Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Spending Scandal Testimony; Farewell Flight of Shuttle Discovery; Natural Beauty Products; Obama: End Oil "Manipulation"; Justice For The Apes; Nugent: "I'll Be Dead Or In Jail Next Year"; Hunt For Militants In Afghanistan; Spending Scandal Testimony

Aired April 17, 2012 - 14:00   ET

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

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Still on the job, but they are taking a look to see if any changes need to be made, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Lisa Sylvester, good to see you. Thank you so much.

CNN NEWSROOM continue right now with Brooke Baldwin.

Hey, Brooke.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Suzanne, thank you so much.

Hello, everyone. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Top of the hour here on CNN. Let's get you caught up on everything making news right now. "Rapid Fire" Roll it.

Let's begin in Washington, shall we? Day two of the House Oversight Committee's blistering hearings into wasteful spending by the General Services Administration at that 2010 conference in Vegas. That's the conference that cost taxpayers, you, $800,000. And, today, a whistleblower took to the stand saying she supports the findings of a government investigation and its response. But one congressman on the committee vowed disciplinary action against GSA may not be over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JEFF DENHAM (R), CALIFORNIA: Those that have been fired, those that have been put on administrative leave, those that have resigned, the American public deserve to have money paid back. And where crimes have been commitment, people will go to jail. And if we have to have future hearings on this topic, you bet we will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: More on those hearings on The Hill.

Also, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney just snagged a big endorsement from within his own party. I'm talking about House Speaker John Boehner. Just made it official today, saying he would do everything he can to help Mitt Romney win the presidency.

And check out these numbers with me. If the latest CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll is any indication, they need to make up some ground by November. You see the differential? Obama leading Romney right now by 9 points.

Also, if you've been watching Apple's stock, it's really been taking a bruising recently. It is rebounding a little bit today, but the tech giant has had a pretty tough week, falling about 9 percent in just a couple of days. It peaked on April 9th at $636. But just yesterday it closed, it slipped to $580 per share.

President Obama, he said today he wants tougher penalties for traders caught manipulating the markets. His plan, he says, would require oil traders to put up more of their own money to back up these trades and more severe punishments and fines for manipulating the market. Here was the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Everybody understands that there are no quick fixes to this problem. There are politicians who say that if we just drilled more, then gas prices would come down right away. What they don't say is that we have been drilling more. Under my administration, America is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: President Obama also wants to boost funding for the commission that overseas oil futures.

And have you heard about this, out of Afghanistan. About 150 school girls were poisoned after drinking some kind of contaminated water in a high school in the northern part of Afghanistan. An Education Department spokesman says he is 100 percent sure the water was poisoned. He said it's, quote, "either the work of those who are against girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals," end quote. Reuters is reporting that some of the girls are now in critical condition, suffering from headaches and vomiting.

British investigators have arrested Muslim cleric Abu Qatada and they say they will move ahead with plans to deport him to Jordan. The U.K. claims Qatada has raised money for terror groups and views him as a security threat. They have described him as an inspiration to terrorists, including one of the September 11th terrorist hijackers. The cleric can appeal his deportation and that process could take months.

Amazing pictures. Some of my favorite pictures of the day. Look at everyone there on the ground at The Mall. Lots of oohhs and ahhs as the space shuttling Discovery flew over D.C. this afternoon. The farewell flight drew people on to the National Mall, on roof tops, along the highways in Washington. I-Reporters, we thank you. You've been helping us track Discovery since it left Florida's Kennedy Space Center early this morning. And let's call it a piggy back flight because, really, that's what this was. It made a smooth landing there in Virginia. And coming up we're going to talk to John Zarrella, our go-to space guy here at CNN, and Smithsonian curator Valerie Neal with more on Discovery's last flight and when you can see it.

And, we have a lot for you in the next two hours. Watch this.

Terror on trial. High school classmates accused of hatching a plan to blow up subways in New York. Today, one of them takes the stand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are no quick fixes to this problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: As you pay more at the pump, President Obama announces a plan that targets the oil market and Wall Street. It's a plan that won't make Republicans very happy.

Plus, a woman who works in college sports says Bobby Petrino's alleged mistress hurt her and ever other so-called football chick out there.

