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American Morning
'Gimme a Minute'; New Study Puts New Spin on Low-Carb, Low-Fat Diet Debate
Aired September 03, 2004 - 08:30 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning everyone. Eight-thirty here in Florida. We're live in Melbourne today waiting the arrival of Frances.
When she comes on shore is hard to say right now because the storm and its coordinates and its strength have changed -- somewhat dramatically --overnight in the past 12 hours.
Downgraded from a category three. Still a very strong and powerful storm, but there's already forecasters quoted in "The Miami Herald" this morning saying that their predictions are being treated with low confidence at this point.
Low confidence because they do not know right now the path and the course for this storm. It's slowed down; it's moving slower; it's lost a little bit of intensity. But still, it has the potential for strengthening again as it moves past the Bahamas and closer to the southeast coast here.
Of Florida counties here, of 12 of them on the east coast, there have been partial evacuations put out, and they are totaling perhaps -- the governor, Jeb Bush, saying two and a half million people, and many of the two and a half million have heeded the warning with Charley hitting here three weeks to the day today.
We're live in a moment; let you know what we're getting today.
Kelly Wallace with us today back in New York City as well holding the fort down there. Hey, Kelly, good morning again.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again, Bill. At least trying to.
A very important jobs report is coming out right now. We will have those numbers in just a minute. But first, a look at stories now in the news.
The hostage standoff in Russia unfolding at this very minute.
These images just in to CNN. Russian troops have stormed the school where gunmen were holding hundreds of hostages.
Casualty figures are still being confirmed. One local official says most of the hostages have survived, but there are reports that hundreds of the hostages, including children, have been wounded. The Russian News Agency says at least seven people were killed. Meantime, an update on the fate of two French hostages in Iraq. Today a Muslim cleric working to free the journalists said he heard they were moved to a safe location, and he expected their release soon.
Also, three Indian truck drivers held hostage in Iraq for six weeks returned home this morning to a hero's welcome.
Residents in Torres flee Florida's east coast to escape Hurricane Frances. The storm is now a Category Three storm with top winds of 120 miles an hour. But it's still a big and dangerous hurricane that could regain strength before making landfall.
Coming up, CNN's Chad Myers has the latest on the evacuations from Melbourne, Florida.
And President Bush isn't taking time off to bask in the glow of his nomination. In less than an hour the president is in Pennsylvania giving his first address since accepting the Republican nomination.
Democratic Senator John Kerry is in Ohio. He launches his massive 20-state $50 million ad campaign today.
And now more on those jobs numbers. Andy Serwer is here with the latest. Andy, what do the numbers say?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Kelly, they just came in. It's good news for President Bush. The economy added 144,000 jobs in the month of August, almost dead on target. Economists were looking for 150,000. That's close enough.
Other good news. Jobs figures for July revised up from 32,000 to 73,000. Also, June revised up from 78 to 96, and the unemployment rate falls to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent, so all in all, a very good report for the country, and of course, the president will like this, as well.
WALLACE: Certainly lots of smiles, we imagine, inside the White House. Andy Serwer, thanks so much.
SERWER: You're welcome.
WALLACE: And that news gets us right to "Gimme A Minute" this week, and the gang is all back together.
In Washington, Jonah Goldberg, editor of the "National Review" online.
Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, Donna Brazile.
And with us in New York, Andy Borowitz from borowitzreport.com.
Welcome all, everyone. Jonah, let's get right to you.
This new news about the jobs report. Must be very good news for President Bush.
JONAH GOLDBERG, NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE: I think it is. I mean, kind of keep in mind that this is a better unemployment picture number than we had when Clinton was running for reelection in 1996.
You can be sure that the Republicans are going to be pointing that out a lot. It -- the timing is great with the momentum coming out of the convention. I think all in all, it's great news for him.
WALLACE: Donna, does this hurt John Kerry in his effort to put the focus on the economy and what he says President Bush is not doing to create jobs?
DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Look, it's good news for those Americans who are still out of work, and I can tell you this, if George Bush would like to become the first president to create more jobs, then he has to create at least 900,000 jobs over the next two months.
WALLACE: Andy?
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Well, if you look behind the numbers, President Bush put 100,000 people to work making negative ads, so. You have to look at that.
