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Whittington Speaks; The Flying Tomato; New Orleans Louisiana Rising; Port Security Concerns; China And Iran Deal

Aired February 17, 2006 - 14:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you've got to admit, Harry Wittington is a lucky man. He took a shotgun blast to the face and went home today with just some ugly bruises and his sense of humor intact. But don't take my word for it, lucky is his word. Whittington spoke to reporters when he left a Texas hospital. CNN's Ed Lavandera was there.
Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kyra.

You know, I've gotten some messages from some friends who are amazed to see Mr. Whittington looking so good, they say. And I said, you know, a 78-year-old attorney, kind of an old school guy, dressed in coat and tie for this moment and he actually, what I thought was kind of interesting, apologizing for taking so long to come out in making this statement. But he was well composed. His voice a little shaky which is -- we've had an idea that that was kind of going on from the sheriff's report yesterday when he had asked a sheriff's deputy not to record the conversation because his voice was raspy. We heard a little bit of that. But, for the most part, well composed and at times a little bit emotional.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRY WHITTINGTON, ACCIDENTALLY SHOT BY V.P. CHENEY: For many years my family have been friends of the Armstrongs down in Kennedy County. We have visited them for over 25 years and have had some wonderful trips and visits and pleasant memories that we cherish forever. However, this past weekend encompassed all of us in a cloud of misfortune and sadness that is not easy to explain, especially to those who are not familiar with the great sport of quail hunting. We all assume certain risks in whatever we do, whatever activities we pursue. And regardless of how experienced, careful, and dedicated we are, accidents do and will happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: And in that gentlemanly kind of fashion, Mr. Whittington also went on to apologize to the vice president for all of the sorrow he has caused him this week. You could tell Mr. Whittington was trying to put the vice president at ease for any of the angst and suffering that he might have been going through this week after having to sit through a week's worth of news coverage of watching the progress of Mr. Whittington. Doctors say Mr. Whittington still isn't 100 percent, but clearly strong enough, well enough to go home and to continue the recovery process in Austin, Texas, where he lives. Doctors had been monitoring for the last couple of days that one bb that had managed to move its way through his body and get lodged into his heart. Doctors had been monitoring that closely since Tuesday when he suffered a minor heart attack.

Originally they had said he would probably be in this hospital for another week or so. So he's definitely going home a few days early.

Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Ed Lavandera live from Corpus Christi. Thanks, Ed.

Vice President Cheney is obviously relieved by Harry Whittington's continued recovery. Cheney is back home in Wyoming today. He spoke to members of state legislature just a few minutes after Whittington made his remarks in Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a wonderful experience to be greeted with such warmth by the leaders of our great state. That's especially true when you've had a very long week. Thankfully Harry Whittington is on the mend and doing very well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Cheney received a warm welcome from his home state lawmakers, including a standing ovation.

They race across the snow and ice, flip and fly through the air. And with all their spills and thrills have become one of the hottest tickets in Torino. We're talking about the snowboarders. In the half pipe and the snow board cross, the U.S. has struck gold in all but one of those evens so far, starting with the 19-year-old nicknamed The Flying Tomato. Shaun White, from my hometown of San Diego, an international star in just one week who already has his own clothing line, his own DVD, and, of course, now an appearance right here on LIVE FROM.

Of course the best interview so far; right, Shaun?

SHAUN WHITE, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: Yes. Thanks for having me.

PHILLIPS: It's great to have you.

All right. The Flying Tomato. How did you get it?

WHITE: I don't know. I just have all this hair.

PHILLIPS: Couldn't be that red hair. WHITE: What? What is that?

PHILLIPS: What is your brother Jesse doing there?

WHITE: I don't know. I didn't even know that guy. He just came out of . . .

PHILLIPS: He just showed up?

WHITE: We actually found him on the street outside.

PHILLIPS: And you adopted him.

WHITE: And he's really -- you put that down. OK. No, but I got the tomato thing from all the hair. They like to pick on me.

PHILLIPS: They like to pick -- but, you know, does it take a lot of conditioning and a lot of teasing? And, I mean, do you put more time on the hair than the snowboarding? I'm just wondering.

WHITE: That was like the worst thing, is I would do these interviews and actually the girls would want to know. They're like, so, like, do you curl it? Do you like -- you know what I mean? I'm like, come on. Give me a break.

PHILLIPS: You're bringing the curlers back. You're making it hip again.

WHITE: Yes.

PHILLIPS: So I understand you've got your gold with you. Can I -- may I see it?

WHITE: I don't know where the gold is right now.

PHILLIPS: I'm talking the medal.

WHITE: Oh, oh, OK.

PHILLIPS: Oh, lookie there.

WHITE: OK. There it is. It's made out of chocolate. It's pretty cool. It's got the . . .