The news starts now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just wrapping right now on Capitol Hill, the House Transportation Committee trying to get some answers. Day two now of this investigation into this massive spending scandal. It involves members, now former and current, of the General Services Administration, the GSA. They are being grilled again on The Hill. But in GSA conference in Las Vegas -- I know you've seen these videos by now, cost more than $800,000 in taxpayer money. This may be just the beginning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN MILLER, GSA INSPECTOR GENERAL: Chairman Mica, we investigated a number of individuals. We interviewed individuals. We turned over every stone. And every time we turned over a stone, we found 50 more with all sorts of things crawling up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Want to bring in senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash, who's covering this hearing for us again on day two.

And, Dana, we talked so much here about this conference in Vegas, but there's more to this, isn't there?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Oh, there is so much more to this. And we learned a lot of that today. And let me show you some examples.

For example, the executive that we're talking about who is now fired, Jeff Neely, he led a 17-day trip to the South Pacific just a couple of months ago. Seventeen days on the taxpayer dime to Hawaii, Guam and more. There was $150,000 intern conference in Palm Springs, California. And just last month, Brooke, $40,000 for a conference in Napa Valley. That's right in wine country. I'm sure there was a good reason for that.

BALDWIN: Wait, what do you mean by intern conference?

BASH: Well, it was a conference for interns. And many -- several of the lawmakers pressed the witnesses about why there was a need for a conference for interns who, unlike at CNN or other places, they are effectively entry level employees.

BALDWIN: Right.

BASH: There wasn't really much of an answer to that question.

But one of the astonishing things about this is that the whistleblower, who we've heard about, who we heard from for the first time today, Susan Brita, she was the deputy administrator at the GSA, on this particular trip, this 17 day junket to the South Pacific, she actually notified some people about that and it didn't really matter. Listen to what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN MICA (R), TRANSPORTATION CHAIRMAN: And, Brita, you notified the regional administrator, Ruth Cox (ph), about the upcoming junket and expressed concern, right?

SUSAN BRITA, GSA DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR: I did.

MICA: And what happened?

BRITA: I expressed concern and asked her to review the plans and make sure that --

MICA: And that called it off, didn't it? No. So they went on that junket. And another one to Dana Point, California, the Hawaii, Guam, Saipan trip with staff. Another trip to Atlanta. Four day site visit to Hawaii. And then, I guess, one -- where's Napa -- this off site trip to Napa, is that California? You got to go to the wine region.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, so we're hearing about Napa. Dana, if you're with me, we're hearing about Napa, all these different trips, South Pacific, Hawaii. I think I sense a theme.

BASH (on camera): You certainly should get the theme. It's really stunning to watch all of this. And it wasn't just government employee, it was also members of the families, friends who were brought on this. One of these trips was effectively for the birthday of the wife of this man, Jeff Neely.

BALDWIN: Let me ask you, as we herd Susan Brita saying, you know, she was being questioned (ph) -- obviously these different trips weren't called off. Do we know how long -- how long in terms of months or dare I say more than a year this kind of behavior went on at the GSA?

BASH: Well, it seems to have gone on for a long time. And what has been clear in today's -- by the way, more than five and a half hour hearing, as well as yesterday's long hearing, the -- it was very clear that this is a cultural issue. And one of the things that we certainly saw today was the fact that part of the culture was that people beneath Jeff Neely, who, again, is the regional director, was the regional director for the whole Pacific region, people beneath him felt that they can't say anything. They couldn't question this idea of spending money extravagantly, taxpayer money extravagantly. Listen to what -- the way one lawmaker described it today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN MILLER, GSA INSPECTOR GENERAL: We're told by witnesses that the culture in region nine was a culture that put down anyone that complained. Witnessed said that the regional commissioner would put people down and the witness says, and he knew how to put people down. One witness said there was somebody who tried to raise an objection and the witness said, quote, "he squashed her like a bug," unquote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And, Brooke, I should say that was the inspector general Brian Miller who, of course, did the investigating. But it wasn't just people below. It was also the fact that this wasn't really -- there was no oversight from above. The CFO, the chief financial officer of the GSA, also testified and said she didn't have any idea what the spending was like in that region or others. It's really stunning, the structural problems that led to this unbelievable waste of taxpayer dollars.

BALDWIN: And it makes sense why we saw some of the, you know, members of the House Oversight Committee yesterday talking culture and saying it is time for a culture change. Dana Bash for us here. And, Dana, we thank you (ph).

