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American Morning

Troop Level Debate; Week of Giving

Aired November 25, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Ready. Set. Shop. There they go in Macy's New York. Look, it is 31 minutes past 7:00 in the morning and Macy's is crowded. Crowded because, of course . . .
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: At 5:00 Eastern this morning, Macy's opened the door and a thousand people rushed in.

O'BRIEN: Can you believe that? (INAUDIBLE) A scene. It's like . . .

COSTELLO: A herd of cattle.

O'BRIEN: Yes, that would be a very good description of it. It is Black Friday, obviously, which is the day after Thanksgiving. Many people getting out there, spending some money. Tony Harris is I wonder if he's going to be one of them.

Hey, Tony. Good morning to you.

TONY HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, no, not likely. Not likely.

O'BRIEN: Not at all. Did you go yesterday? Is that why?

HARRIS: No. Not at all. For any reason. I try to avoid it at all costs, Soledad. At all costs.

O'BRIEN: You know eventually you're going to have to go, right?

HARRIS: Yes, you're right about that.

O'BRIEN: Good morning to you.

HARRIS: And good morning to you, Soledad and Carol.

Good morning, everyone.

Holiday shoppers getting an early jumpstart today. Many stores have already been opened for about two hours now. These are some pictures of people arriving at Macy's in New York City. But things got pretty chaotic for early birds at a Wal-Mart in Orlando, Florida. Take a look at this. An apparent scuffle broke out over a laptop that was on sale. A man was tackled by security.

New York City and parade officials are reviewing safety standards after a balloon mishap injured two sisters at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Take a look. Armature video tape captured the incident. A cable from the balloon got tangled up with a lamp post causing debris to fall. Take a look. Both girls were treated for minor head injuries. A similar accident in 1997 injured spectator and led to new training procedures for balloon handlers.

A milestone in the Middle East. A ceremony marking the reopening of the Rafa (ph) boarder crossing between Gaza and Egypt. It's part of a U.S. brokered deal with Israel and the Palestinians to allow greater movement to and from Gaza. The crossing will officially reopen tomorrow.

And do you remember Michael Brown? He's the former FEMA chief who stepped down soon after Hurricane Katrina but remind on the government payroll as a consultant for a while. Well now Brown says he's starting a consulting firm of his own that will focus on what, you ask? Can't make it up, emergency planning. Brown's firm will be based in Colorado.

Thirty-three minutes after the hour. Soledad and Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: I'm dying to know how much he charges.

HARRIS: Good question.

O'BRIEN: Yes, that's just . . .

COSTELLO: I am dying and he says companies are already interested and I want to know who they are.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it raises a lot of questions. It's just odd, isn't it?

COSTELLO: Yes, we'll have to do some digging!

O'BRIEN: Yes, no question.

COSTELLO: It really is.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Tony.

COSTELLO: As the debate over Iraq grows, the Bush administration may be changing its tone on troop withdrawals. So what could that mean for Democrats? CNN Political Analyst and "L.A. Times" Columnist Ron Brownstein joins us now live from Washington.

Happy Thanksgiving.

RON BROWNSTEIN, L.A. TIMES COLUMNIST: Good morning. Happy Thanksgiving, Carol.

COSTELLO: Let's start with what Condoleezza Rice said to our John King about the draw down of troops.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: I suspect that the American forces are not going to be needed in the number that they're there for all that much longer because the Iraqis are continuing to making progress in function, not just in numbers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So is that a significant change and does that mean that we're not going to wait until the Iraqi security forces can take over?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think it's an evolutionary change. Look, what the administration has said very clearly, and drawing a contrast with what is becoming a position for more and more Democrats, the administration has said any withdrawal of troops should be conditions based. It should be only if the Iraqis are able to assume more of the responsibility for defending the country.

Where Condoleezza Rice went a step further with John King was in suggesting that was, in fact, on its way, it was occurring. And next week the president is scheduled to give a speech himself in Annapolis where he is also going to make the case that the Iraqis are making more progress than many in America believe. And the implication of that would seem to be that some troop withdrawals are going to be possible next year, which is certainly what many political figures in both parties expect.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Well, let's talk about one of those political figures, Democratic Congressman John Murtha, because he pushed this issue to the forefront. And you say he caused the center of gravity among Democrats to shift on this issue. What do you mean by that?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think he crystallized what is happening. There is not a unified position among Democrats, as you know, about what to do next in Iraq and there probably won't be one throughout all of the year. But the center of gravity, the dominant opinion in the party, is clearly moving toward finding ways to pressure President Bush to accelerate the withdrawal of American troops.

