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Romney's Latest Attack; GOP: Payroll Tax Cut Will Pass; Men: Ex-AAU Boss Molested Them; Veterans Sum Up Iraq War In One Word; Admiral Reflects On Iraq War; Admiral Reflects on Iraq War; CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute; Another Makeover for Blackwater
Aired December 12, 2011 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Mitt Romney is launching a new attack against Newt Gingrich this morning hoping to gain ground on the GOP poll leader.
Romney is criticizing Gingrich for saying the Palestinians are an invented people. Gingrich stood by his comments at Saturday night's Iowa debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Is it what I said factually correct? Yes. Is it historically true? Yes. Are we in a situation where every day rockets are fired into Israel while the United States, the current administration, tries to pressure the Israelis into a peace process?
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We stand with the Israeli people, stand with our friends and make it very clear. We're going to tell the truth. We're not going to throw incendiary words into a place, which is a boiling pot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, our deputy political director Paul Steinhauser is in Des Moines. We've got a bit of delay. Paul, does hear me. He's with me. So let's go ahead and talk about what Romney is saying now.
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Kyra, you can obviously tell between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. This wharf words is getting tougher and tougher.
That was the debate Saturday night right here in Des Moines, Iowa. As you mentioned, Mitt Romney this morning on Fox News had some more tough words against Gingrich. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROMNEY: Erratic. Outspoken, which may be great in a campaign, but it's not great for someone who's running for president of the United States representing this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP) STEINHAUSER: Mitt Romney also went after Gingrich over Gingrich's work for Freddie Mac, troubled mortgage company. You're seeing aggressive Mitt Romney the last four or five days now going after Gingrich, why?
Well, we all know, Newt Gingrich is now the frontrunner in the national polls and right here in Iowa among people likely to go to those Iowa caucuses, which are now just over three weeks away -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, well, candidates are definitely ramping it up on the campaign trail this week, right?
STEINHAUSER: No doubt about it. Today, the action -- more of the action is actually in New Hampshire. That's the second state to vote. Their primary comes one week later. Newt Gingrich will be teaming up today with Jon Huntsman at a Lincoln-Douglas style debate in New Hampshire.
But don't worry there's plenty of action right back here in Iowa. Middle of the week, Rick Perry, the Texas governor is trying to kick start his campaign. He starts a 44-stop bus tour across the hawk eye state.
Then we're going to have all the candidates except for Huntsman back here on Thursday for another Republican presidential debate. Check this out? Where does the race stand in Iowa right now?
This is a brand-new poll, the hawk eye poll from Iowa University. Right there at the top, Newt Gingrich 10 points ahead of Romney among likely caucus goers -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, Paul, thanks.
Let's head to Capitol Hill now and optimism is pretty high even as time is short. This is the White House's countdown clock showing when the payroll tax will expire if lawmakers can't hammer out a deal.
Democrats and Republicans can't agree on how to pay for the cut, which saves the average American worker $1,000 a year. President Obama says it's another example of gridlock in Congress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We're going to keep on pushing to get things done. I want to work with Congress. I want to work with both parties in Congress.
I think that we can still make progress on a balanced approach to deficit reduction. What I'm not going to do is wait for Congress. So wherever we have an opportunity and I have the executive authority to go ahead and get some things done, we're just going to go ahead and do them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Kate Bolduan is on the Hill there. She is on the Hill in Washington. You moved your way over there, Kate. Thank you. Well, what do you think? Could this actually pass by the end of the year?
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'll tell you, Kyra, up here there's a general thought that in the end, as often happens, they meet deadlines on Capitol Hill. In the end, Democrats and Republicans will come together to reach an agreement.
But I'll tell you, they are entering a critical week up here in this fight as they're starting to run up against the date that both the House and Senate are scheduled to leave for the holiday break. Truly, there's no real path to compromise at this moment.
Kind of where things stand right now is the House is set and plans, I believe, to vote Tuesday, tomorrow, on the House Republican plan to extend the payroll tax cut as well as extend unemployment assistance that is set to expire as well at the end of the year.
But here's the key on the House Republican provision. They're tying any extension to a provision that would speed up approval of the Keystone oil pipeline. Republicans call it a job creator, but Democrats and the president, they say that this is absolutely not in the ball game in terms of reaching compromise with them.
The president said he will reject it because he says it's unrelated among other things, and Democrats call it a poison pill. The top Democrat in the Senate, Kyra, saying a provision with the Keystone pipeline in it will not pass the Senate.
So we have to wait to see how things move in the house in terms of the Republican proposal. Senate Democrats were told we're working through the weekend on another proposal of their own to extend the payroll tax cut that has not been announced yet.
