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CNN Live Today

A Child in Auschwitz; Auschwitz Anniversary

Aired January 27, 2005 - 10:30   ET

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

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


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're a couple minutes past the half hour. Good morning once again, I'm Daryn Kagan.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Rick Sanchez, and here's what's happening right now in the news.

First of all, the man arrested in connection with Wednesday's deadly train collision in Southern California now faces 11 counts of murder. You heard the Los Angeles County District Attorney announce the charges live right here on CNN moments ago. The suspect, Juan Alvarez, could face the death penalty if he's ultimately convicted. Rescue crews are still searching for a missing passenger in the Glendale wreck. Eleven people in all killed thus far, when the train hit an SUV stuck on the track, then collided with another commuter train, and then a parked freight train as well.

Also U.S. envoy says he's encouraged by what the Palestinians are doing now to try to stop the violence there. William Burns met earlier today with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Burns is also scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today. Burns says the U.S. is determined to do everything it can to try and help in the Middle East.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived for her first day of work a couple of hours ago. Rice's nomination approved by the Senate yesterday, and she was sworn in, in a private White House ceremony. Rice's first overseas mission is expected to take her to the Middle East and Europe. That could happen as early as next week.

Also this story. Dick Clark is back home after being hospitalized for a minor stroke. A spokesman says the 75-year-old entertainer plans to return to work, but can't say when. Clark suffered the stroke seven weeks ago. He was unable to host his New Year's Eve show for the first time in three decades.

KAGAN: In Poland this morning, a coming together of the past and future, the powerful and the once powerless. A live picture there from Auschwitz. World leaders gathered with death camp survivors this morning at Auschwitz. The largest death camp of the Nazi regime. It was 60 years ago today that Russian troops liberated the death factory. More than 1.1 million people died there.

Very few children survived the horrors of Auschwitz, and one of those rare survivors has a special connection to CNN. She's the mother of correspondent Allan Chernoff, and he now shares her very personal account. This, of course, is a story, of course, you will only see right here on CNN. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the few child survivors of Auschwitz, an 11-year-old girl, Rina Margulis (ph), my mother. She and her mother Hinda (ph) had endured half a year at the death factory. Each day pushed deeper into the hell on earth that was Auschwitz. Eleven years ago, our family visited the camp in Poland. My mother described the last time she saw her 9-year-old brother Romek (ph), the day he was selected to be gassed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he took this piece of bread and threw it here over the fence to my mother and said, you take it. I won't need it anymore. And then he started crying and ran away into the barrack.

CHERNOFF: Shipped in a cattle car from the slave labor camp legion my mom was tattooed upon arrival Prisoner A15647. Her bed was a wooden slat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just filled in straight through. Ten people.

CHERNOFF: Starvation was the daily diet. Chicory-flavored water masquerading as coffee. A sliver of bread and a bowl of watery soup. Sometimes there was a chance to swipe or organize food as the prisoners said. 60 years later, my mother remembers grabbing a cabbage near the kitchen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I looked left and I looked right and no one was around. And I took this cabbage as a birthday gift to my aunt Eva, and this was the best gift I could ever give her. It was worth more than any jewelry or gold or anything.

CHERNOFF: My mother got by as only a child could. Using her imagination.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always told my mother and my aunt what I am going to eat after the war. This was the big pleasure. I always said, I'm going to have for breakfast, 20 loaves of bread and five dozen eggs.

CHERNOFF: Yet every day she was surrounded by death. The crematory of smokestacks towered over the camp, blown up by the Nazis before liberators arrived.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fire was coming out all of the time, day and night, and this was crematory where people were burned. And the smell of the flesh was all over the camp.

CHERNOFF: Were you afraid of dying?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't think of death. I always figured out this is my last chance, I'm going to tell them, let's put up an uprising and not go in there and let's resist. And this was my plan.

CHERNOFF: By sheer luck, her selection never came. She and her mother survived. Her father, Abraham (ph) was killed trying to escape a death march.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know how I survived it, it's a pure chance. Not that I was in any way different from everybody else.