Also, people lining up all along the sidewalks. They're stopping their cars. They're leaning out the window. Wouldn't you if you saw this? I think I would. Just to get a passing glimpse of the space shuttle Discovery arriving there, piggy-back style, on top of a Boeing 747. We're back with the man who knows his vehicle inside out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You know what, I have to give a lot of you credit, because a lot of you helped us capture this story, this history here today. The farewell flight of the space shuttle Discovery. We got all kinds of i-Reports all up and down the East Coast as the space shuttle essentially rode piggy back on a modified 747 to its new home, the Smithsonian Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. That's right near Dulles.

This video, this was taken in Cocoa Beach, Florida, by i-Reporter Cicely Johnson. Just listen. And then you can hear some people, look at them just oohing and ahhing, taking pictures, I know I would be, as they're watching this thing loop around the National Mall a couple of times before it landed there in Washington this morning. The site wowed Washington for 45 minutes. Finally making -- there you go -- a picture perfect landing in Dulles.

John Zarrella was there for the discovery play by play, at least on the Florida side of things this morning. He's joining me live there at Kennedy.

John, I was up with you this morning. I tell you, I was watching, I was tweeting, I was oohing and ahhing myself from the comfort of my own home. Just paint the picture for us what is was like being there. Who was there at Kennedy?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, you know, it was just surreal because you see that vehicle on the back of the 747. And they drove down -- they road down the runway and they stopped midpoint on the runway before taking off so that all of the bus loads of NASA employees, former space shuttle workers could see it. You had the six member crew from STS 133, that February 24th mission, a year, 14 months ago, they were on hand.

And, you know, in fact, I was with Rob -- Bob Cabana, the director of the Kennedy Space Center, four-time shuttle flyer, flew as the pilot on Discovery twice. His first flight ever was on Discovery. And we were talking just as Discovery lifted off behind us. And you could see him -- he had said to me, he said, you know, John, I thought that I was past this. That I wouldn't well up. I wouldn't get teary eyed. But he did because, you know, we keep using that word bittersweet, but it really is.

BALDWIN: I know. It's the perfect word.

ZARRELLA: So many jobs lost here. And, you know, it's just a sad time here on the space coast. You know, great for the Smithsonian getting this spectacular vehicle.

BALDWIN: Yes.

ZARRELLA: Thirty-nine missions, 148 million miles flown. But tough here for a lot of people.

BALDWIN: No, I know it is tough and bittersweet is, you know, albeit cliche, it's the perfect word for this occasion.

I want to talk to you about the future of space flight in just a moment, but I know you were tagging teaming this thing with Lizzie O'Leary, who was on the ground in Washington.

ZARRELLA: Yes.

BALDWIN: And I tell you, my brother works on Capitol Hill and I said, get outside. Go take a look. Tell me a little bit about the fight. I mean didn't it circle the National Mall some three times before landing at Dulles?

ZARRELLA: It took for like forever, you know. It left here just before 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time. And, boy, it was four hours. I looked at it. It was about four hours and 10 minutes almost on the nose to the time it touched down. And at one point it came in very low over Dulles. And I'm looking at it and I'm on the air with Carol Costello and I'm like, you know, the landing gear aren't down, so it's not landing this time. So it was almost like an extra fly-by that they got.

And I had been told early on, you know, nobody knew exactly what to expect. A lot was going to be determined by, you know, how much air traffic was in the area and exactly what the crew of -- on board there was able to do as far as flying it all over Washington.

BALDWIN: Yes.

ZARRELLA: And what a spectacular show for everybody up there.

BALDWIN: Amazing. And people were tweeting me. They were stopping along the highways. You know, on top of friend's rooftops in apartment buildings and that kind of thing.

ZARRELLA: Yes.

BALDWIN: We're work on getting, I know, the curator from the Smithsonian. It's going to end up at the Chantilly facility for the Air and Space Museum. Do you know when folks will be able to finally see this in person, John?

ZARRELLA: Yes, just a couple of days. What's today? I've lost track. Wednesday -- right. Today's --

BALDWIN: Today's Tuesday.

ZARRELLA: It will be Friday. This Friday.

BALDWIN: OK.

ZARRELLA: Today's Tuesday. OK. I've been up since 3:00 this morning. I've already forgotten what day it is.

BALDWIN: We'll forgive you. We'll forgive you. So in a couple of days.

