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President Obama Visits Ohio; Romney's V.P. Search; Wolf-Dog Guards at Louisiana Prison?

Aired August 01, 2012 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Casey Wian is following this one for us today.

And, so, Casey, this professor that we're talking about, we mentioned he was caught setting -- trying to set fires at this high school. Can you tell me more about that?

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brooke, that's right.

It was just outside this high school in a little park area. He was caught police say red-handed with some kind of an accelerant and a pile of papers getting ready to set a fire. They had increased patrols in the area because there had been several small arson fires over the past several week.s

And that's an unusual event in that area. They caught him and had no idea he was a suspect in this string of arsons. They arrested him. He was bailed out almost immediately. They continued an investigation. And what police discovered was really, really disturbing. You mentioned the suicide of his son, his 14-year-old son, which occurred back in March and followed some relatively minor disciplinary action at the school.

He was forced to pick up trash on campus. Apparently, though, following that suicide, police say it really set off the father and changed things. They discovered these e-mails that he sent to himself and his wife that described some very, very disturbing plots at the high school.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY RACKAUCKAS, ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: He appeared to be very serious about all this. He was clearly starting fires and working on burning the school down.

So, that was the beginning of his threat. He said that he was going to -- in his e-mails to his wife, he indicated that he wanted to acquire some firearms and go to the school and just do a great deal of violence at the school, including sexual assaults and then random violence against the kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIAN: Now, Reinscheid is being held without bail. We have reached out to his attorney. He has not returned our calls. I want to point something out to you that we discovered that's very, very chilling.

This guy is a very accomplished researcher. He came up and discovered a protein that affects memory in the brain and could be a potential future treatment for Alzheimer's. Now, during the time that he discovered that, two years ago, I want to read you something that he wrote about that discovery.

"It may better help us understand post-traumatic stress disorder, which involves exaggerated memories of traumatic events," a little bit of foreshadowing there. I can't anything more traumatic than someone losing their 14-year-old son to suicide. We will have to see how that -- those words play out in this case, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Casey Wian, thank you so much for us in Los Angeles.

Now roll the open. And we continue right along, hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's talk about the president here. He's back in Ohio today. This is trip number nine for him this year alone, trip number 25 since he first became president. This is the third time this month. That's a lot of Ohio presidential time. You know that Ohio is such a critical swing state.

And if polls are any indication here, those trips appear to be paying off. And here is why. A new poll here just released today gives the president a 50-44 percent lead over Mitt Romney in Ohio specifically. But the visit also comes on the very same day the Romney campaign they have rolled out this ad very critical of the president's auto recovery claims. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grew up here in Lyndhurst, started 1972, selling cars.

NARRATOR: In 2009, under the Obama administration's bailout of General Motors, Ohio dealerships were forced to close.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I received a letter from General Motors. They were suspending my credit line. We have 30-some employees that were out of work. My wife and I were the last ones there. It was like the dream that we worked for and that we worked so hard for was gone.

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm Mitt Romney.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The Obama campaign already rebutting that ad today. A quick reminder. We're going to be seeing the president speaking from Akron, Ohio in just about 20 minutes from now certainly touting what he and his administration has accomplished in Ohio. We will bring you that live in just about 20 minutes from now.

Meantime, Mitt Romney, he is back home in the United States after this trip abroad. He is getting a little R&R today before making a trip to meet with Republican governors tomorrow in Colorado.

And for that, I want to bring in Mark Preston. He is our CNN political director in Washington.

And, all right, so Romney may be getting a minute to rest today, but there's no rest in terms of speculation over who he might be choosing as his number two.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. A lot of this is due in part to the Romney campaign which is kind of feeding us these little tidbits to keep the story alive.

And certainly interesting, it was a few days ago that the person who is heading up this search of his vice presidential selection tweeted out several different names that would lead us to think that she's actually vetting these people's names.

But this comes as we expect Mitt Romney to make his announcement sooner rather than later. And our friend Peter Hamby, who will actually be in Colorado with Romney tomorrow, has this story up on CNN.com that breaks the ice a little bit on potentially when the selection can be named.

