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New Jersey Budget Still Deadlocked; A Closer Look at North Korea; America's Top 50 Most Influential Churches; Nominations For Emmy Awards Announced

Aired July 06, 2006 - 14:30   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we are tracking new developments out of New Jersey. We're getting reports that lawmakers may be nearing an agreement. If so, that could end a six-day government shutdown.
CNN's Mary Snow has the latest from Trenton. I guess they have their fingers crossed out there?

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Fredricka. A lot of activity and lawmakers expressing confidence that perhaps today could be the day that an agreement would be reached, ending a government shutdown that's now in its sixth day. Nothing definite yet, but certainly the mood has been changing this afternoon.

And certainly one person who is optimistic about all of this is Janet Iverson. Janet is one of the 45,000 state workers who were furloughed. And, Janet, you were saying here -- you were at a rally earlier today. You've been staying around because you're waiting for some kind of news.

JANET IVERSON, FURLOUGHED STATE WORKER: Right. We're very, very optimistic that there will be a good decision today, a good conclusion to this.

SNOW: You are a tax investigator. You've been out of work. How has it been on you and your co-workers?

IVERSON: Well, it's disturbing. It's very distressing not being able to go to work, being basically locked out of your workplace. It's somewhat demoralizing. People are worried about not getting paid for this week. There are many people -- there have been many single parents down here all week -- we've been here since Monday -- many single parents who really need that check. They can't afford even to wait for retroactive pay, if we even get retroactive pay. People are just worried. There's a lot of anxiety.

SNOW: And along with that anxiety, how much anger is there that you guy are caught in the middle of all this?

IVERSON: Well, there is a lot of feeling that this could have been resolved sooner, that it didn't need to come to this. But it did. So we've just been dealing with it. We've been here all week, encouraging the legislature, the assembly, to pass a responsible budget.

SNOW: And you feel your voice has now been heard?

IVERSON: Well, hopefully, yes.

SNOW: All right. And you and a couple of dozen other people waiting here. Thank you very much for your time.

And, Fredricka, along with Janet's anticipation, also lawmakers mulling around, reporters outside the governor's office. Nothing definite to report, but certainly people hoping that perhaps a budget deal may have been reached -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And so, Mary, any hints or guesses as to what areas of compromise they may have?

SNOW: One thing that a couple of lawmakers have told us is that there has been a focus on tax relief for property owners. Now, the one thing that has been the big sticking point that caused this standoff is the governor's proposition of a sales tax increase from 6 to 7 percent. What a compromise may include, say a couple of lawmakers we've spoken to today, is to include that sales tax along with property tax relief. But that is not -- it's still in the works. The compromise plan is being talked about -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Mary Snow in Trenton, New Jersey. Thanks so much.

The Pentagon has been drilling for war on the Korean peninsula ever since the last Korean war ended. CNN's Brian Todd examined the military options for "THE SITUATION ROOM."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a peninsula that's been heavily militarized and preparing for confrontation for more than 50 years, scenarios for war are detailed and frightening. We discussed them with a former senior U.S. Army intelligence officer assigned to Korea, a former Delta Force commander who also has a CIA background, and a former strategic planner at the National War College who developed a war game on Korea.

They all make clear war is a very remote possibility. So is the prospect of a U.S. pre-emptive strike.

MAJ. JEFFREY BEATTY, FMR. DELTA FORCE COMMANDER: If you're going to do a pre-emptive strike, you have got to make sure you get everything, because if you don't, they're going to launch what they have left, and they're going to probably launch a full-scale attack against the south.

TODD: Our experts say if America struck first the best case scenario is casualties in the tens of thousands on both sides. If North Korea attacked first, they say, thousands of its special operations commandos would likely swarm into the south from the air and sea, linking up with sleeper agents who've already infiltrated through tunnels.

Then...

BRIG. GEN. JAMES MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Step two would be they have to secure the demilitarized zone that separates north from south. And they would do that with light infantry, simply to hold the shoulders of the penetration. Not go very deep, but to hold the door open, if you will.

TODD: Holding the door for North Korea's heavily armored million-man army to push toward Seoul and points south. At the same time, the North Koreans would launch missiles.

MARKS: They would be conventionally tipped. We have to assume they would be chemically tipped.

