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American Morning

Candidates Tighten Focus on Battleground States; Doses of Flu Vaccine Missing

Aired October 25, 2004 - 09:30   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: Welcome back, everyone, 9:30 in New York. From military records to the L word, we'll take a special blow by blow look at which campaign attacks have stuck and which ones have not. Bill Schneider has that in a matter of minutes today.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Also there's concern out there about stolen flu shots and thanks to long lines and the shortage, you might be tempted to take a look at some alternatives for getting the vaccine. Elizabeth Cohen says buyer beware. She's going to tell you what to look for. But first, before we get to that, let's get another look at the news. Daryn Kagan's at the CNN center for us this morning.

Hello again, Daryn. Good morning.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Soledad. Good morning. Another U.S. soldier has been killed in Iraq. U.S. military sources say an improvised explosive device blew up in western Baghdad. Five other soldiers were injured in that attack. Meanwhile the fate of kidnapped humanitarian aid worker Margaret Hassan remains unknown. She appeared in a video on Friday pleading for her life. Hassan was abducted almost a week ago in Baghdad.

Another powerful aftershock rattled northern Japan this morning. The casualty count from the weekend earthquake has now risen to 25 dead, more than 1,000 injured. Some 100,000 people are taking refuge in gymnasium and public buildings. There are fears that more aftershocks will be felt throughout the day.

And in Southern California, screening begins today for prospective jurors in the high profile trial of actor Robert Blake. The former star of "Baretta" is accused of killing his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley in May of 2001. As many as 1800 people are expected to take part in the initial describing phase that is set to start in just a few hours. They're going to have to answer questions about what kind of job do they have and answer questions about their television viewing habits, as well.

O'BRIEN: I imagine all that relevant. What are you looking at 10:00, Daryn?

KAGAN: Soledad, we're going to continue to follow the story of the missing almost 400 tons of explosives out of Iraq. Also Secretary of State Colin Powell in Asia talking tough with North Korea. That's all ahead.

O'BRIEN: We look forward to that. Thanks, Daryn.

In eight days America will choose the next president. But as Ed Henry tells us, it's the residents in just a handful of swing states whose votes will really count.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The playing field has shrunk for Senator Kerry and President Bush to about a dozen battlegrounds. At the top of the list, of course, is Florida, where both men rallied their faithful this weekend.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You go out and vote, and we're going to make certain that this time not only does every vote count, every vote will be counted in this country.

HENRY: The candidates also nearly crossed paths in New Mexico, which the Democrats carried by just 366 votes last time.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We both have records. I'm proudly running on mine.

HENRY: By CNN's analysis, the president solidly has 24 states worth 208 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Kerry can count on 12 states plus Washington, D.C. for 179 electoral votes. That leaves 14 states worth 151 electoral votes up for grabs. The big three, in addition to Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, a few others in the east like New Hampshire. Kerry won the primary in the state next to his own but he'll be back today. Four western states, including Colorado, where the president returns today and four Midwestern blue states where the Bush team feels good that Kerry is playing defense in places like Minnesota and Wisconsin.

DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIR: We're on offense in these states which we lost in 2000 and I think that's going to show a big victory for President Bush on Election Day.

HENRY: The Kerry camp counters they have a good shot at some of the biggest red states.

MIKE McCURRY, SENIOR KERRY ADVISER: They're all closely contested and of course we're on their turf, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire. We're really taking it to them in a big way in those states. It's going to be very, very close going to the end.

HENRY In the final sprint, both candidates are rolling out their big guns. This week Arnold Schwarzenegger will be campaigning with President Bush. Today, Al Gore is stumping right here in Florida, and later this afternoon, Bill Clinton, still recuperating from heart surgery, will be with John Kerry in Philadelphia.

Ed Henry, CNN, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Be sure to stay with CNN for live coverage of the 1:00 p.m. Eastern Kerry rally in Philadelphia with former President Bill Clinton -- Bill.

HEMMER: George Bush and John Kerry have fired one hard shot after another at each other in this campaign. The president calls the senator a flip-flopper. Senator Kerry fires back saying President Bush has misled America into war. But which shots at this point have really hurt and which ones have bounced off harmlessly? Bill Schneider calls the blow by blow this morning from Washington.

Bill, welcome back and good morning to you.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: Segment blow by blow. First take the flip-flopper charge. We've heard this for months. Has that stuck?

SCHNEIDER: Yeah. Oh, yeah. The Republicans started making that charge way back in March, right after Kerry sewed up the nomination on super Tuesday. They hammered away. They created a stereotype. These days if you ask a voter, is there something that you don't particularly like about John Kerry, they'll instantly say, well I think he's a flip-flopper and Kerry of course, did his part to help, when last spring he said I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it and that just has been hung around his neck for months now.

