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New Chapter in White House Race; Hosni Mubarak: Life in Prison; New Cronkite Book Out; Bear Ate Parolee
Aired June 02, 2012 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. Don Lemon here.
We're going to start with politics. Mitt Romney reaches his magic number and the race for the White House enters a new chapter. It won't be official until this summer's convention, but already, he is making history as the first Mormon to lead a major party ticket.
As it stands right now, five months out, the presidential race essentially a tie. Look at your screen. There it is, the latest CNN/ORC poll gives President Obama a three-point edge, 49 percent to 46 percent.
Political reporter Shannon Travis, bring him in now.
Shannon, it is a long way to November. Well, not that long a ways away. But we're already seeing some major shifts in the campaign, aren't we?
SHANNON TRAVIS, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right, Don. I mean, leave the primaries behind. All of that stuff is all behind us. This is a new day. And Mitt Romney is probably feeling like a new man.
You're already seeing the party conservatives, maybe some independents starting to coalesce around him now that he's officially clinched the number needed to become the nominee. Again, it will be official in Tampa, in Florida, but he's pretty much going to be the nominee.
Another thing that we saw happen as he clinched the nomination was on Wednesday, President Obama gave Mitt Romney a phone call. Happened Wednesday morning. We've got word of it a little bit after. But both sides tell us it was a very brief conversation between the two men.
They wished each other well. They said, you know what? Let's have a healthy debate. They talked a little bit briefly about their families. I guess wishing each other's families well out on the campaign trail.
And guess what, Don. Just hours after that, the gloves were back off again with brutal bickering back and forth from both sides going on just within hours of that phone call, both sides were back at it slamming each other. And just yesterday, on Friday, both campaigns put out new videos, campaign videos. Got to love those.
Take a listen at President Obama using some Republicans who are on the attack against Romney in the primaries. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm pretty proud of a very conservative record and that record I think will stand up to that of virtually anybody else running in this race.
GOV. RICK PERRY (R), TEXAS: You failed as the governor of Massachusetts.
RICK SANTORUM (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If Mitt Romney is an economic heavyweight, we're in trouble, because he was 47th out of 50 in job creation in the state of Massachusetts when he was governor.
NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He ended up third from the bottom in job creation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRAVIS: Now, Don, that was the Obama camp turning tables is little bit. You know, that Republicans have been using their own words against Obama recently. That was them turning the tables.
But in response, take a look at Romney's latest offering. It came out yesterday. This was a TV ad put out, it's part three of his day one commercial that we've been seeing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AD NARRATOR: President Romney's leadership puts jobs first. But there's something more than legislation or new policy. It's the feeling we'll have that our country is back -- back on the right track. That's what will be different about a Romney presidency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRAVIS: Even though that was a really positive tone in that Romney add, take a listen at the words, back on track is something you'll hear a lot from team Romney, putting the economy and the country back on track -- Don.
LEMON: All right. Shannon, don't go very far, because we're going to come back to you in less than 10 minutes to talk about potential running mates for Romney. Stick around.
A judge in Egypt sent Hosni Mubarak to prison today for the rest of his life. Zero reaction on the face of the former Egyptian president when he learned his fate today. Plenty reaction on the streets outside, though.
At first, people celebrated the conviction and life sentence handed to the 84-year-old Mubarak, declared responsible for the death of 840 people who stood against him in protest last year. Then they got angry, when word spread that six of aides were acquitted and set free.
That was earlier today. This is now, live pictures here after midnight in Tahrir Square. The square is still packed. The mood is lighter, with many people waving Egyptian flags and cheering.
I want you to watch this report from CNN's Ben Wedeman. He's been in the middle of it all day long.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They greeted the verdict with joy -- and tears. Prayers. And fireworks.
A life sentence for deposed President Mubarak and his hated interior minister Habib al-Adly. Mubarak was cleared of corruption charges.
But inside the courtroom, it was a different scene, as anger erupts when the judge announced that senior officials in the interior ministry were found innocent, that Mubarak's two sons, Alaa and Gamal, were also found innocent of corruption charges.
(on camera): The initial reaction to the verdict against Mubarak was one of joy, but that joy has soured as the details have sunk in. Now they are chanting the Arabic word for "illegitimate."