WALLACE: Job security there, right?
BOROWITZ: Absolutely.
WALLACE: All right, well, let's turn to President Bush. His big speech last night wrapping up the Republican National Convention.
Let's just see how he did. Donna, did he accomplish what he needed to do? What did you think?
BRAZILE: I thought the speech was flat. It was divisive. It was cobbled together. And I didn't hear any encouragement -- encouraging -- signs that he wanted to bring the country back together.
WALLACE: Jonah, I was just talking to a Republican who said even as he watched several of President Bush's speeches, this was probably one of the worst, or not very good, speeches of -- the president has given.
GOLDBERG: Oh, I really don't think that's true. I know a lot of Republicans were pretty happy with it. I think the first half was a bit too State of the Union-ish.
You know, it was a bit of a laundry list. But then again, he was getting hammered for not having concrete proposals, for not talking about the economy, and all that kind of stuff.
I think if people tuned into the second half, I think they'd be very, very inspired. I thought it was pretty lyrical, and a very good speech in the second half. First half, a little too technical. WALLACE: Andy, did he dazzle you?
BOROWITZ: I was disappointed. I was really hoping he was going to explain his daughter's jokes.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: He did praise the daughters. He said his "spirited daughters" up there in the box.
BOROWITZ: "Spirit" is a bad word to use.
WALLACE: Well, let's look overall. The Republicans just wrapping up their convention. Democrats wrapping up their convention in Boston. Jonah, overall, who had a more effective convention week? The GOP or the Democrats?
GOLDBERG: Oh, I think pretty clearly the GOP. The -- you know, Bush did pretty much what he needed to do. He had sort of a -- he had a good wind behind him coming into this convention. I think Zell Miller's speech, for all the criticism it got, was very effective, and John Kerry's speech, while very well done as David Frum was saying earlier on this show, was strategically not a very good speech, not a very smart speech, and got him into the trouble that he's in today.
WALLACE: Donna, did the Democrats make a mistake not drawing enough distinctions between John Kerry and President Bush at their convention in Boston? We saw the Republicans do that every day of their convention.
BRAZILE: Well, yes, I attended the Republican Convention -- came back yesterday, and I can tell you they drew more blood at their convention than we drew at our convention -- but I think our -- the goal that we had was right. To be positive, uplifting and we'll see the results in November.
WALLACE: There's the bell there. Andy, very quickly, your thoughts.
BOROWITZ: Well, I just thought the security this week was amazing except for that one time when the lunatic got into the Garden and gave the keynote address.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: Who would that be? All right, so much attention on the convention and so many other things. Jonah, what was the most undercovered story of the week?
GOLDBERG: Oh, it was the most uncovered is the fact that Tom Daschle is in some serious trouble in South Dakota, he spent $9 million, which is like $90 million in a bigger state.
And he's even running ads of him hugging President Bush.
WALLACE: Donna? BRAZILE: Well, this week the Department of Housing gave out a report that they're going to begin to cut back on rental aid to poor people at a time the Republicans were talking their compassion.
It's apparent that there's not a lot of compassion for those who live in public housing.
WALLACE: And Andy, the most undercovered story of the week?
BOROWITZ: Well, Kelly, at the next Olympics, judges will no longer be allowed to check their e-mail during gymnastics.
WALLACE: They had better be focusing on scoring, is that right?
BOROWITZ: I guess that's the point.
WALLACE: I guess so. OK. Andy Borowitz, Jonah Goldberg, Donna Brazile. Great to see you all. Thanks for being here.
BRAZILE: Thank you.
GOLDBERG: Thank you.
BOROWITZ: Thank you.
WALLACE: All right. Now we go back to Bill Hemmer in Florida -- Bill.
HEMMER: All right, we continue to monitor Frances and try to figure out what we know or really what we don't know at this hour, Kelly.
Want to get to our meteorologist Chad Myers making his way down the beach. Chad what do you have down there for us?
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: All right, Chad, thanks for that. We're watching also back to the CNN Center the weather center there Rob Marciano is handling that.
Rob, what do you have on the satellite?
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: Rob, thanks for that. You listen to the National Hurricane Center just about 40 minutes ago, Ed Rappaport -- asking him about the direction and the path that he currently sees.