HEMMER: All right. Bill, hang on one second. In New Hampshire Senator Kerry talking about this story that we've talked about. The issue in Iraq with the munitions now missing.

KERRY: It has a profound truth about George Bush's policies in Iraq and where we find ourselves today. George W. Bush, who talks tough, talks tough, and brags about making America safer, has once again failed to deliver. After being warned about the danger of major stockpiles of explosives in Iraq, this president failed to guard those stockpiles, where nearly 380 tons of highly explosive weapons were kept.

Today, today we learn that these explosives are missing, unaccounted for, and potentially in the hands of terrorists. Terrorists could use this material to kill our troops, our people, blow up airplanes and level buildings.

In May of this year, this administration was warned that terrorists may be helping themselves to quote the greatest explosives bonanza in history. And now we know that our country and our troops are less safe because this president failed to do the basics. This is one of the great blunders of Iraq and one of the great blunders of this administration and the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk, and put this country at greater risk than we ought to be.

Let me say this, let me say this as directly as I can, that the unbelievable blindness, stubbornness, arrogance of this administration to do the basics, has now allowed this president to once again fail the test of being a commander in chief. Every step of the way, this administration has miscalculated, miscalculated about how to go to war, miscalculated about the numbers of troops that we would need, miscalculated about sending young Americans to war without the armor they needed, without the Humvees they needed that were armored and now, Secretary Rumsfeld we know cavalierly dismissed the danger of looting and now we know the impact.

Make no mistake, my fellow Americans, our troops are the best trained, most courageous, best-led forces in the world and they've been doing their job honorably. They have been doing their job courageously, and honorably. The problem is, the commander in chief has not been doing his. If President Bush can't recognize his failures in Iraq, which he doesn't admit, won't acknowledge, you can't fix them and then he's doomed to repeat the same mistakes elsewhere, whether it's North Korea or Iran or in any other of the risks that we face ahead of us. My fellow Americans, we can't afford to risk four more years of George Bush's miscalculations.

HEMMER: Senator Kerry on the stump today in New Hampshire talking about the 380 tons of munitions now reported missing in the country of Iraq. We've been talking about the story for the better part of the morning. We will get more reaction throughout the morning.

President Bush is on the stump in Colorado. Then later today, Senator Kerry comes back in Philadelphia with the former president Bill Clinton, much more on this as we go throughout the day.

In the meantime now, I want to get back to our segment we go blow by blow, back with bill Schneider and Bill, sorry for the interruption. But let's get back to the topic that we had described earlier and that's the Swift Boat ads at this point. We know they stuck initially. Have they continued to hurt Senator Kerry or not?

SCHNEIDER: No, they really haven't. Voters never believed, they never accepted the charge that Kerry was not a legitimate war hero or that he did not earn his medals during the Vietnam war. They did have some impact, however, because they ended the -- they cut off the momentum of the Kerry campaign in August coming out of the Democratic convention. It took a couple of weeks, really, for Kerry to respond to see if these issues would have any traction and Kerry really did not regain that momentum until the debates.

HEMMER: Meanwhile on the other side, Democrats hitting the White House hard. They say they bungled the issues of jobs in this country and the issue of Social Security. Have those issues resonated with voters?

SCHNEIDER: Yes, absolutely. Voters are perfectly aware that jobs have been lost under President Bush, the first president since Hoover to suffer a net loss of jobs and that Social Security is in trouble. If this president were running on his domestic record as his father experienced in 1992, he'd probably have the same fate as his father, which is why President Bush is running on terrorism. It's the one issue where he has a big advantage.

HEMMER: President Bush, meanwhile, talking about Iraq. Let's listen to part of what he said recently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BUSH: If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today and we do, I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Has this been a sore spot for the White House?

SCHNEIDER: Well, it's interesting, because the charge that he misrepresented the reasons for war didn't really stick with the public. It's a curious thing. Most people aren't that bothered. A lot of Americans are, but a lot of Americans are not bothered by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, which is a bit of a surprise because for many Americans, the justification for Iraq was 9/11, not the weapons of mass destruction. I would put it this way. the charge that Bush has misrepresented the case for war didn't really stick. The charge that he miscalculated, which we just heard John Kerry make in New Hampshire, that really has stuck, and we see the consequences every day.

HEMMER: We call it blow by blow. We'll do it again tomorrow. OK, Bill Schneider down in D.C. Another reminder, later today in the noon Eastern hour, President Bush on the stump in the state of Colorado. Now, Soledad with more.

O'BRIEN: If the flu shot shortage isn't bad enough, there have been numerous cases of stolen or missing doses of flu vaccine. Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us from the CNN center with a little bit more on that.