PHILLIPS: So you -- but you're not going to eat it. You're going to freeze it and keep it for a while, right.

WHITE: No, see, that's the thing, I'm trying to figure out where to put it. I mean I asked my teammate Danny Kass who got silver. He said I should put it in the rearview mirror. Just kind of . . .

PHILLIPS: Oh that would be kind of cool. Forget the dice.

WHITE: Yes, he was claiming ultimate parking pass. So I don't know.

PHILLIPS: You'd probably get whatever you wanted if you showed that if you were showing that to anybody.

WHITE: For sure. It's pretty crazy, though. I mean, it's heavy. And, I don't know, I think it really hit me that I got the gold when I went to bed and then I woke up the next day and this thing was just sitting on the dresser next to me. It was cool.

PHILLIPS: You weren't sleeping with it?

WHITE: No. You know what the worst was, I kind of -- I blew it and I was flying home and I almost checked it under the plane. I was like, maybe I should hang on to that.

PHILLIPS: I wouldn't let it go. Were you showing people on the airplane? Were people asking to see it?

WHITE: Yes. Like what happened was the funniest thing is the stewardesses had all seen the games and they were just so excited to see me. They were like, do you have the gold? And, I mean, I had like I had unlimited like service after that. I was getting drinks and I was getting snacks. And, I mean, I was taking photos in the back with all the stewardesses flying.

PHILLIPS: Wait a minute, drinks? Your 19 years old.

WHITE: Yes, I'm talking about Mountain Dews, baby. All right.

PHILLIPS: He called me baby. He called me baby. OK. That's right, Ginger Ale for Shaun White. Outstanding. OK, getting a little warm here.

So do you have a girlfriend? I mean you're rich, you're 19, you've got your own clothes line, you've got a gold medal that looks like a donut.

WHITE: Yes, I mean, things are going good. I haven't really had time for the girlfriend so far. I mean, so much training going into the Olympics. But I'm looking forward to some time off and check it out. I don't know.

PHILLIPS: What do you do when you're 19 years old and you have a gold medal? It seems you have everything that you want. I mean, what's next?

WHITE: I don't know. I mean, I've just been having so much fun. And we came home early from Italy to just do some press and just see what everybody at home had to say about the Olympics. And, I don't know, I'm excited because the summer x-games and skateboarding for me is coming up. I love to snowboard, but, I mean, skateboarding's also a passion of mine. And I'm just going to have some fun with it.

PHILLIPS: Hey, is it true you call your mom dude?

WHITE: No. I call my dad The Rog (ph), though.

PHILLIPS: The Rog. And what does The Rog mean?

WHITE: Well, he was Roger and now he's become The Rog.

PHILLIPS: OK.

WHITE: There's The Rog right there.

PHILLIPS: So The Rog has sort of been bumped up a notch because of everything that he's done for you. I understood they took out a $50,000 loan to even get you going on this?

WHITE: Yes, I mean, my parents are pretty amazing. Like, snowboarding at the time when they pulled me out of school and did all these things for me, I mean, there was no Olympics, there was no X Games and, I mean, it took a lot of guts for them to do all that. And I hope I can do that for my kid. You know, they were just kind of following this dream that I had and supporting me through everything. An, I mean, me winning the gold was cool, but, I mean, it meant so much to them as well as me. So I thought it was a cool event to happen there.

PHILLIPS: Wow, it's amazing watching this video.

Now I have to be honest with you, Shaun, OK, I'm old school. I'm a lot older than you are and , you know, I'm used to doing the kind of skiing that's, you know, on two skis. Not the snowboarders. And what I remember about snowboarders going down the hills, they're cutting me off, they're running me over. You know, I'm screaming at them, cussing at them. You know, it's a little frustrating.

WHITE: Yes. Yes.

PHILLIPS: But they're not always that way -- or, wait a minute, you're laughing so maybe's that's the cool thing is to intimidate people like me. But it sort of has come to a different level, hasn't it? They're not all punks.

WHITE: I mean, yes, I mean, those are the good times when you get to mess with people. But, I mean, I think that a lot of the snowboarding attitude has changed. I mean, we're doing so many more things. There's more money in the sport. There's so many more people that are inspired through the Olympics and big contests like that. And, I mean, there's like family men in this. I mean it's become such an event where I think everybody's just really enjoying snowboarding. And I'm surprised to see the amount of people on the hill. It's grown so much.

And I think still at the Olympics we were kind of known as the dirty snowboarders, I mean, because we were all -- we didn't really fit in with the biathalon group and the downhill luge and everything. We were kind of the odd ones out. It was fun, though.

PHILLIPS: Well, you've even -- and there's even a snowboarding dictionary, snowboard language, terms and slang. I was -- yes?