What Peter is reporting right now is the fact that the Romney campaign is creating a swing state tour right now of key battleground states. Maybe what we could potentially see is the buildup right now to the rollout of his vice presidential pick. It's going to start on August 11. It's going to start here basically in the metro Washington area, specifically Northern Virginia, the suburbs here.

Virginia will play a key role in the presidential election. He's then going to go down Richmond as well within the state and then he will move over to another one of the big media markets along the water.

The next day, though, he will head down to North Carolina, which is a state that President Obama won back in 2008. After North Carolina, he then goes to Florida the day after the closing of the Olympics. But here's the kicker. At the end of that week, the Romney campaign is looking at Ohio themselves right now for particular locations that they think that they could specifically hold rallies, and then the week before the convention, in Peter's report, they're going to have a bus tour and they're putting one together.

We don't know where it's going to go, but it's certainly going to have something to do with the V.P. pick -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So something like, what, two, two-and-a-half weeks away, you think?

PRESTON: Well, it could come even sooner. I would speculate potentially it could happen on the night of the Olympics. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Romney campaign leak it out the night of the Olympics, try to get as much buzz and certainly all those people who are watching the closing ceremonies to maybe get their interest piqued on it.

BALDWIN: Wouldn't that be interesting timing, Mark Preston? We know we will all be watching for it. Thank you so much from Washington.

And, as we mentioned, the president in Ohio today. Our White House correspondent Dan Lothian is traveling along with the president there today.

Dan, just do me a favor. Give me a quick preview of what we will be hearing from President Obama.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think we will continue to hear this message that the president has been hammering away now for quite some time out there on the campaign trail, that he's out there pushing for the middle class and those trying to get into the middle class and a Mitt Romney presidency would only look out for the wealthiest Americans.

We heard that from the president during his first stop in Mansfield, Ohio. And as you were pointing out, this is a state that's important not only to the president, but Mitt Romney. The president has been to this state many times, a dozen times since he announced his reelection bid last year in the spring.

Just about a month ago, the president was right here in Akron, where he's going to be speaking about 30 minutes or so during a part of his bus tour. So this is a crucial state. And the Obama campaign certainly believes that this message of looking out for the middle- class Americans and Romney looking out for the wealthy resonates with all Americans, but specifically working-class Americans, middle-class Americans here in the state of Ohio.

Today the president's message came with this new plan he said or this new report from the Tax Policy Center, which stresses that message that the president has been giving that Romney's plan, while they did not specifically analyze it, they looked at similar plans and said that it would benefit high-income Americans and boost the tax burden on middle-class Americans.

The Romney campaign saying that -- dismissing this report and saying the president's failed policies are what's hurting the American economy -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: We will be watching for the president speaking from Akron. We will take it live. Dan Lothian in Akron, Ohio, Dan, appreciate it.

Also talking politics here, a pretty noteworthy development in Texas. There's a man by the name Ted Cruz. He's a former state solicitor general, a Tea Party favorite supported by Sarah Palin. And Texas Republicans, they voted. They decided yet that Cruz is the guy they want to run for Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison's Senate seat. They chose Cruz.

They chose him over this man, the lieutenant governor of Texas, a GOP die-hard. Not only that, but David Dewhurst was backed by popular Texas Governor Rick Perry.

What is going on in Texas? I want to bring in CNN political reporter Shannon Travis. He has been following the Tea Party really since the beginnings of the Tea Party.

Shannon, is the Tea Party back? Did they ever really never leave? They have been just quietly working out in local campaigns like this in places like this one in Texas?

SHANNON TRAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a old song lyric that says don't call it a comeback. They have been here for years. I'm sure the Tea Party is probably singing that tune right now because you're absolutely right.

This is not really a comeback. The Tea Party has been quietly working behind the scenes. You have seen less of the rallies and less of the people going out pounding the pavement and really more of them quietly negotiating and adopting if you will some of the tactics of the political parties, the political establishments that they abhor in a lot of ways, adopting some of those tried-and-true strategies of building up their staffing office and building up their volunteers and knocking on doors.