Elizabeth, good morning to you.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. Soledad, as we all know, the supply of flu vaccines was cut nearly in half when there was manufacturing problems at one of the places that makes flu vaccine. Well, as you said, if that weren't bad enough, apparently now people are stealing it, probably hoping to get it on the black market and make a buck.

It was the largest theft, appears to have been at a clinic in Merced County, California, 900 doses. Also there apparently was a theft of 620 doses from a pediatricians office in Colorado, another theft, 100 doses missing from a homeless clinic in Baltimore.

Now how do you know then, if when you go to get a flu shot if you're getting the real thing or if you're getting a stolen version of the flu shot. Well, there are a couple of things that you want to look for. First of all, just say no if they're asking for more than $30 for a flu shot. It shouldn't cost that much. If it does that's price gouging that may be coming from stolen merchandise there and also if it's offered over the Internet, you ought to just say no.

Now the reason for just saying no isn't just ethical. It's also medical. Flu vaccine needs to be kept refrigerated and if it's been stolen you don't know how they've treated it and it could possibly be problematic -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: A couple quick questions for you. First, give me a sense of just how bad this flu season has been so far, and how bad they expect it to get.

COHEN: Well, it's very early on, so it's not so bad so far. There's been sporadic activity in nine states and those nine states include California, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota and Texas and again it's just sporadic activity. It's not very, very heavy activity in those states.

Now there's really no way to predict if it's going to be a terrible year or not, but so far it doesn't look so bad. Flu usually peaks in January or February so we haven't gotten anywhere near to the middle of the season yet.

O'BRIEN: Elizabeth Cohen for us this morning. Elizabeth, thanks.

COHEN: Thanks.

HEMMER: Once the biggest toy chain in the country, now putting itself up for sale. Who's likely to come bidding?

O'BRIEN: Also this morning, Ashlee Simpson walks off the set of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Did her music career go along with her? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) coming up next. Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: I miss this music. It's just like old times. I'm all choked up. Good morning, guys. Welcome back everybody. Time for "90 Second Pop" on a Monday. The gang is all here, me included. B.J. Sigesmund is the staff editor for "Us" weekly, Sarah Bernard, contributing editor for "New York" magazine, and Toure, CNN's pop culture correspondent. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Oh, it was ugly on SNL. "Saturday Night Live," Ashlee Simpson. I think we can't even start talking until we take a look at a clip. So let's watch.

Wait a minute, she's not singing. Then she does some kind of dance and good-bye and then she walks off the stage.

TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: The band keeps going on. The band is the band is the best. They just kept going on like whatever.

SARAH BERNARD, "NEW YORK": I think the worst thing about the whole thing is that she blamed her band in the end. Wasn't that just the wrong thing to do?

O'BRIEN: And clearly her track was coming up, she was lip- synching.

TOURE: Right, the wrong song came up but this is like the video era where if you are cute enough to be in a video, you get a chance to be a star. But like, you have no performing experience and anybody with any experience could have made this work.

O'BRIEN: By doing what?

TOURE: Adjust in some way. She could have found some way to own it, to work with it, to adjust.

BERNARD: To show that she was flexible. Live TV.

B.J. SIGESMUND, "US WEEKLY": What's going on? Wrong song, let's start again. But instead, she just totally threw in the towel it shows her inexperience and lack of expertise. She is 19 years old. She only started performing live in the last six months.

TOURE: Historically, before...

O'BRIEN: She learned a lot.

TOURE: Before you got signed, historically like you performed. You have been in bands. You've been out there on stages. Now like your video and then you go on tour it's the first time you have been in front of people.

BERNARD: In terms of what this is going to do to her...

O'BRIEN: What does it do to her career?

BERNARD: I don't think anybody expected that she is Barbra Streisand here, right that she's got this amazing voice and she can just be as prepared as we thought. I think that people like her for her fashion, for her show and for the fact that she is Jessica's little under dog sister. I don't think it matters as much.

SIGESMUND: The public is fickle, though and they liked her a lot. Her album debuted at number one because of the show on MTV but the public can turn on people just as fast.

TOURE: She's a pet rock.

O'BRIEN: No there there, is that what you're saying?

TOURE: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's move on. Let's talk about "The Swan."

BERNARD: So exciting, starting tonight.

O'BRIEN: They're going in a new direction.

BERNARD: They are. "The Swan" is the show where a whole -- people get a whole lot of plastic surgery and then compete in the end in a Miss America-style pageant. And what they are doing this year, they got a lot of flack for implying that plastic surgery solves all your problems. So they are taking people who really have...

SIGESMUND: Have real problems.

BERNARD: Have real problems, though, it's more reconstructive plastic surgery. Tonight it's eliminating Jennifer who is 30 years old and she was a burn victim. She lost about -- 70 percent of her body was covered in burns. They are going to fix that as well as give her the swan treatment.

