Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Rules Changing for Women in Combat; Homs, Syria, Being Bombarded for Fifth Day; Obama Speaks About Home Mortgage Deal; Interview With Author John Tierney; Interview With Bill Nye The Science Guy

Aired February 09, 2012 - 12:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. I'm Suzanne Malveaux.

I want to get you up to speed.

Just about an hour ago, a huge mortgage deal was announced to help homeowners who are under water or in foreclosure. It amounts to $26 billion. The money comes from a settlement with five of the largest banks.

These are some live pictures from the White House. This is where the president is going to talk more about that deal. It's happening in about 15 minutes or so. We're going to take his remarks.

And the rules are catching up now with the reality of women serving in combat roles in the military. Today, the Pentagon is expected is to open up almost 14,000 jobs that allow women closer to the front lines. The current policy prevents them from serving in small infantry or ground units involved directly in combat, but many women in support positions are already putting their lives on the line.

At least 126 more people have been killed in Syria today. That's according to opposition activists on the front lines. This is day five of the government's brutal onslaught in Homs, where neighborhoods are now raging battlegrounds. A doctor there says that bodies began coming in before the sun rises. He says everyone is waiting to die.

Republican Senator John McCain wants to help the Syrian rebels.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: We can work with other countries to provide assistance in a broad variety of ways. And by the way, military equipment should not be an option that should not be -- is an option that should be considered, but maybe not directly. But we could give them communications. They need equipment, they need medical help very badly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The Mississippi Supreme Court is hearing arguments right now over whether those pardons granted by Haley Barbour were actually legal. Now, Barbour outraged many folks during his final gays as governor by pardoning some 200 convicts. They included four murderers who worked at the governor's mansion as part of an inmate program.

Mississippi's attorney general says the pardons were unconstitutional because of the inmates involved did not fulfill all the requirements to get a pardon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is about the children! We're talking about --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: A California school at the center of a shocking child abuse scandal that sparked angry protests by parents reopens today with an all new staff. The Los Angeles School District replaced everyone at Miramonte Elementary, including the principal, teachers, administrators and janitors.

A former teacher is accused of taking bondage photos of more than two dozen students. A second teacher is charged with lewd acts on a young girl.

Same-sex marriage is on the verge of becoming legal in Washington State. Lawmakers there have passed a bill that the governor promises to sign. It would make Washington the seventh state where gay couples can legally marry.

And the rules are changing for women in combat roles in the military. The Pentagon today is going to announce changes to its current policy that will put women closer to the front lines. And the reality is, is that women are already putting their lives at risk.

The Pentagon says more than 140 women have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 860 have been wounded.

Shoshana Johnson, she knows about this first hand. In March of 2003, her convoy was ambushed in Iraq. She and several other soldiers were captured and held as prisoners of war.

Former Army specialist Shoshana Johnson, she is joining us from El Paso, Texas.

First of all, it is an honor to have you with us here today. We appreciate your service. You made history.

What is your reaction, your initial reaction to the Pentagon now announcing it's going to ease some of the restrictions for women in combat?

SHOSHANA JOHNSON, FMR. IRAQ WAR POW: Well, I wonder what took them so long. The restrictions are just silly at this point.

No matter what job you have in the military, when you're in a war zone there's always a danger of you being injured, you being killed, or captured. I'm proof of that.

MALVEAUX: And when you joined the military, Shoshana, your mission was to be a chef, not a soldier caught up in combat in Iraq.

What do you think it says about how women's roles in the military are changing?

JOHNSON: I think it's a sign of our society. As women progress, whether it's politics, whether it's business, entertainment, it's going to slowly trickle down to everything else. And now it's finally hitting the military.

When I joined the military, I scored high enough on my ASVAB where I mentally qualified for every job in the military, but I was restricted from five because of my sex. Now, as we go forward, young women don't have to worry about that, hopefully. If they are mentally capable of doing the job, then they can do it.

MALVEAUX: And Shoshana, tell us about what happened to you in Iraq. Remind our viewers exactly what happened, your experience.

JOHNSON: Well, it was three days in to the conflict with Iraq. My convoy with my company was ambushed in Nasiriyah, Iraq. Eleven of my fellow soldiers passed away.