He clearly and probably smartly stayed away from answering the question, because at this point it is so unpredictable.
We're watching Frances here in Florida. Back to Kelly now in New York with more there -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Thanks, Bill. Still to come right here on AMERICAN MORNING a major jobs report is just out. We'll look at what the numbers mean for the election ahead.
A new study adds more fuel to the low carb diet debate. The details next all ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: Dr. Sanjay Gupta is off today. In this morning's medical segment -- a new study puts a new spin on the low-carb, low- fat diet debate.
Joining us now Elizabeth Cohen from the CNN Center with some details. Good morning, Elizabeth. So many people on these diets. What can you tell them?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kelly.
Well, what we can tell them is that they are in good company. Atkins books have sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
There is indeed a low carb craze, but there's been one big question that scientists say has really been unanswered, which is do these diets help long-term, not short-term, but long-term -- and are they better than the traditional low fat diet?
Well, in the British medical journal the Lanced they looked at three studies that were done and found that after six months, indeed the people who were on an Atkins-style diet did have more weight loss than the folks who were on the low-fat diet.
However, at 12 months both groups had the same weight loss. Now I've spoken to authors of these studies, and what they say is that, bottom line in a way it doesn't really matter which diet you're on, what does matter is sticking to it. They say when you look at the statistics, the people who can stick to a diet, any diet, they were the ones who lost weight, and the people who couldn't stick to it didn't lose weight.
That sounds obvious, but a lot of people get very obsessed with which diet to do, and the experts say, you know what? It doesn't really matter so much what you do just do one you can stick to. Kelly.
WALLACE: Elizabeth how do they explain then in the short term the weight loss you will see with these low carb low fat diets?
COHEN: Well, the Atkins folks will tell you that the short-term weight loss has to do with the fact that you're increasing your protein, you're increasing your fat, you're vastly decreasing your carbs. That sort of sets your body into this weight loss and makes you feel less hungry.
However, critics of Atkins will say, look, Atkins is so restrictive you're basically telling people not to eat all sorts of desserts, no cookies, no ice cream, no candy -- all of that kind of thing, and that when you tell people that, of course they're going to lose weight. You're just cutting down on calories. So it really depends on who you ask.
WALLACE: But the thing is, Elizabeth, is over the time on this diet it's supposed to make you less hungry then why in the long-term shouldn't you keep taking the weight off?
COHEN: Well, because people just can't stick to it. That's the problem. It's really not a fault of the diet per se it's because people can't stick to it.
When you ask people to do something that's really different from what they've done all they're life they may be able to make that change in the short term they can sort of gather all their forces and do it, but over the long term they just go back to their old ways.
And that's the huge challenge when it comes to dieting.
WALLACE: Mentally, you can only give up those chocolate chip cookies for so long, right?
COHEN: That's right. You can do it maybe for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months, but people just go right back there.
WALLACE: Great. Elizabeth Cohen, terrific to see you. Thanks so much for joining us today.
COHEN: Thanks Kelly.
WALLACE: Still to come, we will check in with Bill in Florida where the winds from Hurricane Frances are picking up and the monthly jobs report just out.
How will it effect President Bush's campaign? Andy has that ahead.
Stay with us right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Back here live now in Melbourne, Florida where the surf is kicking up to a degree that we haven't seen in the past couple of hours. Still though this storm, Frances, a significant storm but well off the coast of Florida.
Two hundred and fifty miles southeast in fact of our location here in Melbourne. Up and down the east coast of Florida there are significant concerns, especially coming on the heels of Charley that hit the West Coast of Florida three weeks to the day today.
I talked about that topic with the Miami police chief, John Timoney a short time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Chief, what have you told the people in your community?
CHIEF JOHN TIMONEY, MIAMI POLICE: Well, we've been out there all night since yesterday afternoon through the night doing a mandatory evacuation of the low-lying areas that are east of U.S. 1 the need to evacuate, get to higher ground.
And that's been going smoothly. We're also doing last minute preparations along construction sites and other locations. A lot of ambulances moved patients from hospitals to other locations.
So there's been a beehive of activity on the part of governmental and medical officials but other than that the city is pretty much a ghost town.
HEMMER: Well Charley hit three weeks ago to the day today.
TIMONEY: Yes, yes.
HEMMER: What impact did Charley have on preparations for this storm?