WHITE: Well, a lot of it is just like -- I mean we say stoked a lot for some reason but I think that's just California talk anyways. I mean, I think the biggest thing that comes across is the trick names. I mean there's like stale fish and mctwist and rodeo and all these different tricks.

PHILLIPS: What's the rodeo?

WHITE: Rodeo?

PHILLIPS: Yes.

WHITE: It's like doing a back flip while spinning.

PHILLIPS: Ooo.

WHITE: And, yes, It's pretty technical.

PHILLIPS: Fancy pants caught my attention. Do you know what fancy pants is?

WHITE: Fancy pants? No. I have a pair.

PHILLIPS: It's some old fart of a two planker that's wear snow pants from the '80s. The ones that's like hunting while skiing or making a hippie statement. Do you ever deal with any fancy pants out there on the slopes?

WHITE: There's plenty of fancy pants on the hill all right. I was on the Ellen show yesterday and she gave me a new nickname instead of Flying Tomato, which was golden handsome pants. I don't know if that does it with you?

PHILLIPS: I don't know. I'm not digging it. I think I like The Flying Tomato.

WHITE: Yes, it was -- the tomato's not to bad.

PHILLIPS: Tomato, tomato. All right. Where's Jesse? Is he still right there next to you?

WHITE: Is Jesse -- yes.

PHILLIPS: Yes. All right.

WHITE: Come on, Jesse, say hi. Come on.

PHILLIPS: Just have Jesse say hi. He's been sort of -- yes, he's playing with the hair. He's a . . .

WHITE: It looks crazy.

PHILLIPS: Come on, Jesse. I want to see what Jesse looks like. Does he have the same kind of hair?

WHITE: She wants to see what you look like. She wants to party with you, Jesse. Come on.

PHILLIPS: Oh, Jesse.

JESSE: Hello. PHILLIPS: You know, you guys, I can't wait to see you both . . .

WHITE: It's crazy, you know, just two handsome men on camera. It's just . . .

PHILLIPS: The two most eligible bachelors right now Jesse and Shaun.

All right, Shaun. Well, you are the next era moving forward here. It was great to meet you. And keep us posted on your career, would you?

WHITE: All right. I'll catch you later, baby.

PHILLIPS: Yes. All right, babe.

WHITE: Whoo.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Shaun.

Well, Shaun, I don't know if you heard, but your teammate, Lindsay Jacobellis, has also won a medal, the silver, in the action packed snowboard cross. It looks like she had the gold all sown up when she crashed on the next to last leap. Well, she had been so far ahead that she still managed to get up and finish second.

The women's alpine combined has become a two day event. While the snow has stopped, the strong winds have not and that's forced officials to postpone the downhill portion of that event until tomorrow. The squallum (ph) runs are taking place now.

And, as expected, well, Russia's Evgeni Plushenko skated away with the figure skating gold last night. Not so expected, the problem he had getting to the airport afterwards. The car he was riding in, well it got caught in a chain reaction collision. No one was hurt and he, along with his coach, made their plane to St. Petersburg for a hometown celebration.

Well, it's time for Harrah's in New Orleans to antiup as the casino gambles on the future of the big easy and reopens its gaming tables. We'll meet one dealer who's betting her future on it too. LIVE FROM returns in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: More evidence today that New Orleans is back, you all. Mardi Gras is on. Bourbon Street crowded again. And right now, for the very first time in six months, the doors to another landmark have swung open. Here's CNN's Gulf Coast Correspondent Susan Roesgen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): After nearly six months away, Nanita Jones was dealing cards again. Loosening up her fingers and loving being back at Harrah's Casino. NANITA JONES, HARRAH'S DEALER: When I walk down the street, you know, for the last week and they'll see my badge, when you all opening, you know, a lot of people ask me. It's going to be hectic in a way, but I'm quite sure, you know, it is going to be fine.

ROESGEN: Sixty-five percent of Harrah's employees lived in areas hit hard by the hurricane. And so far, Harrah's has only been able to hire half of its workforce back. Jones is lucky to be here, but her two teenage daughters still live in Dallas while she tries to find temporary housing here in New Orleans.

GARY LOVEMAN, CEO, HARRAH'S: Welcome back. I'm really grateful to you for coming back.

ROESGEN: Harrah's CEO, Gary Loveman, says luring customers back is next.

LOVEMAN: We had a fantastic business here before the hurricanes came at the end of the summer. And we feel that over time that business will come back.

ROESGEN: Harrah's wants that business and so does Louisiana. In exchange for being the only land-based casino allowed in New Orleans, Harrah's must pay the state $164,000 a day. A payment Harrah's continued to make even when it was closed. Now, with three quarters of the city's population gone, no one knows how many locals will spin the wheel again. Before Katrina, half of Harrah's customers were locals. Then there's the question of tourists returning.

LOVEMAN: None of us can predict how quickly all that's going to come back. But we're in this for a long haul. We're going to be here a long, long time. And we think that over time this will be revitalized. And we're very confident about it.