CHERNOFF: My mother Rina Margulis Chernoff (ph) witness and survivor, survivor of some of the darkest days on this planet, witness to man's inhumanity against man. Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And after watching that together, we should tell you that at noon today in Washington, D.C. the Holocaust Memorial Museum will mark the Auschwitz anniversary with a moment of silence. Peter Black is the senior historian at the museum, and he's good enough to take some time to talk to us about the significance of Auschwitz as the symbol of the Holocaust.

Mr. Black, thanks so much for joining us. Tell us, if you would, why we remember this day. Why is it important?

PETER BLACK, HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM: Auschwitz -- it's important to remember Auschwitz for several reasons. One, as a symbol of the extremes to which man can do harm to his fellow man. Another one, another reason is that it is the symbol that is sort of a composite of the effort of the Nazis to destroy the European Jews, but perhaps most important of all, Auschwitz, with all its horrors, represents the potential, the potential of every state-sponsored persecution or even state-indulged prejudice.

SANCHEZ: Speaking of prejudice, I had an opportunity to go to Minnesota this last weekend and talk to a gentleman that I think it would be fair to characterize as a neo-Nazi. He and others like him have a tendency to want to rationalize or minimize the Holocaust. What do you say to people like that?

BLACK: Well, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a treasure trove of documentation, oral testimony and artifacts that speaks to the basic facts of the history of the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews and millions of others. And certainly anyone who is in doubt of this is welcome to visit the museum, or to visit our multiple offerings on our Web site at www.ushmm.org.

SANCHEZ: Do we use this as a jumping-off point? There are others who will point out -- and it's quite significant -- other genocides. Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda. Do we use the experience of the Holocaust and the things we learn at your museum to protect those people as well?

BLACK: I think there are many facts and the history offers many suggestions as to how to prevent and to mitigate future disasters. Certainly, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has been following the situation in Darfur very closely and, in fact, has spoken out on this situation, warning of the potential for genocide and this, among other factors, has led to an extensive U.N. investigation. It points to the importance of leaders and people in high places in society speaking out forcefully and explicitly about potential genocides.

SANCHEZ: Peter Black, senior historian at the Holocaust Museum. You do good work, sir. We thank you for taking the time to talk to us this morning.

BLACK: Thank you.

KAGAN: Well, it has been a busy week in international politics. The U.S. selects a new chief diplomat. Iraqis prepare for an historic vote. And world leaders meet to discuss the many crises taking place in the world.

U.S. Senator John McCain is attending that world forum in Davos, Switzerland, while keeping a close eye on developments' impact in Washington. He joins me now from Switzerland to discuss them. Senator, hello, thank you for being here with us.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Hi, Daryn. How are you?

KAGAN: Doing just great. Want to get right to Condoleezza Rice's first day on the job as secretary of state. Yesterday, as there was the discussion going on on the floor of the Senate, you offered up these comments about the debate taking place.

You say, "I wonder why we are starting this new Congress with a protracted debate about a foregone conclusion. I can only conclude that we are doing this for no other reason because of lingering bitterness over the outcome of the election." Could you expand on your remarks, please, sir?

MCCAIN: Well, Daryn, first of all, Condoleezza Rice is a great American success story. This is what America is all about. A young woman who grew up in a segregated part of America where Americans were not treated equally, to rise to the position of secretary of state. We should have been celebrating, I believe, this remarkable American success story.

Also, I thought that some of the remarks -- and I'm not going to mention my colleagues' names -- some of the remarks aimed at her during the hearings challenged her integrity. We can disagree on policy and we disagree on a lot of things, but I think it is very clear that Condoleezza Rice is a person of integrity. And yes, I see this, some lingering bitterness over a very tough campaign. I hope it dissipates soon.

KAGAN: Well, you certainly know about tough campaigns. You speak from experience there. Do you think the 13 votes against her is going to hurt her as she goes about her job representing the United States around the world?