During the brief session in the makeshift courtroom, Mubarak showed no emotion -- his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. Before the verdict was announced, his supporters outside banged out a message of loyalty, singing his praises and cursing the revolution that brought him down.
State television personality Tahani Latibi (ph) says the revolution was a conspiracy. "It was planned by the Zionists," she tells me, "beginning in Iraq and Sudan and Tunisia and all the Arab countries, including Egypt."
Just a stones throw away, relatives of those killed in the revolution waited to hear the verdict, many holding the pictures of their dead sons and daughters. Mohammad Abdul Fatah (ph) kept the clothing his son Hasan was wearing when he was shot and calls for divine justice against Mubarak. Hasan was 11 years old.
Hosni Mubarak's lawyers say they'll file an appeal, hoping to overturn the verdict. The families of the dead, however, have already passed theirs.
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Cairo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: We want to take you live now to Tahrir Square in Cairo. Quiet now. A massive crowd still gathered there. We'll be watching the square throughout the night. So, make sure you tune in, if things get tense and violent, we'll go there again.
Let me remind you what led up to this history-making life sentence for Hosni Mubarak. He was president of Egypt nearly 30 years, for nearly 30 years. Back in 1981, he declared a state of emergency that gave his police force almost complete power. That state of emergency was lifted only yesterday. And last year's uprising in Egypt, about 840 demonstrators were killed, 6,000 people were injured in just 18 days. When the chaos was over, Mubarak was out of office. Military officers that took over brought Mubarak to trial in August. Mubarak could have been executed or he could have been set free. Egyptians will go to the polls to pick a president for the first time democratically two weeks from today.
Across Syria today, at least 27 people were killed, most in the besieged city of Homs. Witnesses say Syrian military tanks roll through with heavy gunfire. Opposition activists also said Syrian troops burned houses and sent snipers into other residential areas. Arab league foreign ministers met today to talk about who's keeping the conflict going. Several ministers want the U.N. to get more deeply involved, possibly to include military action.
The violence in Syria spilled over the border into Lebanon today, clashes between supporters and opponents of the Assad regime left at least 12 people dead and 50 others injured in Tripoli. National security forces are being sent into the area to enforce a cease-fire, which has been agreed upon by opposing factions.
In Maryland, cleanup is under way after a fierce storm tore through the northeast part of the state. High winds ripped off roofs and overturned cars and a number of people were freed after becoming trapped in their cars. Flooding is the issue in the nation's capital as well. Firefighters have made several water rescues, including helping three teenagers trapped on the edge of a bridge.
The biggest wildfire, the state of New Mexico has ever experienced is raging at this hour. Right now, just 15 percent of the blaze is contained. It already has devoured 354 square miles larger than the city of Chicago. Smoke is forcing people to stay indoors because of bad air quality.
And then, there was one. We're talking about Mitt Romney. Barring a huge surprise, he will get the GOP nomination for president. And a first big decision he has to make, pick a date for the dance. A look at who's already campaigning for V.P.
And an unforgettable moment in history.
(BEGIN VIDEO LCIP)
WALTER CRONKITE, LEGENDARY TV ANCHOR: President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Walter Cronkite, the American people may have loved him, but did other journalists? An honest look at the life and career of the most trusted man in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Let's talk more now about the race for the White House and the first major decision that Mitt Romney will make as a Republican nominee, choosing his running mate, of course.
Shannon Travis is back. He's back!
So, Shannon, some of these potential picks already look like they are lobbying for the job. Every time I see them on television, I say oh, audition, audition. You can tell.
TRAVIS: It's a huge audition. I did a cover story for CNN.com last week about how everyone's saying you know what? I'm not really interested in being Mitt Romney's running mate, but all are out there on the attack, most of them are on the attack against President Obama, in a sense, like you said, auditioning.
Let's go through some of these names because they may be -- one of these people may be the person who's a heart beat away from the presidency.
Let's start with Rob Portman, the senator from Ohio. Pros and cons of him is Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. Obviously, that's a battleground state. No Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. It's 18 electoral votes. And a lot of Republicans, a lot of independents deem him to be immediately qualified.
A con is that he was in the Bush White House. So that would give Democrats -- they would jump at the chance to be able to run against another Bush staffer.