ZARRELLA: Yes, Friday. They'll be able to start going through it on Friday. They'll have Enterprise, which is there. They've got to get it out and then it will go on back of that 747 because they're flying that up to New York because eventually it's going to be over there at the Intrepid Air and Sea Museum, where it will be on display.

BALDWIN: Right. Right.

ZARRELLA: So next week -- next week they're flying that out. And I think it's going to be like barged up the Hudson River at some point. That's going to be pretty cool too. BALDWIN: Awesome. Well, then I can't wait to see that as well.

In the meantime, while I still have you, I do want to talk the future of space.

ZARRELLA: Yes.

BALDWIN: You know, as commercial space grows (ph) space (INAUDIBLE).

ZARRELLA: Sure.

BALDWIN: I know they're testing out, what is it, the dragon at the end of this month.

ZARRELLA: Yes.

BALDWIN: What is NASA's role as we really look forward?

ZARRELLA: You know, you look forward, it's split now. What NASA did was they decided that they were going to go in a different direction. Get out of the low earth orbit business, turn all that over to the commercial companies as soon as quickly as possible. So SpaceX, Orbital, Blue Horizon, you know, Blue Origins, a bunch of these different companies are vying to start taking humans to the International Space Station.

Two weeks from now, Elon Musk, SpaceX, seems to be in the driver's seat ahead of everybody else at this point.

BALDWIN: Yes.

ZARRELLA: They're going to be flying and trying to rendezvous and berth with the International Space Station. No commercial company in history has ever accomplished that. Then he'll start taking cargo and eventually these commercial companies will start taking humans back and forth to the Space Station by the 2016 timetable. What this does, Brooke, is it frees up NASA's limited resources so that they can start doing what they have always done best.

BALDWIN: So we can get some boot prints on Mars?

ZARRELLA: Right.

BALDWIN: Yes.

ZARRELLA: Go to Mars. Go to an asteroid. Do the things that NASA's always done best. Put people on the moon, right? I mean that's the marquee (ph).

BALDWIN: John Zarrella, I look forward to covering those stories with you, sir, when we're talking boot prints on Mars in our lifetime.

ZARRELLA: It will be a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Yes.

BALDWIN: John, thank you. Coming up, another event that makes us stop and watch. Certainly a car chase. There it was. This is Kentucky. Went through three countries. But it's the end that you want to watch.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A high speed chase ends when police, you saw the dog there quickly, there's the dog going into this car, latches on to the suspect, doesn't let go. Watch it again. The dog apparently clamped down so hard, police had to cut through this guy's short. Look at this. Cut through his shorts just to free this guy. The suspect sped through several counties after allegedly stealing a car. Here's the bigger picture. See all the cars behind? That's all police chasing him down. The car owner explains what exactly happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROLYN MEADOWS, CARJACKING VICTIM: Out of nowhere comes this young fella with no shirt on and he's banging on my car, yelling at me to get out of the car. Then he reached in, open the door and yanked me out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The suspect was taken to the hospital for bite wounds before going to jail. Ouch.

Oil and water, they do mix. It is the secret behind some natural beauty products. And photojournalist John Torigoe takes us to the hills of California.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELISHA REVERBY, OWNER, ELIQUE ORGANICS: So we're in a garden in Santa Monica Canyon. I'm harvesting lavender that I use to infuse my oils for my skin care. Here we have some lemon and lime leaves. There's a little bit of mint and there's some rosemary as well.

My dream was always to create a simple, pure line of skin care.

This is the eucalyptus that we harvested this morning. A lot of it I hang upside down to dry and just start to prep this for the hair and scalp oil.

It's about building the surface immunity of the skin and maintaining that immunity and having a protective barrier.

It's not a mass produced line. Our core ingredients are our garden herbs, our ethically harvested honeys.

It's really important that whenever you apply a moisturizer to the skin, that your skin is damp. You always want an oil and a water to work together, because oil and water do mix when it comes to skin care.

We specialize in serums, creams and masks. Things that you leave on your skin because you want to nourish and feed your skin.

And kind of work out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel fantastic about using it and I don't want to use anything that has chemicals anymore and that were -- I don't know where the ingredients came from.

REVERBY: So this is something you could easily make at home. Pour a little green tea for a little texture.

Clearly I have a product line. I mean skin care is my passion. And I've been doing this for 21 years. But there are many pieces of the puzzle to be beautiful. Beauty is a whole. So beauty isn't just an external, it's like how you live your life is beautiful. That's what radiates when you're doing things for your community or you're helping someone else. I mean that's a green beauty queen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: President Obama, today, takes on oil speculators, calling for higher penalties for market manipulation. We're going to break down what that means, what that means for you with CNN chief business correspondent Ali Velshi.

