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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Barrett Vows To Keep Fighting; Romney Sweeps Five Primaries; What Mr. Clinton Meant To Say; Report: Sandusky's Love Letters To Victim; Number Two Al Qaeda Leader Killed In Drone Strike; California Prop 8 Fight Headed To Supreme Court; Kings Go For Stanley Cup Sweep Tonight; Celtics Beat Heat, Take 3-2 Lead; Former NFL Player: I'm Gay; Sheryl Crow Reveals Brain Tumor Diagnosis; Walker Survives Recall Election; Shuttle Enterprise Final Journey; The Science Guy Explains All
Aired June 06, 2012 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A big slap in the face for the runner-up in the Wisconsin governor recall election, literally, I'm talking here. Look at this. A woman slaps Milwaukee mayor, Tom Barrett, across the face. What happened next, straight ahead.
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Plus, rocker, Sheryl Crow has a brain tumor. We'll talk about the severity of the tumor and treatment options, coming up.
SAMBOLIN: And they can almost taste it. Why the L.A. Kings are hoping, hoping to make history tonight. We're rooting for them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAMBOLIN (on-camera): Good morning to you. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Zoraida Sambolin.
BANFIELD (on-camera): Not if you're a Jersey fan, you're not.
SAMBOLIN: I know, but you know, the underdog. How could you not root for the underdog?
BANFIELD: Go Kings! Mike Richards. Hometown boy. Hi, everybody. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Nice to have you here with us. We're bringing you the news from "A" to "Z." It's just 13 seconds before the top of the hour, and let's get you up to date on the top story of the day. So, up first, a wake-up call for the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD (voice-over): Wisconsin's Republican governor, Scott Walker, keeping his job, becoming the first governor in U.S. history to survive a full scale recall election, a real slap in the face for Democrats, literally. A slap in the face.
Take a look. A female supporter slapping runner up, Tom Barrett, Milwaukee's Democratic mayor, just after he conceded the race. She said he conceded too soon. She didn't like that.
Walker, the Tea Party-backed Republican who broke his state's public unions, registering a comfortable seven-point victory over Barrett. That's even more than he had in his first election and he was quick to put a national spin on this huge local win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOVERNOR SCOTT WALKER (R), WISCONSIN: Tonight, we tell Wisconsin, we tell our country, and we tell people all across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Our Ted Rowlands is live in Madison, Wisconsin, this morning. I think this was probably a very late night for you because that vote was real tight, yet it prevailed, and then we saw that slap in the face. Do we know anything about this woman? Has she been arrested? Is there an assault charge looming?
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We don't know, and lots of folks have seen it now, but we have not been able to confirm with local authorities whether, we don't have her identity, we don't know if she was detained or questioned or anything at this point.
But there's some clear video evidence there if they do want to proceed. I'll tell you what. You look at that video, we saw the same thing. I was not at that event last night, but I was outside the state capital here in Madison.
We saw the same kind of emotion from people and I'll tell you why. They were upset because there were still people waiting in line to vote after the polls closed and this was called pretty early even though the exit polls said that voter turnout was huge.
People were optimistic they could possibly pull this off, the Barrett supporters, but they thought for sure they were in for a long night and when Barrett conceded and when the media called it, we had people yelling at us, don't call it yet, there are still votes to be counted. I think this woman had some of the same emotions that we saw outside of the capital at one point.
BANFIELD: I remember watching Wolf Blitzer at one point as the exit polls came in, it showed an exact 50/50 split. He and John King said let's start brewing the coffee for this one, but man, did that change in a hurry.
A seven-point margin that is a big margin so the slap in the face is a metaphor for what this is, potentially for the Democrats. This has caused a lot of people some serious political emotion in that state.
ROWLANDS: Absolutely. People have basically dedicated their lives to this effort on one side or the other, so the celebrations were high last night, but boy, the loss was tough to take. We talked to a guy outside the capital here last night, actually broke down in tears. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
"MIKE," MAYOR BARRETT SUPPORTER: Every single one of you out there in the nation if you're watching, democracy died tonight.
ROWLANDS: You're very emotional.
MIKE: I'm very emotional because we all had a lot invested in this. This was it. If we didn't win tonight the end of the USA as we know it. It just happened.
We just got outspent $34 million to $4 million and we don't have any other resource left, but the people you see here behind me and if the people you see behind me can't get it done tonight, it's done. Democracy is dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROWLANDS: Not the only guy that we saw last night out here crying. We saw several people breaking down because I think they were very tired and they'd worked so hard and they came up on the losing end -- Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: Personifies, really, Ted, these new reports coming out that say Americans are more polarize politically than they ever have been in the past. We'll keep an eye on this one. Thanks, Ted.
ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR: It is 3 minutes past the hour. It's just a formality, but chuck up five more primary wins for Mitt Romney.
Romney spent yesterday campaigning in Texas hammering away at President Obama's economic policies at a Latino-owned office supply company in Fort Worth.
All while nearly 300 delegates were at stake in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota. Romney taking each of the contests easily. Voter turnout however was very light.
BANFIELD: Former President Bill Clinton may have some Democrats wondering whose side he's on in this coming election, kind of anyway. Clinton handlers really busy clarifying comments that he made on CNBC yesterday when he seemed to break with President Obama on extending the Bush era tax cuts. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: They will probably have to put everything off until early next year, that's probably the best thing to do right now.
But the Republicans don't want to do that unless he agrees to extend the tax cuts permanently including for upper income people and I don't think the president should do that. That's what they're fighting about. I don't have any problem with extending all of it now, including the current spending levels. They're still pretty low, the government's spending levels. But I think they look high because there's a recession.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: OK, two big issues here, President Obama doesn't want the tax cuts extended for the wealthy and Mr. Clinton used the "r" word, recession and that's really rattled the White House.
So the Clinton camp was very quick to put out a statement last night trying to tamp down a lot of the energy that cropped up on this one and said this, "President Clinton supported extending all of the tax cuts in 2010 as part of the budget agreement, but does not believe the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be extended again."
In the interview, he simply said that he doubted that a long-term agreement on spending cuts and revenues would be reached until after the election.
SAMBOLIN: It's 5 minutes past the hour. Explosive, new details in the Jerry Sandusky child rape case. An ABC news report says Sandusky wrote love letters to one of his victims and showered him with gifts.
Victim number four is expected to be the first prosecution witness at the trial. The former Penn State football coach is charged with sexually abusing 10 boys. Jury selection resumes this morning. Nine jurors have been seated so far.
BANFIELD: The U.S. drone strike taking out another top terrorist in Pakistan. The White House is now confirming that Abu Yahya Al- Libi, the number two man in al Qaeda and most public face of the terror group is gone, dead.
He was seen as a rock star in Jihadist circles because of his viral videos and he was a key recruiter too for al Qaeda. Al-Libi was captured in 2002 and locked at Balgram Air Base in Afghanistan. But escaped in '05 and then bragged about it on the net.
SAMBOLIN: California's legal fight over same-sex marriage maybe headed to the Supreme Court now. A federal appeals court yesterday decided not to review a ruling back in February by a three-judge panel, which declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional.
The voter approved Prop 8 ban of same-sex marriage in the state. The parties in the case now have 90 days to appeal to the Supreme Court. Until the high court acts that ruling will be on hold and Proposition 8 will remain in effect.
BANFIELD: Well, nobody expected they'd be one win away from the Stanley Cup. The L.A. Kings going for the sweep tonight against the Devils of New Jersey. They're going to try to win the first Stanley Cup ever for this team in the hockey club's history. By the way, the Kings barely made the playoffs. They were the lowest seed in the western conference going into the playoffs. I can personally attest the man behind camera one named Mike who is crying in his suit right now that his beloved Devils may not pull this one off.
SAMBOLIN: That's why he was giving me dirty looks. We're rooting for them.
All right, Lebron James and the Miami Heat on the brink of being bounced from the playoffs. The Boston Celtics beat the Heat 94-90 and took a 3-2 lead in the Eastern Conference finals last night. The Celtics can clinch another trip to the NBA finals tomorrow night on their home court.
BANFIELD: Back to hockey for a moment here, because Mike's going to kill me, I swear he's going to use the worst lens on me possible. He's a Rangers fan, but I think in the matchup between the Rangers and the Devils, seriously, you want the Devils, let's be clear about that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
SAMBOLIN: He says no.
BANFIELD: Seriously?
SAMBOLIN: He's not going to make you look bad, it's my camera.
BANFIELD: Rangers all the way even though they're not in the Stanley Cup playoffs. It's 8 minutes now past six.
And it is one of Sheryl Crow's biggest songs, it's awesome yet on stage she forgot the lyrics, but that is something that led to a shocking diagnosis for the Grammy winner. We're going to tell you all about this and what's in store for her health coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: It's 11 minutes now past 6:00 in the morning. Time to get you up to date with the top stories of the day and Christine Romans busy working on that for us.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, ladies. After months of bitter fighting and millions of dollars spent, nothing has changed in Wisconsin.