TODD: Prompting U.S. forces to launch airstrikes on North Korean artillery positions, many of which can be hidden in deep underground bunkers. And inevitably, experts say, U.S. and North Korean ground forces would engage, likely on very difficult terrain.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: Difficult terrain in what has turned into a very urbanized region over the past 50 years. That means possibly hundreds of thousands of casualties, military and civilian, and that's leaving out North Korea's nuclear capability, which our experts say is too crude to be used effectively at the moment -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And, so, Brian, how much is unknown about North Korea's nuclear program?

TODD: Still a great deal unknown. Our experts all tell us that -- they give us an example. North Korea has whole fleets of warplanes that are buried underground. They are in underground -- massive underground bunkers, underground runways. They can be brought out. They don't know how many there are down there. They're in these very deep mountain bunkers that are in sloped areas that are very hard to get to, hard to bomb. And they could be brought out in the event of conflict. That's just one example. But exactly how many there are in there and what other armaments they may be hiding, a lot is not known there.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much. Brian Todd in Washington.

TODD: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: So what is it like inside North Korea, that very closed and very mysterious society? Not many people can give a personal account, but last night's Anderson Cooper's guest shared his very surreal impressions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN RATHER, FORMER CBS NEWS ANCHOR: It's a totalitarian regime. And in the capital, Pyongyang, there is this eerie quality of everybody being programmed. An example would be, you come out in the morning -- mind you, you don't go anywhere without your controllers. That's what they call themselves, government people who go everywhere with you.

If you say "Good morning" to someone, they are very polite, and they will smile and say: "Yes. Our maximum leader told us this morning on the radio that it was going to be a beautiful day. And you know what, sir? It is a beautiful day."

The first few times you hear that, you're at least bemused, if not amused, by it. But, hour after hour, day after day, there's an unsettling quality to that.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: That's incredibly creepy. I've never -- I've never heard that.

And the controller, I mean, how controlling was he? Were you able to talk to people on the street, go to people's homes?

RATHER: No, and no. As a matter of fact, the penalty is severe in North Korea if you allow a stranger into your home. We were allowed to talk to people, but a -- only a limited number of people, and under very controlled circumstances.

You said how controlled? The control was complete, absolute. We went nowhere without the controllers. We spoke to no one without the permission of the controllers. The people we spoke to tended to be official guides at museums, other public monuments, that sort of thing.

But, again, Anderson, I come back to -- it's hard for anyone in the West -- I would say hard for anyone who has never been to North Korea -- to imagine what it's like, because it -- it -- it is -- the discipline is so great that everybody you are allowed to talk to gives you what are clearly programmed answers.

And, sometimes, they're non-sequiturs. If you say, well, what was here before this building, and they didn't want to answer that, they will say, the sunset from this view is just gorgeous.

When -- we were there, I think, about 10 days. And, after a while, that begins to -- to really eat on your mind. Keep in mind that -- I'm seeing pictures here on the screen of young people. We went to a special school. It's an after-school school, if you take my point, for particularly gifted and interested students.

And while what you're seeing here is sort the proverbial dance, they had very young children with mock guns in military uniforms repelling the invaders. That's shorthand for the United States.

COOPER: And, I mean, you've been in a lot of countries where the official line was, you know, hatred of America, down with the USA. Clearly, that is the North Korean line. Do you -- were you able to get any sense of whether people actually believe it there? I mean, was there any overt hostility toward you as an American?

RATHER: No, no overt hostility toward me.

But I do believe it, which is to say, we're now working on a -- if use the biblical 33 years as a generation, at least three generations of North Koreans have come to believe, they've been taught, it's been preached to them -- that the only thing keeping the United States out is our military.

And we viewed this military parade, which you're seeing here now. And while it was very impressive, by the goose-stopping (ph) discipline, the close-order drill of infantry, I thought it was fairly significant that we didn't see much heavy artillery. We didn't see much mechanized tanks, troop carriers, anything of that sort, and no air flyovers.

Now, that said to me -- I'm not a military expert, but that said to me that their equipment, in terms of their conventional army, is very dated. And, therefore, they didn't want to show off those parts of it, to show how dated it is.

COOPER: And...

RATHER: But, Anderson, make no mistake. When you're there and you see this -- these huge demonstrations, military and otherwise, this is a country that is very proud of itself. And they will tell you in a second, the officials that one speaks to, including General Bok, who's responsible for defending the demilitarized zone, that they expect the United States to invade. They expect the United States to try a regime change. And they look you clear in the eye and say, we, unlike the Iraqis, will fight to the last man, woman and child.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Dan Rather, appearing last night on "ANDERSON COOPER 360." Tune in to Anderson tonight and each weeknight at 10:00 Eastern.