Next on the list of potentials, Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. Obviously, he's a rock star in many Republican circles. Straight talker, brash talker, could absolutely rebut Vice President Biden in a political contest.
But a con is that Governor Christie is moderate on some issues, so that might actually not help Romney with some conservatives who feel that Romney himself is a little bit too moderate. And also, having another Northeasterner on the ticket geographically might not be the best thing.
Another person, Marco Rubio. Keep track of that name, Don. Our viewers should keep thinking about Marco Rubio, because he's also a rock star in Republican circles. Florida, battleground state, Hispanic, young, very attractive Tea Partier, helping shore up some conservative support for Romney there.
But in terms of a con, a lot of people deem for him to not exactly be qualified, not quite yet ready. He's only been a senator for a short time. So that might be a draw on him.
And last on our list, Paul Ryan, House budget chairman Paul Ryan. He's got pros and cons. Young, fresh face, but also, his budget proposals are something that Democrats have been hammering away at -- Don.
LEMON: Let's talk about the Democratic side, because, you know, we've been hearing this talk about Joe Biden getting thrown off the ticket and maybe Hillary Clinton. Is that going to happen? TRAVIS: It's not going to happen. It's something that we love to talk about, but the Democrats have said that's not going to happen. Republicans point to Biden's gaffes, that the Democratic campaign says are not gaffes, more like straight talk.
But it's not going to happen. It's just really good for the speculation.
LEMON: Well, that's the thing about Joe Biden. You love him or you hate him because of his frankness, let's just put it that way.
TRAVIS: That's right.
LEMON: A lot of people like that straight talk. Thank you very much. Appreciate it, Shannon Travis.
And you want to know what life is really like on the campaign trail? This Tuesday, join the CNN election roundtable with Wolf Blitzer and the CNN political team, submit your questions and get answers in real time in this live, virtual chat.
Don't miss the CNN election roundtable. Tuesday at noon Eastern, Tuesday at noon Eastern. Log on to CNN.com/roundtable.
The United States is rethinking its security strategies in Asia. Speaking at a gathering of Asia's military leaders, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. plans enhance military cooperation with China and boosting the capabilities of its allies in the region. He also promised technology upgrades and faster threat response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We will invest in the newest technologies and we will invest in the ability to mobilize quickly if necessary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: A big part of that investment will be in space and in cyber space as well. There will be upgrades to unmanned systems and enhancements to Special Forces operations. The U.S. also expects to move a majority of its warships to the Pacific Ocean. Right now, there's a 50/50 split between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Scientists are warning about a new disease that's being compared to the AIDS epidemic. The scary thing is it is spread by bug bites.
And we want our viewers to stay connected to CNN even on the go. Make sure you grab your mobile phone and go to CNN.com/TV, or you can do it on your iPad as well.
There's the newscast. Right there I'm watching it. On a laptop. Also, on TV, on your iPad, on your phone.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Doctors are sounding the alarm about a disease some worry could become the world's next major epidemic. It's called Chagas and it's spreading in South America.
Brian Todd tells us it's transmitted rather easily by something as simple as a bug bite.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): AIDS, the scourge of the post war era, killing more than 25 million people over the past three decades.
Is there a new AIDS on the horizon? Experts worry about a disease now affecting millions in Latin America.
DR. PETER HOTEZ, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: I like to call Chagas disease arguably the most important infection you've never heard about. And you've never heard about it because it almost exclusively affects people living in extreme poverty.
TODD: Chagas, a parasitic infection prevalent in poor areas of Central and South America. Dr. Peter Hotez is lead author in a recent editorial about Chagas in a respected medical journal. Health authorities say roughly 10 million people are infected with Chagas. Hotez estimates it kills at least 20,000 people a year.
TODD (on camera): Is this difficult or impossible to cure?
HOTEZ: There are two medicine available which, if you catch the infection very early on, seem to have some beneficial effect on treating the patient. The problem is, once the heart symptoms start, which is the most dreaded complication, the Chagas cardiomyopathy, the medicines no longer work very well, problem number one. Problem number two, the medicine are extremely toxic.
TODD (voice-over): Also, Hotez says, Chagas is like AIDS because it's contaminated part of the blood supply in South America.