Governor Scott Walker is still Governor Scott Walker easily winning a recall vote last night over Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
The union-breaking budget-cutting Tea Party favorite says his victory means voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions.
Americans are more comfortable than ever with same-sex relationships. According to a brand new CNN poll, 54 percent says marriages between gay and lesbian couples should be recognized as valid by law.
And for the first time ever, a majority of Americans, 60 percent say they have a close friend or family member who is gay, that's up 10 percent from just two years ago.
Mitt Romney's campaign confirming its investigating whether or not its candidate had a private e-mail hacked. There are reports an anonymous hacker signed into Romney's old Hotmail account after guessing the answer to his security question about one of his pets.
A former NFL player coming out admitting that he is gay, Wave Davis, talking about the challenges of being closeted in an NFL locker room telling he feared his NFL family just wouldn't accept him.
Davis, who is now 34 and retired, never played a regular season game, but attended training camps and played in the preseason with the Tennessee Titans, Seattle Seahawks and Washington Redskins.
He now works with Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Youth in New York. He's going to stop by and join Soledad at 8:10 Eastern to talk about this and how he feels like he can be a role model for people who are trying could come out.
SAMBOLIN: That must have been very difficult for him to talk about.
BANFIELD: Even now, I would say, even after being retired I think that would be tough for him, very brief.
ROMANS: We will find out, 8:10, two hours, we'll find out.
SAMBOLIN: Thank you very much, Christine.
It's 13 minutes past the hour. A frightening diagnosis for singer Sheryl Crow. Her representatives confirm she has a brain tumor. The good news is it's benign and she is feeling fine she says.
Sheryl Crow is a breast cancer survivor also. Sheryl Crow's representative says she has one of the most common forms of a brain tumor and she does not want to alarm anyone with this news.
As a matter of fact, she waited a while before she shared it with everyone. Let's bring in senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth, how serious is this tumor?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, she calls it a bump in the road, that's her term for it, incredible.
SAMBOLIN: Great attitude.
COHEN: I know, it certainly is, but she actually spoke to our chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, who is not only a neurosurgeon, but a friend of Sheryl Crow's, and she says that it's benign and believe it or not they're not going to do anything at the moment. They're not going to do any surgery. They're not going to do any radiation or chemo instead they're going to watch it. I know this might sound crazy a brain tumor and you're not going to do anything.
But actually when these tumors called meningiomas are small and if they're not growing aggressively, that is the usual course of treatment and that's apparently what's happening here.
SAMBOLIN: Wow, to a layperson that sounds really scary. I want to talk a little bit about memory loss here because there was a much publicized moment when she forgot the lyrics to her own song "Soak up the Sun." Let's listen to it and talk about that afterwards.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERYL CROW, SINGER: Watching TV -- oh, what's the words? It's live, nothing on tape here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAMBOLIN: So you know some people believe that because she forgot the lyrics to the song that there's some sort of a connection between the tumor and her memory lapse. Is that true?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, she told Sanjay her doctor says that is not true that she forgot the words to her own song because, well, she's 50 and she has two small children and like many of us, she doesn't get enough sleep so she had that sort of senior moment, not because of the brain tumor but just because of life.
SAMBOLIN: And is it more common in women that age this type of tumor?
COHEN: It is more common in women and it is more common in women as we get older, and that it's not exactly clear why there seem to be some relationships between these tumors and hormones.
SAMBOLIN: When I first read it, I know Sheryl Crow is a breast cancer survivor and sometimes the treatments that you have for cancer actually can bring on secondary problems. Is there any connection to her breast cancer and this tumor?
COHEN: You know, Zoraida, there is some data showing women who had breast cancer are more likely to get meningiomas than other women, it's not because of the treatment but because of hormones, these tumors and hormones seem to have a relationship and when you have breast cancer, there's definitely an effect on the hormones.
SAMBOLIN: Well, we certainly wish her well. We hope everything's going to be okay with her. Elizabeth Cohen in Atlanta, thank you for that.
COHEN: Thanks.
BANFIELD: Sixteen minutes now past 6:00.
Let's take to you Rob Marciano for a look at the travel forecast today.
Hi there.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hi. Good morning, Ashleigh.
Let's start you off in Florida where some rough thunderstorms are rolling across the southern tip of the peninsula, namely Marco Islands, Naples, couple rough ones through around Tornado Alley, Ft. Pierce, an area seeing a lot of rain the past really couple of weeks.
Little front draping across the Carolinas and into parts of Southern Georgia for thunderstorms and up north you've got cooler weather for sure and you'll see on and off showers today but right now, it's for the most part dry from Philly to New York and Boston. A bit unsettled in the eastern third of the country.
