkong.

Then they met and clearly, we know resulted. They ended up getting married in 1999. She has two little girls, ages 8 and 10. And she's very protective of her little girls and clearly very protective of her man judging by what happened earlier today.

This was a top trending topic on Twitter. They're now calling her the nickname "The Tiger Wife." So clearly, Wendy Murdoch is very protective of the Murdoch Empire for her own reasons.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Of course, it's on Twitter. I should not be surprised. Felicia Taylor, thank you very much. You know, we've been following media baron Rupert Murdoch's testimony.

So who is the man behind the curtain so to speak, Paul La Monica, the author of "Inside Rupert's brain" joins me now. Paul, let's listen. We replay to some of what Murdoch said at today's hearing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you accept that ultimately you are responsible for this whole fiasco?

RUPERT MURDOCH, CHAIR AND CEO OF NEWS CORPORATION: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not responsible? Who is responsible?

MURDOCH: The people that I trusted to run it and then maybe the people they trusted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Paul, you wrote a book on this man, I want your perspective. How do you think he did?

PAUL LA MONICA, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR, CNNMONEY: I don't think he faired really well at all. Most media observers will not really believe that Rupert Murdoch had no knowledge of what was going on, even if it was maybe just, you know, kind of implicit knowledge as opposed to real direct smoking gun knowledge.

He hired Rebekah Brooks, was a loyal confidant of his for him now to claim that he wasn't really paying attention to the tabloids when newspapers. Everyone knows that media tabloid is his first love. It seems a little odd.

BALDWIN: Anything about his response, he said this is the most humble day of my career, sincerity. Do you buy it?

MONICA: You know, I don't doubt that it is probably the most humble day of his career. He's had plenty of humble days in the past few years, you know, having just sold Myspace for a fraction of what they bought it for a couple of years ago.

It's been a rough patch for him. So I do believe that he's sincere about feeling badly for what's happened. But at the same time, I think there probably was it sounds like this culture at the News International tabloids where this was probably maybe, you know, overlooked if not necessarily encouraged.

BALDWIN: You write in your book that the newspaper business is his first love. Clearly at 80 years of age as he said today, you know, still working 10 to 12-hour work days. He loves his job.

He conceded in today's hearing that he spends a lot of time with "The Wall Street Journal" than the U.K. papers. You wrote this column on CNN Money and the headline is "Earth to Murdoch, Just Sell the Newspapers." What do you mean by that?

MONICA: Yes, the newspaper business I think is just more trouble than it's worth right now. It's a very small percentage of the company's overall profits. News Corp is more famous before this scandal for owning Fox, both the broadcast network, which "American Idol" and "House" are on. It owns obviously Fox News, the big Fox movie studios.

So really where News Corp makes its money is through TV, cable, entertainment, you know, Hollywood movies and I think a lot of investors would prefer to see News Corp stay on that path and maybe even focus more on the pure media companies and not so much the newspapers because everyone knows the newspaper business has fallen on tough times in the past, you know, five, 10 years.

BALDWIN: OK, Paul La Monica, cnnmoney.com is where you can read his columns and also again, your book, "Inside Rupert's Brain." Paul, thank you.

MONICA: Thanks.

BALDWIN: And coming up, I have quite a mug shot for you. It involves a runaway bride and I can't wait to see what Wolf Blitzer thinks of this gal. Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You know what they say, nothing can stand on the way of true love and nothing was going to keep. Tammy Hinton from her wedding not moving out of state, got a felony identity theft warrant not even the police.

Maybe the police, officers got a tip the blushing bride would be back in Michigan for her big day and decided to seize upon an opportunity and Hinton as well. Not to worry, Hinton was only in jail for about half an hour. Her husband bonded her out. True love. Move over McGruff. There's a new crime fighting canine taking a bite out of crime. His name is Paco. You've got to see this. When a couple of armed robbers tried to stick up a shot in California, they didn't exactly count on one small detail.

Enter Paco, the Chihuahua. That courageous pooch parked and nipped at the thieves, chasing them out of the store and across the street. No one was hurt. Paco seems to be enjoying the perks of being a hero. I'm a dog lover. Love that stuff.

OK, THE SITUATION ROOM coming up here in a matter of minutes with my friend, Wolf Blitzer as we keep looking at cute little Paco, the Chihuahua. Wolf, you got a dog?

BLITZER: No, but I grew up with a great dog. Her name was Dolly in Buffalo, New York, a member of the family. Once you have a dog like that, you know, you always appreciate those little things.