TIMONEY: Well it's interesting. We have sent over a day after Charley hit -- we sent over two teams of our officers to help in the recovery. And it's interesting -- they just got back last week and so most of our heavy-duty equipment has already been tried out and is available and so we were just gearing up over the last couple of days.
So in some crazy respect Charley was helpful in giving us a heads up in the preparation. But the other thing with Charley you saw how unpredictable at the last minute Charley was, and what we've been seeing at the last 24 hours is that these hurricanes have a mind of their own. They're coming or they're not coming. They're coming fast or slowing down.
Who knows? It's just been pushed back now a day so we're anxiously awaiting.
HEMMER: With the amount of evacuations to this point, Chief, what resources do you have to prevent looting and is looting a concern of yours with so many empty homes?
TIMONEY: It is you know there are quite a few officers in the department that have a lot of experience, particularly with Andrew and other big hurricanes and that's always a cause for concern and of course we have our SWAT units and other response units, teams of officers ready to respond first call of looting or anything like that.
As you are well aware, for about a six or eight hour period everyone bunkers down and we only go out in extreme emergencies or life-threatening situations. But we will also go out in the case if there are looters or some of the people who are trying to take advantage of you know -- of an unfortunate situation.
And so we'll be out there ahead of time looking for people as it becomes a ghost town that are out there that shouldn't be out there that are out there to do damage, do some stealing, burglaries. And then of course right after the hurricane we'll be out there in force.
But even during the hurricane, we'll respond to situations as the need be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: John Timoney is the police chief down in Miami, one of the counties, one of the 12 counties on the East Coast of Florida that we given the mandatory evacuation order. Mandatory evacuation bit of a misnomer, by the way. You think because it's mandatory you have to obey it.
Not necessarily the case. The warning goes out, but we know even though you are urged to take cover and urged to get out, we know several people have listened to that warning just based on the traffic we watched yesterday and last evening out on the highways now jammed from southern Florida heading up to the north.
By the way, the police chief in Miami says he's left his own home. He's sleeping in his office to ride this one out.
We'll see where Frances goes. Back in a moment here live in Florida. Back to Kelly now in New York. Kelly.
WALLACE: Bill, thanks. Unbelievable so many people leaving their homes. We miss you here but I'm fortunate to be sitting by Jack Cafferty's side.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Lucky you.
WALLACE: Lucky me.
CAFFERTY: Monthly jobs report is out. Very important to the two gentlemen who are trying to be elected to the nation's highest office.
Andy Serwer is here "Minding Your Business." Latest on the new numbers and a revision of the old ones.
SERWER: Yes, and you know, we like to make fun of economists, or at least I do. But they were pretty much dead on here. They predicted 150,000 jobs would be created in August and they were almost right to the tee.
144,000 jobs -- you can see here also the unemployment rate drops from 5.5 percent to 5.4 percent and as you suggest Jack the July numbers revised up from an anemic -- we keep using that word -- 32,000 jobs to 112,000 jobs.
Now, what does this mean? Its definitely good news for the country and for the Bush campaign. It is not the halcyon days of a couple of years ago when we used to create 300,000 jobs a month. There's no question about that.
And also, it is extremely likely that the president will be presiding over a first term where there was job loss. So you know a mixed picture in total.
CAFFERTY: But at least it temporarily puts a lie to that idea that we're heading into a bit slow down of some kind. I mean this is a pretty robust number. Not bad.
SERWER: I think that's good way to put it, yes.
CAFFERTY: How do you think the markets will react?
SERWER: Well right now, the futures are still down. I think a lot of that has to do with the Intel situation. They've lowered their forecast for the quarter so we're still digesting a little bit.
CAFFERTY: All right. Thanks Andy.
SERWER: Yes.
WALLACE: All right, Andy -- Jack. Still to come we will go back to Bill as Hurricane Frances pushes toward the Florida Coast and President Bush says he's still the best man for the job.
Did he make the case with swing voters? That's ahead. Stay with us right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Good morning. A beast of a storm heading for Florida. Hurricane Frances bearing down and forcing one of the largest evacuations in Florida's history.
Meanwhile, overseas Russian troops storm a school held by terrorists there. Children by the dozen fleeing for their lives and many others are casualties.