Desert southwest, still warm and dry, seeing severe thunderstorms traveling to or headed towards the mile high city of Denver and Pacific Northwest front heading that way so dress appropriately feeling like more April or May as opposed to June.
Couple of shots from the Venus transit last night. Some of my favorites are shot from the SDO, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, a satellite that hovers over the earth so you don't have to se through the atmosphere. Here's the sun and the images and Venus about to make its way across the sun, the different vantage point, Venus there.
You could see it from the earth. You would need a special sort of lens, you know, special glasses that they typically give out at some of the observing parties and some of the museums around town. This one was shot actually at Stone Mountain.
BANFIELD: But with the naked eye and protective lenses you wouldn't be able to see that tiny dot, right?
MARCIANO: Sure you could.
BANFIELD: Serious?
MARCIANO: Yes.
BANFIED: Wow.
MARCIANO: You can see the dot especially at sunset on the West Coast, there are some other pictures.
BANFIELD: It means you have to go to bed after sunset. That's how we would miss those.
(CROSSTALK)
SAMBOLIN: Bill Nye the science guy is going to be here a little bit later. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if Rob was here in New York, he would have such a great time with him.
MARCIANO: I love Bill. All right, guys.
SAMBOLIN: Thank you.
Eighteen minutes past the hour.
Your Facebook friends apparently are bored. Don't blame yourself. Why Facebook's heyday might be over. That's coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Hello. Welcome back, everybody. It's 22 minutes past 6:00.
Minding your business. The U.S. markets poised to open higher this morning. That's what things look like. Markets closing higher across the word yesterday.
SAMBOLIN: The Dow gained a quarter of a percent, the S&P and NASDAQ, more than half a percent.
Christine Romans is here to talk about one company not doing so well.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: The market was up, but Facebook was down again. And, look, all of the stories on the Facebook file, every morning -- are you bored with Facebook? Are you bored with it?
A new poll from "Reuters"/IPSOS says a third of Facebook users are spending less time on Facebook than they were six months ago and the top reason they're simply bored, bored by Facebook, the novelty has worn off.
Privacy ranked only third. Isn't that interesting? Only 20 percent of the people said they're spending more time on Facebook than six months ago.
Speaking of privacy, I want you show you something we did. We plugged in Facebook's privacy policy into the word clouds, and the software shows you what the big words are, the highlighted information. The most highly cited word, 7,000 words almost by the way in the privacy policy. If you really want it clear, you have to go through 7,000 words to get to it, information.
And that's so interesting because how Facebook will make money from your information and connections is what is so key here for the future of this company and this stock. The stock is down 38 percent since the first morning of trading, it's down 32 percent from the IPO price of $38 a share. It was down another 3.5 percent yesterday below 26.
BANFIEL: Have there been any good days since the IPO?
ROMANS: Maybe there were one. People who follow IPOs tell me this is a bitter disappointing, from the technical problems at the NASDAQ to the too much hype ahead of time to retail investors, regular people who thought they were going to get rich quick scheme, get a big pop in the stock. IPOs are risky. This just proves that.
BANFIELD: But the NASDAQ is coming around to help some people who were victimized by this in some way.
ROMANS: Some of the brokers that have been bitterly complaining about how much money lost because of the trading flaws over there at NASDAQ will find out today we think exactly what compensation they'll have.
SAMBOLIN: I was asking on Facebook if they're bored with Facebook and so far, 4 for 4. No, I'm not, but it's four people.
ROMANS: And people who were on the Facebook in the first place.
BANFIELD: Alarming four-person trend.
ROMANS: I know. Listen, the one thing you need to know about your money today, goes along with privacy and Facebook, clean up your online profile today, untag yourself from unflattering photos. Do it right now. Do it right.
SAMBOLIN: This may take forever.
ROMANS: Reports of Facebook and the images and information you don't want on there. You'd be surprised how much out there could hurt your chances of getting a job, something I thought about Friday when we got the disappointing jobs report. I know CEOs hiring managers, human resources managers who have told me over the past couple of years they have rescinded job offers or have not extended job offers because of a simple Google search that shows all of your information out there that you put out there, they decided that they want somebody who is a little more discrete.
So discretion in a tough jobs market is really important. I recommend that to everyone today.
SAMBOLIN: I got to tell you there's some creative folks that tag new photos that look like you and aren't you. That's happened to me. So, just be careful, check everything.
BANFIELD: Is that a tough thing to do, if you're not able to figure out how to untag yourself?