SIGESMUND: I think this makes it clear why the show is so controversial, because people will say on one hand it is so exploitive, how can you do this to these women? How can you parade their faults out there and then put them in the beauty pageant at the end, but at the same time, you watch it and you really feel for them. You get their stories. Oh, my gosh, I want this woman's life to get better and that's part of the addiction of the show.

BERNARD: Toure is not a fan of the show as I remember from last season.

TOURE: I have a difficult time watching the whole thing. Isn't there something just creepy about the whole thing? Even though we're helping these people, like it's just makes my skin crawl, the whole idea. It was a movie you would be -- no, that would never happen.

BERNARD: The next "American Idol." It's their highest show.

O'BRIEN: Toure, Sarah, B.J., thanks, as always. Bill back to you.

HEMMER: All right. Soledad, this time tomorrow we'll be officially one week away until election day. What, if anything, could sway your vote? Good question. That's next after this on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: The markets are open and Toys "R" Us. Are they ditching the toys in Toys "R" Us? Good question for Andy Serwer "Minding Your Business." Good morning. First the markets.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE": Yes, didn't need Karnac (ph) to predict this this morning. Stocks are trading down. Oil at $55 a barrel is going to do it to you. Let's go to the big board and look at the world's largest casino, down 35 this morning. CEO Jeffrey Greenberg will be resigning this morning. We'll be following that on CNN. Delta Air Lines also looking to get a billion dollars in pay cuts from its pilots. If they don't, that company could be filing Chapter 11 this week and we'll be watching that one closely.

Down in Houston way, Andy Fastow, former CFO of Enron is scheduled to be sentenced today. You may remember he agreed to a plea bargain, 10 years. So I think that's going to be somewhat of a pro forma affair where he will say yes, I'm going to get my 10 years. Not clear when he will start his sentence. His wife Lee begins her one- year sentence next summer.

Toys "R" Us, Bill suggested that Toys "R" Us is looking to get out of the toy business. Remember we talked about this a couple weeks back, the irony of it all, Toys "R" Us without toys. They're just doing baby stuff. Babies "R" Us. They're looking to sell their 1200 stores. They're getting people from Wall Street looking. A lot of big buyout firms looking for $2 to $3 billion. The timing a little peculiar of course because we're heading right into the Christmas season, so one of these new buyout firms is going to be looking to get Barbies and all kinds of electronic stuff, probably not knowing what they're going to be doing.

HEMMER: Who's stealing the market share from that?

SERWER: Wal-Mart.

HEMMER: Ooh.

SERWER: Wal-Mart is the...

O'BRIEN: ... online too.

SERWER: Yes, online, Amazon selling a whole lot of toys, as well. But Wal-Mart is the biggest toy retailer in the world right now.

HEMMER: Thank you, Andy.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: So they're just going to sell diapers and stuff?

SERWER: Yeah. "diapies (ph) 'r' us."

CAFFERY: Great.

SERWER: That gets him going.

CAFFERTY: Soledad will be there.

SERWER: Yes, she will.

HEMMER: In both arms.

SERWER: In bulk.

O'BRIEN: You guys can start bringing those in for me. I can only carry so much home from the drug store. Jack, "Question of the Day."

CAFFERTY: Week to go, "Is there anything that could change your vote?" Waiting for that October surprise. Ronald writes: "No, the day of the election I'm going to fill my gas tank for $2.07 a gallon, go pay a fortune for my prescriptions, get turned down for a flu shot, drive 40 miles to go to my $8 an hour job and then go home and vote. Kind of a no-brainer here, don't you think?"

Sandy in Alabama writes: "The only thing that could change my vote in the next week is a fourth surprise candidate that's a middle income person who has never been in Vietnam or the military, believes in a woman's right to choose, gay rights, stem cell research, strengthening our immigration laws and a prosperous U.S. of A.

And Alan in Sonoma, California: "Change my mind? Be accused of flip-flopping? No way Jose. I'm definitely voting for Bush. No, Kerry. No, Bush. No, Kerry. Yeah, Kerry, definitely Kerry.

HEMMER: Eight more days to do that, thanks, Jack.

O'BRIEN: Very amusing today.

CAFFERTY: Good, well, it's our little welcome back here from Chicago.

HEMMER: Yeah, it's nice. Our next hour on CNN, hundreds of tons of explosives go missing in Iraq. If U.S. troops do not control them, who does? That's next hour at Daryn and Rick on "CNN LIVE TODAY." We're back in a moment on AMERICAN MORNING after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: We've got to run on a Monday, see you again tomorrow on Tuesday, correct?

O'BRIEN: Yes, that's correct.

HEMMER: Rick and Daryn standing by in Atlanta. Hey guys, good morning.