That's what they have quietly been doing. One of the Tea Party's leaders is saying that this Cruz victory really just represents the latest in their trek toward the hostile takeover of Washington. As you mentioned, Sarah Palin endorsed Ted Cruz. She posted on her Facebook page last night that the Tea Party is alive and well. Again, this is just latest step and they're working behind the scenes. They have had a similar victory in Indiana, beating out a Republican establishment candidate in favor of the Tea Party guy.

BALDWIN: This is Texas. This is Indiana. We're talking micro, but I want to talk macro because if Rick Perry's lieutenant governor was not right for the Tea Party voters, what about a Mitt Romney? What about support for him?

TRAVIS: Yes. It's no secret that Tea Partiers have had a little bit of a love-hate relationship with Governor Romney. Some of that is smoothed over. A lot of them will say they will vote for the governor whether it's a vote against President Obama or not or what have you.

I reported a few days ago that the Tea Party Express, the largest of the ralliers, will go out and they're planning this big bus tour right before the presidential election. A lot of that will be to prop up Romney. He's made some inroads, but again a lot of Tea Partiers that I have talked to -- I have been on the phone with a number of them today -- are still saying we're still lukewarm towards him, will vote for him, but maybe we won't go out and actually volunteer and pound the pavement for Mitt Romney's candidacy.

BALDWIN: Shannon Travis, Shannon, thank you.

During the show, the biggest news, the biggest talkers live. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: One expert says the only way Syria's dictator may leave is in a body bag, this as we're getting stunning new video of the rebels killing the killers. I'm Brooke Baldwin, and the news is now.

(voice-over): The housing crisis, it is the heart of this terrible economy. But the bottom may have passed. Find out what this means for your house.

Plus, a prison using wolf hybrids, instead of guards. Why? To save cash.

A man is shot in the head while he's handcuffed in the back of a police car. But wait until you hear how it may have happened.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A controversial plan might dry out some underwater mortgages that are hurting perhaps your family, a number of American families. Some officials say local governments should use eminent domain powers to take over these underwater mortgages and let people stay in their homes. But critics say it puts government in between homeowners and the lenders here.

(FINANCIAL UPDATE)

BALDWIN: And now to a story that got a lot us talking in our morning editorial meeting.

This prison keeps some of the most dangerous criminals, but it's strapped for cash. Instead of guards, the prison is now using wolf hybrid dogs. We're going to speak live with one woman who says these are not watchdogs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Forget the guards. Dogs, dogs are keeping now watch at this one Louisiana state prison. And more specifically, they are wolf hybrids. Here you go. This is a way to cut costs.

Apparently, the Angola Prison is using a pack of wolf-dog mixes to keep these prisoners from escaping. And Angola houses hard-core criminals. Of the 5,100 inmates, you have 86 percent violent offenders. More than half are in for life. They have very little to lose if they try to break out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. ROBERT TYCER, LOUISIANA STATE PENITENTIARY: We have had to shut down a lot of towers to reduce the manpower, the manhours. And the dogs are doing an excellent job patrolling the fences at night. They know the dogs will bite, and for how long and how hard is a different story. We have had several convicts that have told us that they would have hit the fence if it had not been for the dogs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The warden at this penitentiary told "The Wall Street Journal" a corrections officer costs on average $34,000 a year, but the 80 dogs he uses now altogether cost $60,000 a year. So they're saving some serious money with this.

But is this really the right thing to do?

Let's talk to Wendy Spencer. She's the director of animal care at Wolf Haven International in Washington, which rescues these kinds of canines.

So, Wendy, welcome.

You know these animals so well. Let me ask you this. If you have these wolf hybrids outside the sort of fence area and someone does try to escape, tell me just about what's the natural instinct of one of these animals? Do they go after an inmate?

WENDY SPENCER, WOLF HAVEN INTERNATIONAL: It depends on the dog.

With wolf-dogs, you never know exactly what you're going to get. And depending upon the content of wolf in the dog, it's going to sort of determine the behavior. The higher the content of wolf, the more wary of people the dogs will be. So the likelihood of a high-content wolf- dog chasing after people is pretty slim.

One of the things that is really well-known amongst breeders and owners and folks that do rescue and animal control officers is that these dogs do not make good guard dogs.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: You don't think this is a good idea then?

SPENCER: I do not think it's a good idea.