ROMANS: If you're a Luddite you're probably not in a lot of things in the first place. I went through and did this six months ago after I met a CEO of a commercial real estate company who told me he rescinded a $200,000 job offer to somebody because of what he found on their Facebook page, $200,000.
SAMBOLIN: That's valuable information.
BANFIELD: I know of one person this has happened to as well. Yes, without question. It's very serious. Pictures sometimes don't lie. Pictures sometimes do.
SAMBOLIN: Yes and it takes a lot of time to go in there.
ROMANS: It's another thing to be bored by Facebook but another to be undone.
SAMBOLIN: Thank you, Christine. We appreciate it.
Twenty-six minutes past the hour.
An emotional night in Wisconsin comes to a head with Milwaukee's mayor, look at this, folks, taking a slap to the face. What happened here, and at the polls? We're going to tell you, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: First, it flew into New York City on the back of a 747, and now the space shuttle Enterprise is floating up the Hudson on a barge and making its way around the island of Manhattan today.
We've got live pictures and a live report from next to the shuttle, straight ahead.
SAMBOLIN: Plus, a big win in Wisconsin for Governor Scott Walker, but also big controversy for the runner up, Milwaukee's Democratic Mayor Tom Barrett. He got a big slap in the face literally. A woman smacked him across the cheek.
Coming up, the story behind this video.
BANFIELD: And some geek finally cool pictures of the planet Venus crossing in front of the sun. We've got Bill Nye the science guy live in studio this morning to talk about the historical significance of the event you're looking at on your screen.
Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. Nice to have you with us. I'm Ashleigh Banfield.
SAMBOLIN: And I'm Zoraida Sambolin.
It is 30 minutes past the hour here.
Expect business this morning for Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker. He became the first governor last night in this country's history to survive a recall election that broke spending records and captured the nation's attention.
And it was a slap in the face for Democrats. This was literal, take a look at this, a female supporter slapping runner-up Tom Barrett, Milwaukee's Democratic mayor, for conceding the race to soon last night. After Walker's victory last night, he delivered a message not only to Wisconsin but to the nation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R), WISCONSIN: Tonight, tonight we tell Wisconsin, we tell our country, and we tell people all across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAMBOLIN: CNN's political editor, Paul Steinhauser -- wow. What a night, and wow, what a slap in the face. We know emotions are running really high in that state.
Do we know anything about this woman? Has Mayor Barrett responded at all?
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: We don't know yet, unfortunately, and I know our Ted Rowlands is on the ground in Wisconsin and hopefully have more reporting.
I guess it's symbolic of the slap in the face to Mayor Barrett and the Democrats in Wisconsin that, Zoraida, Republicans are crowing about this thing. This victory is not just about Wisconsin. It's about the nation and they say it's a barometer, a dry run, an indication of what will happen in November in the general election.
This is for sure, though, it was a victory for Governor Walker's fiscal conservatism, which is shared by congressional Republicans and Mitt Romney.
This is what Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, said about the race. He said, "Governor Walker has demonstrated over the past year what sound fiscal policies can do to turn an economy around and I believe in November, voters across the country will demonstrate they want the same in Washington, D.C. Tonight's results will echo beyond the borders of Wisconsin."
So, that's what the Republicans are saying.
The Democrats are saying time-out, this was a state race about state issues, not a lot of national translation here. They're also saying, listen, we were outspent by the Republicans by a massive amount of money. And so, that's what they are pointing to.
What's the truth here? I guess maybe a little of both. One thing for sure, the momentum, the energy is with the Republicans. It's with the Tea Party groups and the other fiscal conservatives behind in this victory for Walker. And it's definitely not with the unions right now, Zoraida.
SAMBOLIN: You know, Romney did not support Walker through all of this. He didn't show up to stump for him at all. This was about collective bargaining rights there in the state of Wisconsin. You mentioned that they were outspent 8:1 there.
So, how does this affect the national election? I know that you watch the polling very, very closely. What kind of insight did you gain from that?
STEINHAUSER: Yes, we're kind looking at the exit polling from last night in Wisconsin, and kind of a mixed message how it translates. You know, we always talk about independent voters and how crucial they are, how they swing elections.
How did independents vote last night? You can see the Republican Governor Walker winning them by nine points.
But what about November? What about the battle between President Obama and Mitt Romney in Wisconsin? Take a look at this. Here is the exit poll we asked just that and we could see the president with a seven-point advantage in Wisconsin.
But I'll tell you, both campaigns, the Romney campaign and the Obama campaign really going to be spending a little more concentration, more time now in Wisconsin -- Zoraida.