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 October 25, 2004 - 09:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone, 9:30 in New York. From military records to the L word, we'll take a special blow by blow look at which campaign attacks have stuck and which ones have not. Bill Schneider has that in a matter of minutes today.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Also there's concern out there about stolen flu shots and thanks to long lines and the shortage, you might be tempted to take a look at some alternatives for getting the vaccine. Elizabeth Cohen says buyer beware. She's going to tell you what to look for. But first, before we get to that, let's get another look at the news. Daryn Kagan's at the CNN center for us this morning.

Hello again, Daryn. Good morning.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Soledad. Good morning. Another U.S. soldier has been killed in Iraq. U.S. military sources say an improvised explosive device blew up in western Baghdad. Five other soldiers were injured in that attack. Meanwhile the fate of kidnapped humanitarian aid worker Margaret Hassan remains unknown. She appeared in a video on Friday pleading for her life. Hassan was abducted almost a week ago in Baghdad.

Another powerful aftershock rattled northern Japan this morning. The casualty count from the weekend earthquake has now risen to 25 dead, more than 1,000 injured. Some 100,000 people are taking refuge in gymnasium and public buildings. There are fears that more aftershocks will be felt throughout the day.

And in Southern California, screening begins today for prospective jurors in the high profile trial of actor Robert Blake. The former star of "Baretta" is accused of killing his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley in May of 2001. As many as 1800 people are expected to take part in the initial describing phase that is set to start in just a few hours. They're going to have to answer questions about what kind of job do they have and answer questions about their television viewing habits, as well.

O'BRIEN: I imagine all that relevant. What are you looking at 10:00, Daryn?

KAGAN: Soledad, we're going to continue to follow the story of the missing almost 400 tons of explosives out of Iraq. Also Secretary of State Colin Powell in Asia talking tough with North Korea. That's all ahead.

O'BRIEN: We look forward to that. Thanks, Daryn.

In eight days America will choose the next president. But as Ed Henry tells us, it's the residents in just a handful of swing states whose votes will really count.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The playing field has shrunk for Senator Kerry and President Bush to about a dozen battlegrounds. At the top of the list, of course, is Florida, where both men rallied their faithful this weekend.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You go out and vote, and we're going to make certain that this time not only does every vote count, every vote will be counted in this country.

HENRY: The candidates also nearly crossed paths in New Mexico, which the Democrats carried by just 366 votes last time.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We both have records. I'm proudly running on mine.

HENRY: By CNN's analysis, the president solidly has 24 states worth 208 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Kerry can count on 12 states plus Washington, D.C. for 179 electoral votes. That leaves 14 states worth 151 electoral votes up for grabs. The big three, in addition to Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, a few others in the east like New Hampshire. Kerry won the primary in the state next to his own but he'll be back today. Four western states, including Colorado, where the president returns today and four Midwestern blue states where the Bush team feels good that Kerry is playing defense in places like Minnesota and Wisconsin.

DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIR: We're on offense in these states which we lost in 2000 and I think that's going to show a big victory for President Bush on Election Day.

HENRY: The Kerry camp counters they have a good shot at some of the biggest red states.

MIKE McCURRY, SENIOR KERRY ADVISER: They're all closely contested and of course we're on their turf, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire. We're really taking it to them in a big way in those states. It's going to be very, very close going to the end.

HENRY In the final sprint, both candidates are rolling out their big guns. This week Arnold Schwarzenegger will be campaigning with President Bush. Today, Al Gore is stumping right here in Florida, and later this afternoon, Bill Clinton, still recuperating from heart surgery, will be with John Kerry in Philadelphia.

Ed Henry, CNN, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Be sure to stay with CNN for live coverage of the 1:00 p.m. Eastern Kerry rally in Philadelphia with former President Bill Clinton -- Bill.

HEMMER: George Bush and John Kerry have fired one hard shot after another at each other in this campaign. The president calls the senator a flip-flopper. Senator Kerry fires back saying President Bush has misled America into war. But which shots at this point have really hurt and which ones have bounced off harmlessly? Bill Schneider calls the blow by blow this morning from Washington.

Bill, welcome back and good morning to you.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Bill.

HEMMER: Segment blow by blow. First take the flip-flopper charge. We've heard this for months. Has that stuck?

SCHNEIDER: Yeah. Oh, yeah. The Republicans started making that charge way back in March, right after Kerry sewed up the nomination on super Tuesday. They hammered away. They created a stereotype. These days if you ask a voter, is there something that you don't particularly like about John Kerry, they'll instantly say, well I think he's a flip-flopper and Kerry of course, did his part to help, when last spring he said I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it and that just has been hung around his neck for months now.