It was six of us captured -- myself, four males, and Jessica Lynch. Obviously, it's something that's still very much in my mind and affects me today.

I was very blessed to go through my captivity unmolested, you know. I was injured during the ambush, but I was not raped.

And I know that's something that jumps into people's mind when they think of women in war, but at this point, women in the military are more likely to be raped by their fellow soldiers than to be killed or captured on the front lines. So what we should be looking at is not whether these women in combat jobs MOS (ph) jobs are going to be injured, but how we as a society treat our women.

MALVEAUX: You bring up such a good point there, the idea about that, because we have learned that rape in the military, it certainly happens.

What are some of the other challenges do you think specifically that women in the military are facing?

JOHNSON: I think all of the challenges come back to attitudes towards women. We have progressed with technology to the point where some of the physical issues that were brought up years and years ago when they first started letting integrated military come out are not the same issues. So it all goes back to attitude and how we as Americans view this change.

MALVEAUX: Well, Shoshana Johnson, thank you so much for your perspective and, again, your service. We appreciate your coming on with us. Thank you.

JOHNSON: Thank you very much, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: That brings us to the "Talk Back" question today. Should women in the military be allowed to serve closer to the front lines?

The move is getting mixed reactions. Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert Maginnis tells "TIME" magazine, "This does not dismiss the sexual tension issues, nor does it dismiss the difference psychologically between men and women in terms of cardiovascular fitness."

But a family former Marine captain says the rule changes do not go far enough and still prevent women from getting promoted to the highest ranks. Anu Baghwati, who is with the Service Women's Action Network, says qualified women should be able to serve in full combat roles. She says, "It's time military leadership establish the same level playing field to qualified women to enter the infantry, Special Forces and other all-male units."

What do you think? Should women in the military be allowed to serve closer to the front lines?

Leave your comments at Facebook.com/SuzanneCNN. We're going to air some of your responses later in the hour.

Here's a rundown of some of the stories we are covering over the next hour.

First, we've got live pictures here from the White House, where the president will talk about the largest mortgage deal for homeowners ever.

And how do you learn to have stronger willpower, self-control? I'll talk to an author who knows all about that.

And this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Back up, guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: All right. Meet the teenager who got the president to shoot a marshmallow gun at the White House, and how Americans could learn a thing or two from him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Uh-oh. Got to use two hands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Children are dying, women are dying. Civilian homes are being shelled.

We're going to talk to one of our reporters who has been inside Syria as the government crackdown intensifies. And we're also going to go live to the White House, just moments away from President Obama speaking about a mortgage settlement deal that affects and impacts many people whose homes are under water. That, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: In just a few minutes we're going to hear what the president has to say about the largest mortgage settlement ever. The nation's top five banks have agreed to pay $26 billion. The money is going to help homeowners who are under water or in foreclosure.

Want to bring in Jessica Yellin from the White House.

Jessica, what do we expect the president to announce?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the president will announce this settlement and tout the fact that this is going to, in the administration's view, help improve the housing market, improve the housing market, and aid ailing homeowners, and move the whole nation a step closer to a healthier housing market.

This relates in specifics, Suzanne, to victims of robo-signing, which is the practice of allowing foreclosure papers to be processed by auto pen without real people reviewing the documents themselves. So, some homeowners may have been foreclosed on without actual human beings deciding whether or not that was the way it should have gone down. And they sort of created a deal whereby they're sort of letting the banks offer some liabilities from that in exchange for creating this pot of money.

That's the biggest and sort of most controversial category within this settlement -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: OK, Jessica. Thank you very much. We're going to get back to you. I want you to stay with us.

We're going to bring you the president's remarks on the mortgage settlement live after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: The Syrian city of Homs is a war zone. Women and children are not being spared the brutal bombardment by government forces. This is the fifth straight day of the relentless attacks on civilians.

A young activist I spoke to earlier from Homs described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANNY: More than 10 rockets, the 15 rockets, rockets and tank shells, landed on in the street I live in. This street is only about 50 meters long.

The building, my building, was hit by tank shells and rockets. Underneath my building were three women that were killed. We found them in pieces about 7:00 a.m. Four guys in the same house as me were injured. The situation is really bad.