SAMBOLIN: I guess it's anybody's state now, right?
STEINHAUSER: Seems to be up for grabs, no doubt about it.
SAMBOLIN: Yes, I read somewhere that they said, sometimes, it's blue with red dots and sometimes it's red with blue dots. I thought that was very descriptive.
Paul Steinhauser live for us -- thank you very much.
STEINHAUSER: Thank you.
BANFIELD: It's 34 minutes past 6:00.
Nine jurors have been seated so far in the Jerry Sandusky rape trial and the defense may be faced with some damning evidence. An ABC News report says the former Penn State football coach wrote love letters to one of his victims. It is possible they could be introduced into evidence, along with gifts that Sandusky allegedly gave the teenager, now 20 years old. Sandusky is accused of sexually abusing 10 years over a 15-year period.
SAMBOLIN: You know the morning after pill taken to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex. Well, "The New York Times" reports the pill doesn't work the way many think it works. Experts say the pill delays ovulation but labels on the boxes say it blocked fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman's uterus -- descriptions that have led to some religious groups, conservative politicians and others to came the pills cause abortion.
BANFIELD: A proud ship's final journey is now just hours away. Coming up, we're going to take you live to the space shuttle Enterprise.
SAMBOLIN: Look at how pretty that looks.
BANFIELD: As she prepares in the rising sun to get that last leg of her long voyage to a new home on the Hudson River, and boy, is this cool. Seriously, the music isn't even cool enough to explain how cool this voyage is going to be, head on up the Hudson, to the Intrepid.
We're back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: It is 39 minutes past 6:00.
The shuttle Enterprise is going to be making its final your journey by sea, the shuttle on the back of the barge this time. It's going to be moved to be to a final resting place at the Intrepid, Sea, Air and Space Museum, on the west side of Manhattan, after we have some weather delays for the trip yesterday.
Alina Cho got the plum assignment today. She's in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, with a great backdrop.
I guess, they're getting the seat belts all kind of tightened up and ready to go for the journey today?
ALI CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are. There are people on the barge making sure everything's going to go as planned. It is just a beautiful day here in Jersey City.
Ashleigh, good morning.
I think it's safe to say at this point that this shuttle the Enterprise has now been where no other shuttle has been before, the state of New Jersey. That's right, the Garden State.
And take a look behind me. What a glorious sight this is. You're looking at the shuttle Enterprise, all 57,000 pounds of it sitting atop a barge, later it will move along the water to its final resting place, the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum along the west side of Manhattan.
Here's how it's going to go down today. In just about 3 1/2 hours' time, 10:15 a.m. Eastern time the enterprise will leave Jersey City. It will be pulled out of the port by tugboat, it will travel north, past the Statue of Liberty at 10:15 a.m. Eastern, past the World Trade Center site at 11:40 a.m. Eastern and then it will finally arrive at the Intrepid at 12:30 p.m.
The whole trip is about 7.4 miles, but it will take a little more than two hours to get there. At that point, the Enterprise will be hoisted on to the flight deck by a crane. That process alone will take about three hours, then it will remain there at least temporarily and will be open to the public on July 19th.
That is until I say temporarily because that is until a permanent site is built just of site we're told, but that could take a while because, Ashleigh, that will take millions and millions of dollars to build and money they haven't yet raised.
Now, if you've been following the Enterprise, you know in late April, it landed at JFK airport in dramatic fashion, atop a 747 jet. It stayed there until this past Sunday, when it moved from JFK by barge here to Jersey City, safe to say this is the half way point and later today as I mentioned, it will head to the Intrepid.
Interesting to note that the Enterprise, though it has now traveled by air and by sea, it actually has never been to space, never been to space. The Enterprise flew a series of test missions. It really was the original prototype for future shuttle missions but it never actually made it into orbit.
And last year, as you know, NASA ended its shuttle program and that is why the Enterprise will end up ultimately at the floating museum at the Intrepid.
BANFIELD: Well, it may not have gone into space but it paved the way for all the other fleet, all six to be able to go into space.
So, real quickly, I'm guessing that it is smooth sailing and that there are no bridge pilings along the way to come into contact with our wonderful spaceship. Can you give us a rundown on what the heck happened? There was an accident and there was some damage.
CHO: Oh, Ms. Banfield, you must be referring to what happened on Sunday.
BANFIELD: Yes, yes.
CHO: I think we have some pictures of it. I think it's safe to say that it looks worse than it actually is.
BANFIELD: O, good.