Then, later, a young woman says former Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino and his alleged mistress are holding back other women who want to work in sports. Don't miss what she said.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We hear it all the time. There's not a whole lot the White House can do when it comes to the price of gasoline. At least not a whole lot to stop the occasional short-term price spikes.

Even so, President Obama is getting election year heat on this very issue. So today, he stepped out and he launched this election year attack on unnamed speculators who may or may not be manipulating energy markets.

And Ali Velshi, he's with me now. Here's how I want to put this to you. Let's say you're writing a Hollywood script and you're writing about a conspiracy and dark forces manipulating the price of gasoline, Ali. Who would be the villains and how would they do it?

ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: OK, so think about the price of gasoline and how it's set. It is largely -- most of it is set by the price of oil.

Oil is -- you know, there's sort of steady demand in the world. There's lower demand in the United States, but steady demand in the world and those companies and countries that produce oil will manipulate their output to some degree to keep oil at a price that they like.

A price that they like is one that's very profitable, but not so profitable to people say, I'm not going to drive or I'm going to get rid of my car. So right now --

BALDWIN: So the villains are these other countries?

VELSHI: No, they're just business people. They're making -- something that -- at a price they want. They could make more. OK, so they could make it cheaper.

Then you've got people who buy oil because they use it in their business like an airline or somebody else and you have people who sell oil, producers and others. And both of them hedge the price of oil.

So both of them deal with oil futures because they need to know how much their product is going to either sell for or buy for. So that's speculation. The same way that you buy a house hoping it's going to go up. That's normal speculation.

That's not manipulation and messing up the markets. So I'm getting to the villain. I think the villain is outside of that. The villain is generally this third party who doesn't produce oil, who doesn't use oil other than the way we normally do driving.

But who bets on it as something that will go up or down. If you've got enough power, you can move the needle. That's who we're looking for. It's not everybody who invests in oil. It's hyper specific groups of people with enough money and power to actually move the needle on the price.

BALDWIN: So as they're moving the needle then you have the president, he comes out today and he says he wants to make sure none of the speculators is actually pulling a fast one on us. Let's listen to the president real quickly here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Congress should provide immediate funding to put more cops on the beat to monitor activity in energy markets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, putting more cops on the beat. So who are we watching and how does this happen?

VELSHI: So this is the Commodities Futures Trading Commission that the president is talking about. They are the cops. They are like the SEC for commodities including oil.

The fact is those people who are smart enough and rich enough to move the market also have the best technology. They have these servers that move, you know, faster than other people's servers.

And generally speaking, this is the matter of the cops not having guns powerful enough for the criminals. So he wants to improve the number of people, increase the number of people who are monitoring and surveilling oil trading.

He wants to increase the fines for people who are caught breaking the law. They tend to be a very small number of people. It's very hard to pin this down on somebody.

And he wants to increase the amount of money you have to put down if you want to be at the oil trading table. When you buy stock of General Motors, you got to put all the money down.

When you trade oil futures, you have to put a very small percentage of the money down and he's thinking, if you have to put more in, maybe you won't fool around with the market so much.

BALDWIN: OK, so increase the force of these cops if you will, fines, money, penalty, et cetera. But also what the president said and I get the feeling as we are, of course, in an election year and we're all very aware of this. Here's what else he said. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Our dependence on foreign oil has actually decreased each year I've been in office even as the economy has grown. America now imports less than half of the oil we used for the first time in more than a decade. So we're less vulnerable than we were, but we're still too vulnerable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So as we are less vulnerable and as to his point and you've made this point multiple times that America actually now exports gasoline. Why is the price at the pump still not great?

VELSHI: So the fact is he's right. We do export less oil than we used to. We also -- you know, we create a lot of natural gas in this country. We're not as energy dependent as we used to be.

But the price of gas is still high and we make lots of gas. It's a distilled product from oil. But the price of gas everywhere else is more expensive than it is in the United States. So we actually make more money or companies that make gas, make more money shipping it off to other countries.

It's more profitable. That's why even though we've got an excess of gasoline and a lowering of demand in this country, gas prices stay high. So full circle in this conversation, the reason your gas is high is not necessarily because of those evil people in the movie you talked about manipulating the price of oil.