BALDWIN: So let's talk politics, and cut, cap and balance, they're debating on that this afternoon, but I guess, people say, look, this is just theatrics. It's not going to fly.

BLITZER: It's going to pass the House of Representatives, almost certainly not going to pass the Senate. Even if it did, the president says he would veto the balanced budget amendment to the federal constitution.

So they're going to get this out of the way today in the House of Representative. The president is still hoping that this new deal with the gang of six maybe could get some legs. The big problem they have is a lot of the Republicans almost all of them in the House of Representatives, they don't want to see any taxes go up.

And there a whole bunch of Democrats, especially in the House of Representatives who don't want to see any cuts in the entitlement spending like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. So if they have that fail safe position.

That back up of the McConnell-Reid plan to try to raise the debt ceiling in order to avoid the U.S. going into default, you know it will probably pass but, I don't think it's by any means a done deal.

There's still a lot of nervousness out there right now. We're going to be all over that story. All over the Rupert Murdoch hearings, the testimony in London today. We have a lot coming up right at the top of the hour.

BALDWIN: Wonderful to see it, 5:00 Eastern time. Wolf Blitzer, thank you as always.

Coming up still here, a man is suing the DMV because he says they wouldn't let him have a customized license plate. It involves Sarah Palin. Joe Johns is working on that scoop for us. Your "Political Pop" next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: The state of Nevada may have some explaining to do about why it denied a license plate with Sarah Palin's name on it. Joe Johns is here with the "Political Pop." Joe, what's the story?

JOE JOHNS, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, you have to wonder about this one. Everybody has a bone to pick with the DMV, right? Well, check this out. A guy in Nevada filed a lawsuit apparently claiming his rights were violated because the state refused to give him first at least a license plate with the name Palin in a variety of formulations.

He asked for Palin, Go Palin, Palin 12, Palin 16. Apparently the guy really likes Sarah Palin. Anyway, the state says no, because the plates he was requesting were political in nature. But an administrative law judge ruled for the guy and the state eventually gave him the plate.

There's one thing, though. The "Las Vegas Sun" reporting that some other license plates were found by the state of Nevada to be OK like Go Green, Democrat, Al Gore, Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Hillary, Ron Paul, but they rejected requests for Republican and Bush. So what's political apparently depends on what the meaning of political was. Go figure.

BALDWIN: So ultimately this person couldn't have Sarah Palin on the license.

JOHNS: No, he got it. He eventually got it from the state. The administrative judge said yes, you can have it and then he went back and filed suit because he thinks he had his rights violated.

BALDWIN: OK. Story number two, there's a bit of a sweepstakes going on that only a Washington insider would love. Do tell.

JOHNS: Right, yes. OK, vacation promotions are always popular and you know, "The Washington Examiner" newspaper is offering a different kind of vacation promotion.

This is a trip to Ames, Iowa, for the presidential debate there on August 11. Now, I'm from the Midwest and I'm not so sure everybody gets it. I do.

But one of the big selling points is the debate comes at the beginning of the Iowa state fair. So you can see the butter sculptures and all different kinds of food on a stick.

BALDWIN: Fried Snicker bars?

JOHNS: Yes, I'm sure. Well, probably.

BALDWIN: That's what I ate in North Carolina.

JOHNS: Right and I really like the livestock and there are chickens. So as an added bonus, it will come two days before the straw poll.

Coming from Ohio, now you know. I mean, if somebody offered me an all expenses paid trip to the Columbus Ohio State fair, I might take them up for it, but you don't see this kind of promotion every day.

BALDWIN: Yes, look, "Washington Examiner," you can take a little bit part in history. That's kind of cool. Joe Johns, just quickly, do you have an iPhone? I kind of just got one recently, but I do want just let everyone know. Take a look at this. I'm watching us on my iPhone. You can see the --

JOHNS: That's totally cool.

BALDWIN: Isn't this totally cool?

JOHNS: I've heard about that app.

BALDWIN: I'm not cool enough to have an iPad, if you just go to CNN and HLN, you can actually watch us. So no excuses, you have to watch Joe Johns wherever you are if you have your phone 24/7. So all you have to do is just go to cnn.com/video. Pretty cool, right?

JOHNS: I'm turning on my iPad right now. I'm going to watch us.

BALDWIN: Juice it up and we can watch Wolf Blitzer who is prepping here for "THE SITUATION ROOM." That is it for us, Joe Johns. Good to see you. We'll see you back here tomorrow for "Political Pop" and that's it for me. I'm Brooke Baldwin in Atlanta. Now to my friend, Wolf Blitzer. "THE SITUATION ROOM" starts right now.