TODD (on camera): This is ground zero for Chagas, the reduviid bug, prevalent in Latin America. Experts say the parasite for Chagas lives in its guts. It likes to hide in wall crevices and thatched roofs.
Then, at night, it drops onto people who are sleeping. It likes to bite you in the face. It's called "the kissing bug." When it ingests your blood, it excretes the parasite at the same time. When you wake up and scratch the itch, the parasite moves into the wound and you're infected.
You can be infected with Chagas for decades before you actually get the severe symptoms of the disease. But then, when you move into the severe stage, you can develop an enlarged heart or intestines that can burst.
TODD (voice-over): But Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health says Hotez and others are overstating the danger of Chagas. DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: I am concerned that when people talk about comparisons with HIV, that that comparison would translate into thinking it's transmitted like it is with HIV, which is just not the case.
TODD: Fauci says Chagas is transmitted primarily by the bug biting you, by pregnant women infecting their children, and by people living in areas where it's prevalent, donating blood that's not screened. Dr. Fauci says only about 20 percent of people who get infected will go on to get the life-threatening form of the disease, and he says Chagas does not pose a significant danger to people in the U.S.
Dr. Peter Hotez disagrees, saying there is transmission in south Texas and those reduviid bugs can be found in south Texas and that many dogs in that area have Chagas.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. Brian, thank you.
Rapper Diddy is worth about $475 million. So a lot of people aren't happy that his son is getting a full scholarship to UCLA. The scholarship is for football.
Justin Combs will play linebacker for the Bruins. The school says he earned it on the field, and UCLA wasn't the only program that wanted him. But videos like this one aren't helping his cause.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not just a car. This is what we call a car fit for a king.
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That is a clip from the MTV show "My Super Sweet 16." What is that? A Maybach? That's a very expensive car. And Combs' dad is giving him a $360,000 car for his birthday.
CNN's education contributor Steve Perry discuss the controversy with our Rob Marciano for this week's "Perry's Principles."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROB MARCIANO, CNN ANCHOR: Why do you think P. Diddy and his wealth is playing so big in the media right now?
STEVE PERRY, CNN EDUCATION CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Michael Jordan, Barry Sanders, Eli and Payton Manning are somebody who's a son of a professional athlete. I think it's because in part P. Diddy is a larger than life figure and he flaunts his stuff that both engenders great pride for some of us and some disdain for others. So somewhere along the way people feel like it's their responsibility to tell somebody what they want to do with their life. And in part, he's a public figure, and as a public figure, that's part of the responsibility we have.
A hundred percent of the graduates at our school go on to four-year colleges and 100 percent of those can't pay. They cannot pay without getting some sort of financial assistance. So I don't begrudge Justin or Diddy or anybody involved in this in UCLA. Just because my kids have to pay doesn't mean this kid should have to pay as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Walter Cronkite, one of the best known news men in history, but did you know the president -- that President Kennedy got testy with him over an interview? That and more fascinating details about the legendary news man.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Coming up on half past the hour, we're going to get a look at your headlines right now.
First, we're going to take you to Cairo, Egypt -- Tahrir Square, live pictures right now packed with people. Earlier, they were celebrating the conviction and life sentence handed down to former President Hosni Mubarak. That celebration turned into anger when word spread that several of Mubarak's former aides were acquitted. Mubarak was declared responsible for the deaths of nearly 850 people during the Egyptian revolution last year.
More fighting and more deaths across Syria today. At least 27 people were killed. Witnesses say Syrian military tanks raided the city of Homs, rolling through with heavy gunfire. Opposition activists also said Syrian troops burned homes and sent snipers into other residential areas. Arab league foreign ministers met today to talk about who's keeping the conflict going and how to prevent an all-out civil war.
To Maryland now, where the cleanup is under way after a fierce storm tore through Northeast part of that state. High winds ripped off roofs and overturned cars left yesterday. A number of people were freed after becoming trapped in their cars. Bad weather also hit Virginia, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.
Today kicks off four days of a grand party only fit for a queen. Brits are making the diamond jubilee, Queen Elizabeth's 60th year on the throne.