The power of the pulpit -- some preachers have more of it than others. A most influential list is out, and we'll name names, when LIVE FROM continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A Christian Web site is giving its blessing to America's most influential churches. Its annual list of the top 50 is out today.

CNN's faith and values correspondent Delia Gallagher has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH & VALUES CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's got hip-hop, and it's got the ultimate hip pastor.

ERWIN MCMANUS, MOSAIC CHURCH: Just start talking to god. I know, be weird, be crazy. You don't have to talk to him out loud.

GALLAGHER: Welcome to Mosaic Church. Meet Erwin McManus, a El Salvadoran immigrant, whose Los Angeles-based congregation is diverse and growing. In running shoes, jeans and a sports jersey, his approach is casual, his message simple: sports is a metaphor for life, and godliness.

MCMANUS: Paul says you need to run the race as if you're going to win the prize.

GALLAGHER: No solemn hymns here. Instead, Mosaic uses rock 'n' roll, DVDs, books, and a state-of-the-art Web site to reach its audience. Unlike the evangelical giants of the past century ...

REV. BILLY GRAHAM: Pick up your cross!

GALLAGHER: This new breed of pastor speaks in a language most traditionalists wouldn't understand.

Here, he talks about St. Paul.

MCMANUS: Paul, what are you smoking? You know, Paul, man, you're writing a chick flick.

GALLAGHER: His followers get it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pastor Erwin's extremely personable, and he keeps it real.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like he can just relate to anyone.

GALLAGHER: He brings in about 3,000 people every Sunday, and he doesn't even have a church building. Mosaic rents auditoriums for services and has no pulpit, but is one of the most influential churches in the United States. So says the Church Report, a Christian Web site that polled 2,000 Christian pastors.

(on camera): The report says that tens of thousands of Americans flock to these churches in the past year, and that number is growing. It's a sign that they're finding something there that they're not getting from traditional denominations.

(voice-over): Number one on the list, the enormous Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois. Nearly 20,000 come to services on weekends. Pastor Bill Hybels says Willow Creek is open to everyone.

PASTOR BILL HYBELS, WILLOW CREEK COMMUNITY CHURCH: It doesn't matter what background you came out of, even if you have no spiritual background whatsoever.

GALLAGHER: Some say this feel-good approach is not what true Christianity is all about.

DAVID WELLS, GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: What is being advocated is more of spirituality, which is in opposition to, or at least doesn't require religion. That is to say, doctrine to be believed, ethics to be followed, and a corporate involvement that would be expected.

GALLAGHER: Pastor McManus says a person can be good and still question traditional beliefs, that religion is more about questions than answers. (END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And Delia Gallagher joins us live now from New York. So who else, Delia, is keeping it real and making the top five?

GALLAGHER: Well, Fredricka, you can find all 50 of these, of course, on the Church Report Web site, but let's take a look at least the top five. The first we heard about, pastor Bill Hybels at the Willow Creek Community Church. He was in the piece there, a very large church. All these top five churches average 16,000 members per Sunday.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

GALLAGHER: Rick Warren, number two, at Saddleback Church. You've heard of him, of course, "The Purpose-Driven Life." Everybody's heard of that book by now. He's out in California.

Number three is Andy Stanley, down there in Georgia, North Point Community Church near Atlanta, just outside of Atlanta.

Number four, Fellowship Church in Texas. This is one of two top five churches in Texas. Ed Young, Jr. is the pastor out there.

And number five is Joel Osteen at Lakewood Church, another very, very popular preacher with the largest congregation in the country.

WHITFIELD: Wow. So with a minimum of 16,000, what is it about these churches or the pastors that make them so incredibly influential?

GALLAGHER: Well, a lot of it is their own personalities, what they bring to the table. As we saw out in Los Angeles, Pastor McManus, an El Salvadoran immigrant, who brings a lot of his personal experience to the immigrant population out there.

So they certainly have a charismatic ability, but they are also marketers. They are able to take books, DVDs, schools, a lot of them have, and build on this. And, in fact, many of them also run classes for other pastors, to teach them how to bring more people into their church.

So there's a kind of ripple effect from their own congregations, which were coming Sunday two, three times for different services on a Sunday, and then they build out from there, so there are group services, there are single services. There are schools, and all kinds of activities for people. So this really becomes a community. It's not just a place to go for one hour on a Sunday, it's a place to go every day.

WHITFIELD: Wow, and it really helps when they get a TV deal to boot. Delia Gallagher, thanks so much from New York.