It's counterintuitive. These dogs, they are actually really wary of people. And so they will do what they need to do to actually avoid people. The dogs that they are using, I'm not familiar with the program. I'm not familiar with the dogs, but I suspect if they have any wolf, they are fairly low-content.

And so the behavior that you're seeing, the aggressive tendencies or the chasing after the prisoners, that's the dog in them. And if that's the case, they'd be better off just using pure dogs.

BALDWIN: It's the dog in them and not the wolf. How interesting. Of course, we did our due diligence. We're reaching out to the state Department of Corrections just to get a little bit more about why specifically.

On one level, it just sounds like they're doing this. Look, times are tight and this is just -- for lack of a better word, it's cheaper. It's cheaper for them to use these wolf-dogs. You point out though sort of the differing percentages between wolf and dog.

Are you telling me that really none of these animals could really do serious harm to an inmate trying to escape? SPENCER: You know, no, that's not exactly what I'm saying. The dogs certainly if they were to go after one of the inmates, they could do some serious harm.

BALDWIN: They would?

SPENCER: Again, it depends on the individual dog.

And that's the problem with using these dogs is because it's almost like a genetic crapshoot. You never know exactly what you're going to get. And so you may have a fairly low- to mid-content wolf-dog who isn't afraid of people. But if they are -- again, I don't know a lot about their program, but if they are either breeding or purchasing high-content wolf-dogs, those dogs are typically afraid of people.

And so the likelihood that they are actually going to chase the inmates is pretty slim.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Like you point out, counterintuitive.

SPENCER: Exactly.

If they were to bite one of the inmates, certainly they could do some serious harm. Wolves have a jaw pressure that's much stronger than the average domestic dog. They could certainly inflict some serious harm. But again if they are looking for aggressive tendencies, dogs that aren't afraid of people, they are better off just going with a purebred dog like a German shepherd or someone who -- breeds that are trained for that.

Wolf-dogs are not the suitable breed.

BALDWIN: OK. Wendy, final question. You know the story. You're not intimately familiar as you talk about with this particular program, but does it outrage you? You say the plan is horrible. Does your group plan to take action at all?

SPENCER: We just found out about it this morning.

On so many different levels, for a myriad of reasons, it's a bad idea. If you ask around the country, if you talk with animal control officers and with folks who do rescue, I think it's just going to contribute to the already existing problem, because so many people are going to want these dogs for guard dogs.

So it's just -- it's creating a whole new issue. And as far as us taking action, again, we just found out about this morning, so I'm not sure exactly what we will do at this point. We will have to see.

BALDWIN: Wendy Spencer, thank you.

She's the director of animal care at Wolf Haven International in Washington, rescues these kinds of animals.

Thank you very much.

SPENCER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Love to talk to this warden at this penitentiary.

A group of men lined up and executed -- you cannot actually see them die, but you hear it. You hear the gunshots.

And this stunning video could signal a grisly new phase in Syria's civil war. Don't miss this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: I want to take you back to this alarming story today really from this war that's been engulfing Syria.

If you watch every day, you know we've been following the fighting very, very closely and, in particular, this ongoing battle for Syria's largest city, Aleppo. And what you're looking at here is some of the very, very brutal street-fighting that's been playing out there.

And next, just a fair warning, we're about to show you a witness to a mass execution. So, here's what happened and we believe this happened just yesterday. These anti-Assad rebels captured a group of fighters belonging to a pro-Assad militia.

And you can see them kicking them, stomping on them. They're roughing up these men pretty good. They then take these men inside. These are 14 prisoners and asked them all to say their names.

And I'm just going to play some of the sound. Of course, it is in Arabic.

Interrogation complete. The men then, here they go, led outdoors, lined up against a wall and then there's all kinds of chaos. We even hear the words, "Don't shoot."

That admonition was not heeded. Watch now.

You don't have to see it, but you can hear. It is horribly clear what's happening. This is a horrendous scene in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

And now, these pictures, pictures of these men, bodies of the men who were executed, being loaded into the back of a truck. Again, these men were captured yesterday by anti-government rebels. They were interrogated, determined to belong to a pro-Assad militia. They were taken outside and executed, all 14 of them.