HEMMER: All right. Bill, hang on one second. In New Hampshire Senator Kerry talking about this story that we've talked about. The issue in Iraq with the munitions now missing.

KERRY: It has a profound truth about George Bush's policies in Iraq and where we find ourselves today. George W. Bush, who talks tough, talks tough, and brags about making America safer, has once again failed to deliver. After being warned about the danger of major stockpiles of explosives in Iraq, this president failed to guard those stockpiles, where nearly 380 tons of highly explosive weapons were kept.

Today, today we learn that these explosives are missing, unaccounted for, and potentially in the hands of terrorists. Terrorists could use this material to kill our troops, our people, blow up airplanes and level buildings.

In May of this year, this administration was warned that terrorists may be helping themselves to quote the greatest explosives bonanza in history. And now we know that our country and our troops are less safe because this president failed to do the basics. This is one of the great blunders of Iraq and one of the great blunders of this administration and the incredible incompetence of this president and this administration has put our troops at risk, and put this country at greater risk than we ought to be.

Let me say this, let me say this as directly as I can, that the unbelievable blindness, stubbornness, arrogance of this administration to do the basics, has now allowed this president to once again fail the test of being a commander in chief. Every step of the way, this administration has miscalculated, miscalculated about how to go to war, miscalculated about the numbers of troops that we would need, miscalculated about sending young Americans to war without the armor they needed, without the Humvees they needed that were armored and now, Secretary Rumsfeld we know cavalierly dismissed the danger of looting and now we know the impact.

Make no mistake, my fellow Americans, our troops are the best trained, most courageous, best-led forces in the world and they've been doing their job honorably. They have been doing their job courageously, and honorably. The problem is, the commander in chief has not been doing his. If President Bush can't recognize his failures in Iraq, which he doesn't admit, won't acknowledge, you can't fix them and then he's doomed to repeat the same mistakes elsewhere, whether it's North Korea or Iran or in any other of the risks that we face ahead of us. My fellow Americans, we can't afford to risk four more years of George Bush's miscalculations.

HEMMER: Senator Kerry on the stump today in New Hampshire talking about the 380 tons of munitions now reported missing in the country of Iraq. We've been talking about the story for the better part of the morning. We will get more reaction throughout the morning.

President Bush is on the stump in Colorado. Then later today, Senator Kerry comes back in Philadelphia with the former president Bill Clinton, much more on this as we go throughout the day.

In the meantime now, I want to get back to our segment we go blow by blow, back with bill Schneider and Bill, sorry for the interruption. But let's get back to the topic that we had described earlier and that's the Swift Boat ads at this point. We know they stuck initially. Have they continued to hurt Senator Kerry or not?

SCHNEIDER: No, they really haven't. Voters never believed, they never accepted the charge that Kerry was not a legitimate war hero or that he did not earn his medals during the Vietnam war. They did have some impact, however, because they ended the -- they cut off the momentum of the Kerry campaign in August coming out of the Democratic convention. It took a couple of weeks, really, for Kerry to respond to see if these issues would have any traction and Kerry really did not regain that momentum until the debates.

HEMMER: Meanwhile on the other side, Democrats hitting the White House hard. They say they bungled the issues of jobs in this country and the issue of Social Security. Have those issues resonated with voters?

SCHNEIDER: Yes, absolutely. Voters are perfectly aware that jobs have been lost under President Bush, the first president since Hoover to suffer a net loss of jobs and that Social Security is in trouble. If this president were running on his domestic record as his father experienced in 1992, he'd probably have the same fate as his father, which is why President Bush is running on terrorism. It's the one issue where he has a big advantage.

HEMMER: President Bush, meanwhile, talking about Iraq. Let's listen to part of what he said recently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BUSH: If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today and we do, I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Has this been a sore spot for the White House?

SCHNEIDER: Well, it's interesting, because the charge that he misrepresented the reasons for war didn't really stick with the public. It's a curious thing. Most people aren't that bothered. A lot of Americans are, but a lot of Americans are not bothered by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, which is a bit of a surprise because for many Americans, the justification for Iraq was 9/11, not the weapons of mass destruction. I would put it this way. the charge that Bush has misrepresented the case for war didn't really stick. The charge that he miscalculated, which we just heard John Kerry make in New Hampshire, that really has stuck, and we see the consequences every day.

HEMMER: We call it blow by blow. We'll do it again tomorrow. OK, Bill Schneider down in D.C. Another reminder, later today in the noon Eastern hour, President Bush on the stump in the state of Colorado. Now, Soledad with more.

O'BRIEN: If the flu shot shortage isn't bad enough, there have been numerous cases of stolen or missing doses of flu vaccine. Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us from the CNN center with a little bit more on that.