It's a market out there. I wish people would just get it. It's a market.

BALDWIN: It's a market. It's a market. Say it two times fast. Ali Velshi, thank you. Thank you for explaining. We appreciate it.

Still paying nonetheless. Could boosting the economy eliminate the wage gap? Ladies, just wait until you hear what could you buy if you got your dollar's worth? Stick around for that.

But first it's tax day. So while you turn in your federal and your state forms, many national restaurant chains are offering up some freebies, special deals. Here's a list.

This first one, I say yum to this. Maggie Moos, a free scoop of yogurt from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. You can get your Sonic slush on half the price all day at participating restaurants. And you can order some of P.F. Changs food online today, discount 15 percent off. What else do you get? Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Before the break, we are counting down these different ways you can save money as this is tax day. You can get 20 wings at Hooters for just $9.99. And McCormick and Schmick's happy hour from 3:30 to 11:00 tonight. All because it's tax day. There you go.

Also today is National Equal Payday and women still do not earn as much as men. The National Partnership for Women and Family say women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, 77 cents.

So how does that actually stack up over, say, a lifetime or a career? They looked at New York specifically, and I know we don't all live in a high cost city, but I just want you to bear with me here.

These are examples for you. What they did is they came up with a list of things that women could buy if there were no wage gaps. So for instance, you could buy 67 more weeks of food, 67 more weeks.

How about gas? We're just talking about that with Ali. It's not cheap, 2,283 more gallons of gas. Here's another one. If you like a drink, let's say you like Johnny Walker, 228 bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label.

We're getting fancy here. And finally, 14 more cars if that wage gap did not exist so that would certainly be different ways you could stimulate the economy.

Now coming up, we're talking animals specifically poaching wild animals. Obviously, it's against the law. Many poachers are prosecuted. You're going to meet one man who is going to join me here in studio who works to see that they are.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Undercover operations, secret informants, the risk of death at any moment. It sounds like fiction, but this is a factual account in this just released book. It's called "The Last Grape Ape, A Journey Through Africa and A Fight For The Heart Of The Continent."

The book chronicles how an Israeli man, Ofir Drori, uses covert networks to track and prosecute animal poachers, traffickers, many with links to war lords. Drori's efforts are all to stop the mutilation and death of these animals that you see here.

Many of them are very much so endangered for consumption and illegal trade. For years and years, people killed them with absolutely no fear of arrest. Then in 2003, Drori started "The Last Great Ape Organization."

And the first convictions for illegal animal trafficking took place in Cameroon. He joins me here live. I guess I should first say, congratulations. The book and everything you've been doing in Africa.

It's lovely to meet you. First, just explain to me. I've read you have these webs of spies. Talk to me about these undercover operations that you have to assign and have people take part in.

OFIR DRORI, THE LAST GREAT APE ORGANIZATION: Yes, I mean, we have undercover agents that use hidden cameras, hidden recorders. And we activate them to start infiltrating those kinds of criminal network, trying to get to the big guns.

Because we're not just interested -- in fact, not interested in the poachers, which are usually the small guys down there, we're interested in the big mafia guys.

BALDWIN: Explain the difference. Animal trafficking and animal poaching, what's the difference?

DRORI: OK, I'll explain that with an example. I'll give you an example of one of our investigation that won Cameroon the Interpol Award. This investigation is of ivory trade syndicates.

So imagine three Asian nationals in a residential quarter off the capital and here they are bringing every two months a 40-foot container into their home, filling it up with 600 tusks from elephants and exporting it outside.

So every two months like a clock, 300 killed elephants find their way out and this is the work of those three syndicate heads. And they were active from the '80s. So just take this as an example.

And realize that these kind of syndicate heads, they activate hundreds of poachers across many countries. And they activate maybe dozens of corrupt officials to buy their own immunity. They have their own network.

They try to climb up and find these kinds of guys and put them behind bars. So this is the way to dismantle this organized crime.

BALDWIN: So what exactly is in it for these traffickers across the globe? Obviously, it's always about money. Is it big, big money, the tusks and the meat of these animals bring in?

DRORI: Yes, usually don't want to give the figures. We don't want to advertise how great of an illegal trade it is. But it's a tremendous amount of money that we're talking about.

The syndicate I just mentioned was getting illegal revenue of millions of dollars per month. These kinds of forms of illegal activities are linked to illegal trade in drugs, illegal trade in arms, money laundering.