CNN's Ivan Watson is in Northern Syria for us and I spoke with him about this mass execution just this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: I understand, Ivan, that there's a bit of a back story with this execution, something about these shooting victims double-crossing the rebels. Can you tell me more about that?

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, what the rebels have been telling the us is that the Bedi (ph) clan or the Bedi (ph) family who many people in this region know about them. They're a large and power family, closely associated with the Assad regime and accused of organizing a Shabiha pro-government militia.

The rebels say that these Bedi (ph) family fighters killed at least 11 of their fighters in an eastern neighborhood of Aleppo earlier on Monday. And It seems that on Tuesday, the rebels were out for revenge and they rounded up a bunch of these Bedi clan members and beat them up.

And they are admitting that they investigated them, they judged them and then executed them for what they said were crimes against the Syrian people. They are not denying that the rebels carried out extrajudicial killings on the side of the battlefield.

BALDWIN: So, if you're saying that this is one family and you use the word revenge, would you say then that this particular execution was isolated or, Ivan, is it more representative to what you're seeing overall in Aleppo today?

WATSON (via telephone): Well, I think the Syrian government would argue that this is happening all the time, that the rebels are terrorists and they're committing heinous crimes all the time.

We don't know. I mean, on the battlefield, it is messy and nasty and violent and brutal and terrible, terrible crimes are committed. And it looks like this happened in the battlefield. And, now, the rebels will have to answer to international opinion.

There has been 17 months of condemnation of the Syrian regime for the atrocities that the Syrian security forces are accused of. And, now, I suspect that those condemnations will start to be directed at the rebels if they keep carrying out behavior and criminal activities like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Again, that was Ivan Watson talking to me on the phone just a little while ago from somewhere in Northern Syria.

Now, on the phone with me, live from Baghdad, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, U.S. Army, retired. General Kimmitt, welcome back.

And, you know, I'm just such a visual person and we talk about Syria so much, but I think it helps -- it helps me -- I hope it helps our viewers -- to understand the geographic significance of this country.

So, if I may, let me just run through. So, you have Syria. Neighbor to the north, of course, is Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, where you are, and then this way off the map is Iran.

Remind all of us, General, what is America's interest in all that's been happening the last 17 months in Syria. BRIGADIER GENERAL MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY, RETIRED (via telephone): Well, I think three things. First of all, we can't stand by while a humanitarian disaster is happening in the Middle East. We have a responsibility to help in any way we can whether that's diplomacy or whether that may be some measure of intervention.

But we've also got to be very pragmatic. A Syria that goes into civil war has a tremendous ability to have a spillover affect in the region. It won't just affect Syria. It will affect, as you said, Lebanon, Iraq and some of our closest allies in Israel.

And, now, we've got the additional problem of the chemical weapons. The last thing we want to see is chemical weapons fall into the hands of groups that are unfriendly to us.

So, we have a lot at stake in what's happening today and we have a lot at stake in the outcome.

BALDWIN: I want to go back to what Ivan was talking to me about. We showed the video. You could hear the gunshots. These men were lined up, this mass execution in Aleppo and the U.S. is fairly loosely supporting these Syrian rebels.

But should the pictures that we showed just a moment ago, General, of these Syrian rebels executing their rivals, should that not give pause to the Obama administration?

KIMMITT (via telephone): I think any time that we provide weapons to rebel groups, whether it was in Afghanistan, whether it was Iraq, pre- war, whether it was in (INAUDIBLE), and, now, what we're seeing in Syria, we should be very mindful of the potential for those weapons being used well outside the scope of what they're intended.

I don't think your viewers should be surprised that this happened.

BALDWIN: But correct me if I'm wrong. But we, the U.S., are not giving weapons to these rebels. We perhaps are helping in this, but we are not directly giving them, correct?

KIMMITT (via telephone): I have no knowledge, one way or the other. I would suspect that our allies are providing weapons. We may be providing some measure of material support or humanitarian support.

But I think it's very, very important to recognize that, if you're going to be giving weapons to rebel groups, you've got to be very mindful of the potential outcomes that we've seen over past conflicts. This should come as no surprise to anyone.

BALDWIN: General Mark Kimmitt, on the phone with me from Baghdad. General, as always, we appreciate it. Thank you so much.