Elizabeth, good morning to you.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. Soledad, as we all know, the supply of flu vaccines was cut nearly in half when there was manufacturing problems at one of the places that makes flu vaccine. Well, as you said, if that weren't bad enough, apparently now people are stealing it, probably hoping to get it on the black market and make a buck.

It was the largest theft, appears to have been at a clinic in Merced County, California, 900 doses. Also there apparently was a theft of 620 doses from a pediatricians office in Colorado, another theft, 100 doses missing from a homeless clinic in Baltimore.

Now how do you know then, if when you go to get a flu shot if you're getting the real thing or if you're getting a stolen version of the flu shot. Well, there are a couple of things that you want to look for. First of all, just say no if they're asking for more than $30 for a flu shot. It shouldn't cost that much. If it does that's price gouging that may be coming from stolen merchandise there and also if it's offered over the Internet, you ought to just say no.

Now the reason for just saying no isn't just ethical. It's also medical. Flu vaccine needs to be kept refrigerated and if it's been stolen you don't know how they've treated it and it could possibly be problematic -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: A couple quick questions for you. First, give me a sense of just how bad this flu season has been so far, and how bad they expect it to get.

COHEN: Well, it's very early on, so it's not so bad so far. There's been sporadic activity in nine states and those nine states include California, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota and Texas and again it's just sporadic activity. It's not very, very heavy activity in those states.

Now there's really no way to predict if it's going to be a terrible year or not, but so far it doesn't look so bad. Flu usually peaks in January or February so we haven't gotten anywhere near to the middle of the season yet.

O'BRIEN: Elizabeth Cohen for us this morning. Elizabeth, thanks.

COHEN: Thanks.

HEMMER: Once the biggest toy chain in the country, now putting itself up for sale. Who's likely to come bidding?

O'BRIEN: Also this morning, Ashlee Simpson walks off the set of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Did her music career go along with her? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) coming up next. Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: I miss this music. It's just like old times. I'm all choked up. Good morning, guys. Welcome back everybody. Time for "90 Second Pop" on a Monday. The gang is all here, me included. B.J. Sigesmund is the staff editor for "Us" weekly, Sarah Bernard, contributing editor for "New York" magazine, and Toure, CNN's pop culture correspondent. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Oh, it was ugly on SNL. "Saturday Night Live," Ashlee Simpson. I think we can't even start talking until we take a look at a clip. So let's watch.

Wait a minute, she's not singing. Then she does some kind of dance and good-bye and then she walks off the stage.

TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: The band keeps going on. The band is the band is the best. They just kept going on like whatever.

SARAH BERNARD, "NEW YORK": I think the worst thing about the whole thing is that she blamed her band in the end. Wasn't that just the wrong thing to do?

O'BRIEN: And clearly her track was coming up, she was lip- synching.

TOURE: Right, the wrong song came up but this is like the video era where if you are cute enough to be in a video, you get a chance to be a star. But like, you have no performing experience and anybody with any experience could have made this work.

O'BRIEN: By doing what?

TOURE: Adjust in some way. She could have found some way to own it, to work with it, to adjust.

BERNARD: To show that she was flexible. Live TV.

B.J. SIGESMUND, "US WEEKLY": What's going on? Wrong song, let's start again. But instead, she just totally threw in the towel it shows her inexperience and lack of expertise. She is 19 years old. She only started performing live in the last six months.

TOURE: Historically, before...

O'BRIEN: She learned a lot.

TOURE: Before you got signed, historically like you performed. You have been in bands. You've been out there on stages. Now like your video and then you go on tour it's the first time you have been in front of people.

BERNARD: In terms of what this is going to do to her...

O'BRIEN: What does it do to her career?

BERNARD: I don't think anybody expected that she is Barbra Streisand here, right that she's got this amazing voice and she can just be as prepared as we thought. I think that people like her for her fashion, for her show and for the fact that she is Jessica's little under dog sister. I don't think it matters as much.

SIGESMUND: The public is fickle, though and they liked her a lot. Her album debuted at number one because of the show on MTV but the public can turn on people just as fast.

TOURE: She's a pet rock.

O'BRIEN: No there there, is that what you're saying?

TOURE: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's move on. Let's talk about "The Swan."

BERNARD: So exciting, starting tonight.

O'BRIEN: They're going in a new direction.

BERNARD: They are. "The Swan" is the show where a whole -- people get a whole lot of plastic surgery and then compete in the end in a Miss America-style pageant. And what they are doing this year, they got a lot of flack for implying that plastic surgery solves all your problems. So they are taking people who really have...

SIGESMUND: Have real problems.

BERNARD: Have real problems, though, it's more reconstructive plastic surgery. Tonight it's eliminating Jennifer who is 30 years old and she was a burn victim. She lost about -- 70 percent of her body was covered in burns. They are going to fix that as well as give her the swan treatment.