I think what Murtha did is he crystalize what has already been happening. John Kerry, Russ Feingold in the Senate, over 60 Democrats in the House have signed on to legislation that is meant to accelerate the withdrawal of troops. A number of candidates on the stump are pushing this idea. A lot of different things have been happening. What Murtha did was bring it together. And I do think you're going to see more Democrats talking in this way if the president himself doesn't move in the next four or five months.

COSTELLO: Well, you say they don't have a unified stance. Does that hurt the Democrats in the long run? They don't seem to have a unified stance about much.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, on this issue, I think it's very unlikely you're going to see a party-wide position that everyone can sign on to, in part because there is significant differences in sort of an ideological view about how things are going in Iraq. For example, Senator Joe Biden last week was very critical of the idea of an immediate withdrawal. Also because there are different political situations, some of the Democrats, of course, come from more Republican leaning red states.

But I do think that what's developing is something that really activists on both sides, and even the White House have wanted, which is more of a clear debate. Most of 2005 there was very little political differentiation between the party. Very little debate in Washington about what was happening in Iraq despite the growing anxiety of the country.

COSTELLO: Yes, but, Ron . . .

BROWNSTEIN: Now you're getting more of a space between parties.

COSTELLO: I know. And, you know, Republicans are very nervous about this because the president really can't set a timetable, can he, when he's been talking all along about how dangerous that could be for our troops?

BROWNSTEIN: No, I don't think I agree with you, that is not going to happen. That is a clear distinction the president's making. He's arguing the Democratic critics, at least, want an artificial timetable. He says he wants it condition based. But either way, I think there, as I said, there's a widespread expectation in both parties and I think a lot of Republicans are hoping that the situation in Iraq will allow him to begin drawing down troops in 2006. And I think many Republicans, in fact, would see that as the most important thing the administration can do to try to help him get in a better position than they are today for those 2006 elections here at home.

COSTELLO: CNN Political Analyst and "L.A. Times" Columnist Ron Brownstein, thanks for joining us this morning.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thirty-eight minutes past the hour now. Let's get right to Jacqui Jeras with an update on the weather for the day ahead.

Good morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: We want to tell you about a little change we've got coming up. It's a programming note, really. Starting on Monday, you can catch AMERICAN MORNING one hour earlier. We begin at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time, 3:00 a.m. Pacific, obviously. You'll recall on Monday, that's when we have the new . . .

COSTELLO: Yes, it's the big merger. The merger between "Daybreak" and AMERICAN MORNING.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it is.

COSTELLO: Look at us floating in the sky above New York there.

O'BRIEN: As strange as that looks. Yes, we have a giant billboard right next to the Empire State Building.

COSTELLO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: We're going to have an exclusive interview with Lieutenant General Russel Honore on Monday. And also we'll update you on the Saddam Hussein trial. The trial is back on. Apparently on Monday they start calling witnesses. So, obviously, we'll be keeping you up-to-speed on what's happening in that trial too.

COSTELLO: And it's always interesting to watch Saddam Hussein to se what he'll say in court.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it's a little bit of a circus, that court appears, in every single time we've seen it so far.

Much more ahead this morning. Andy's "Minding Your Business." Taking a closer look at Black Friday and busting some of the myths about this big shopping day.

COSTELLO: Plus our special series "Week of Giving." Today we'll take you to a small town that actually did adopt one New Orleans family after Katrina. Oh, such a great story. And what great people in Linthicum, Maryland. We'll be right back.

KATHY CHOINA: Hi, I'm Kathy Choina from Metarie, Louisiana and I was 31 weeks pregnant when my husband and his family and I evacuated to Memphis, Tennessee, for Hurricane Katrina. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott on Park Place for 20 days and the general manager, Brandan Boyce, and his entire staff helped us more than we could have ever imagined. They made such a horrible experience for us turn into a wonderful stay at their hotel. So from our entire family, we want to thank them and the generous city of Memphis for all that they did for us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SGT. TONI BRADSHAW: We want to send a Happy Thanksgiving to our family and friends in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, mom. Happy Thanksgiving.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Happy thanksgiving.

O'BRIEN: Black Friday is supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year for retailers, but does it really live up to its name? Andy Serwer's "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

We're going to do a little holiday myth busting this morning. We're not talking about Santa Claus. We're talking about yes, don't want to do that. We're talking about shopping. And the thinking is, is that Friday, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is the biggest shopping day of the year. Not so says a new study from Purdue University. They say that Friday, December 23rd, that would be two days, obviously, before Christmas, is the number one day. Last-minute shopping. Then the Saturday previous is number two. And then, sadly, the day before Christmas is a big day. It's actually the Saturday before, but Christmas comes on a Sunday, so it's one day before.