We mentioned a moment ago the president speaking. He has trip number nine here to Ohio. Here, he is. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to hear from the president live in Akron, Ohio, after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Want to take you live to the president. He is speaking in Akron, Ohio. Just to let you know a little context, he is basically ticking off this list of items he has done in the last three and a half years as president. Here we go.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Now, there are no quick fixes or easy solutions to the challenges we face. There is no doubt in any mind we've got the capacity to meet them. We've got the best workers in the world. We've got the best entrepreneurs in the world. We've got the best scientists and researchers, the best colleges and the best universities.

We are still a young nation. We've got the greatest diversity of talent and ingenuity. People want to come here from every corner of the globe, so no matter how tough things get, this is not a country that quits. There isn't a country on earth that wouldn't gladly change places with us.

What's standing in our way right now is not the lack of good ideas. What's standing in our way is our politics. We've got a stalemate in Washington. We've got Republicans in Congress who have clung to the view, the uncompromising view, that the only way to move ahead is to go back to the same tired solutions that got us in this mess in the first place.

They've got a basic theory. I call it top down economics. The basic idea is that, if you give more tax breaks to the very wealthy and you get rid of regulations on banks and polluters and health insurance companies, then somehow everybody will prosper.

BALDWIN: Sleeves rolled up, president speaking. Sounds like a pretty fired-up crowd there in Akron, Ohio. Again, this is trip number nine for the president, this year alone. Battleground state and, if the polls are an indication, so far the president is faring pretty well not only in Ohio, Pennsylvania, but Florida, as well.

No rain, high temperatures add up to the worst drought we have seen in years. New figures show it's actually worse than we thought and grocery prices are about to go way up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We've been talking about this for a little while now, this disaster zone now covering half of our country. The drought's harsh conditions are spreading. Today, the USDA added 218 more counties in 12 different states because the drought and this excessive heat this part of our nation's been experiencing.

Chad Myers has been following this. So, when we see this phrase, Chad, "designated disaster zone," what exactly does that mean and what kind of help are they getting?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It means farmers and ranchers can get a low-interest loan, somewhere around 2 percent. Now, that's not that low because the interest rates aren't that much higher for a house, but it still helps. It allows them to get loans if they can't make it all the way.

It also -- this one, today, allows farmers and ranchers to put cattle on CRP land. CRP is Conservation Reserve Program land. It's land that isn't grown. It's there so you don't farm hedgerow-to-hedgerow and we don't get the dust bowl of 1930. We try to have a little bit of space between some of these farms.

It's that space. It's that grass that just kind of grows there because there's no other grass for the cows to eat. Now, they are allowed to put the cows and the goats and the pigs, whatever, into some of these other areas that has not been allowed before because you get paid to have CRP. You get paid to not plant some of your -- not much, a dime, but you get paid.

So, now, at least these farmers can get some of the aid that they need from the CRP land.

And the other biggest thing I think you're going to see is that we're not going to have farmers going out of business this time. In the '80s, it was a real possibility. I remember stories. I lived in Nebraska. Farmers were committing suicide, so that they could get, technically, they could get the money so that the farm wouldn't go back to the bank and they could pay the farm off. That's how important it was to keep the family farm.

That's not going to happen this time with the type of crop insurance we have. It doesn't make them whole, but at least keeps them at least a little bit not going in the hole as much as they would have.

BALDWIN: Chad, thank you. I have more, but I have to turn away because we're getting some news here. This is some breaking news.

This major U.S. airport is currently being evacuated. In fact, all flights right now are grounded. We're going to tell you what's happening and where, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Told you a moment ago. Let me get this for you. San Antonio airport, this is where we're talking about. San Antonio airport is being evacuated. I'm looking out of the corner of my eye. We have live pictures. The signal's going in and out, so just a fair warning, we're going to try to bring you some of these live pictures as we're getting them.

And you can see this video from the bottom of a helicopter, thanks to our affiliate, KSAT and, hopefully, if they go down to this tarmac, you can see this group of presumably passengers just hanging out on the tarmac with their luggage.

Here's what we know. This is from the San Antonio airport. This is a bomb threat, specifically for the airport. It was called in earlier. They're not telling us precisely what time. So just about -- and here these people I talked about on the tarmac.