MALVEAUX: Where have your friends been taken? Are they getting any kind of medical help? I mean, you say that these women died in the building and now your friends are injured as well?

DANNY: Yes. The women died, children died. We have more than 30 children dead from four days ago until now. We have loads of children injured.

My friends are in a hospital. I hope they'll be OK. Lots of them have been hit by snipers from yesterday until today, just because of trying to cross the street. Snipers hit them.

They hit children, women, men, kids. It doesn't matter. The Syrian army -- I'm not going to call it the Syrian army. The Assad army has no humanity in them. They kill anything in front of them. They are just hitting civilian houses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: We're getting these accounts every day now.

I want to bring in our own Nic Robertson.

And Nic, you were there in Damascus just a couple of weeks ago. I want our viewers, first of all, to watch your report and see what you reported from the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The level of anger and passion here is absolutely palpable. We're just a few miles from the center of Damascus, and the crowd here of perhaps -- thank you. Thank you. This is a crowd here of perhaps several thousand people.

They've taken over this whole area. They've put rocks in the road to prevent the police coming in here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: What is happening there and why is it seemingly getting worse?

ROBERTSON: It's getting worse because Assad's regime has stepped up the attacks. They have this sort of heavy artillery in reserve, if you will. Now they're actually bringing it to bear on places like Zabadani, that we visited, where we saw all the Syrian army military hardware. It wasn't firing on the town then. It is now.

And Homs is the same. Assad has decided to ratchet up the firepower, to crush this uprising once and for all to break their spirit, to seal these areas off so they can't get in, so that they can't get medical supplies in, so that they can't bring weapons in to support themselves.

MALVEAUX: Are these reports from people and what you saw on the ground about hundreds of people being killed, are they accurate?

ROBERTSON: We're not there and we can't verify the number of people that are being killed. What we see on the video that's sent out from there that seems to be shot on cell phones is maimed people. Some of the pictures I've seen have been -- I've been in this business for a long time, and it's some of the worst I've seen.

There was a young child with everything below his nose missing, caught by a shell, children that are killed. There's no doubt that there is shelling that is causing civilian casualties that is damaging houses, that appears to be damaging hospitals. And we also understand targeting the places where this video is being fed out of Homs. It is a siege in the medieval sense of the word.

MALVEAUX: Has it come to a crisis point, or are they close to a crisis point where all hell breaks loose?

ROBERTSON: Again, not being there, it's very hard to gauge. But when you listen to the desperation in people's voices, and you see the way that they're talking and the terms they're characterizing it in, yes, the situation is desperate. They say they're running out of medical supplies. Doctors are using secondhand sutures to stitch people up.

They don't have anesthetics to give to people. When you have these kind of wounds coming in -- the survival rate is negligible. The young man who lost his face, he died for lack of treatment, nothing else -- for lack of treatment.

Bread is in short supply. Basic food things are in short supply.

What Assad is trying to do is crush the will of the rebels, of the opposition here, so that they will give up, so that they have no other option. He's also sort of trying to put the international community in a position whereby whatever the international community does through its desire to stop this humanitarian -- not disaster, because it's manmade -- to stop it will perhaps play into his hands, the idea of humanitarian envoys.

MALVEAUX: Yes. And you had mentioned before this notion that perhaps monitors on the ground or people can help them out, but you say that plays into Assad's hands. How so?

ROBERTSON: We've already seen it. The monitors were on the ground before monitoring what was supposedly Assad pulling his troops and his heavy armor back. Their report at the end of a month said that he hadn't complied.

These monitors don't have weapons. They have flak jackets, helmets and armored cars, some of them. They have no way of imposing their will, if you like, on Assad's forces. They can't stop them shooting.

The notion that they could sort of get in between the opposition, these enclaves, and save them from the tank fire is a preposterous proposition. The only reason it would stop would be because Assad decided to tell his army to stop firing and stop shooting. And he appears to be nowhere near that kind of decision. MALVEAUX: All right. Nic, thank you so much for your perspective.

Well, conservatives are flexing their muscle. They're rallying the troops at the CPAC convention in Washington. That's happening right now.