MCCAIN: I do not. 13 out of 100 is not that many. And Condoleezza Rice has good relationships with all the leaders in the world that she's established as the president's national security adviser. I think you'll be seeing her traveling extensively. And I think one of her first priorities is going to be to try to repair some of the damaged relations between the United States and Europe, particularly in seeking their help to move Iraqi forward to a true democracy.

KAGAN: Speaking of democracy, let's look ahead towards this weekend, towards the elections taking place in Iraq. Are you hopeful and what will it take in order to call these elections a success?

MCCAIN: I'm sure that a lot of it's going to be in the eye of the beholder. I think we'll probably have 80 percent turnout amongst the Kurds, 60 percent among the Shias, much lower amongst Sunnis. And the next critical phase will be a constitution that guarantees the rights of the minorities.

Otherwise, we'll have difficulties getting the Sunnis to participate in the government. But we had an international Republican Institute Poll that showed 80 percent of the Iraqi people wanted to vote. I believe that we can move forward and let's hope and pray that no one is injured while they try to exercise this experiment in democracy.

KAGAN: Well, and on that note, Senator, I have to ask you, I think a lot of Americans today are asking at what price does this all come? The day after 31 marines died in Iraq and especially the helicopter incident in western Iraq.

MCCAIN: It's tragic. We mourn their loss. Someday, if we can achieve and free and Democratic society in Iraq, their names will be memorialized by the people of Iraq who have achieved a free and open society, which they never had before, freedom from oppression and dictatorial and brutal regimes, which has been their history.

KAGAN: And finally, before I let you get back to the activities in Davos, Senator, I have to ask you, if you count in a certain way, we are mere month from campaign '08. Your name obviously on anybody's short list of people thinking who might run. Anything you might want to share with us on this Thursday morning here?

MCCAIN: I would -- I'd like to share with you that I'm trying to be a good senator. I'm not contemplating running for president. After a couple of years, that issue will be discussed, but certainly not now.

KAGAN: All right. Had to ask. John McCain, joining us from Davos, Switzerland. Senator, thank you and safe travels back to Washington and to Arizona.

SANCHEZ: I think that was an invitation. He was saying ask me later.

KAGAN: And we will. You know, if he wants to make that announcement on this program, he's always welcome.

SANCHEZ: In fact, we'll put him on right at 10:01.

KAGAN: Absolutely.

SANCHEZ: Coming up next in this hour. Still to come. A huge telephone marriage may be in the works. Could it be the end of AT&T's history? We will take a look.

And there we see President Bush. He's arriving in Cleveland, Ohio, appropriately enough, where he'll talk at the Cleveland Clinic about healthcare and other things. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: President Bush is on the first road trip of his newly commenced second term. He is traveling to Ohio. Remember that battleground state that clinched his November re-election.

Our White House correspondent Dana bash is here with more on the president's trip to Cleveland and other matters out of the White House.

Good morning.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

And the president just arrived in Cleveland. And you're right, he is going to talk about health care, specifically the need to computerize medical records to make it more easy for patients to access them when they need them. Very quickly, health care is the subject that Mr. Bush is talking about at events this week. But the primary focus of this White House right now is to aggressively set expectations for those Iraqi elections three days from now.

And from the Bush perspective, that means declaring success, that no matter what happens, the fact that they are on the first step of democracy, as Mr. Bush called it, right here in the briefing room yesterday, is what is important to focus on. We heard that, of course, from the president. We will hear it from senior officials over the next several days.

The new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, will be speaking out on election day in Iraq, on Sunday. She'll be hitting the Sunday talk shows.

The White House does understand, however, the importance of getting Iraqis Sunnis to vote for legitimacy's sake. So the president did speak out on Arab television yesterday. He did an interview with Al Arabiya saying how important it is for Iraqis, in his words, to defy terrorists and actually go out and vote.

Now the White House is mindful of the fact that public opinion has shifted a bit recently because of the violence in Iraq, that Americans are much less sure about whether war was the right thing in the first place. That seems to have taken a toll on Mr. Bush's personal approval rating. It is at an historic low compared to recent predecessors at this point in the beginning of their second term.