Here are these people just waiting San Antonio, Texas, here. Just about 15 minutes ago, this airport evacuated their terminals. All air traffic is on standby. So, as far as aircraft coming into San Antonio, according to this person at the airport, those planes are being parked away from the terminal and then people onboard planes will then stay onboard.

So, it doesn't explain, Chad Myers, this group of people waiting, I'm sure in Texas heat.

MYERS: Yeah, right.

BALDWIN: To figure out what the deal is.

MYERS: Well, probably not every plane is going to use a jetway, so these passengers may have actually been on the way to a plane and not allowed to get on the plane. Although if you take them off, I did see a bus leaving that area, as well.

There's another plane inbound from Atlanta. It's an AirTran 309. I'm going to keep watching to see if it lands. I'm watching Flight Explorer right now. It is circling just above the airport.

We'll know that, if it lands, the airport is technically not really closed, but they will not clearly pull that plane up to the jetway or to any of the terminals. They'll leave it out there parked there on the jetway far away from the terminal.

BALDWIN: We're going to get more information. Got to take a quick break. More from this bomb threat at the San Antonio, Texas, airport after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Want to take you back to our breaking story here. San Antonio, Texas, this airport currently is apparently being evacuated and we have some -- here, you go, some live pictures there from the airport, thanks to our affiliate, KSAT.

And we have some other pictures. It's been kind of intermittent. Forgive this live signal here, coming out of San Antonio. We'll have some, off and on, of people just standing on the tarmac, waiting to get on a plane.

Here's the deal. This is from the international airport folks there. They have a bomb threat for the airport. We don't know specifically if this was a phone call that was called in and just merely out of precaution they're grounding these flights or perhaps if there was some sort of mysterious package. We're making phone calls right now.

We know that the threat was called in earlier. They're not telling us precisely what time it was called in, but right around about 20 minutes ago, this airport decided, out of abundance of caution, to evacuate the terminal, so that's happening, A.

B, you have all the air traffic currently on standby, so planes that are coming into San Antonio, Texas, they're landing and there were some pictures -- Chad, jump in, if you want to, here -- these planes that were coming inbound to San Antonio, it looked like sort of, as you mentioned, sort of in the penalty box. There's a group of planes just waiting on the tarmac.

MYERS: Right. We have four planes that are basically on final right now and I'm watching them come in. They are not sending them away. They are not sending them to some holding pattern out there, so they will allow those four planes.

The first one would be the gray plane. Gray means that it's actually coming down, getting very close to the ground to land. And then they park them away from the building.

And we call that penalty box. It's almost like when you come into the airport and your gate isn't ready and they have to just kind of sit out there and wait and idle the plane, keep the air-conditioning going.

It is 98 degrees on that tarmac. You saw those people standing there waiting at 98 degrees outside and the sunshine probably making it feel hotter.

BALDWIN: Ninety-eight degrees and they're out there, a lot of them -- we saw the pictures -- in their business suits with their luggage, trying to get on this plane. But, again, out of caution the folks at the San Antonio international airport are not allowing them on planes.

So, in the penalty box, it looks like we have a number of planes that have landed that are waiting to park, if you will, at some of these gates. And then at the same time according to this official at this airport, those people who are onboard these planes are staying onboard at least for the time being.

And just sort of interesting, anecdotally, from this official at this airport, he said that he has been there for three years and this is the first bomb threat he has heard of being called in.

So, we're going to watch it and we're going to see exactly what happens. Again, bomb threat at the San Antonio, Texas, international airport.

Chad Myers, thank you, sir.

MYERS: You're welcome. I hope those people are well out there. We feel for the people out there, but those workers on the tarmac work in this temperature all day long and all night long.

If they don't get to pull the planes up to the tarmac then up to the jetway, they may end up getting those stairs, pushing those stairs up and then getting off the plane the old-fashioned way.

BALDWIN: I'm sure Candy will be watching in "The Situation Room."

Thank you very much and thank you, as always, for watching here. I'm Brooke Baldwin at the CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta.

To Washington, we go. Your "SITUATION ROOM" with Candy Crowley starts right now.