Today's events included the Epsom derby, featuring the nation's top horses and one of the queen's favorite sports. Tomorrow, CNN will have special coverage of the celebration starting at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. Make sure you join Piers and Brooke, Piers Morgan and Brooke Baldwin, live from London for the royal extravaganza. Piers and Brooke, first (INAUDIBLE).
Millions of Americans welcomed him into their living rooms each night to hear their news and his tagline, "That's the way it is." Legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite defined what a journalist was through his 19-year heyday at CBS News. He reported on the most profound moments in 1960s, '70s, even into the '80s. A new book by author Douglas Brinkley details what made him tick, and of course, why many Americans, even presidents, considered him the most trusted man in America.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, AUTHOR "CRONKITE": I grew up watching Walter Cronkite like so many millions of Americans. He was an icon. And a few years back, "The New York Times" reporter David Halberstam mentioned to me before he passed that Cronkite was the most important journalist of the second half of the 20th century. It kind of took me back a little bit. I always thought of print reporters being the most significant. But when you really look at what Cronkite did, taking us through the McCarthy era and space with John Glenn, all the way to going to the moon with Neil Armstrong, really going after Nixon during Watergate and famously the Vietnam War, we lived in Walter Cronkite's Cold War era, and his papers opened up at the University of Texas, (INAUDIBLE) material in cooperation with Walter Cronkite's family and friends, so I took on the book.
LEMON: The book is not all glowing about Walter Cronkite. He was human, just like the rest of us, even though, you know, we make him out to be this sort of anchorman superhero.
BRINKLEY: Well, it's hard to live up to being the most trusted man in America. That was what he was dubbed by 1972 from (INAUDIBLE) poll and the CBS publicists ran with it. And now Walter Cronkite was very trusted. His integrity factor was extremely high. But I write in the book about some moments that really was the kind of the old boys club back there, a time when politicians and journalists interacted in a much different way than they do now.
By the time Cronkite became anchorman at CBS in 1962, people were getting their news from the evening news of Walter Cronkite and it almost became a ritual. You got home from work 9:00 to 5:00, you relax a little, and then you watch Cronkite and then have dinner. And so his impact is immense on things like civil rights, gay rights, the women's movement, the environment in the '60s and '70s. Cronkite insisted all those stories were covered in a very real time and important way. And so you can't even think about something like the birth of Earth day or you know, these images of Bull Connor in the south and the horrors of Jim Crow were brought into everybody's living rooms, because Cronkite as managing editor of CBS insisted on it.
LEMON: I want to get to his relationship with Edward R. Murrow, because I think Marrow thought -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that in some ways, TV should be a bit more canned, a bit more methodical and thawed out. And then when the conventions came around, Walter just sort of relished in it. And I wonder if that was the advent of 24-hour news.
BRINKLEY: I think that's spot-on. In 1952, Walter Cronkite covered the Democratic and Republican conventions and Murrow didn't want to do it. He thought they were going to be infomercials and it was beneath the dignity of a serious journalist. I'm writing my book about the riff between Murrow and Cronkite that dated back to World War II. But once those cameras came in and captured Stevenson for the Democrats and Eisenhower in '52, though everything changed. The cameras did turn conventions into infomercials and it did lead to kind of a birth of 24-hour news broadcasting.
And Cronkite in '52 taught a seminar on how to talk on television, the politicians and how to apply makeup properly and things, and two of his students were Sam Rayburn and John F. Kennedy. And from '52 onwards, you just see television news and special events reporting, which Cronkite was the master of, like walking us through the Kennedy assassination, or taking us through, you know, the Apollo 11 mission. He would go marathon for days. He was known as the Iron Pants, became his nickname within CBS culture.
WALTER CRONKITE: President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time. 2:00 Eastern Standard Time.
LEMON: I remember getting these glasses, right. And I never thought about it. I just liked the glasses. And my colleague sort of called them my Cronkites. And I picked up that name. But it's interesting when you see him with those glasses just talking about the death of John F. Kennedy, taking them on, looking at the clock. That was his moment. And that is probably the iconic moment in journalism, and the next I think would probably be 9/11.
BRINKLEY: Everybody knows that clip. I'll tell you, he came in that day, it was a normal Friday. A lot of people had cut out for the weekend and others were having long lunches in New York. He brought cottage cheese and pineapple, sitting around in the newsroom. He was an old United Service Press wire service guy. Auld he always would hear the hum of those machines.
