Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Anti-Government Demonstrations Continue in Yemen; Rafael Nadal wins sixth French Open; Wildfires Sweep Across Parts of Arizona; New Drugs to Treat Melanoma; U.S. Service Members Killed in Iraq; Country Star's Home Burns; Santorum Leaps in Today; Cain Climbing in Polls; It's the Economy; Fruits and Veggies Aren't as Expensive as You Think

Aired June 06, 2011 - 07:00   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Their president has fled. The people of Yemen celebrating in the streets as a fragile cease-fire holds. The U.S. with serious concerns. Will al Qaeda rise up to fill the void on this AMERICAN MORNING?

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you. Thanks so much for being with us. It's Monday, June 6th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING.

ROMANS: We begin with five U.S. service members killed in Iraq. It's the single largest loss of life among U.S. troops in Iraq in months. Two Iraqi security officials say the service members were killed during an early morning mortar attack at a U.S. Military base in southeastern Baghdad. Iraq's interior ministry telling CNN at least 17 people were also killed and dozens of others were wounded in a series of explosions across Iraq. The military not saying how many service members were killed and it says their names are being withheld until families are notified.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Now to America's growing anxiety over Yemen, a nation that is on the brink of civil war. The country's president has fled to Saudi Arabia. His name is Ali Abdullah Saleh. He's been -- he's had two surgeries there. He was wounded during an attack on his compound on Friday. His supporters insist he's coming back.

ROMANS: Mohammed Jamjoom is live from Abu Dhabi, this morning.

Mohammed, a Saudi brokered ceasefire seems to be holding up in Yemen this morning, but the U.S. still concerned about who could rise up to fill the void left by his departure.

MOHAMMED JAMJOOM, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. So much concern about the power vacuum that they believe is going on in Yemen right now.

And just to underscore how concerned they are about Al Qaeda, in the past day, I've heard from government officials in Yemen who have said that Al Qaeda has emerged as actually a suspect in the bombing of the palace of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in which he was injured and then had to go to Saudi Arabia. Also in the past couple of days we've heard of more attacks by Islamic militants and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula at soldiers. Ten soldiers were killed by two ambushes by AQAP.

So a lot of volatility in Yemen. And for months because of all the political turmoil there has been concern that Al Qaeda would try to step in, try to take advantage of that political turmoil. A lot of opposition figures in Yemen maintain Al Qaeda has nothing to do with this. There is an Al Qaeda problem in Yemen.

And the west and U.S. have been concerned for a number of years because Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has a base in Yemen, even though only a few hundred members by most accounts they've been able to launch spectacular attacks against the U.S. and Saudi Arabia from their base in Yemen. So there's very much concern about what's going to happen with this power vacuum, who's going to step in to fill it and if the militants will try to take advantage of strife going on.

ROMANS: All right, Mohammed Jamjoom, thank you so much. We're going to be joined by former assistant secretary of state James Rubin and ask him what happens next and how it might impact this country.

CHETRY: Israeli security forces firing on hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators along the border with Syria on Sunday. The violence comes on the anniversary of the 1967 war when Israel captured the Golan Heights. Syria says 25 people were killed and more than 350 others injured. The U.N. is condemning the violence and calling on both sides to use restraint.

VELSHI: Thousands of people are being forced from their homes this morning as one of the worst wildfires in Arizona's history burns out of control. Fire fighters are trying to hold a 30-mile line against the wallow fire as they're calling it, near the town of Springerville. That fire has already burned 180,000 acres, and 220 people are being told to get out. The flames are so intense right now fire fighters can't even get in to see whose homes are burning. One resident is hoping the house he built with his own hands is going to make it through.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A person don't realize how hard it is to face something like that. And you think you're prepared for it, you think you're mentally prepared for it, physically prepared for it, you're not.

I cried all the way down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You did?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard. I got to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Wow. Forecasters say all of northern Arizona is under the threat of wildfires this morning because of high winds in the area.

(WEATHER REPORT) CHETRY: Researchers are excited about two drugs to prolong the lives of patients with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. One blocks cancer cells and shrinks tumors and the other stimulates the immune system in people with advanced melanoma. Clinical trials showed a 63 percent reduction in the death rate compared with those on chemotherapy.

ROMANS: "The Wall Street Journal" playing it up big this morning as a major shift in the war on cancer, you know, a shift away, just what they're learning on this cancer they're hoping targeted therapies for other cancers as well, exciting developments for cancer doctors.