All those stories straight ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
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Aired September 3, 2004 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning everyone. Eight-thirty here in Florida. We're live in Melbourne today waiting the arrival of Frances.
When she comes on shore is hard to say right now because the storm and its coordinates and its strength have changed -- somewhat dramatically --overnight in the past 12 hours.
Downgraded from a category three. Still a very strong and powerful storm, but there's already forecasters quoted in "The Miami Herald" this morning saying that their predictions are being treated with low confidence at this point.
Low confidence because they do not know right now the path and the course for this storm. It's slowed down; it's moving slower; it's lost a little bit of intensity. But still, it has the potential for strengthening again as it moves past the Bahamas and closer to the southeast coast here.
Of Florida counties here, of 12 of them on the east coast, there have been partial evacuations put out, and they are totaling perhaps -- the governor, Jeb Bush, saying two and a half million people, and many of the two and a half million have heeded the warning with Charley hitting here three weeks to the day today.
We're live in a moment; let you know what we're getting today.
Kelly Wallace with us today back in New York City as well holding the fort down there. Hey, Kelly, good morning again.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again, Bill. At least trying to.
A very important jobs report is coming out right now. We will have those numbers in just a minute. But first, a look at stories now in the news.
The hostage standoff in Russia unfolding at this very minute.
These images just in to CNN. Russian troops have stormed the school where gunmen were holding hundreds of hostages.
Casualty figures are still being confirmed. One local official says most of the hostages have survived, but there are reports that hundreds of the hostages, including children, have been wounded. The Russian News Agency says at least seven people were killed. Meantime, an update on the fate of two French hostages in Iraq. Today a Muslim cleric working to free the journalists said he heard they were moved to a safe location, and he expected their release soon.
Also, three Indian truck drivers held hostage in Iraq for six weeks returned home this morning to a hero's welcome.
Residents in Torres flee Florida's east coast to escape Hurricane Frances. The storm is now a Category Three storm with top winds of 120 miles an hour. But it's still a big and dangerous hurricane that could regain strength before making landfall.
Coming up, CNN's Chad Myers has the latest on the evacuations from Melbourne, Florida.
And President Bush isn't taking time off to bask in the glow of his nomination. In less than an hour the president is in Pennsylvania giving his first address since accepting the Republican nomination.
Democratic Senator John Kerry is in Ohio. He launches his massive 20-state $50 million ad campaign today.
And now more on those jobs numbers. Andy Serwer is here with the latest. Andy, what do the numbers say?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Kelly, they just came in. It's good news for President Bush. The economy added 144,000 jobs in the month of August, almost dead on target. Economists were looking for 150,000. That's close enough.
Other good news. Jobs figures for July revised up from 32,000 to 73,000. Also, June revised up from 78 to 96, and the unemployment rate falls to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent, so all in all, a very good report for the country, and of course, the president will like this, as well.
WALLACE: Certainly lots of smiles, we imagine, inside the White House. Andy Serwer, thanks so much.
SERWER: You're welcome.
WALLACE: And that news gets us right to "Gimme A Minute" this week, and the gang is all back together.
In Washington, Jonah Goldberg, editor of the "National Review" online.
Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, Donna Brazile.
And with us in New York, Andy Borowitz from borowitzreport.com.
Welcome all, everyone. Jonah, let's get right to you.
This new news about the jobs report. Must be very good news for President Bush.
JONAH GOLDBERG, NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE: I think it is. I mean, kind of keep in mind that this is a better unemployment picture number than we had when Clinton was running for reelection in 1996.
You can be sure that the Republicans are going to be pointing that out a lot. It -- the timing is great with the momentum coming out of the convention. I think all in all, it's great news for him.
WALLACE: Donna, does this hurt John Kerry in his effort to put the focus on the economy and what he says President Bush is not doing to create jobs?
DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Look, it's good news for those Americans who are still out of work, and I can tell you this, if George Bush would like to become the first president to create more jobs, then he has to create at least 900,000 jobs over the next two months.
WALLACE: Andy?
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Well, if you look behind the numbers, President Bush put 100,000 people to work making negative ads, so. You have to look at that.
WALLACE: Job security there, right?
BOROWITZ: Absolutely.