He got a shooting in Dallas and then he ran with it. He didn't just announce that to the nation in that famous scene with the glasses and looking at the clock, but he had to continue all weekend long. He had to report on, you know, on Lee Harvey Oswald, who he was. And of course, Ruby Killingham and how did Jackie Kennedy handle the death. And then the funeral.
So I call him like a rabbi or a pastor in chief. He held our hands in a communal way through that long tragedy of the Kennedy assassination.
LEMON: I love that interview. Thank you, Douglas. We're not done yet. There's much more insight on the legendary Walter Cronkite, including why President John F. Kennedy became testy with him over an interview and why Cronkite encouraged Bobby Kennedy to run for president against Lyndon B. Johnson.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Prominent anchors like Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather have criticized White House correspondents on their cozy relationships between journalists and politicians. I asked Douglas Brinkley, author of the new book "Cronkite" whether close relationships between veteran anchorman Walter Cronkite and U.S. presidents, whether that was an issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRINKLEY: No, it wasn't. I mean Cronkite tried to stay objective. But the truth is you all have biases, you have favorites. He got very close to Dwight Eisenhower because Cronkite had covered D-day as a wartime correspondent, World War II. So just had a good amiable relationship. Eisenhower always seemed to do well with Cronkite.
John F. Kennedy's relationship with Cronkite was quite testy because Kennedy wanted to do a do-over on an interview like we're doing now. Cronkite said no and Kennedy was miffed. But he became very close to Bobby Kennedy. I write in the book that in 1968, Walter Cronkite even urged Bobby Kennedy to run for president, Kennedy being a New York senator at that time, and challenged Lyndon Johnson for the democratic nomination because Cronkite had gone to Vietnam and was sick by what he saw about the Johnson administration and lied to the American people and called the war, a stalemate. Many people are questioning why would Cronkite such a serious journalist urge somebody like Bobby Kennedy to run for president. It's not ethical. And the answer was Vietnam tore the country apart and Cronkite stayed in the middle from '65 to '68. But once he went in-country, looked around, his sense of being a humanist transcended him being an anchor.
CRONKITE: It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.
LEMON: I want to talk about this whole idea of liberal and conservative when it comes to news. We hear so much about it now, especially with the advent of cable news and people being on the right and people being on the left. Was Walter Cronkite considered a liberal in those days and did people know about that and was he criticized for it?
CRONKITE: He was not considered a liberal until 1968 with Vietnam, and then he was classified as a dove. And then the Nixon crowd - I listened to all the Nixon tapes with people like Chuck Collison and others going after Walter Cronkite. Cronkite had become so popular, he was seen as the patriarch of liberal media. Nixon crowd never laid a grub on Cronkite, the American people decided long ago they liked Uncle Walter, and so he survived all of that on Nixon.
More than that after Woodward and Bernsteins' "Washington Post" nobody took a back page story about a third rate burglary at Watergate seriously. Cronkite did. He sent out reporters to investigate and then on Cronkite's half an hour broadcast, which with commercials was 23 minutes, he ran a 17-minute piece backing up Woodward and Bernstein. And that's what turned Watergate into a big story. So in a way, Cronkite outlasted and outdrew, if you like, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and by the time, you know, the country was trying to heal with Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, Cronkite was a bigger star, celebrity, more respected than even the presidents of the United States of that era. His last time he did a big election was 1980, Reagan won, and again, Cronkite was a buddy with Reagan. They shared the same sense of humor and they both began sports broadcasting in the midwest. So Cronkite had different personal friends but Reagan he did well with and Eisenhower well. They were Republicans, yet he was personally - FDR, new deal, democrat, liberal.
LEMON: He was loved by America, but was he necessarily loved by the men who followed him and the men who preceded him?
BRINKLEY: There was a great deal of animosity between Murrow and Cronkite. It dated back to a broken handshake agreement Cronkite had made with Murrow during World War II, worked for CBS Radio in Stalingrad and then had wiser thoughts about it but Murrow held a bit of a grudge. And then Dan Rather succeeded him in 1981. Cronkite was for Rather, thought he was a great investigative reporter, but within a year, their relationship soured terribly and it got very, very bitter, at least from Cronkite's perspective. He just thought Rather should be canned and fired. And so it's not a great story there.