But you can see there's a lot of conversation going on, but it doesn't seem like yet both sides are ready to reach that compromise that they so need in order to move it through the House and Senate -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, Kate. Thanks.
Well, this morning we've got new details on the sex abuse scandal that's rocking one of the largest sports groups for American kids.
We now know the Amateur Athletic Union kick started a criminal investigation of its former president and gave police the names of three accusers.
Two of them spoke to ESPN last night. George Howell is in Memphis. So what did the men have to say, George?
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, we know one of the men spoke anonymously to ESPN's "Outside the Lines," but Ralph West spoke on camera that he was sexually abused by Dodd back in the 1980's when West was a teenager.
The AAU turned all of that information over here to police, Memphis police, who are investigating this apparently an active investigation. But we've been keying in on the time line of events.
When did this group get the information and exactly what did they do with it? What we've learned on November 7th and 8th, the group tells us that they received anonymous e-mails from a source only identified as shrimp breath and then anonymous phone calls and messages that were left there with the group.
They hired a private investigator to look into the source of that information but, again, this wasn't turned over to police until December 8th. So I asked the hired spokesperson for the AAU, Ron Sachs, about why it took so long to contact police. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON SACHS, MEDIA REPRESENTATIVE, AAU: There was no specificity about an individual that they could contact. No name. No phone number. No hard address. Neither was there an offer in those e-mails or phone messages to be contacted.
They did what they thought was responsible. In retrospect, anybody could armchair quarterback and second guess it perhaps if they knew more they would have called the police sooner.
They're very comfortable that they called the police when they believed they had adequate information to verify there was a need for a police investigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: And, Kyra, Sachs makes the point very clear that the board convened just days after getting the tips about these allegations. They decided to remove Dodd from his post days after, again, getting that information. They hired the private investigator and then decided to turn it over to police -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Well, now these men came forward after we talked about what happened at Penn State and SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY and the allegations of sex abuse there. Did this influence these individuals?
HOWELL: When you listen to the ESPN report, the men make the point that this is something that they started to remember. They started to think about again clearly blocking out these things that they say that happened back in the 1980s and deciding to speak out now decades later -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, George Howell. Thanks so much.
Well, now, Russia's Vladmir Putin is on the defensive. Tens of thousands of Russians take into the streets over the weekend. They are protesting what they believe are rigged elections.
Zain Verjee joins us now with the latest. Zain, what do you think? Are we seeing the beginning of a Russian spring?
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT, CNNI: Possibly. A lot of people are asking that question. Will it be a snow revolution? Let me tell you what the newspapers are saying. The "Moscow Time" has this headline, Kremlin in the headlights. It say for the first time in his career as national leader, Putin is on the defensive and he and his team have no standard operational procedures for that.
"International Herald Tribune" on Russia's streets a message for Putin. It says, the protesters themselves were uncertain where they were heading, but they were giddy with the sense that they, rather than the Kremlin, had for a moment taken control of the country's political agenda.
Finally, Kyra, here in the U.K. "The Guardian" has this headline. For Russia, an era has ended. The protests in scores of cities on Saturday are being treated less violently by police and more respectfully by state-controlled TV than in the past. Will Putin continue the softer approach as the March poll approaches?
So the elections are basically going to be next here. Putin wants to be president. A lot of people are angry of what they is a lot of corruption within the government and economic stagnation.
Putin says he can fix it. But this is a different era in Russia because they believe, much like in the Arab world, that it's time for the people to take back the power -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: So what do you think can actually diffuse this, an investigation? Why did the Russian government even allow the demonstrations to take place at all?
VERJEE: Well, it may have caught them off guard really. I mean, Vladimir Putin is not a man that's used to having to deal with public protests to this extent.
It really is kind of a momentum that's been going on around the world with the Arab spring, with the Occupy movement and the Russians are taking things into their own hands and they are protesting.
Can he diffuse it? Don't know. The jury is out. There have been so many world events where people have tried to diffuse it and predict it. No way, this would never happen here and it has happened. So I think there is a big question mark as to how Putin can deal with it.
PHILLIPS: Zain, thanks.
Straight ahead, the war in Iraq might be over, but many of the American men and women who fought it keep battling it in some ways and they'll be doing that for years to come.
Coming up, we're going to ask veterans if the shock and awe, the painful sacrifices that followed were worth it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Just in to the CNN NEWSROOM. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider Arizona's controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants.
The state had appealed federal court rulings that had blocked key parts of the reforms. The Obama administration has also argued against the measure saying immigration issues are under the exclusive authority of the federal government.