We're going to go live to ask Ralph Reed about the line between God and country.

But first, Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks to a man who has made it his mission to get kids and adults to make things -- anything, really.

Dale Dougherty is the founder of "MAKE" magazine. See why he made CNN's "Next List."

DALE DOUGHERTY, FOUNDER, "MAKE": We're just going to make a mess --

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: OK.

DOUGHERTY: -- which every good kid wants to do. And --

GUPTA: You calling me a kid?

(LAUGHTER)

DOUGHERTY: So here is a model. We've put two pieces of the conductive Play-Doh in between an insulator. First of all, we're just going to put a battery on. There we go.

GUPTA: Wow! That's pretty amazing.

DOUGHERTY: So we're able to plug that in anywhere.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Let's go to the president now, who's speaking on a huge mortgage deal, a settlement with the banks.

Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- from Arkansas, Gregory Zeller (ph) from Indiana, and Tom Miller (ph) from Iowa. And I also want to acknowledge Bob Ryan (ph), who worked Shaun Donovan extensively on this issue, as well as Tim Massad of Treasury. And I'm going to acknowledge also Gene Sperling, who doesn't always get the credit he deserves for doing outstanding work.

The housing bubble that burst nearly six years ago triggered, as we all know, the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. It cost millions of innocent Americans their jobs and their homes, and it remains one of the biggest drags on our economy. Last fall, my administration unveiled a series of steps to help responsible homeowners refinance their mortgages to take advantage of historically low rates.

And last week I urged Congress to pass a plan that would help millions more of Americans refinance and stay in their homes. And I indicated that the American people need Congress to act on this piece of legislation.

But in the meantime, we can't wait to get things done and to provide relief to America's homeowners. We need to keep doing everything we can to help homeowners and our economy. And today, with the help of Democratic and Republican attorney generals from nearly every state in the country, we are about to take a major step on our own. We have reached a landmark settlement with the nation's largest banks that will speed relief to the hardest hit homeowners and some of the most abusive practices of the mortgage industry, and begin to turn the page on an era of recklessness that has left so much damage in its wake.

By now it's well-know that millions of Americans who did the right thing and the responsible thing, shopped for a house, secured a mortgage that they could afford, made their payments on time, were nevertheless hurt badly by the irresponsible actions of others. By lenders who sold loans to people who couldn't afford them, by buyers who knew they couldn't afford them, by speculators who were looking to make a quick buck, by banks that took risky mortgages, packaged them up and traded them off for large profits. It was wrong and it cost more than 4 million families their homes to foreclosure.

Even worse, many companies that handled these foreclosures didn't give people a fighting chance to hold on to their homes. In many cases, they didn't even verify that these foreclosures were actually legitimate. Some of the people they hired to process foreclosures used fake signatures to -- on fake documents to speed up the foreclosure process. Some of them didn't read what they were signing at all.

We've got to think about that. You know, you work and you save your entire life to buy a home, that's where you raise your family, that's where your kids' memories were formed, that's your stake, your claim on the American dream, and the person signing the document couldn't take enough time to even make sure that the foreclosure was legitimate. These practices were plainly irresponsible and we refused to let them go unanswered.

So about a year go, our federal law enforcement agencies teamed up with state attorneys general to get to the bottom of these abuses. The settlement we've reached today thanks to the work of some of the folks who are on this stage. This is the largest joint federal state settlement in our nation's history is the result of that extraordinary cooperation.

Under the terms of this settlement, America's biggest banks, banks that were rescued by taxpayer dollars, will be required to right these wrongs. That means more than just paying a fee. These banks will put billions of dollars towards relief for families across the nation. They'll provide refinancing for borrowers that are stuck in high interest rate mortgages, they'll reduce loans for families who woe more on their homes than they're worth, and they will deliver some measure of justice for families that have already been victims of abusive practices. All told, this isn't just good for these families, it's good for their neighborhoods, it's good for their communities and it's good for our economy.

This settlement also protects our ability to further investigate the practices that caused this mess. And this is important. The mortgage fraud task force I announced in my State of the Union Address retains its full authority to aggressively investigate the packaging and selling of risky mortgages that lead to this crisis. This investigation is already well underway. And working closely with state attorneys general, we're going to keep at it until we hold those who broke the law fully accountable.