ROESGEN: And Nanita Jones is glad to be back.

JONES: It was hard for me. I mean, it meant that I had no sense of direction, which way to go, you know. So to get back to New Orleans, it's great, and Harrah's was the perfect reason to do that. Get back to work.

ROESGEN: Before the hurricane, Harrah's took in about $30 million a month in revenue. And today they hope to start bringing the high rollers back.

Susan Roesgen, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: New Orleans takes one more step in Katrina recovery today. It hopes to shed the awful stigma attached to the city landmark. Remember the Ernest Morial Convention Center and the crowds of desperate, hungry people who massed there and, in a few cases, died there after the storm? Well that one squallowed (ph) facility reopened today playing host to a long-running annual gift and jewelry show. The Mardi Gras season, Harrah's Casino and now the convention center are all reopening, are all encouraging the crippled New Orleans tourist industry.

When it comes to jackpots, this is the biggest one ever and it's got people lining up all over the country. $365 million at stake. When LIVE FROM returns, the latest on Powerball.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: We call it Greenland, but about 80 percent of the world's largest island is covered in ice. A report out today shows more of that ice than ever is breaking off and sliding into the ocean. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Cal Tech and the University of Kansas say the amount of ice flowing into the sea has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. They blame global warming and say sea levels along U.S. coasts could rise by 2 feet by the year 2100.

Spring is just over a month away, but in many parts of the country it may be a long, hard wait. A fierce winter storm swept across the Midwest and into the Northeast. Green Bay, Wisconsin, had over a foot of snow with wind gusts of up to 49 miles an hour. Scores of cars ended up in ditches there. And out West there was snow in Marin County just north of San Francisco. Forecasters say it's the result of an unusually cold low pressure system.

Let's check the weather forecast with Meteorologist Jacqui Jeras for more.

Hey, Jacqui.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Well, a Dubai-based company could soon take over several key U.S. ports, including New York, and that's causing some concern among lawmakers. Susan Lisovicz has more on this story live from the New York Stock Exchange.

Susan, we're actually -- it's a story that we've been talking about today. Bill Tucker actually did a piece. And we're going to have, coming up in the next hour, a captain in the coast guard who's head of security at one of the ports here in the United States to sort of talk about what kind of security precautions there are. And we're just going to go more in depth on the concern. Is it affecting Wall Street, the talk of this company and what it might do?

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. We're seeing a sell-off today, Kyra, that is completely logical given some of the data that we've seen, a poor forecast from the big tech company and after three days of rallies. But this is the kind of issue that does sort of send shivers down the spine. A lot of folks, security folks, have talked about how port safety is something that is just not looked at, scrutinized as much as it should be. So I'm sure a lot of viewers will be happy that interview coming up.

They also may not have heard of the British company P&O, but this company manages some major U.S. ports, including New York and New Jersey, Philadelphia and Miami. Well, P&O is being taken over by a Dubai-based company in a $6.8 billion deal. And many members of Congress aren't happy about it. They're asking the Bush administration to review the deal again and scrutinize potential security issues.

New York Senator Charles Schumer among those speaking out. He says the issue isn't about the company's management but how good they are at handling security. U.S. officials have said -- he's been a solid partner in the fight against terrorism. But at the same time, lawmakers are concerned that money for the September 11th attacks was wired through the company's banking system, the Dubai company's banking system, and two of the September 11th hijackers were in fact citizens.

There's much at stake here. U.S. sea ports handle 2 billion tons of freight each year. But only about 5 percent of the containers entering the U.S. are examined on arrival. Many experts consider it a major weakness in the fight against terrorism hitting our shores.

Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Yes, and we're going to talk about all of that with this captain of the coast guarding coming up, Susan, and hopefully get some more answers, more in depth conversation going on. And, meanwhile, another deal being closely watched in Washington, this one between China and Iran.

LISOVICZ: This is a big one too, Kyra.

China and Iran are reportedly close to sealing a multibillion dollars oil and gas deal. Chinese government delegation would visit Iran next month. This news, of course, comes as Iran faces the prospects of sanctions over its nuclear program.

In fact, "The Wall Street Journal" says that China's trying to fast track this before any possible sanctions would be imposed. China is rapidly becoming the world's largest economy. It has a huge appetite for oil. It's the world's most populist countries. It's already struck oil deals with the other countries the U.S. deems unfriendly, including Sudan and Syria.

Now let's take a look at how the stock market is doing today. Actually not a whole heck of a lot right now despite some unsettling news on inflation. Dell's poor forecast for this quarter. Dow Industrials flat at 11,120. The Nasdaq, meanwhile, down a quarter of a percent. This coming after three days of gains.

That's it from Wall Street. LIVE FROM continues right after this.

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