But, you know, Rather, to his credit, is kind of just took the kicks of Cronkite and just kept doing his job at CBS and doing it well.
LEMON: Hey before I let you go, any big surprises in this book?
BRINKLEY: Many. I mean, I talk about Cronkite secretly meeting with Daniel Elseburg to deal with the Pentagon papers. A deal with a group - a gay raider interrupted the broadcast of Cronkite, angry that gay issues were not being covered on CBS. Cronkite had to go to court with this guy, Mark Segal is his name, he runs the gay newspaper in Philadelphia, and Cronkite tapped Segal in the courtroom on his shoulder and said "Why did you do that?" They got to talking and Cronkite decided he was right and started running gay events on the nightly news and Segal became one of his closest and dearest friends and Cronkite became a spokesman for AIDS awareness and emceed big benefits with Elton John and the like. So there are all sorts of surprising stories in the book.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Thank you, Douglas Brinkley. Thanks to the producers and editors who put that together. It was a great, great piece. Two great pieces there. Again, the book is called "Cronkite," it's by Douglas Brinkley. I love this book. Thank you, Douglas again. Good stuff.
He has been the naked chef and he has started a food revolution. I'm talking about Jamie Oliver. He knows his way around a kitchen certainly. But when it comes to his wife's cooking, well, hear what he told our I-reporter.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Jamie Oliver known to millions as the naked chef, recently bared his soul to our reporters. He talks about how he loves to teach people how to cook, but he hates his wife's cooking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMIE OLIVER, NAKED CHEF: I have no money to my name, but my food at home was delicious. It always tastes good. And then many years later, I got an e-mail on one of the kind of foreigns saying they knew where I lived and for many years, they've (INAUDIBLE) on my herbs without telling me - god damn them.
I'm Jamie Oliver and I'm here to answer your I-report questions.
Whenever I'm at home, I always cook. My wife never cooks. She's not very good. It don't taste great and I've had to learn to lie over the years about how great it is. It's really, really not good. She cooks really well for the kids, bizarrely. The kids eat really well when I'm not around. But if my Mrs. ever asks you to come around for a dinner party and she's cooking, don't come.
HANNA HERBOWY, I-REPORTER: I was wondering how you get your kids to eat all the healthy foods because my mom tries really hard, both me and my siblings are a little too picky.
OLIVER: Basically, you can do things like smoothies and hide things in there that are delicious. But of course, as far as real food is concerned, just having fun with it, getting kids involved, learning how to make things delicious is the key. And at the end of the day, as long as you little ones like give things a try, your taste buds are going to change as you get older anyway and things you never would have eaten you're going to love. So mom, keep trying, you're doing a great job. Little ones, give her a break.
BOWEN OSBORN, I-REPORTER: Hi Jamie, I'm curious to know what you thought your biggest challenge was when approaching schools about a new healthy menu and how you overcame that challenge.
OLIVER: The biggest challenge I think was even getting in school. In L.A., I was work for ABC, primetime, and for certainly at the time, was one of the biggest food shows in the country. And I couldn't get access to tell the truth about the state of food in the second biggest school district in the country. And the thing that I did to get around it was I realized there was an old Los Angeles law where the school board came together every two weeks and it was open to all public. So basically what I did was just kept turning up with a full- on primetime ABC film crew, four, five guys, cameras everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I make the decision. You will not be in our schools.
KATHY KOWALCHUK, I-REPORTER: Is it OK to mix two dinners together?
OLIVER: Look, here's the thing. If I went and took a Spielberg film, right and cut half of it up and put it with another Spielberg film, is it going to be any good? Probably not. The question is I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. So mix recipes at your own peril. It might be genius. It will probably be awful. And you might be lucky.
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LEMON: Come on, you can become an I-reporter and submit a question for our next celebrity interview. There he is. Rapper and actor Ice- T. I like to call him I-T. Just head to cnn.com/interview.
And we want viewers to stay connected to CNN. You can even on the go. Make sure you grab your mobile phone and go to cnn.com/tv. If you're on a desktop or a laptop, you can also watch CNN live.