Now, I want to be clear, no compensation, not amount of money, no measure of justice is enough to make it right for a family who's had their piece of the American dream wrongly taken from them. And no action, no matter how meaningful, is going to, by itself, entirely heal the housing market. But this settlement is a start. And we're going to make sure that the banks live up to their end of the bargain. If they don't, we've set up an independent inspector, a monitor, that has the power to make sure they pay exactly what they agreed to pay, plus a penalty if they failed to act in accordance with this agreement.

So this will be a big help. Of course, even with this settlement, there are still millions of responsible homeowners who are out there doing their best and they need us to do more to help them get back on their feet. We've still got to stoke the fires of our economic recovery. So now is not the time to pull back.

To build on this settlement, Congress still needs to send me the bill I've proposed that gives every responsible homeowner in America the chance to refinance their mortgage and save about $3,000 a year. It would help millions of homeowners who make their payments on time save hundreds of dollars a month. And it can broaden the impact building off this settlement. That's money that can be put back into the homes of those folks who are saving money on the refinancing, helping to build their equity back up. They may decide to spend that money on local businesses. Either way, it's good for families and it's good for our economy.

But it's only going to happen if Congress musters the will to act. And I ask every American to raise their voice and demand that they do. Because there really is no excuse for inaction. There's no excuse for doing nothing to help more families avoid foreclosure. That's not who we are. We are Americans and we look out for one another. We get each other's backs. That's not a Democratic issue, that's not a Republican issue, that's who we are as Americans.

And the bipartisan nature of this settlement and the outstanding work that these state attorneys general did is a testament to what happens when everybody's pulling in the same direction. And that's what today's settlement is all about, standing up for the American people, holding those who broke the law accountable, restoring confidence in our housing market and our financial sector, getting things moving and we're going to keep on at it until everyone shares in America's comeback.

So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your outstanding efforts. We are very, very proud of you. And we look forward to seeing this settlement lead to some small measure of relief to a lot of families out there that need help. And that's going to strengthen the American economy overall. So, thank you very much.

(END LIVE SPEECH)

MALVEAUX: President Obama announcing a $26 billion mortgage help deal to help folks with their homes who are foreclosed.

And we are looking at a who's who of right-wing movers and shakers. CPAC, Conservative Political Action Conference. It's kicking off today in Washington. Everyone from Michele Bachmann to Joe "The Plumber," remember that guy, they're all going to be taking center stage to strut their stuff and rally the cause. We are joined by Ralph Reed. He's the former leader of the Christian Coalition and he is there at the conference. This could be the largest CPAC ever. We -- I understand we're going to go to a break first and then we'll have a conversation about what's taking place at that meeting, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: All right, want to go back to CPAC. It is the Conservative Political Action Conference. It's kicking off today in D.C. And with us we have Ralph Reed, the former leader of the Christian coalition.

Thanks for joining us. I know that you are going to be speaking before this group. It is the largest CPAC ever. And we've heard a lot about this idea of a culture war in our country, despite the fact that many people say the economic situation in their life is the most pressing. I want you to hear, first of all, what some of the candidates have been saying lately.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Remarkably, under this president's administration, there is an assault on religion.

NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: All this is accentuated by the Obama administration's decision two weeks ago to basically declare a war on the catholic church.

RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This administration, as you can tell from my reaction, has been hostile to people of faith, particularly Christians and specifically Catholics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, Ralph, do you agree, is there a resurgence of this culture war that is happening in our country today?

RALPH REED, FAITH & FREEDOM COALITION: Well, I don't know that I would use the term culture war. I think a military metaphor is probably less apt than a strong disagreement in a free society about whether or not government dictates, government edicts, government decisions by either judicial fiat or executive fiat should be allowed to force people of faith, of any faith, to violate their conscience.

And most of the clips, Suzanne, that you played leading up to this were specifically about the Department of Health and Human Resources -- Health and Human Services directive that catholic hospitals, schools, universities, charities and those of other religions be forced to provide health insurance that provided both contraception and abortifacients that violated the conscience of those organizations.