Arizona says Washington has failed to control the problems and has a right to protect its residents.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki is meeting with President Obama this hour. They're talking about how the two nations will cooperate in a new era without U.S. troops. We'll learn more next hour.
They're actually holding a news conference. They'll also lay out a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery to honor our war dead. The U.S. is getting ready to pull pretty much all of its forces out of Iraq by the end of the month. About 6,000 men and women are still there.
More than 4,000 U.S. troops were killed in the Iraq war. Nearly 32,000 of our men and women wounded. Even those who came home unscathed physically have scars. Many of them still fighting battles.
The same battles could await those troops about to close the door on nearly nine years of war. CNN goes in depth on the final days of the conflict I had a chance to talk with a group of vets about how it's changed their lives forever.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mission objectives, hit the target.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seven aircrafts did drop bombs over Iraq.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Eight years ago I was there when the Iraq war began, from the air.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've got it in their sights.
PHILLIPS: Land.
(on camera): The number of threats ground troops are dealing with.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): And sea.
(on camera): There are five weapon stations on this special operations craft.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): I met some of the bravest men and women I've ever known. A bravery that came at a physical and mental price.
(on camera): In one word, how would you describe the war in Iraq?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sacrifice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bittersweet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mistake.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): These are veterans of "Operation Iraqi Freedom," from the Army, Air Force, Marines. All impacted in some way by this war.
(on camera): Was the war worth it to you?
JOSH AGUILAR, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: As an infantryman I was on the ground a lot. I talked to a lot of families and individuals in the Iraqi populous.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Staff Sergeant Josh Aguilar was on the ground when it began, his first of three deployments.
AGUILAR: I felt as long as I gave somebody else the opportunity to have the same democracy, same hopes and freedoms that we can have every day, maybe some of those things that I did, some of the sacrifices that my friends made were worth a little bit of something.
PHILLIPS: Aguilar retired six months ago and starts school in January.
(on camera): Sarah, how about you? Was it worth it?
SARAH OLDRIDGE, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: I think I'm on the fence. I know there have been a lot of Iraqi casualties, but how many more would there have been if we weren't there?
PHILLIPS: Staff Sergeant Sarah Oldridge is now a paralegal in the Air Force Reserve and works at a private security company.
(on camera): You were a teenager building bombs. How did you process that?
OLDRIDGE: You build those bombs. They don't come back. You know that someone's dead and it's hard to be happy about that, but at the same time, I was happy that it wasn't me.
PHILLIPS: How did that change you?
OLDRIDGE: I think at the time you just kind of become cold and callous to it. It's self-preservation.
PHILLIPS: That you went from being a U.S. marine to studying peace and conflict at U.C. Berkeley. Talk about a switch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have say hard time understanding why we went there in the first place, going in under false pretenses for weapons of mass destruction. I etting out of the military took me at least a year to try to negotiate being a civilian again.
PHILLIPS: Negotiate being a civilian. What do you mean by that? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was very definitely ready to end my five-year enlistment, but when I got out I didn't anticipate the feeling of loss, especially in terms of really strong ties and bonds between me and the guys that I served with.
JESSI TSENG, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: I struggled with seeing my friends contemplate suicide.
PHILLIPS: Jesy Tseng was an Army sergeant in Iraq, an assistant to a brigade commander. Now with a degree in sociology, she's dedicating her life to saving fellow vets.
TSENG: Seeing them deal with alcohol abuse, drug abuse, homelessness, that was the most difficult thing for me to see. I witnessed them save someone's life in Iraq and they can't save their own anymore? It hurt me.
PHILLIPS: Ramsy Raher was an army specialist, honorably discharged just five months ago. He's now living in a transitional housing facility.
(on camera): You've also struggled quite a bit since you got back. You're two months sober. That's positive.
RAMSEY RAHER, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Why did you turn to alcohol?
RAHER: I had to see good patriotic Americans with good fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, pay the ultimate sacrifice and that played a heavy emotional toll on myself.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Ramsey received two purple hearts in less than a year.
RAHER: There was small arms contact, mortar attacks, interact firearm bases. I mean you're constantly dealing with a barrage of ammunitions. Some of those events still haunt me.
PHILLIPS (on camera): Do you feel safe now?
RAHER: Now that I'm sober, yes.
PHILLIPS: The war on Iraq, how did it impact your marriages, your families?
OLDRIDGE: You know how they say the first year of marriage is tough? Try deploying three months after you get married. You learn a lot about yourself, about your marriage, about your spouse. We had a lot of fights, but we talked it out and I can definitely say that our marriage is much stronger.
PHILLIPS: Josh, you've got a bit of a different story.