O'BRIEN: So that just really depends on what day Christmas falls, obviously. Because if you don't have the Friday if Christmas isn't on a Sunday, then that math doesn't necessarily work?

SERWER: Right. And this is big stuff on retailers. I mean, they're planning, they're moving their inventory around, getting employees geared up. It's big stuff.

Also, if you want to know about which periods during the month are the biggest for holiday shopping, it turns out it's the second week of December. As you can see here, it's December 11th through the 17th is when 24 percent of the shopping's done. And actually, on Thanksgiving weekend, not as much as you think, only 10 percent. That's because apparently a lot of people look but don't actually buy. They browse and then they come back in for the kill in a week or two.

O'BRIEN: Yes and a huge number is on the week after, December 26th. That's even way more than . . .

SERWER: Yes, yes, those last minutes and later, right?

O'BRIEN: Yes. That would be my category.

SERWER: Yes, exactly.

O'BRIEN: I fit that category.

SERWER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right, Andy, some good information. Thanks.

SERWER: Thanks.

COSTELLO: I do, too.

Coming up, our special series called "Week of Giving."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KERI GALLARDO, HURRICANE VICTIM: Well, we were just amazed at how the community came forth and just took us under their wing and adopted us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Today we'll meet a family, the Gallardo, that lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. But thanks to a small town a thousand miles away from New Orleans, they're getting back on their feet. Stay with us.

AMY MARQUEZ: This is Amy Marquez. My Sunday school class from First Presbyterian Church in Jackson showed up unasked the day after the storm to help my dad and some friends remove a tree from my roof and attic, patch my roof and ceiling and clean the damage inside. A few days later, two Indiana power workers repaired the power lines to my house which had been snapped by the same tree. I am thankful for these volunteers who made my home livable after Katrina.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All week on AMERICAN MORNING, we've been celebrating a "Week of Giving," highlighting stories of hurricane victims and the kind of people who are lending a helping hand. Today we meet one family who lost it all but found comfort in the arms of a small Maryland community.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO, (voice over): A good old southern meal, buffalo wings with a little hot sauce and those delicious New Orleans staples.

KERI GALLARDO, HURRICANE VICTIM: Beias (ph) you can sneak, you can use a biscuit.

COSTELLO: Not exactly like Cafe Dumons (ph), but as close to New Orleans as you can get in Maryland. These are the feelings, the memories the Gallardo hold on to. Other memories from that day they'd like to forget. The water rising so quickly in their ninth ward home they barely escaped in time.

CHRIS GALLARDO, HURRICANE VICTIM: I was scared to death. I thought I had killed my whole family. You know, we was expecting two foot of water.

COSTELLO: Eight feet of water poured through their house. They were rescued by boat, dropped off at a shelter, homeless for days. They ended up in Linthicum, Maryland, broke. And her sisters, Trisha and Kim.

KIM HILL, LINTHICUM RESIDENT: It really was a community effort. I mean it was just, who can we call? Anybody we touched base with, anybody we got in contact with.

TRISHA BUSH, LINTHICUM RESIDENT: And no one turned us down.

HILL: No. Everybody was just, like I said, hearts open, everybody was just wonderful.

COSTELLO: And that actually enter most of the people in Linthicum.

KERI GALLARDO: Well, we're just amazed how the community came forth and just took us under their wing and adopted us.

COSTELLO: Linthicum did adopt the Gallardos. From the union workers the found Mr. Gallardo a job, to the union wives who raised funds, to the Linthicum Elementary School teachers and parents who found the Gallardos and help subsidize a house to rent. PAT MCINTYRE, LINTHICUM ELEMENTARY: It was just an awesome, awesome experience. Everybody involved in it kept saying, well we're walking around smiling every day because it was just so wonderful to be able to help this family.

COSTELLO: Others raised money for TVs, clothes, and furniture. Eight-year-old Kelly Gallardo was astounded when she walked into her new bedroom.

KELLY GALLARDO, HURRICANE VICTIM: It was like Christmas Day. So and found a horse picture on this table. It was my desk for a little while. And I found it. So it doesn't say who it's from.

COSTELLO: It doesn't matter, though. This is a community that doesn't want thanks, just wants to make the hurt go away, especially now.

BUSH: I think Thanksgiving is going to mean something different this year. I think that it just means more of togetherness. There are families scattered throughout this country and when you think of all of those families that are scattered throughout the country, because of what's happened, it's very it's emotional.