SIGESMUND: I think this makes it clear why the show is so controversial, because people will say on one hand it is so exploitive, how can you do this to these women? How can you parade their faults out there and then put them in the beauty pageant at the end, but at the same time, you watch it and you really feel for them. You get their stories. Oh, my gosh, I want this woman's life to get better and that's part of the addiction of the show.

BERNARD: Toure is not a fan of the show as I remember from last season.

TOURE: I have a difficult time watching the whole thing. Isn't there something just creepy about the whole thing? Even though we're helping these people, like it's just makes my skin crawl, the whole idea. It was a movie you would be -- no, that would never happen.

BERNARD: The next "American Idol." It's their highest show.

O'BRIEN: Toure, Sarah, B.J., thanks, as always. Bill back to you.

HEMMER: All right. Soledad, this time tomorrow we'll be officially one week away until election day. What, if anything, could sway your vote? Good question. That's next after this on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: The markets are open and Toys "R" Us. Are they ditching the toys in Toys "R" Us? Good question for Andy Serwer "Minding Your Business." Good morning. First the markets.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE": Yes, didn't need Karnac (ph) to predict this this morning. Stocks are trading down. Oil at $55 a barrel is going to do it to you. Let's go to the big board and look at the world's largest casino, down 35 this morning. CEO Jeffrey Greenberg will be resigning this morning. We'll be following that on CNN. Delta Air Lines also looking to get a billion dollars in pay cuts from its pilots. If they don't, that company could be filing Chapter 11 this week and we'll be watching that one closely.

Down in Houston way, Andy Fastow, former CFO of Enron is scheduled to be sentenced today. You may remember he agreed to a plea bargain, 10 years. So I think that's going to be somewhat of a pro forma affair where he will say yes, I'm going to get my 10 years. Not clear when he will start his sentence. His wife Lee begins her one- year sentence next summer.

Toys "R" Us, Bill suggested that Toys "R" Us is looking to get out of the toy business. Remember we talked about this a couple weeks back, the irony of it all, Toys "R" Us without toys. They're just doing baby stuff. Babies "R" Us. They're looking to sell their 1200 stores. They're getting people from Wall Street looking. A lot of big buyout firms looking for $2 to $3 billion. The timing a little peculiar of course because we're heading right into the Christmas season, so one of these new buyout firms is going to be looking to get Barbies and all kinds of electronic stuff, probably not knowing what they're going to be doing.

HEMMER: Who's stealing the market share from that?

SERWER: Wal-Mart.

HEMMER: Ooh.

SERWER: Wal-Mart is the...

O'BRIEN: ... online too.

SERWER: Yes, online, Amazon selling a whole lot of toys, as well. But Wal-Mart is the biggest toy retailer in the world right now.

HEMMER: Thank you, Andy.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: So they're just going to sell diapers and stuff?

SERWER: Yeah. "diapies (ph) 'r' us."

CAFFERY: Great.

SERWER: That gets him going.

CAFFERTY: Soledad will be there.

SERWER: Yes, she will.

HEMMER: In both arms.

SERWER: In bulk.

O'BRIEN: You guys can start bringing those in for me. I can only carry so much home from the drug store. Jack, "Question of the Day."

CAFFERTY: Week to go, "Is there anything that could change your vote?" Waiting for that October surprise. Ronald writes: "No, the day of the election I'm going to fill my gas tank for $2.07 a gallon, go pay a fortune for my prescriptions, get turned down for a flu shot, drive 40 miles to go to my $8 an hour job and then go home and vote. Kind of a no-brainer here, don't you think?"

Sandy in Alabama writes: "The only thing that could change my vote in the next week is a fourth surprise candidate that's a middle income person who has never been in Vietnam or the military, believes in a woman's right to choose, gay rights, stem cell research, strengthening our immigration laws and a prosperous U.S. of A.

And Alan in Sonoma, California: "Change my mind? Be accused of flip-flopping? No way Jose. I'm definitely voting for Bush. No, Kerry. No, Bush. No, Kerry. Yeah, Kerry, definitely Kerry.

HEMMER: Eight more days to do that, thanks, Jack.

O'BRIEN: Very amusing today.

CAFFERTY: Good, well, it's our little welcome back here from Chicago.

HEMMER: Yeah, it's nice. Our next hour on CNN, hundreds of tons of explosives go missing in Iraq. If U.S. troops do not control them, who does? That's next hour at Daryn and Rick on "CNN LIVE TODAY." We're back in a moment on AMERICAN MORNING after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: We've got to run on a Monday, see you again tomorrow on Tuesday, correct?

O'BRIEN: Yes, that's correct.

HEMMER: Rick and Daryn standing by in Atlanta. Hey guys, good morning.

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