AGUILAR: A little bit. I was married six months before I deployed for the first time in Iraq. I very specifically remember writing my wife a letter saying things are different for me. I can feel them. I can tell.
So when I came home on top of me dealing with my own issues and on top of her becoming pregnant with our first child, it caused a lot of big gaps in our relationship.
By the time I deployed for my second deployment a year and a half later, it was over. As I was walking out the door, I already knew this is the last time we're going to share a home together.
PHILLIPS: Our troops are coming home. What's your advice?
RAHER: My advice is just listen to the command. They do a very good job of giving mandatory briefings that deal with subjects such as suicide, domestic abuse, alcohol abuse and don't diminish the good work that you did.
OLDRIDGE: You have to be open. You have to communicate. You have to be willing to talk about what you're feeling. Otherwise, you just going to ball it up and be angry.
MATT HOWARD, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: My advice is just listen to the command. They do a very good job of giving mandatory briefings that deal with subjects such as suicide, domestic abuse, alcohol abuse and don't diminish the good work that you did. Realistically, people are not necessarily meant to kill other people. They're going to have a reaction to that.
AGUILAR: Fighting those emotions and fighting those problems on your own isn't going to help. You fight as a team. You need help as a team.
TSENG: Eighteen veterans succeed in committing suicide a day and 32 veterans attempt to commit suicide every day. These are insane statistics and it's real. I always think about everyone that we've lost in Iraq, and I live my life to fulfill what they could have done in the future but they can't now.
PHILLIPS (voice-over): Five voices of survival and sacrifice soon to be joined by the nearly 40,000 troops headed home leaving Iraq for good.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Coming up next, the man who led shock and awe, Admiral Timothy Keating. It's his turn to reflect on the Iraq war. I'll ask him what has changed and stayed the same and what advice he has for the thousands of troops coming home for good.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, the Iraq war as we knew it, ends at the end of this month when the U.S. pulls most of its troops out. We're going in depth on that conflict. Nearly nine years ago just before the bombs started dropping I was on board the "USS Abraham Lincoln."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIPS: Getting ready for war and rallying up the troops, that was the mission of Admiral Timothy Keating today as he flew from Bahrain here to the USS Abraham Lincoln.
It's not a matter of if there will be a war but when the war will start. Keating told the men and women today that you need to call home and tell your families that what you are about to be a part of is going to make history.
ADMIRAL TIMOTHY KEATING, U.S. NAVY (RETIRED): We've achieved surprise by going about this particular conflict, if we do it, in a way that is very unpredictable and is unprecedented in history.
Remarkable speed, breathtaking speed, agility, precision and persistence, if we go, the plans that we have are unlike anything anyone has ever seen before.
PHILLIPS: Well, what we saw was "shock and awe." Admiral Timothy Keating led it. He joins me live in studio. Wow. I look back at that and I'm curious if you had the same reaction. There was so much energy.
There was a decisiveness. There was a plan. You were ready to go. Now eight years later, this war has become so controversial in so many ways. How does that all sit with you right now?
KEATING: It seems a long time ago, Kyra, to be sure. We're gratified that the young men and women are able to come home. They've made the sacrifices that they've made.
Iraq is a free country, but we can't forget for a second the 4800 some men and women that won't be coming home. We believed then and I believe now that it was an important mission and that it was right and just.
PHILLIPS: All right. I want to ask you this question. I went back to my journal. You're thinking, no, but I wrote that day before the war started, I put, Admiral Keating came aboard today. He made his rounds to all the carriers to inspire the troops.
Keating really amazes me. He's so good in front of the sailors. He told all the men and women to call home and tell their families that they're about to be a part of history. What are the history books going to say now?
KEATING: The history books will record remarkable courage, valor, bravery. Lots of tough, tough decisions by not just our country's leaders, but leaders of the coalition, men like Tommy Franks, Donald Rumsfeld.
I can run on a long list of folks who were confronted with some very, very difficult, demanding, time-critical decisions. They did the best that they could with what information they had. I was immensely and remain immensely proud of being part of it.
PHILLIPS: Let me get you there. They did the best they could with the information that they had. OK. I think there's no doubt that that seven minutes of "shock and awe" went off exactly how all of you wanted it to go off. There wasn't a plan B. There was not a tight plan for what was going to happen after Saddam Hussein, why?
KEATING: Several reasons, none of them can justify the fact that you're right. We weren't as well prepared for phase 4 as we should have been. The original plan that we didn't talk much about you'll recall early had about 120 to 130 days of offensive operations to get into Baghdad.