So I think that what it showed was, at a minimum, political tone deafness, and at a maximum, either insensitivity or outright hostility to the deeply held religious values of millions of Americans.

MALVEAUX: Let's talk a little bit about the ideology. A lot of the people that are going to be before CPAC there. You know, the idea of a culture war, it's a theme that's very familiar to me. When I covered the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign in 2004, we traveled across the country and they were pushing the controversy over same sex marriage to get voters riled up and turning out to the polls, and it worked. But, privately, the Bush White House was much more gay friendly. Which candidates do you think are the real deal when it comes to their conservative beliefs and who do you think is playing politics?

REED: Well, I think -- I don't want to relitigate the 2004 campaign, but I worked on that campaign and, in fact, what happened was the Massachusetts Supreme Court redefined marriage and that's what caused it to become an issue. We didn't push the issue. George W. Bush was running on --

MALVEAUX: Well, they certainly used it to their political advantage. I mean everywhere we went, that was the dominate theme.

REED: No. No, I -- look, Suzanne, again, I campaigned in 33 states for the president, OK? I was there, all right? And we were running on the issue of growing the economy, creating job, cutting taxes and winning the war on terrorism. What happened was, the issue presented itself --

MALVEAUX: With all due respect, I was there as well. I was covering the president during that campaign. But I don't want to relitigate that. I mean --

REED: OK, and I worked -- I worked on the -- I worked on the campaign. But let's fast forward to 2012. The California Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court ruled just this past week that California had to accept same-sex marriage in spite of a vote by the people to the contrary. I think it would be naive to assume that that's not going to be an issue in the campaign, as is the issue that you and I just talked about.

So, I think in terms of who has the most bona fides with this crowd --

MALVEAUX: Yes. REED: I certainly think Rick Santorum has been one of the biggest pro- family champions in his service in the House and the Senate. I think Newt Gingrich has a lot of street cred with social conservatives because of the way he has made the importance of faith and Judeo- Christian values such a big part of his message. And I think Mitt Romney has demonstrated, especially in Iowa and Florida, that he can get his fair share of those voters. So it's very wide open, it's very fluid and I think everybody's going to be able to make their case.

MALVEAUX: All right, I know you're going to be addressing the crowd there momentarily. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

So, how far can the momentum from this week's victories carry Rick Santorum in the race for the Republican nomination? He's going to tell John King tonight. Don't miss "John King USA," CNN, 6:00 p.m. Eastern.

And this kid, a science wiz, put some serious fire power into the science fair project. It's landed him a visit to the White House. We're going to talk to 14-year-old Joe Hudy about his invention and we're going to get Bill Nye the Science Guy to take a look as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: All right, President Obama giving some states a pass to fix their schools, ditching the No Child Left Behind Act. So many schools are failing under No Child Left Behind. Teachers and schools are evaluated based on test scores. Well, 10 states will now have the option to waive mandates from No Child Left Behind and develop tests geared to college and career readiness, moving beyond test scores towards parents, student and peer reviews. Twenty-eight other states, along with D.C. and Puerto Rico, also plan to create ways to close achievement gaps between high and low performing schools. These changes, they're going to start this year. Other states have two more weeks to apply.

Check it out. This project, right, amazes the president at this week's White House science fair.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh! It came out pretty fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: All right. Now that Arizona eighth grader, Joe Hudy, he's joining us live to show us about his extreme marshmallow cannon and how it works. We've also brought in another special guest to take a look at Joe's project. None other than Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Bill, I'm sure you were just as impressed as the rest of us on Joe's project.

So, Joe, let me start off with you. Can you show us, can you tell us how it works? JOE HUDY, EXTREME MARSHMALLOW CANNON INVENTOR: All right. So basically it's also called an air cannon. It works on compressed air. So everything that's orange is called the tank and that holds all the compressed air in it. And you press this button right here, and it opens this valve. And when that valve open, all the compressed air will rush out and it will shoot the marshmallow.

MALVEAUX: Wow, that's pretty cool. Can you shoot one for us?

HUDY: Yes, sure.

MALVEAUX: How fast does that marshmallow travel?