So they understand they have to get that standing back up, particularly as he tries to sell his very aggressive domestic agenda. No. 1, of course, is Social Security reform. Mr. Bush will talk about details of that reform plan that we haven't yet heard in his State of the Union Address.

And, Daryn, he is going to hit the road the very next day. He's going to go around the country to some states, home states of some Democrats who perhaps are up for re-election and a little bit vulnerable, and might be swayed to come to his side to support his reform plan for Social Security -- Daryn.

KAGAN: On the campaign trail again already.

Thank you so much, Dana Bash.

SANCHEZ: The news that we're following now from coast to coast for you.

KAGAN: In the skies over northern Florida, passengers helped subdue this man after he allegedly tried to force his way into the cockpit of a Southwest Airlines flight. No one was hurt, and the plane landed without incident in West Palm Beach. Police there arrested the 37-year-old Philadelphia man.

SANCHEZ: From Cleveland, Ohio, another narrow escape from death, as a pregnant woman managed to crawl out of the wreckage of her car. It seems a tractor trailer had hit a patch of ice on the overpass above her, plunged dozens of feet before slamming right into Anna Martinez's car below on Interstate 176. Remarkably the truck driver was also uninjured.

KAGAN: Roses are red and so are newspapers. So that's why a forlorned husband took out a full-page ad in hopes of saving his 17- year marriage. The man is identified only as "Larry." He paid the "Florida Times Union" in Jacksonville $17,000 to public the plea for forgiveness from his estranged wife. She left him two weeks ago. No word on why. And no word on whether the ad paid off.

Good luck, Lar.

SANCHEZ: There you go.

I thought newspapers were black and white.

KAGAN: But read all over.

SANCHEZ: What a setup guy I am.

Securing the elections. The dangers for U.S. troops and Iraqis as they face a country -- as the country prepares, I should say, to go to the polls this weekend. We're going to have a retired major general who's going to be joining us here to break it all down for us as the second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY begins right after a quick break.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired January 27, 2005 - 10:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're a couple minutes past the half hour. Good morning once again, I'm Daryn Kagan.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Rick Sanchez, and here's what's happening right now in the news.

First of all, the man arrested in connection with Wednesday's deadly train collision in Southern California now faces 11 counts of murder. You heard the Los Angeles County District Attorney announce the charges live right here on CNN moments ago. The suspect, Juan Alvarez, could face the death penalty if he's ultimately convicted. Rescue crews are still searching for a missing passenger in the Glendale wreck. Eleven people in all killed thus far, when the train hit an SUV stuck on the track, then collided with another commuter train, and then a parked freight train as well.

Also U.S. envoy says he's encouraged by what the Palestinians are doing now to try to stop the violence there. William Burns met earlier today with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Burns is also scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today. Burns says the U.S. is determined to do everything it can to try and help in the Middle East.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived for her first day of work a couple of hours ago. Rice's nomination approved by the Senate yesterday, and she was sworn in, in a private White House ceremony. Rice's first overseas mission is expected to take her to the Middle East and Europe. That could happen as early as next week.

Also this story. Dick Clark is back home after being hospitalized for a minor stroke. A spokesman says the 75-year-old entertainer plans to return to work, but can't say when. Clark suffered the stroke seven weeks ago. He was unable to host his New Year's Eve show for the first time in three decades.

KAGAN: In Poland this morning, a coming together of the past and future, the powerful and the once powerless. A live picture there from Auschwitz. World leaders gathered with death camp survivors this morning at Auschwitz. The largest death camp of the Nazi regime. It was 60 years ago today that Russian troops liberated the death factory. More than 1.1 million people died there.