Straight ahead, it's Emmy nomination day in Hollywood, and Brooke Anderson of "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" has a lowdown. Brooke, what is coming up? BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, it's an exciting day here in Tinseltown. The nominations were announced for the 58th annual Emmy Awards. I'm going to have who made the cut and who surprisingly got left out in the cold. All that, when LIVE FROM continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well, just some of the nominees right there. Now that the nominations are out, are your favorite shows in the running? You may be surprised which ones are not. Brooke Anderson has the answers in today's entertainment report.

Good to see you, Brooke.

ANDERSON: Good to see you too, Fredricka.

It's a busy day in today here in Los Angeles. The nominations for the 58th annual Emmy Awards were announced in typical fashion, the predawn ceremony. The Emmys, of course, honor the best in television, so for all of you couch potatoes out there who won't miss an hour, literally, of "24" you're going to love this. The drama received the most nominations for any series with a dozen total. Now, those include a nod for best drama, as well as best actor for star Kiefer Sutherland.

Formidable competition though -- ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" is second in line with total series nominations. "Grey's" picked up 11. In addition to best drama, Sandra Oh and co-star Chandra Wilson are nominated in supporting categories.

Another medical show, "House," starring Hugh Laurie is here. It will be up against a couple of Emmy darlings, "The Sopranos" and the sentimental favorite "The West Wing." But noticeably missing from these nominees, the popular drama "Lost," who actually own the best drama trophy last year, wasn't nominated in this category.

Now over in comedy, "Arrested Development" seems to have gotten the last laugh. The recently canceled series received their third nomination for best comedy. They have an Emmy on the shelf for that one from two years ago.

Now, the quirky hospital laugher "Scrubs" received their one and only nod in the top category. They'll be battling against the off- beat comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm." The creator of "Curb," Larry David -- you see him here. He was also recognized for lead actor.

"The Office" is a strong presence. A best comedy nominee while funny man Steve Carell earned recognition for his role on the show in the lead actor category. He is hilarious.

Now, while "The Office" was a slam dunk to be nominated, "Two and a Half Men," this show was not yet. There it is. I actually heard an audible gasp in the theater when the show was called. It was a bit of a dark horse, and this nomination squeezed out other shows many thought had a pretty good shot at an nomination, including "Entourage," "Desperate Housewives," and "Will and Grace" for its swan song.

Now, "Two and a Half Men" stars Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer. Each may take home a trophy as well. They received individual nominations in lead and supporting categories respectively. We did catch up with Cryer earlier today. He told us that initially he didn't care about the nominations, but leading up to the ceremony, he changed his tune.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON CRYER, "TWO AND A HALF MEN": And I was thinking, I'm going to be so busy with the moving and all this stuff, I'm not going to care about that at all. And -- but I just kept getting all these calls from people saying hey, good luck tomorrow, good luck, good luck, hey, good luck, good luck, good luck, until I got to the point where I couldn't even sleep.

And, so, at around 4:00 -- about a quarter to 5:00 in the morning, I was just like, oh, this is ridiculous. And I got up, and I just started walking around the house in my underwear muttering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: And he did receive that nomination.

The 58th annual Emmy Awards will be presented here in L.A. Sunday, August 27th. We're going to have more on the Emmys tonight on "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT," including all the Emmy shockers like today's prime- time Emmy nominations may have left many stars feeling startled and shocked. The insides stories on TV's most provocative entertainment show. That is "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT," 11:00 p.m. Eastern, that's 8:00 Pacific, CNN Headline Prime -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: We will be watching brook, but "Lost" getting lost in the shuffle? That's blasphemous.

ANDERSON: Can you believe that?

WHITFIELD: No.

ANDERSON: I know. They actually did receive ...

WHITFIELD: My one favorite show.

ANDERSON: Oh, you love "Lost." Well, they actually received nine nominations, Fredricka, but none in the major categories.

WHITFIELD: Oh.

ANDERSON: So it was a bit of a shock, and then also you have the absence of James Gandolfini and Edie Falco from the lead acting categories where they are Emmy darlings in the past, so ...

WHITFIELD: Wow. Things are a-changin'.

ANDERSON: ...there you have it. Yes they are. WHITFIELD: All right, we'll be watching in August when it really does count. Thanks so much, Brooke.

Birdies, eagles, and bears, oh, my! A golf course groundskeeper runs afoul of an unusual visitor at the 17th green, but he lived to tell the tale. Thank goodness. LIVE FROM has it, next.

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