All right. Well, police capture a man-eating bear. Wait until you hear his story.
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LEMON: Police in Canada have captured a bear who ate the body of a paroled convicted killer. The Royal Canadian Mountain Police say the bear found the body of Rory Nelson Wagner inside a car, consumed parts of him, and then dragged the rest of the body away. They don't know what killed Wagner, who had been missing for a week we should say. Officials say they plan to put the bear down, noting it approached the body when it was not in decomposition.
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DARCY MACPHEE, CONSERVATION OFFICER: There wasn't a lot of scent around the vehicle or even around the person. So it was certainly concerning that it felt comfortable enough to remove this person from the vehicle.
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LEMON: Wagner was on parole after serving time for the 1993 murder of a man he thought had sexually assaulted his relative.
Arrested for DUI on a lawmaker, on a lawnmower, I should say. Sounds like a country music song. And you probably heard a lot of stories that start with some guy sitting in a bar. But not like this one.
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LEMON: All right. A lawnmower in the middle of traffic. A truck crashes into a bar, a car driving into a restaurant. It sounds like something made for fiction, but it actually happened. Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He sure wasn't mowing a lawn, but at least he didn't mow down any pedestrians as he waved at the officer in not so hot pursuit behind him.
KYLE HENNING, POLICE OFFICER: I hit my siren a few times to try to get his attention, and he just kept saying go around, go around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have traffic with a lawnmower.
MOOS: The officer pulled him over in a parking lot in Jackson, Wisconsin, where a curb stopped him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charles, how much did you have to drink tonight?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One beer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just one beer? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One beer.
MOOS: Sixty nine-year-old Charles Gray wasn't happy about having to take sobriety tests. Turns out he had three previous drunk driving arrests in cars. When he took the breathalyzer -
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And blow.
MOOS: It resulted in his first arrest for DUI on a lawnmower.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You had more than one beer. You had .219.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had one beer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're over double.
MOOS (on camera): It's been a weird week for vehicles ending up in places they shouldn't be.
(voice-over): In a place called Little Canada, Minnesota, customers at this bar were shooting the breeze. Watch the woman on the end take a last sip. And then boom. Police say the 51-year-old woman who drove her truck into the bar likely had a diabetic condition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It happened like that. You didn't have time to react.
MOOS: Pat Sizinski was the bartender. He just barely got out of the way in time. Three people were pinned, a total of six went to the hospital. But no one died. The impact left this customer dazed. And watch the woman who had been beside him get up and lift debris out of the way.
In Huntington, Long Island this week a 21-year-old accused of being drunk drove a red Mercedes through a house, ending up in the backyard. The homeowners weren't hurt. "The New York Daily News" dubbed it a drive-thru.
(on camera): And speaking of drive-thrus, how about the guy who police say went loco about a taco after a beef about too little beef? Or maybe it was chicken.
(voice-over): Twenty three-year-old Michael Smith picked up his food at the Taco Bell drive-thru in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio. But police say he came back to the restaurant saying he was short a taco. Words were exchanged.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was just very sarcastic and rude.
MOOS: Then drove through the front entrance. Police followed a trail of fluid from his truck and arrested him at home. When they say take out, they don't mean take out the entrance.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE) LEMON: All right, Jeanne. Tonight at 10:00 p.m., four bizarre body mutilation cases, and police believe a new designer street drug that looks like bath salt may be to blame. It can be injected, snorted, smoked, or even ingested with liquid. And the shocking part, the drug is legal in many places. We'll show you the devastating effects of it and talk with a former user who overdosed on it. Make sure you tune in tonight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
I wanted to get through that quickly because I just want to tell you we have some breaking news coming in to CNN. And it is a mall shooting. It's at the Eaton Center in Toronto. We are working on it.
CNN's confirmed that there is a shooting. A number of fatalities or injuries unknown at this time, but we'll bring you the very latest at 10:00 p.m. but again, Toronto police confirm to CNN that there's been a shooting at the Eaton Center shopping mall in Toronto. It happened around 6:30 p.m. Eastern time. It's about an hour and a half ago.
I'm Don Lemon at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. See you back here at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. In the meantime, CNN presents "The Women who would be Queen" begins in just a few moments.
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