Very few children survived the horrors of Auschwitz, and one of those rare survivors has a special connection to CNN. She's the mother of correspondent Allan Chernoff, and he now shares her very personal account. This, of course, is a story, of course, you will only see right here on CNN. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the few child survivors of Auschwitz, an 11-year-old girl, Rina Margulis (ph), my mother. She and her mother Hinda (ph) had endured half a year at the death factory. Each day pushed deeper into the hell on earth that was Auschwitz. Eleven years ago, our family visited the camp in Poland. My mother described the last time she saw her 9-year-old brother Romek (ph), the day he was selected to be gassed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he took this piece of bread and threw it here over the fence to my mother and said, you take it. I won't need it anymore. And then he started crying and ran away into the barrack.

CHERNOFF: Shipped in a cattle car from the slave labor camp legion my mom was tattooed upon arrival Prisoner A15647. Her bed was a wooden slat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just filled in straight through. Ten people.

CHERNOFF: Starvation was the daily diet. Chicory-flavored water masquerading as coffee. A sliver of bread and a bowl of watery soup. Sometimes there was a chance to swipe or organize food as the prisoners said. 60 years later, my mother remembers grabbing a cabbage near the kitchen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I looked left and I looked right and no one was around. And I took this cabbage as a birthday gift to my aunt Eva, and this was the best gift I could ever give her. It was worth more than any jewelry or gold or anything.

CHERNOFF: My mother got by as only a child could. Using her imagination.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always told my mother and my aunt what I am going to eat after the war. This was the big pleasure. I always said, I'm going to have for breakfast, 20 loaves of bread and five dozen eggs.

CHERNOFF: Yet every day she was surrounded by death. The crematory of smokestacks towered over the camp, blown up by the Nazis before liberators arrived.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fire was coming out all of the time, day and night, and this was crematory where people were burned. And the smell of the flesh was all over the camp.

CHERNOFF: Were you afraid of dying?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't think of death. I always figured out this is my last chance, I'm going to tell them, let's put up an uprising and not go in there and let's resist. And this was my plan.

CHERNOFF: By sheer luck, her selection never came. She and her mother survived. Her father, Abraham (ph) was killed trying to escape a death march.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know how I survived it, it's a pure chance. Not that I was in any way different from everybody else.

CHERNOFF: My mother Rina Margulis Chernoff (ph) witness and survivor, survivor of some of the darkest days on this planet, witness to man's inhumanity against man. Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And after watching that together, we should tell you that at noon today in Washington, D.C. the Holocaust Memorial Museum will mark the Auschwitz anniversary with a moment of silence. Peter Black is the senior historian at the museum, and he's good enough to take some time to talk to us about the significance of Auschwitz as the symbol of the Holocaust.

Mr. Black, thanks so much for joining us. Tell us, if you would, why we remember this day. Why is it important?

PETER BLACK, HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM: Auschwitz -- it's important to remember Auschwitz for several reasons. One, as a symbol of the extremes to which man can do harm to his fellow man. Another one, another reason is that it is the symbol that is sort of a composite of the effort of the Nazis to destroy the European Jews, but perhaps most important of all, Auschwitz, with all its horrors, represents the potential, the potential of every state-sponsored persecution or even state-indulged prejudice.

SANCHEZ: Speaking of prejudice, I had an opportunity to go to Minnesota this last weekend and talk to a gentleman that I think it would be fair to characterize as a neo-Nazi. He and others like him have a tendency to want to rationalize or minimize the Holocaust. What do you say to people like that?

BLACK: Well, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a treasure trove of documentation, oral testimony and artifacts that speaks to the basic facts of the history of the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews and millions of others. And certainly anyone who is in doubt of this is welcome to visit the museum, or to visit our multiple offerings on our Web site at www.ushmm.org.

SANCHEZ: Do we use this as a jumping-off point? There are others who will point out -- and it's quite significant -- other genocides. Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda. Do we use the experience of the Holocaust and the things we learn at your museum to protect those people as well?

BLACK: I think there are many facts and the history offers many suggestions as to how to prevent and to mitigate future disasters. Certainly, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has been following the situation in Darfur very closely and, in fact, has spoken out on this situation, warning of the potential for genocide and this, among other factors, has led to an extensive U.N. investigation. It points to the importance of leaders and people in high places in society speaking out forcefully and explicitly about potential genocides.