WALLACE: All right, well, let's turn to President Bush. His big speech last night wrapping up the Republican National Convention.
Let's just see how he did. Donna, did he accomplish what he needed to do? What did you think?
BRAZILE: I thought the speech was flat. It was divisive. It was cobbled together. And I didn't hear any encouragement -- encouraging -- signs that he wanted to bring the country back together.
WALLACE: Jonah, I was just talking to a Republican who said even as he watched several of President Bush's speeches, this was probably one of the worst, or not very good, speeches of -- the president has given.
GOLDBERG: Oh, I really don't think that's true. I know a lot of Republicans were pretty happy with it. I think the first half was a bit too State of the Union-ish.
You know, it was a bit of a laundry list. But then again, he was getting hammered for not having concrete proposals, for not talking about the economy, and all that kind of stuff.
I think if people tuned into the second half, I think they'd be very, very inspired. I thought it was pretty lyrical, and a very good speech in the second half. First half, a little too technical. WALLACE: Andy, did he dazzle you?
BOROWITZ: I was disappointed. I was really hoping he was going to explain his daughter's jokes.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: He did praise the daughters. He said his "spirited daughters" up there in the box.
BOROWITZ: "Spirit" is a bad word to use.
WALLACE: Well, let's look overall. The Republicans just wrapping up their convention. Democrats wrapping up their convention in Boston. Jonah, overall, who had a more effective convention week? The GOP or the Democrats?
GOLDBERG: Oh, I think pretty clearly the GOP. The -- you know, Bush did pretty much what he needed to do. He had sort of a -- he had a good wind behind him coming into this convention. I think Zell Miller's speech, for all the criticism it got, was very effective, and John Kerry's speech, while very well done as David Frum was saying earlier on this show, was strategically not a very good speech, not a very smart speech, and got him into the trouble that he's in today.
WALLACE: Donna, did the Democrats make a mistake not drawing enough distinctions between John Kerry and President Bush at their convention in Boston? We saw the Republicans do that every day of their convention.
BRAZILE: Well, yes, I attended the Republican Convention -- came back yesterday, and I can tell you they drew more blood at their convention than we drew at our convention -- but I think our -- the goal that we had was right. To be positive, uplifting and we'll see the results in November.
WALLACE: There's the bell there. Andy, very quickly, your thoughts.
BOROWITZ: Well, I just thought the security this week was amazing except for that one time when the lunatic got into the Garden and gave the keynote address.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: Who would that be? All right, so much attention on the convention and so many other things. Jonah, what was the most undercovered story of the week?
GOLDBERG: Oh, it was the most uncovered is the fact that Tom Daschle is in some serious trouble in South Dakota, he spent $9 million, which is like $90 million in a bigger state.
And he's even running ads of him hugging President Bush.
WALLACE: Donna? BRAZILE: Well, this week the Department of Housing gave out a report that they're going to begin to cut back on rental aid to poor people at a time the Republicans were talking their compassion.
It's apparent that there's not a lot of compassion for those who live in public housing.
WALLACE: And Andy, the most undercovered story of the week?
BOROWITZ: Well, Kelly, at the next Olympics, judges will no longer be allowed to check their e-mail during gymnastics.
WALLACE: They had better be focusing on scoring, is that right?
BOROWITZ: I guess that's the point.
WALLACE: I guess so. OK. Andy Borowitz, Jonah Goldberg, Donna Brazile. Great to see you all. Thanks for being here.
BRAZILE: Thank you.
GOLDBERG: Thank you.
BOROWITZ: Thank you.
WALLACE: All right. Now we go back to Bill Hemmer in Florida -- Bill.
HEMMER: All right, we continue to monitor Frances and try to figure out what we know or really what we don't know at this hour, Kelly.
Want to get to our meteorologist Chad Myers making his way down the beach. Chad what do you have down there for us?
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: All right, Chad, thanks for that. We're watching also back to the CNN Center the weather center there Rob Marciano is handling that.
Rob, what do you have on the satellite?
(WEATHER REPORT)
HEMMER: Rob, thanks for that. You listen to the National Hurricane Center just about 40 minutes ago, Ed Rappaport -- asking him about the direction and the path that he currently sees.
He clearly and probably smartly stayed away from answering the question, because at this point it is so unpredictable.