VELSHI: Scientists say bean sprouts in Germany are the likely source of the e. Coli outbreak that spread across Europe. 22 people have died and more than 2,000 people have gotten sick. Officials say there's no indication yet that the outbreak has peaked and said to be the deadliest outbreak of e. Coli ever.

ROMANS: Nintendo says hackers gained access to one of the servers in the U.S. the gaming giant says no consumer information was stolen. A group that's hacked into the servers of Sony pictures and PBS has claimed responsibility.

Two more wins and the Miami Heat will be the NBA champs. The heat holding off the mavericks to win game three in Dallas and take a-two games-to-one lead in the series. Chris Bosh hit the go-ahead shot for the heat with 39 seconds left and then Dirk Nowitski misfired on a shot that would have tied the game in the finals seconds. It ended up being 88-86, and the series resumes tomorrow night in Dallas.

VELSHI: And the king of the clay courts has done it again. Rafael Nadal captured his record-tying sixth French open title on Saturday. Beating Roger Federer, 7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-1. The Spaniard's victory ties him with the legendary Bjorn Borg for the most career wins at Roland Garros.

ROMANS: Yemen is in chaos this morning. Its leader has fled the country, might not come back undergoing surgery in Saudi Arabia. Is this the perfect opportunity for Al Qaeda to take control? We'll ask Jamie Rubin next.

CHETRY: Trace Atkins, his home burnt to the ground, wasn't in the country, his wife wasn't home, but his kids were. They say having a family plan may have saved them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. We want to bring you up to date on the situation in Yemen which distribution situation in Yemen, which has really tuned critical. Developments over the weekend have been raising questions about the country's future.

Let's take a look at President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He's been in power for more than 33 years, and the U.S. considers him to be a key ally in the fight against Al Qaeda. He's been under pressure since January to step down, but two weeks ago, when violence erupted, he refused to sign a deal to step down.

Let's take a look at some of the video right now here out of Yemen. On Friday he was injured in fighting between the government and opposition forces. And he was then flown to Saudi Arabia for surgery. His vice president assumed power and quickly signed a cease-fire which is still holding this morning.

But scenes like this have been common throughout Yemen since then. There have been celebrations in the streets. So far most of them have been peaceful. But there have still been a lot of questions about the future of the country and also what this could mean for stability in the region. And also a big question is, what happens to Saleh now? Will he return from Saudi Arabia or is this really it for him and his reign?

ROMANS: Joining us to talk about President Saleh's departure from Yemen, the likelihood he'll return and Al Qaeda finding a footing in that country is former assistant secretary of state and executive editor of "The Bloomberg View" Jamie Rubin.

VELSHI: Good to see you. People are celebrating in the streets of Yemen and on the surface this would seem like good news. This is a little more complex, sis this isn't a case of totalitarian government and people who would like a piece of the regular action.

JAMES RUBIN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE BLOOMBERG VIEW": As the Arab spring has happened and people have looked at the democratic change, we've all talked about the time in which our principles, our ideal of democracy, will run up against our national security interests.

This is the place where that probably happens most clearly because President Saleh has been such a complete ally for us in the fight against Al Qaeda, actually letting us come into the country, use our military forces at will, coordinate special forces, operations, all the things you need to do to actually destroy terrorist cells from Al Qaeda. And his departure, therefore, might, we don't know yet, but it might make that battle against Al Qaeda more difficult.

CHETRY: We're in a tough situation because we have been exerting pressure to get him to step down, right? We even had people sent by the president this past week to go talk about a negotiating a way out for him. Why do we want to get rid of him?

RUBIN: You're exactly right. We had John Brennan, the most senior terrorism official in the U.S. government, who also happened to have served in the region, go there because we concluded that Saleh's presence was going to cause some sort of civil war, and that an agreement had been negotiated by the Saudis and this is a reasonable solution from the U.S. standpoint of having him step down but have immunity and have an orderly transition to a kind of government that, again, we could work with in the fight against Al Qaeda.

This whole thing collapsed when he refused to sign the agreement, refused to leave the country, and now we've had these rather dramatic street battles in the capital and the resulting attack on his palace and him going off to Saudi Arabia. ROMANS: You mentioned the Saudis. The U.S. and Saudis are in the interesting predicament really because the Saudis, mostly the Arab spring has not been good for Saudi Arabia, they've been trying to prevent the same thing happening in their country, yet they find themselves in a position where they are bringing in Saleh and they have to maybe send him back. What does it mean for Saudi Arabia and how big of a powerbroker they are?