HUDY: I don't know. We get that question asked a lot, but we haven't really figured out how to tell.

MALVEAUX: That's OK. The president was pretty impressed. He seemed very surprised. What did you -- what do you think about meeting the president?

HUDY: It was fun. It was really exciting. Nervous -- I was a little nervous, too.

MALVEAUX: We could not tell that you were nervous at all. You had a huge smile on your face. And did the Secret Service, did they get a little nervous when they saw that marshmallow stuck to the wall?

HUDY: It never stuck to the wall, it just bounced off.

MALVEAUX: Oh, it bounced off. Did it hit anybody?

HUDY: No, it didn't.

MALVEAUX: OK.

I want to go to Bill. Bill, obviously, I mean, Joe's so impressive and you were there. You saw this science fair. The administration is trying to figure out, how do we get more kids to be like Joe? You know, how do we get them involved in math and science? Because we're doing so poorly in this country.

BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": No, not doing as well as we used to.

MALVEAUX: I think we're, what, 23rd when it comes to around the world ranked? At the bottom, 23rd.

NYE: Oh, yes, there's a couple of assessments, right.

MALVEAUX: Yes.

NYE: Yes. Oh, yes.

MALVEAUX: What do you think we need to do to create more --

NYE: Well, this is part of it. This is part of it. Celebrating achievement in science, especially academic achievement in almost anything is a very worthy thing. And this -- the president will have the winner of the Super Bowl, he'll have the winner of the final four of the college basketball tournament to the White House. So the premise of the bit, as we say, is to have the winners of 40 different science competitions come to the White House to celebrate their achievement.

Now Joe's thing, the cannon, is cool. It's big fun. But there were several, I mean, several other fantastic demonstrations, fantastic projects. Really sophisticated stuff.

And the other thing, I'll just tell you, we need to invest in basic research. Just changing the subject ever so slightly --

MALVEAUX: Right.

NYE: Monday the NASA budget comes out. NASA budget's been cut.

MALVEAUX: OK.

NYE: Space shuttle program finally tapered off. You know, it was a billion dollars of flight.

MALVEAUX: Right.

NYE: Finally closed that. So now we have an opportunity to take NASA up to something new and cool, not just for the sake of answering the two deep questions -- where did we come from and are we alone --

MALVEAUX: Right.

NYE: Which are fantastic.

MALVEAUX: Right.

NYE: But it also -- this intellectual treasure will trickle up, I say. When you invest in basic research --

MALVEAUX: OK.

NYE: The country does better.

MALVEAUX: All right.

NYE: And this goes back to the founding fathers.

MALVEAUX: I'm sorry to cut you off --

NYE: Protecting intellectual property.

MALVEAUX: We've got to --

NYE: Oh, you got to go.

MALVEAUX: We actually -- we got to go. Sorry, we're running out of time.

NYE: Science rules. Good morning.

MALVEAUX: What's next for you -- what's next for you, Joe?

HUDY: Well, I'm working on an EO wire shield for an Arduino. Arduino's an (INAUDIBLE) that you can program. An EO wire is wire that (INAUDIBLE) lights up. EO stands for electro illuminesence (ph). So it will be able -- you'll be able to program this to light up -- to light wire up.

MALVEAUX: Wow. OK, Joe, I mean that's a lot more sophisticated than what I've been able to wrap my head around. You let us know when you finish that project so we can see what that one looks like.

Joe, thank you so much. Congratulations.

NYE: And, look, he made it out of pipe and a sprinkler valve. It's pretty cool.

MALVEAUX: Thank you, both of you. Joe, you're fantastic. Thanks for joining us and, Bill Nye the Science Guy.

HUDY: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Thank you, too. Thank you.

NYE: Good morning, good morning.

MALVEAUX: We've got another science experiment for you. This one also dealing with marshmallows. But this time it's about having the power to resist them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Forget having money or good looks or a college degree. There are two things that predict success in life better than anything else. Intelligence and willpower. Researchers have found these two variables to have a direct affect on your job, your marriage, even your ability to drop those extra pounds.