We're watching Frances here in Florida. Back to Kelly now in New York with more there -- Kelly.
WALLACE: Thanks, Bill. Still to come right here on AMERICAN MORNING a major jobs report is just out. We'll look at what the numbers mean for the election ahead.
A new study adds more fuel to the low carb diet debate. The details next all ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: Dr. Sanjay Gupta is off today. In this morning's medical segment -- a new study puts a new spin on the low-carb, low- fat diet debate.
Joining us now Elizabeth Cohen from the CNN Center with some details. Good morning, Elizabeth. So many people on these diets. What can you tell them?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kelly.
Well, what we can tell them is that they are in good company. Atkins books have sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
There is indeed a low carb craze, but there's been one big question that scientists say has really been unanswered, which is do these diets help long-term, not short-term, but long-term -- and are they better than the traditional low fat diet?
Well, in the British medical journal the Lanced they looked at three studies that were done and found that after six months, indeed the people who were on an Atkins-style diet did have more weight loss than the folks who were on the low-fat diet.
However, at 12 months both groups had the same weight loss. Now I've spoken to authors of these studies, and what they say is that, bottom line in a way it doesn't really matter which diet you're on, what does matter is sticking to it. They say when you look at the statistics, the people who can stick to a diet, any diet, they were the ones who lost weight, and the people who couldn't stick to it didn't lose weight.
That sounds obvious, but a lot of people get very obsessed with which diet to do, and the experts say, you know what? It doesn't really matter so much what you do just do one you can stick to. Kelly.
WALLACE: Elizabeth how do they explain then in the short term the weight loss you will see with these low carb low fat diets?
COHEN: Well, the Atkins folks will tell you that the short-term weight loss has to do with the fact that you're increasing your protein, you're increasing your fat, you're vastly decreasing your carbs. That sort of sets your body into this weight loss and makes you feel less hungry.
However, critics of Atkins will say, look, Atkins is so restrictive you're basically telling people not to eat all sorts of desserts, no cookies, no ice cream, no candy -- all of that kind of thing, and that when you tell people that, of course they're going to lose weight. You're just cutting down on calories. So it really depends on who you ask.
WALLACE: But the thing is, Elizabeth, is over the time on this diet it's supposed to make you less hungry then why in the long-term shouldn't you keep taking the weight off?
COHEN: Well, because people just can't stick to it. That's the problem. It's really not a fault of the diet per se it's because people can't stick to it.
When you ask people to do something that's really different from what they've done all they're life they may be able to make that change in the short term they can sort of gather all their forces and do it, but over the long term they just go back to their old ways.
And that's the huge challenge when it comes to dieting.
WALLACE: Mentally, you can only give up those chocolate chip cookies for so long, right?
COHEN: That's right. You can do it maybe for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months, but people just go right back there.
WALLACE: Great. Elizabeth Cohen, terrific to see you. Thanks so much for joining us today.
COHEN: Thanks Kelly.
WALLACE: Still to come, we will check in with Bill in Florida where the winds from Hurricane Frances are picking up and the monthly jobs report just out.
How will it effect President Bush's campaign? Andy has that ahead.
Stay with us right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Back here live now in Melbourne, Florida where the surf is kicking up to a degree that we haven't seen in the past couple of hours. Still though this storm, Frances, a significant storm but well off the coast of Florida.
Two hundred and fifty miles southeast in fact of our location here in Melbourne. Up and down the east coast of Florida there are significant concerns, especially coming on the heels of Charley that hit the West Coast of Florida three weeks to the day today.
I talked about that topic with the Miami police chief, John Timoney a short time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Chief, what have you told the people in your community?
CHIEF JOHN TIMONEY, MIAMI POLICE: Well, we've been out there all night since yesterday afternoon through the night doing a mandatory evacuation of the low-lying areas that are east of U.S. 1 the need to evacuate, get to higher ground.
And that's been going smoothly. We're also doing last minute preparations along construction sites and other locations. A lot of ambulances moved patients from hospitals to other locations.
So there's been a beehive of activity on the part of governmental and medical officials but other than that the city is pretty much a ghost town.
HEMMER: Well Charley hit three weeks ago to the day today.
TIMONEY: Yes, yes.
HEMMER: What impact did Charley have on preparations for this storm?