I mean, this is serious mafia we're talking about. That's what most people don't really understand. Think about some small poachers in the field. What we are dealing with is the organized crime part of things. That means we have to have far more professional undercover investigations.

BALDWIN: As you talk about undercover crime, I keep thinking danger. The danger I know that some of your own agents have been shot at as a result of these criminals. Why do you do this? Why are you risk your life for these animals?

DRORI: Well, not just for me, but for the team of Africans that are working with us in Cameroon, in Congo, different countries of where we are working at.

I mean, we all think about this not as a job. It's a mission and we do this with a lot of determination. Yes, there are a lot of risks that are involved. Of course, when you are putting in Cameroon, more than 450 traffickers behind bars, you definitely don't have a lot of friends, right?

But -- so we have physical life, life threats, political threats, legal threats, you name it. Last year, we had one of our investigators was actually kidnapped by a group of big ivory dealers and he was very close to getting killed, but managed to rescue him and get them behind bars.

BALDWIN: I think it's tremendous what you're doing and your entire group and that's why we wanted to have you in, in this book, but in terms of the animals. Tell me about, while we still have you, the last question is Kita. Is the chimp you crawled into the cage with?

DRORI: No, that would be Future. That's a different one. The beautiful thing about Kita is he was a chimp that liked to be tickled very much. You can see how she's laughing. Chimps do laugh.

But, you know, Brooke, there's more to it than just elephants or apes or wild life because our struggle to protect this endangered or beautiful world goes beyond wildlife. In fact, you know, most of the places that I visited, the places that shaped me.

Gave me the urge to become an activist these places are now dying and the culture, which I spent time with, the tribes that accepted me to their homes, these are all cultures that are getting --

BALDWIN: That they shouldn't be killed and poached and trafficked, et cetera. Again, your book is "The Last Great Ape." Ofir, thank you.

DRORI: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Thank you very much. Coming up, Ted Nugent says he will either be dead or in jail this time next year if President Obama is re-elected. Everyone who shy away from controversy here, you're going to hear who's pretty upset with the Nuge today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I want you to hear something that Ted Nugent said over this past weekend. The National Rifle Association posted it to YouTube.

It's got a lot of people fired up here, which in it of itself is certainly nothing new where Ted Nugent classic rocker is concerned. But I want you to listen very closely here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED NUGENT, MUSICIAN/ACTIVIST: If Barack Obama becomes the president November again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.

If you can't go home and get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vial evil America hated administration, I don't even know what you're made out off and if you take an offense at that, tough.

Our president, attorney general, our vice president, Hillary Clinton, they're criminals. They're criminals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Dead or in jail, talking criminals, Jim Acosta, I mean, obviously, we know Nugent. He is a huge gun enthusiast, big on the NRA circuit, but what -- what are people close to the president saying about these comments, violent undertone?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, first of all, let's keep in mind. They don't call them the "Motor City Madman" for nothing, Brooke.

You know, Ted Nugent and controversy have been friends for a long time. But, you know, the DNC put out a statement earlier today from Debbie Wasserman Schultz basically calling on Mitt Romney and the Republican Party to denounce what Ted Nugent had to say.

He said this at an NRA convention last Friday in St. Louis, but keep in mind, the DNC is so hard at work with this issue. They put out a web video not too long ago, pointing out, showing some video, or some audio I should say of Mitt Romney welcoming Ted Nugent's endorsement back in March.

This is an audio from a radio interview that Mitt Romney did where he basically acknowledged having a one-on-one meeting with the rock 'n roller. So, you know, there is going to be some push back from the Romney campaign as to whether or not Ted Nugent is a surrogate.

But he is a high profile supporter of his campaign, which explains why the Romney campaign, Brooke, in just the last several minutes put out a statement walking away from what Ted Nugent had to say and basically sort of slapping him on the wrist.

The quote, I'll read it to you if we don't have time really to put it up on screen. It's says, "Divisive language -- we have it on screen. That'll be great.

"Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from. Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil."

And of course, all of this, Brooke, comes after of the Hilary Rosen controversy that flared up late last week that Democrats had to run away from and put out tweet after tweet denouncing when Hilary Rosen said that Ann Romney had not worked a day in her life.

So, you know, President Obama back in the '08 campaign coin the phrase, the silly season of politics? When it gets slow --

BALDWIN: It has begun.