COSTELLO: It will be hard, despite the help. They're still paying a mortgage on a condemned house and still fighting FEMA for more help.

When you sit down to have Thanksgiving and you offer a prayer, what will you say?

KERI GALLARDO: That people don't have to go through this ever again. That man needs to wake up and see that this is a wake-up call. Mother nature and God are very angry about something and this is like a wake-up call for us, that there are people out there helping other people and that's what world and life is about, helping one another. It takes communities to keep a community going.

COSTELLO: The people in Linthicum have proven that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And just to emphasize how hard the Gallardo's have it. I mean they've got $9,000 from their insurance company for . . .

O'BRIEN: For the house that's a complete . . .

COSTELLO: Yes, because they didn't have flood insurance. You know, they'll only pay for wind damage. $9,000, that's it. They figure the only way that they can make any money from their home is to knock it down, build a new house on the property and then sell it and maybe they'll recoup. They've lived in the house for 16 years. Don't know if they can go back to Louisiana because, you know, he has a job up here. The job is gone in New Orleans. So it's a tough road for them.

O'BRIEN: Gosh. And, you know, they're representative of so many people. I mean, everybody has such a tough story. There's nobody. I mean even the best stories are tough stories. But how great the community reached out and helped them. I mean, really.

COSTELLO: I know. I lived in that part of Maryland for quite sometime and just great people there. That made me smile.

O'BRIEN: Yes, that is so nice. You know, and I think also helping them on every front. Not just with money and not just with housing and not, you know.

COSTELLO: I know. And they've all become great friends.

O'BRIEN: Yes, right.

COSTELLO: I mean, you know, they want these people to stay.

O'BRIEN: That's nice. That's nice.

COSTELLO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: You know, we heard a lot of stories like that, actually, from some of the folks we had as our guests yesterday. Really just people reaching out. You'll recall we, Carol and I there with a Thanksgiving feast, had a lot of people come by and be our guests and share their stories about the people who have reached out and touched them and helped them every step of the way. And they've been really, really, really remarkable. And people are very grateful. And I think it's one of the reasons that people are thinking about relocating to wherever they are, not just because they don't have anything left behind, but because people have been so incredibly amazingly helpful where they've end up.

COSTELLO: Yes, they don't want to leave their new, good neighborhoods. You know the interesting thing is, a lot of people who were yesterday watching the parade, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from the windows of our studio. And we have to tell you about this big accident that happened.

O'BRIEN: Oh, that was terrible.

COSTELLO: And you never thought it would happen again. They were thinking about not flying the balloons. It depended on the winds. But then they decided to go forward because the winds really weren't blowing all that hard yesterday. This is the M&M balloon.

O'BRIEN: And you just saw that shot right there where you saw something fall. That was a street lamp that got tangled in one of the rope. The street lamp then falls down, lands on an 11-year-old girl.

COSTELLO: And it's huge. These street lamps are huge!

O'BRIEN: Yes, look at that. (INAUDIBLE). Oh, and you can see it just clocks her. She required, I think it was nine stitches eight or nine stitches.

COSTELLO: Nine stitches. O'BRIEN: And her older sister, who's in her 20s, and is also in a wheelchair, was injured as well. Both women, girls and women, sisters, are said to be doing well and their father said they're not going to sue, which is sort of what you expect . . .

COSTELLO: But as you might inspect, an investigation is going on.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it really does require an investigation, that is for sure.

It's Black Friday and that means, you know, retailers said we'd like to call it Green Friday because that's what they're hoping for, lots of green on this day. And many people, though, are lookers, not necessarily buyers. An update on how the holiday shopping is going so far just ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

SGT. FIRST CLASS BRENDAN PERRY (ph): Hey, how you doing. I'm Sgt. First Class Brendan Perry from Ft. Carson, Colorado. This is (INAUDIBLE) Troop HHT33ACR (ph) from (INAUDIBLE) south of Baghdad. We'd like to wish all the families back at Ft. Carson, all the families in the U.S. a Happy Thanksgiving!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Live pictures from New York this morning. Macy's. You know, they say the early bird gets the worm or the DVD on sale or whatever it is. Holiday shoppers are raring to go. Early birds also getting into fights, though. Over zealous shoppers shuffle at a Florida Wal-Mart. The day is just beginning.

Surveillance tape rolling, vandals let lose inside a California liquor store breaking absolutely everything in their way.

And you're never going to guess what former FEMA director, Mike Brown, is doing now.

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