CHO: Here's what happened, as it was traveling from JFK here to Jersey City, along the water, somewhere along the way, the wind picked up -- how's this for timing -- just as it was passing a rail bridge, collided with the wood pilings and the wing, the right wing suffered a little bit of foam damage but mostly cosmetic. We've been told the restoration has already been done, they move fast here, even the painting and we're told the Enterprises is now as good as new.
BANFIELD: All right. Alina, thanks very much from Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, with the perfect view from the beginning of the journey. Thanks so much, Alina.
CHO: You bet. SAMBOLIN: Our Rob Marciano is standing by. Have you been watching that, Rob?
I'm curious as to whether we'll have good weather as Enterprise makes its journey.
MARCIANO: It won't be as rough as it was over the weekend. The threat for showers will be around. Although right now, it's gorgeous, you saw that shot, beautiful stuff in New York. New York, Philly, D.C., there will be a threat for showers throughout the day today that may cause delays but most likely less than an hour. Dallas and Denver also will see thunderstorms.
In between those, Detroit and Chicago looks great. Desert South OK. Northwest, a strong cold front continues to pour in, cool stuff there.
And if you're driving towards Miami, maybe Tampa, down towards Ft. Myers, or across the way toward Hollywood, Florida, you may see showers and storms and the plains of the Carolinas, thunderstorms will rumble through there.
And looking at the -- there you go -- radar looks good. We're clear now but later some action.
Seventy-five is the high in Chicago. It will be 71 degrees in New York City.
Guys, back up to you.
BANFIELD: All right. Rob, thanks very much.
And coming up in a couple of minutes, we're going to talk to Bill Nye the science guy about space phenomenon that will not happen again for another century.
SAMBOLIN: I know, but so cool to talk to him.
BANFIELD: Hi, buddy! We're looking forward to you coming in. There he is.
SAMBOLIN: All right. Soledad O'Brien joins us with a look at what is ahead on "STARTING POINT"? Can you top that?
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So much, but I can never top Bill Nye the science guy ever.
BANFIELD: You're trying to not get caught wearing glasses, are you?
O'BRIEN: I can't read the prompter. They're for reading, right?
Said with love, said with love. All right. We're going to continue talking this morning about the effects of that Wisconsin recall vote. Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell, he's the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, will join me to talk about that. There are 29 Republican governors. We want to know what's the impact going to be, of course, outside the state of Wisconsin.
Plus, former NFL star, Wade Davis, speaks publicly for the first time about being gay, telling SB Nation that he feared the NFL wouldn't accept him. He's going to talk with us live about his experience as he was closeted while he was playing in the league and how he's now helping lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth.
And Mark Kennedy Shriver has written a new book. It's a book about his dad, Sgt. Shriver, and long history, of course, his father in politics. He was married, of course, to JFK's sister, Eunice Kennedy, made two runs for the White House, was the founder of the peace corps, amazing, amazing and great history, but his son says it really his faith that made him a great man. We're going to talk about that and much more when we kick off at 7:00 a.m. eastern in just about 14 minutes. We'll see you then.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SAMBOLIN: I am talking all things cool. Get ready to witness a once in a lifetime event. Take a look. It is called the transit of Venus, the passing of Venus between the sun and Earth. It will not happen again for another century, 105 years, and our next guest is so smart, who knows, he may have figured a way to actually be there when it happens again in 2117.
We are talking about, of course, Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," joining us now to talk about this rare transit of Venus and about his educational learning journey that involves kids. Thanks for being with us.
BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Thank you.
SAMBOLIN: You know, I asked you if you had watched it, and you said, of course not, because it was cloudy here.
NYE: We were weathered out here in New York.
SAMBOLIN: So, why does this happen only once every 105 years?
NYE: So, we live on the Earth. So, the Earth goes around the sun, and we imagine us living on a tabletop. Venus is not quite on the same tabletop. It's inclined about 3.4 degrees. So, in order for Venus to be between the sun and us, everything has to, if I may, line up.
And so, in astronomical terms, 105 years is nothing, ha, ha, ha, ha, but in human lifetime terms, it's either make it or you don't.
SAMBOLIN: Yes. And so, what is it that scientists can cull from this experience?
NYE: Oh. So, back in the day, when we were trying -- we humans, we're trying to figure out how big the solar system is and further understand our place in space, you time the planet crossing in front of the disc of the sun, then you employ Kepler's laws and you can infer the size of the Nusion orbit and our orbit and everybody's whole orbit, you can figure the whole thing out by bootstrap, if I may.
SAMBOLIN: Al right.
NYE: So, the time was the key idea.