ACOSTA: - the silly season can get going and this is an example of that.

BALDWIN: Quickly, is Ted Nugent still standing by what he said?

ACOSTA: We reached out for a statement from Ted Nugent. Have not heard back from him yet, but I would be surprised if we get something definitive, you know, and any kind of, you know, backpedalling away from this. That is not Ted Nugent's style. But we'll have to wait and see what he says.

BALDWIN: OK, but camp Romney walking away from it as you point out. Jim Acosta, thank you.

ACOSTA: You bet.

BALDWIN: The scandal surrounding former football coach, Bobby Petrino, has so-called football chicks. This is what one woman calls herself talking. One woman says, it hurts all women in sports, but my next guest disagrees.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're about to get a fascinating action-packed look at this night assault targeting militants in Afghanistan. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh took this on the mission. This is just south of the capital city Kabul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A last stand in a Taliban hot land. Americans and Afghans launch an air assault before dawn into a remote hostile district of Gosni they've not set foot in for six months.

They've planned an incredibly flat, exposed space about a mile away from a village where they are two high value targets the Americans want to arrest.

America's withdrawal is meant to awaken Afghan forces to take over these man hunts. As they push into the village in search of the American's most wanted local militant, the Afghans seem pretty casual. Some doors stay locked. Their prey likely vanishing when they heard helicopters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They hear the birds coming and they usually flee immediately.

WALSH: But as the Americans search a former weapons cache, they become the targets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where's it at?

WALSH: Clearly insurgents are keen to defend this building or at least attack the Americans as they get near it. The shots coming close fired from a distant tree line. The Afghans spring into life firing a rocket and then move to flank the insurgents who keep taking pot shots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't like me running.

WALSH: Warning flares from attack aircraft massing above stop the gunfire. And distant figures, probably women and children, appear, meaning a counterattack is too risky and the fight over.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the one in the white is a child, to be honest with you.

WALSH: But keen warriors make for poor police. Riding motorcycles is illegal and they have to decide on a punishment. Should they shoot the fuel tank? Perhaps not. They let the tires down and then deliver what is here a rare encounter with Afghanistan's government.

That night they leave, and the Taliban surely return, knowing that without American support the Afghan state's relevance here slips further into the distance. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Gosni Province, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: To Capitol Hill just a short time ago, the House Transportation Committee digging for answers. This committee hearing was wrapping today.

Day two of this investigation into this massive spending scandal at the agency that's actually supposed to be cutting government waste.

The details they began to emerge that the GSA conference in Las Vegas cost taxpayers more than $800,000 may be just the beginning of some of these infractions here. GSA officials, they had to answer some tough, tough questions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REPRESENTATIVE ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE: What's bothering me about your role, and I'm listening to your testimony very carefully, it seems as if you play down your role in all of this.

But as the immediate supervisor, you can call it whatever you want to call it. When you've got a man who has two supervisors and one is himself and the other is you, as far as I'm concerned, you're his supervisor.

It seems as if you would have been more hands on, Mr. Neely. My mother was a former sharecropper. Used to say son, you can have commotion, emotion and no results. I don't want these hearings to be, you know, very emotional and then we don't get results.

And so I'm trying to get to what happened here. I'm wondering if somebody, the structure was one, which the person in your position should have had more authority and should have been access to more information or whether you didn't do your job or whether you failed to overlook, Mr. Neely.

Then I wondered too whether you felt intimidated by Mr. Neely because obviously, he had a rain of threats going on around him.

REPRESENTATIVE JEFF DENHAM (R), CALIFORNIA: It's been a year- and-a-half. We have requested. We have sent a letter from the committee. We have commanded. Why are you hiding this information from the committee and from the American public? You're not hiding it? Do you not have the information?

ROBERT PECK, FORMER PUBLIC BUILDINGS SERVICE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Chairman, I don't have access anymore to the -- either your letters that demanding -- information or our response.

What I recall is that in December, this past December, the committee asked for detailed information about overhead costs of the PBS nationally, the PBS headquarters in Washington and the commissioner's office. I believe we responded to that in February or March.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Still ahead here, a historic moment in NASA's history creating a stunning moment in the skies. You will see that.

But, up next, food stamps, tens of millions of Americans rely on them each and every month. But Republicans in the House they want to cut billions of dollar from the program in order to save something else. It's a move one of my next guests is calling appalling.

Stay right there. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)