SANCHEZ: Peter Black, senior historian at the Holocaust Museum. You do good work, sir. We thank you for taking the time to talk to us this morning.

BLACK: Thank you.

KAGAN: Well, it has been a busy week in international politics. The U.S. selects a new chief diplomat. Iraqis prepare for an historic vote. And world leaders meet to discuss the many crises taking place in the world.

U.S. Senator John McCain is attending that world forum in Davos, Switzerland, while keeping a close eye on developments' impact in Washington. He joins me now from Switzerland to discuss them. Senator, hello, thank you for being here with us.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Hi, Daryn. How are you?

KAGAN: Doing just great. Want to get right to Condoleezza Rice's first day on the job as secretary of state. Yesterday, as there was the discussion going on on the floor of the Senate, you offered up these comments about the debate taking place.

You say, "I wonder why we are starting this new Congress with a protracted debate about a foregone conclusion. I can only conclude that we are doing this for no other reason because of lingering bitterness over the outcome of the election." Could you expand on your remarks, please, sir?

MCCAIN: Well, Daryn, first of all, Condoleezza Rice is a great American success story. This is what America is all about. A young woman who grew up in a segregated part of America where Americans were not treated equally, to rise to the position of secretary of state. We should have been celebrating, I believe, this remarkable American success story.

Also, I thought that some of the remarks -- and I'm not going to mention my colleagues' names -- some of the remarks aimed at her during the hearings challenged her integrity. We can disagree on policy and we disagree on a lot of things, but I think it is very clear that Condoleezza Rice is a person of integrity. And yes, I see this, some lingering bitterness over a very tough campaign. I hope it dissipates soon.

KAGAN: Well, you certainly know about tough campaigns. You speak from experience there. Do you think the 13 votes against her is going to hurt her as she goes about her job representing the United States around the world?

MCCAIN: I do not. 13 out of 100 is not that many. And Condoleezza Rice has good relationships with all the leaders in the world that she's established as the president's national security adviser. I think you'll be seeing her traveling extensively. And I think one of her first priorities is going to be to try to repair some of the damaged relations between the United States and Europe, particularly in seeking their help to move Iraqi forward to a true democracy.

KAGAN: Speaking of democracy, let's look ahead towards this weekend, towards the elections taking place in Iraq. Are you hopeful and what will it take in order to call these elections a success?

MCCAIN: I'm sure that a lot of it's going to be in the eye of the beholder. I think we'll probably have 80 percent turnout amongst the Kurds, 60 percent among the Shias, much lower amongst Sunnis. And the next critical phase will be a constitution that guarantees the rights of the minorities.

Otherwise, we'll have difficulties getting the Sunnis to participate in the government. But we had an international Republican Institute Poll that showed 80 percent of the Iraqi people wanted to vote. I believe that we can move forward and let's hope and pray that no one is injured while they try to exercise this experiment in democracy.

KAGAN: Well, and on that note, Senator, I have to ask you, I think a lot of Americans today are asking at what price does this all come? The day after 31 marines died in Iraq and especially the helicopter incident in western Iraq.

MCCAIN: It's tragic. We mourn their loss. Someday, if we can achieve and free and Democratic society in Iraq, their names will be memorialized by the people of Iraq who have achieved a free and open society, which they never had before, freedom from oppression and dictatorial and brutal regimes, which has been their history.

KAGAN: And finally, before I let you get back to the activities in Davos, Senator, I have to ask you, if you count in a certain way, we are mere month from campaign '08. Your name obviously on anybody's short list of people thinking who might run. Anything you might want to share with us on this Thursday morning here?

MCCAIN: I would -- I'd like to share with you that I'm trying to be a good senator. I'm not contemplating running for president. After a couple of years, that issue will be discussed, but certainly not now.

KAGAN: All right. Had to ask. John McCain, joining us from Davos, Switzerland. Senator, thank you and safe travels back to Washington and to Arizona.