SAMBOLIN: But only once every 105 years.
NYE: Twice every 105 years. So, there's a dance, how to say a cosmic dance. And so, it happens twice within a decade, so the other one was in 2008.
SAMBOLIN: And were you watching the show this morning while we were on?
NYE: What else would I be doing?
(LAUGHTER)
SAMBOLIN: All right.
NYE: I mean, I'm a civilized person. What could I possibly be doing except watching your show?
SAMBOLIN: So, you watched the shuttle "Enterprise," right?
NYE: Yes.
SAMBOLIN: As it's on the Hudson and it is to its final resting place. What do you make of that? And, we were talking about the fact that it had a little bit of a --
NYE: Wing damage.
SAMBOLIN: -- a little bit of wing damage, there it is, right there. NYE: Yes, yes.
SAMBOLIN: So, how serious is that? Is it a problem? I know that this --
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: It's not going to fly again, girlfriend.
SAMBOLIN: I know, I know.
NYE: By the way, I am so old. How old are you? As a very, very young engineer, I worked on the 747. There's a little vibration problem in the horizontal stabilizer.
SAMBOLIN: No kidding.
NYE: Squared it away. So, this is, you know, it's an old spaceship. It's fine. This one never made it to space, but it flew around. We learned so many things about its aerodynamics.
SAMBOLIN: How big of a deal is this to have it here and have everybody --
NYE: There's only three of them, so it's cool. It's a big part of the history of space. We are living in a transition, you know? This is to say, we had a cold war, somebody said, well, I'll beat you to the moon, and we did. Humans got to the moon first even though the robots got there, Russian robots got there long before or significantly before U.S. humans.
Then, there's been this thing, Let's go back into low Earth orbit for 30 years, but now, we're going to try to go out and up to someplace cool. You know, Planetfest, August 5th, August 4th and 5th, and the morning of the 6th, we land on Mars with the "Curiosity" rover, on Mars.
SAMBOLIN: Oh.
NYE: It's got a laser so powerful, how powerful is it?
SAMBOLIN: How powerful?
NYE: Vaporizes Martian rocks. We assay the chemicals in that gas. Humans are sending a ray gun to Mars. How cool is that? Come on, people.
SAMBOLIN: Very cool. Very cool. If you're not geeked and psyched --
NYE: Part of the history space is the "Enterprise," but check out Planetfest.
SAMBOLIN: OK.
NYE: And, of course --
SAMBOLIN: Sophia. I'm going to talk about Sophia, not my daughter, but something that you're involved with. I have a daughter named Sophia.
NYE: And what does Sophia mean in Greek?
SAMBOLIN: Wisdom.
NYE: Yes, wisdom, yes.
SAMBOLIN: Yes.
NYE: So, Sophia.org, you are a student, you've got summer vacation. You kind of maybe don't do all, you kind of check out. People lose up to 40 percent of what they learned in the last school year over the summer.
SAMBOLIN: We don't have a lot of time, but I want to know who are you targeting this toward? Is it all kids or is there a certain age range?
NYE: All kids. All kids. It started out sixth grade through the second year of college, but it's expanded down and up. So, there's no commercials. You can take 25,000 different tutorials. You don't like the way this online teacher teaches, try this online teacher, over 100 teachers, maybe some stuff from me, ha, ha, ha.
SAMBOLIN: Sophia.org, right?
NYE: Sophia.org. It's free. No commercials. I only care about you.
SAMBOLIN: Thank you.
NYE: You, you, you and your academic success. Let's change the world!
SAMBOLIN: Oh, I love that. Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," thank you for that. Check out Sophia.org. We'll be right back with much more.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SAMBOLIN: "Starting Point" less than a minute away.
BANFIELD: And we wrap it up as always with "Best Advice." Christine Romans doing that for us.
ROMANS: Good morning, and today's "Best Advice" comes from the host of Inside the Actor's Studio, James Lipton. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES LIPTON, ACTOR, HOST, INSIDE THE ACTORS STUDIO: The best advice I ever received is (INAUDIBLE) one thing you do, if nothing else, listen. It applies to life as well, good listeners, I think, (INAUDIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Listening, good listening, pertains to almost every field, right?
BANFIELD: He was so soft spoken I was like literally trying to listen, and it turns out I was doing the right thing. Trying hard to listen. Thank you, Mr. Lipton. That is EARLY START, the news from "A" to "Z." Thanks for joining us, everybody. I'm Ashleigh Banfield.
SAMBOLIN: And I'm Zoraida Sambolin. "Starting Point" with Soledad O'Brien starts right now.