TIMONEY: Well it's interesting. We have sent over a day after Charley hit -- we sent over two teams of our officers to help in the recovery. And it's interesting -- they just got back last week and so most of our heavy-duty equipment has already been tried out and is available and so we were just gearing up over the last couple of days.
So in some crazy respect Charley was helpful in giving us a heads up in the preparation. But the other thing with Charley you saw how unpredictable at the last minute Charley was, and what we've been seeing at the last 24 hours is that these hurricanes have a mind of their own. They're coming or they're not coming. They're coming fast or slowing down.
Who knows? It's just been pushed back now a day so we're anxiously awaiting.
HEMMER: With the amount of evacuations to this point, Chief, what resources do you have to prevent looting and is looting a concern of yours with so many empty homes?
TIMONEY: It is you know there are quite a few officers in the department that have a lot of experience, particularly with Andrew and other big hurricanes and that's always a cause for concern and of course we have our SWAT units and other response units, teams of officers ready to respond first call of looting or anything like that.
As you are well aware, for about a six or eight hour period everyone bunkers down and we only go out in extreme emergencies or life-threatening situations. But we will also go out in the case if there are looters or some of the people who are trying to take advantage of you know -- of an unfortunate situation.
And so we'll be out there ahead of time looking for people as it becomes a ghost town that are out there that shouldn't be out there that are out there to do damage, do some stealing, burglaries. And then of course right after the hurricane we'll be out there in force.
But even during the hurricane, we'll respond to situations as the need be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: John Timoney is the police chief down in Miami, one of the counties, one of the 12 counties on the East Coast of Florida that we given the mandatory evacuation order. Mandatory evacuation bit of a misnomer, by the way. You think because it's mandatory you have to obey it.
Not necessarily the case. The warning goes out, but we know even though you are urged to take cover and urged to get out, we know several people have listened to that warning just based on the traffic we watched yesterday and last evening out on the highways now jammed from southern Florida heading up to the north.
By the way, the police chief in Miami says he's left his own home. He's sleeping in his office to ride this one out.
We'll see where Frances goes. Back in a moment here live in Florida. Back to Kelly now in New York. Kelly.
WALLACE: Bill, thanks. Unbelievable so many people leaving their homes. We miss you here but I'm fortunate to be sitting by Jack Cafferty's side.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Lucky you.
WALLACE: Lucky me.
CAFFERTY: Monthly jobs report is out. Very important to the two gentlemen who are trying to be elected to the nation's highest office.
Andy Serwer is here "Minding Your Business." Latest on the new numbers and a revision of the old ones.
SERWER: Yes, and you know, we like to make fun of economists, or at least I do. But they were pretty much dead on here. They predicted 150,000 jobs would be created in August and they were almost right to the tee.
144,000 jobs -- you can see here also the unemployment rate drops from 5.5 percent to 5.4 percent and as you suggest Jack the July numbers revised up from an anemic -- we keep using that word -- 32,000 jobs to 112,000 jobs.
Now, what does this mean? Its definitely good news for the country and for the Bush campaign. It is not the halcyon days of a couple of years ago when we used to create 300,000 jobs a month. There's no question about that.
And also, it is extremely likely that the president will be presiding over a first term where there was job loss. So you know a mixed picture in total.
CAFFERTY: But at least it temporarily puts a lie to that idea that we're heading into a bit slow down of some kind. I mean this is a pretty robust number. Not bad.
SERWER: I think that's good way to put it, yes.
CAFFERTY: How do you think the markets will react?
SERWER: Well right now, the futures are still down. I think a lot of that has to do with the Intel situation. They've lowered their forecast for the quarter so we're still digesting a little bit.
CAFFERTY: All right. Thanks Andy.
SERWER: Yes.
WALLACE: All right, Andy -- Jack. Still to come we will go back to Bill as Hurricane Frances pushes toward the Florida Coast and President Bush says he's still the best man for the job.
Did he make the case with swing voters? That's ahead. Stay with us right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HEMMER: Good morning. A beast of a storm heading for Florida. Hurricane Frances bearing down and forcing one of the largest evacuations in Florida's history.
Meanwhile, overseas Russian troops storm a school held by terrorists there. Children by the dozen fleeing for their lives and many others are casualties.
All those stories straight ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
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