The marines and soldiers got there in about 30 so that part of the campaign went much more quickly than anticipated and that time that we were kind of counting on, that extra 90 days, we didn't have it. It caught us unprepared. Not as well prepared as we should have been.
PHILLIPS: As we look at these images, I read another part of the journal here, which is going to lead me to the next question. I wrote, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave the country or face war. That time runs out tomorrow.
Will we go to war tomorrow because all of us now have to wear our gas masks in a bag on our side and on our faces at times and we have to take them everywhere we go. When I asked you about WMD, this is what you told me.
KEATING: We're concerned about them to be sure. We're not looking to sprinkle fairy dust on them and pretend the problem doesn't exist. It does, in a real way in our mind. We're actively engaged offensively and defensively to minimize if not eliminate the threat.
PHILLIPS: Should Americans worry about weapons of mass destruction.
KEATING: Again, I wouldn't use the word worry. I would say concern is more appropriate.
PHILLIPS: Why should Americans be concerned about weapons of mass destruction living in the United States?
KEATING: I don't know that location is as big a deterrent as we might have assumed several years ago.
PHILLIPS: As we know, to this day no WMD. How does that sit with you?
KEATING: Doesn't make what we did any more or less valid, Kyra. You'll recall at the time we were in Bahrain. We recognized that Saddam had used weapons of mass destruction on his own people and enemies.
We lived within in range of Saddam's weapons. I was convinced then and I look back on it and I would have made the same decision then as I did, that we were -- it was a constant, valid threat.
The fact that WMDs haven't been found and aren't likely to be found makes it a more difficult proposition to have made as a justification to go in based on that issue alone, but in retrospect, we did the right thing.
PHILLIPS: I also asked you about when the war was going to start. You wouldn't really answer me. I asked you if we're going to war. In many different ways, you really wouldn't answer. But then I ask you a question, is this about revenge? This is what you told me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Is it revenge?
KEATING: No, ma'am.
PHILLIPS: What is it?
KEATING: It's making the world right. It's ensuring that our children and grandchildren will not have to face the same horror that we faced, not just those of us in the Pentagon, World Trade Center, Bali, around the world, around the globe. We need to do everything we can, and we will, to make sure that our kids and our grandkids don't have to go through the same horror. That we don't have to go through it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Eight years later, was that war worth it?
KEATING: Sure. Yes, ma'am, it was.
PHILLIPS: You don't feel in any way, shape or form you were duped to the reasons why we went to war?
KEATING: No. I and the folks with whom I dealt were very clear about it, Kyra. As I say, tough decisions. Might like to have done some things a little different or a lot different than we did. But in retrospect, again, I'm proud to have participated in the extent that I did. I salute young men and women who did the real fighting.
PHILLIPS: Those men and women that did the real fighting.
KEATING: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Final thought. They've come back with PTSD, suicides have been off the charts, alcoholism, divorces, domestic abuse. What do you say to the troops coming home?
KEATING: Yes.
PHILLIPS: What do you say to those vets that are wondering?
KEATING: Yes, I say thanks for your service. Thanks for demonstrating in a crucible that is almost unimaginable your courage, your honor and your commitment. And I would tell them to be strong and in so being, to get as much help as they need as quickly as they need it. Don't be reluctant. Don't be afraid. Don't think yourself any less a man or woman by seeking help immediately.
PHILLIPS: Well it's a tough price to pay. KEATING: Yes. Brutal.
PHILLIPS: Admiral Keating, thanks for your time today.
KEATING: Thanks Kyra it's good to see you.
PHILLIPS: And tomorrow we continue to go in depth on the Iraq war and its effects on those who fought it. We're going to check in with our band of sisters, female vets who came away from this conflict with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD and the battle that followed them home. We're going to find out how they're coping.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: All right. Time for Political Buzz, your rapid fire look at the best political topics of the day. Three questions, 30 seconds on the clock. And playing today, CNN contributor Will Cain; Sirius XM political talk show host and comedian, Pete Dominick; and radio talk show host Dana Loesch.
All right guys, first question. Romney made a lot of headlines with this comment Saturday night. Let's roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Rick, I'll tell you what, $10,000? $10,000 bet?
RICK PERRY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not in the betting business.
ROMNEY: Oh, ok.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: $10,000, a lot of money. Average American making about $27,000 a year. Does it alienate voters, Pete?
PETE DOMINICK, SIRIUS XM HOST: Yes, I think a little bit. I don't -- in the end, I don't think anybody is going to vote for him or not vote for him. But you know, politicians generally adhere to a rule that even though we have millions of dollars and Mitt Romney apparently worth $250 million you're not supposed to throw that out in voter's faces.