So, how do you increase your chances of living a successful life? Well, you can't do much to raise your IQ score, but you can increase your willpower. The co-author of the bestselling book, "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength." John Tierney of "The New York Times" joins us now to talk about how to do it.

So, John, first of all, love the book.

JOHN TIERNEY, AUTHOR, "WILLPOWER": Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Great read. And it makes some pretty big claims here, but you back it up with science. So I want to show our viewers a bit of an experiment that proves your point. First of all, you sit down a group of kids and you give them a choice. They can have one marshmallow now, or if they're willing to wait, they can have two marshmallows later. So, tell us what this study was testing for and what you found. TIERNEY: Well, that study was done in the '70s to test kind of how kids manage to defer gratification. But they were surprised to find by accident later that when they followed those children, and they just happened to get in touch with some of them later, that the children who were able to resist that marshmallow right away, who could defer gratification, the kids with that kind of willpower did so much better in school and in life.

And that finding has been replicated. There's been some much bigger studies. A big one came out last year from New Zealand. A thousand children who were followed for decades. And they did better in life, their marriages, their children, their grades, their income, their savings. In so many ways, willpower really does produce success.

MALVEAUX: And what is the muscle that's exercised when you actually use your willpower? Is it something that you can change, something that you can grow and improve on?

TIERNEY: Right. It's like a muscle in that it gets fatigued as you use it during the day. You've got a finite amount of this energy. But it's also like a muscle in that over time you can increase its stamina by, you know, by working out. In the book, you know, we talk about how David Blaine managed to train himself not to eat for six weeks. Now, you don't have to go to that extreme, but there are little things you can do that will build up that willpower and muscle.

You know, just sitting up straight -- there was an experiment that my co-author, the psychologist Roy Baumeister did where he sent students home for a week and just told them to try and practice sitting up straight for this week. And when they came back from the laboratory, they not only had better posture, they were able to do other tasks that involved self-control better just by exercising that willpower muscle.

MALVEAUX: And what happens? Because you describe this in your book when you're making lots of decisions throughout the day and, at the end, you're exhausted, your willpower is just depleted and exhausted.

TIERNEY: Simply making decisions depletes your willpower. It causes the state called ego depletion. And the more decisions you make, the more you exercise willpower, the less you have later on. And eventually you start giving into temptations, you start taking shortcuts in decisions and you make silly decisions. You think, you know, hey, why not tweet that picture of myself in underwear. That kind of thing happens as you start depleting willpower.

MALVEAUX: What is the solution to that? Because you talk about glucose and diet and how that's related to willpower, as well.

TIERNEY: Well, the source of this mental energy is glucose that you get from your diet. And when they do experiments, they give people just a quick drink of lemonade with sugar. And if there's sugar in it, it actually gives them back some of their self-control, it increases their willpower. That's just a short term solution.

For the long haul, you want to eat healthier foods that don't give you this, you know, this kind of quick spike. People with the best self- control are the people who don't use it so often during the day. They structure their life -- they conserve their willpower. They structure their life with habits and routines. They avoid temptation.

MALVEAUX: And you go on to talk about that those who have -- having stronger willpower or self control is actually a better indicator of success in college than say even SAT scores. Why?

TIERNEY: Obviously it's important to be smart. That helps you. But you have to have the discipline to do the study. You've got to have the basic self-control skills, which are to set realistic goals, to monitor your progress and then to strengthen that willpower muscle.

MALVEAUX: All right, John Tierney, thank you so much.

TIERNEY: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: To hear more of my interview with John Tierney and to find out what the Oprah effect of willpower means when it comes to dieting, go to my Facebook page at facebook.com/suzannemalveaux.

And you've been sounding off on the "Talk Back" question, should women in the military be allowed to serve closer to the front lines?

Melissa says, "women should be allowed in full combat roles. As for the sexual tension, it happen as it is. A soldier, Marine, airman or sailor is trained and should act as a professional and not let it get in the way."

Brian says, "not just no, but hell no. As a disabled veteran who served in Iraq, I wouldn't want a woman on the front lines with me. I would be afraid that their emotions would get in the way and get one of us killed."

Thanks for all your responses. You can see them all on facebook.com/suzannecnn.

CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Randi Kaye.

Hey, Randi.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Suzanne.