SANCHEZ: I think that was an invitation. He was saying ask me later.

KAGAN: And we will. You know, if he wants to make that announcement on this program, he's always welcome.

SANCHEZ: In fact, we'll put him on right at 10:01.

KAGAN: Absolutely.

SANCHEZ: Coming up next in this hour. Still to come. A huge telephone marriage may be in the works. Could it be the end of AT&T's history? We will take a look.

And there we see President Bush. He's arriving in Cleveland, Ohio, appropriately enough, where he'll talk at the Cleveland Clinic about healthcare and other things. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: President Bush is on the first road trip of his newly commenced second term. He is traveling to Ohio. Remember that battleground state that clinched his November re-election.

Our White House correspondent Dana bash is here with more on the president's trip to Cleveland and other matters out of the White House.

Good morning.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

And the president just arrived in Cleveland. And you're right, he is going to talk about health care, specifically the need to computerize medical records to make it more easy for patients to access them when they need them. Very quickly, health care is the subject that Mr. Bush is talking about at events this week. But the primary focus of this White House right now is to aggressively set expectations for those Iraqi elections three days from now.

And from the Bush perspective, that means declaring success, that no matter what happens, the fact that they are on the first step of democracy, as Mr. Bush called it, right here in the briefing room yesterday, is what is important to focus on. We heard that, of course, from the president. We will hear it from senior officials over the next several days.

The new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, will be speaking out on election day in Iraq, on Sunday. She'll be hitting the Sunday talk shows.

The White House does understand, however, the importance of getting Iraqis Sunnis to vote for legitimacy's sake. So the president did speak out on Arab television yesterday. He did an interview with Al Arabiya saying how important it is for Iraqis, in his words, to defy terrorists and actually go out and vote.

Now the White House is mindful of the fact that public opinion has shifted a bit recently because of the violence in Iraq, that Americans are much less sure about whether war was the right thing in the first place. That seems to have taken a toll on Mr. Bush's personal approval rating. It is at an historic low compared to recent predecessors at this point in the beginning of their second term.

So they understand they have to get that standing back up, particularly as he tries to sell his very aggressive domestic agenda. No. 1, of course, is Social Security reform. Mr. Bush will talk about details of that reform plan that we haven't yet heard in his State of the Union Address.

And, Daryn, he is going to hit the road the very next day. He's going to go around the country to some states, home states of some Democrats who perhaps are up for re-election and a little bit vulnerable, and might be swayed to come to his side to support his reform plan for Social Security -- Daryn.

KAGAN: On the campaign trail again already.

Thank you so much, Dana Bash.

SANCHEZ: The news that we're following now from coast to coast for you.

KAGAN: In the skies over northern Florida, passengers helped subdue this man after he allegedly tried to force his way into the cockpit of a Southwest Airlines flight. No one was hurt, and the plane landed without incident in West Palm Beach. Police there arrested the 37-year-old Philadelphia man.

SANCHEZ: From Cleveland, Ohio, another narrow escape from death, as a pregnant woman managed to crawl out of the wreckage of her car. It seems a tractor trailer had hit a patch of ice on the overpass above her, plunged dozens of feet before slamming right into Anna Martinez's car below on Interstate 176. Remarkably the truck driver was also uninjured.

KAGAN: Roses are red and so are newspapers. So that's why a forlorned husband took out a full-page ad in hopes of saving his 17- year marriage. The man is identified only as "Larry." He paid the "Florida Times Union" in Jacksonville $17,000 to public the plea for forgiveness from his estranged wife. She left him two weeks ago. No word on why. And no word on whether the ad paid off.

Good luck, Lar.

SANCHEZ: There you go.

I thought newspapers were black and white.

KAGAN: But read all over.

SANCHEZ: What a setup guy I am.

Securing the elections. The dangers for U.S. troops and Iraqis as they face a country -- as the country prepares, I should say, to go to the polls this weekend. We're going to have a retired major general who's going to be joining us here to break it all down for us as the second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY begins right after a quick break.

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