At least Rick Perry didn't go for it and didn't have a gaffe in that moment. But $10,000 for Mitt Romney is apparently -- that's like a dollar for most Americans. And I don't think that will win him any applause in this really, really difficult time. Ridiculous.
PHILLIPS: Will?
WILL CAIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I disagree. I think it will win him some applause. You now, everyone of us, even those watch put on our little amateur political strategist hats and we say there are some group of people out there, the middle class, who're going to be highly offended by this $10,000 bet.
But I challenge you. Does it really offend you? As an individual, as we each hear this, are you really offended by that? I don't think so. In fact, I think a lot of us even like it. It showed confidence.
I'll tell you what, Rick. Put your money where your mouth is. I've got $10,000 on it. That's how confident I am that I'm right. I think it's going to resonate.
PHILLIPS: Are we going to make bets here? Dana?
DANA LOESCH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I just thought it was funny that he was betting Rick Perry on something that we all know anyway, on something that was so obvious. That's not how you debate. When you get debated into a corner you don't stick your hand out, you want to bet me $10,000? It was just so playground-ish.
CAIN: I do.
LOESCH: And I think that it showed him to be a little bit more arrogant than I think that he was wanting to let on during the debate. I thought it was one of the silliest moments of the debate. I thought this was his worst performance.
PHILLIPS: All right guys.
CAIN: Well, Dana, I have to tell you, men do that. We do that.
PHILLIPS: Look at Will. Will is sort of taking Roland Martin's place where he goes beyond the 30 seconds.
All right guys. Second question here, at CNN as you know we're going in depth this week on our troops coming home from Iraq. Politically, the timing couldn't be better. Election is in a matter of months. What do you think? Will this sway voters in any way? Dana.
LOESCH: I think it's probably going to sway the voters, who were wanting us to get out of Iraq perhaps a little bit more quickly than we were scheduled to. We were already scheduled I think to be out by New Year's or something, but the thing is here we have some of the top generals who are over there saying we needed to still have -- we would have liked to have a minimum of 10,000 troops left in the country just to make sure that it's stabilized in the wake of our departure because there are groups ready to exploit that power vacuum.
We don't want to see happen in Iraq what happened in Vietnam. So it kind of remains to be seen whether or not it's going to be a huge success or whether it will sway people this election or maybe even next.
PHILLIPS: Will?
CAIN: It's complex. Will it sway voters anyway. It also is broad. There are going to be some out there who are extremely anti- war who are going to say -- in his campaign President Obama promised to withdraw troops in 16 months and could be disappointed. There will be others who are extremely hawkish and think we should stay there with no timeline who'll also be disappointed.
But I have to say I think the vast majority sadly, it won't even hit the radar very heavily because none of us were that involved in this war on a personal level as a vast majority of a population. That's a sad testament actually.
I think if you ask me does it sway voters in any way, I would say that if you see Iraq as a success or failure, could paint how you see our involvement in Iran in the future.
PHILLIPS: Pete?
DOMINICK: First of all, Kyra, I applaud you and everybody at CNN that is covering this. It's really, really important. Great job. Will is I think right here. There's another one percenter. The one percent of military families who get affected by these wars. 4,485 Americans have lost their lives; over 32,000 have been injured. You've been talking about all the rest of the consequences; the divorces, the drug abuse and so on.
This is probably not going to sway people and I disagree with Dana in terms of what she thought about the military leadership in general. As we sign an agreement with Iraq, the Obama administration would have liked to have stayed. They tried to convince Iraqi leadership to let us. But they wouldn't.
And we should stop listening to some extent to our military leadership as Jon Huntsman and President Obama are doing, listening a little bit more to civilians on these cases.
PHILLIPS: Your buzzer beater guys; 20 seconds each on this one. Four years ago then optimistic candidate Obama swept into the White House on a campaign of hope and change. Now he's reflecting on it on "60 Minutes". Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't over- promise and I didn't underestimate how tough this was going to be. I always believed that this was a long-term project. That reversing a culture here in Washington dominated by special interests was going to take more than a year. It's going to take more than two years. It's going to take more than one term. Probably takes more than one president.
The one thing I've prided myself on before I was president and it turns out that it continues to be true as president, I'm a persistent son of a gun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: But is persistence enough to keep the White House -- Will? CAIN: Well, hope and change are much more saleable than persistence. But persistence is definitely a necessary trade especially when you talk about our economic situation which will take a long-term project, will take many years.
I think the operative statement though is he's talking about changing the culture of special interest in Washington. I think more than persistence, what it's going to be is we as voters are going to look at this and say is Obama moving that ball forward or backwards?