RUBIN: I think Saudi Arabia is crucial. And yes, you're exactly right. The United States and Saudi Arabia have not been in sync during the revolutions in Egypt --

ROMANS: Right.

RUBIN: -- and Tunisia and Libya, et cetera.

But in this case, I think the administration is right and has been doing an excellent job in coordinating its policy with Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia really is the regional powerbroker in this area. Yemen is a neighbor of Saudi Arabia, but a poor neighbor. And if the Saudis can manage this problem, they have the same interests we do in Al Qaeda.

Remember, if Yemen becomes a so-called failed state, which is what everybody is worried about, Al Qaeda gets a base in Yemen, its target is going to be Saudi Arabia which is the original target of Osama bin Laden, may he no longer be able to lead, but that was his original target. And so we in the Saudis have exactly the same interests in preventing Yemen from becoming that kind of failed state. So allowing the Saudis to take the lead here, I think, is very wise policy.

VELSHI: We've seen an attack in Iraq this morning, five U.S. service members have been killed, reports there may be 20 more people having been killed. You know, Kiran made a good pint here that our troops are there, and we talked about the end of combat operations in Iraq and the fact that combat operations, combat soldiers have been pulled out. Clearly servicemen are still being killed there.

RUBIN: Iraq is a war zone. It's still a war zone. It's been a war zone ever since 2003. What's changed is that Iraqi forces are increasingly capable of handling the security problems themselves.

But we're there. We're there in tens of thousands. We're very concerned and rightly so that as we try to leave, the opponents of the United States, we'll want to find a way to try to humiliate us in our departure.

And so, these kinds of attacks are going to happen over and over again as we get our forces out. These are war zones.

CHETRY: It's not just attacks on the United States, although this is terrible -- these five U.S. service members killed. But there seems to be unrest in other parts of the country as well, some I guess people blaming Sunnis for a couple of attacks, some bombings in Saddam Hussein's former hometown of Tikrit.

Does our policy change if Iraq continues to appear to be unstable?

RUBIN: I don't think our policy really changes. Perhaps the exact, precise pace of withdraw. The idea here is that the United States and the government of Iraq, a sovereign government, a democratically- elected government, is increasingly capable of defending its own territory.

We're working with that government. If they feel that they really need some additional help, from us, I think we're prepared to give it to them.

I don't think that looks very likely. The overwhelming political motivation to finally get American combat troops out will probably outweigh their real security needs, which as you can indicate from all these attacks, it's very real. They need our help, but I think it's more important to them, and I think we're ready -- certainly the American people are ready -- for our troops to come home.

VELSHI: Jamie Rubin, good to see you. Thanks very much. He's the former assistant secretary of state and the editor of "The Bloomberg View." Good to see you.

RUBIN: Thank you.

ROMANS: OK. Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING: two new drugs show promise in treating melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Just how promising? One showed a 63 percent reduction in the risk of death compared to chemo. We'll tell you about what could be a major shift in the war on cancer right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Twenty-one minutes after the hour.

Minding your business now: Futures are down ahead of today's opening bell. Investors are on edge a bit after the Dow closed 97 points lower on Friday following a weak jobs report and other economic data. Last week marked the fifth straight week of declines for the Dow losing nearly 3 percent. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 were also down.

Also weighing on investors: Greece dealing with a debt disaster this morning. The country is expected to need a second bailout and that worries economists because it adds pressure to the international banking system which has been trying to regain its footing. A new report expects state and local governments to cut as many as 110,000 jobs in the coming months, with teachers and other school employees bearing the brunt of the layoffs.

The new fiscal year begins next month and many states are facing multibillion dollar deficits.

Despite being on medical leave, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs is going to kick off Apple's annual conference today. He's expected to announce a new online service for storing music and other files called iCloud.

Say goodbye to Burger King's quirky King mascot. The company is getting a make-over in an effort to battle sliding profits. The fast food chain is adding healthier options to its menu, including an Asian chicken salad, but the whopper sandwich is here to stay.

Don't forget -- for the very latest news about your money, check out the all-new CNNMoney.com.

AMERICAN MORNING back right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Twenty-five minutes past the hour.

It's being called a major breakthrough. Research shows two new drugs to treat melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, can extend the lives of melanoma patients.

Dr. George Sledge, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, joins us from Chicago to talk about this exciting development.

Thanks for being with us this morning, Dr. Sledge.

DR. GEORGE SLEDGE, PRES., AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY: Good morning, Kiran.

CHETRY: So, this came out of the cancer conference that took place yesterday in Chicago. And the headline is that these two drugs are considered game changers. Explain why?