For me an ideology to invest in green energy, and special interests and stimulus packages and entitlements isn't moving in the right direction.
PHILLIPS: Dana?
LOESCH: That was very interesting when he was discussing changing the culture in Washington because I think this administration has been a huge part of that culture, special interest. This is the Wall Street president, let us not forget. He did an awful lot in just one term. We're talking about a triple deficits. We're talking about more Americans now more than ever are on the government dole, are receiving federal assistance.
We have middle class families whose incomes are decreasing. Joblessness is at an all-time high. You have 350,00 people who simply gave up looking for work. That needs to change. I don't think he needs another term to make it worse.
PHILLIPS: Pete?
DOMINICK: The opposite of course of persistence, if that's enough to sway voters, is flip-flopping, the changing of mind. The truth is before President Obama even got elected during the campaign he was the first candidate, not John McCain, to turn down the $85 million in public campaign financing. Nothing else matters, Kyra, only the way we finance campaigns.
Democrats and Republicans are always going to be involved with special interests as long as they take money from them. And until that changed, until we strike at the root, until we strike at the root it doesn't matter.
PHILLIPS: Guys, thanks.
Coming up, such a deserving field at the "CNN HEROES: ALL-STAR TRIBUTE". Find out who took the title of Hero of the Year.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, from celebrities to some real stars. Over the weekend CNN Heroes were honored and one was named Hero of the Year in our annual tribute. Here's A.J. Hammer.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) A.J. HAMMER, HLN HOST: Laughter, tears, standing ovations. It was a night of emotion and inspiration at Hollywood's famed Shrine Auditorium.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER, 360": Welcome to "CNN HEROES: AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE".
HAMMER: Selected from more than 10,000 nominations, 10 remarkable men and women were honored for their extraordinary work, like the wife of a fallen soldier who made it her mission that no military widow would feel alone.
TARYN DAVIS, TOP TEN CNN HEROES: I love you, Michael.
HAMMER: An American midwife who moved to Indonesia to run a free clinic for at-risk mothers.
A former refugee who brings free recycled soap to needy communities around the world.
DERRECK KAYONGO, TOP TEN CNN HEROES: And who knows? You might, you know, help save a life.
HAMMER: A paralyzed man who brings the gift of mobility to others in need.
RICHARD ST. DENIS, TOP TEN CNN HEROES: There is nothing better than to serve God and help others.
HAMMER: And a grandmother from Chicago who takes kids off the street and gives them a chance.
DIANE LATIKER, TOP TEN CNN HEROES: Please don't give up on our young people.
HAMMER: And with the help of some of Hollywood's brightest young stars, CNN also honored three young wonders. Their battle for clean water and fight against hunger and homelessness proves that heroism has no age limits.
(MUSIC)
HAMMER: From the first moments on the Red Carpet --
ICE CUBE, SINGER: These are real celebrities to me. You know, these are the heroes.
HAMMER: To the final announcement of the night.
COOPER: The 2011 CNN Hero of the Year is Robin Lim.
HAMMER: A global spotlight shined a light on 10 remarkable heroes, everyday people with big hearts and rock solid determination for changing the world.
A.J. Hammer, CNN, Los Angeles. (END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Houston Texans are going to the NFL playoffs for the first time in franchise history. They have a third-string quarterback to thank. We've got the NFL highlights next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, the NFL highlights are so good we had to bring Jeff back.
JEFF FISCHEL, HLN SPORTS: Yes and great and that's the easy bell (ph). Thank you for having me back.
Last night between the Giants and Cowboys. If the cowboys miss the playoffs they're going to look back at these last two games and bang their heads against the wall. You cannot try to lose in worst ways. Last night against the Giants, they had a 12-point lead with 3.5 minutes left. How can you lose?
Well, the Cowboys fill find a way. Eli Manning led the Giants on two lightning quick touchdown drives to take a three-point lead. Then it's rookie kicker Dan Bailey. Remember last week he made a game winner for the cowboys but his own coach called a time-out right before he kicked it. Then Bailey missed a second chance. Dallas lost in OT, while Bailey's kick was blocked with one second left and the Giants win.
How about Houston Texans rookie quarterback T.J. Yates. He's not supposed to be playing at all but the first and second string are out for the year with injuries. Yates, a game-winning touchdown pass to Kevin Walter with two seconds left. The Texans beat the Bengals 20-19 and clinched their first division title in franchise history. Way to go.
The Saints also wrapped up a playoff spot yesterday. Drew Brees or his loyal devoted fans call him Breezes, 337 yards. Two more touchdown (INAUDIBLE) Marques Colston, the Saints win beating the Titans 22-17.
Brees is on his way to breaking Dan Marino's record for most passing yards in a season. If he keeps it going over 5,000 yards this year. Incredible year for Brees.
PHILLIPS: Yes. Good guy too.
FISCHEL: He is, a very good guy. Fans love him.
PHILLIPS: Thank you so much. That's right.
FISCHEL: Ok.
PHILLIPS: Thanks Jeff.
Coming up, another name change for a notorious security firm. We're going to take a look at the latest makeover. The company formerly known as Blackwater and what's behind it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Even after the last U.S. troops leave Iraq, private security contractors will keep right on working. But Blackwater guards won't be among them. For one thing, the firm's been banned. For another, Blackwater no longer exists. A few years ago, the company changed its name to distance itself from deadly shootings involving its guards. And now another name change. CNN's Suzanne Kelly has more. Suzanne?
SUZANNE KELLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra. Good to see you again. You remember these guys. You've been to Iraq. You've sort of seen how the private contractors work. They were the ones who September 16th, 2007, there was a deadly shooting in Nisoor Square in Baghdad.
And these guys were guarding state department people. That was their contract and their reason to be there at the time. They were guarding the people in Baghdad. They went into a traffic circle and a team of guards opened fire killing 17 civilians.
The Iraqi government said that's it, you're out of here. The State Department had to sort of negotiate a window for them to leave but they finally were kicked out of the country. Now, the guy who owns the company, a former Navy SEAL named Erik Prince thought that he could kind of revamp the image, get past this, move on. He tried changing the name as you mentioned and it didn't work. In December of last year he threw his hands up and walked away from it.
Now, a new company came in, new group of private investors who haven't really wanted to say who they are yet. They came in, bought the company. Brought in a new board of directors which is something this company never had before. Wiped out the old management, brought in new people and now they have a new CEO who decided to top it all off with a new name which is Academy.
Now the idea, as Ted Wright explained it to me who's the new CEO, was that Academy is sort of meant to bring to mind the idea of elite training, which is what they're now trying to get back to and get away from a little bit of that security work that got Blackwater into so much trouble.
PHILLIPS: And Suzanne, by the way, I called you Suzanne. You know I always have Suzanne Malveaux on my mind.
KELLY: I know. But I know you can hear.
PHILLIPS: I know exactly.
You actually looked at my pieces when they were coming in from Baghdad. That's right. And you know this company so well. You wrote the book, Suzanne, on it actually. So do the executives running the company ever expect to regain its past success? What are the prospects for this latest rebranding? KELLY: That's a great question. I'll tell you why. At the height of the Iraq war Blackwater was pulling in, according to Ted Wright -- now remember, it's a privately held company, so it's difficult to get a figure. He said they were pulling in around $900 million. This is one company.
Now, Ted Wright, the new CEO of this new company, tells me that they do around $300 million a year. So about a third of what they were doing before.
Ted Wright says the real measure of success for him about whether all of these changes are going to be effective and really work is not really if he's ever going to make that much money again, which he may not, but more whether the Iraqi government is ever going to let this company back into their country to operate there. That's a tall order. He's an ambitious guy.
PHILLIPS: All right. We will definitely stay on this. That's because you've got so much background and expertise. We'll continue to talk about those changes and what it means. Suzanne thanks so much.
KELLY: Thanks, Kyra. Good to see you.
PHILLIPS: Likewise.
Quick break, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: So are you looking for a respected career? Well, stay away from Congress. Our Mark Preston is here with a new poll. I guess some would say, "no kidding".
MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR: Yes, no kidding Kyra. How about this? Stay away from Washington. Gallup has just released a new poll this morning that asked to rate certain professions, including members of Congress and the lobbying profession.
Let's take a quick look at these numbers right now. No surprise given the low approval ratings of Congress -- they have come in at the very, very lowest right there at 64 percent, members of Congress, when Americans were asked to rate the honesty or ethical standards of certain professions; lobbyists come in at 62 percent. You know what, Kyra, if you're someone in college and you're looking for a job, you might want to go somewhere else.
PHILLIPS: That sounds like good advice. Mark Preston, thank you so much.
Well, that does it for us here in the CNN NEWSROOM in Atlanta. My colleague, Suzanne Malveaux, is in Washington today. She's going to take it over from here. Suzanne. Good to see you.
SUSAN MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Good to see you. I heard you call Suzanne, Suzanne. That happens to everybody. PHILLIPS: Did you tell her. You're there in the bureau with her. Please apologize. I saw that. You're the first one that comes to my mind.
MALVEAUX: Thanks Kyra.
PHILLIPS: You bet.