SLEDGE: Well, these are two very different drugs. One drug, in essence, gooses the immune system to help fight the cancer. The other drug is a drug that interferes with the critical growth pathway for the cancer.

Melanoma is a disease that starts in the skin, but spreads outside of the skin to other organs and once it does so, is uniformly fatal.

These two new drugs are the first drugs in decades that have significantly altered the course of the disease. Both drugs induce remissions. In some cases prolong remissions. Both drugs improve survival for patients with advanced melanoma. So, a real change in our treatment of the disease and very exciting for the members of our society.

CHETRY: Well, some patients apparently see results in as little as 72 hours, which is quite amazing. But at the other end of this, nine to 10 months they say the cancer cells start to outsmart the drug and become resistant. So, what does it really mean for patients who are trying to fight melanoma?

SLEDGE: Well, first, of course, it does improve survival for those patients. But going forward, we're going to take these drugs and use it for earlier stage patients and, hopefully, there it will actually prevent patients from developing advanced disease.

Of course, since we have two new drugs, we're likely to combine those agents as well and see whether or not we get more bang by putting the two together. So, doctors look at this as an exceedingly promising beginning. Not a solution, not an end or cure to melanoma, but a really good start.

CHETRY: And so, you're saying they're going to -- it was tested in people who had advanced melanoma, which is, as you said before, fatal in almost all people that have it.

SLEDGE: That's right.

CHETRY: Would you be able to use this beyond skin cancer?

SLEDGE: Well, we'll be able to use the same principles beyond skin cancer, and that's to say mobilizing the body's immune system against cancer, which one of the drugs does is being explored in a number of other cancers, interfering with a growth mechanism that's caused by mutation in the cancer cell. We're employing that principle in several different cancers.

So, I think both of these approaches are going to be widely applicable, even though the individual drugs are fairly specific to melanoma.

CHETRY: I got you.

Also other interesting news out of this conference for the treatment of breast cancer -- it's a drug already being used to treat breast cancer but may be used to prevent it. How would that work?

SLEDGE: That's correct. So, this is a drug that's been available for many years for patients with advanced disease and early stage disease that we now know that if you take this drug and give it to women who've never had breast cancer but who we predict are at high risk for developing breast cancer, we can roughly cut in half their risk of developing that breast cancer.

CHETRY: That's amazing. Side effects, though? I mean, are there significant side effects to this?

SLEDGE: So, this is a drug that lowers estrogen levels in women who are post-menopausal. And because it lowers estrogen levels, there are estrogen deprivation side effects -- in particular, bone loss and joint aches, I would say, are the two most common concerns that we have with this drug.

CHETRY: All right. Well again, some promising news on the cancer front, especially for people living with this or who have family members and friends who are. Very interesting. Dr. George Sledge, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology -- thanks for being with us this morning.

SLEDGE: Thank you for having me.

VELSHI: Breaking news from Iraq: five U.S. service members have been killed, the single largest loss of troops -- loss of life amongst troops in Iraq, in months. Two Iraqi security officials say they were killed during an early morning mortar attack at a U.S. military base in southeastern Baghdad.

Iraq's interior ministry is telling CNN at least 17 people were also killed in a series of explosions across the country.

At the top of the hour, we'll speak to a "New York Times" reporter in Baghdad.

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn expected to file a not guilty plea this morning at his arraignment on sexual assault charges. He's accused of trying to rape a hotel maid in a New York City hotel last month. In his first court appearance since being released on $6 million bail, that's what he's expected to do. He's under house arrest at a luxury Manhattan townhouse.

High winds blowing a massive wildfire across northern Arizona right now. The "Wallow Fire," as it's called, has already burned more than 180,000 acres. Containment is at zero, 2,200 people have been chased from their homes.

ROMANS: So, let's bring in Reynolds Wolf in the extreme weather center.

Reynolds, it looks like conditions are just perfect -- unfortunately, that's not a great word -- but perfect there in the northern part of Arizona.

REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely. Unfortunately, around the nation, we do have a story of the haves and have-nots. Parts of the desert southwest what they could really use would be heavy rainfall to douse those showers.

In other places you a surplus of water like in parts of the northern plains. To be more specific in the Dakotas, we've got flood warnings that remain in effect along the Missouri River. You have plenty of evacuation evacuations Pierre and also down as far as south Fort Thompson and even into Nebraska.

Speaking of the heavy rainfall, we've got some of it in the western Great Lakes. This morning a band of shower activity now moving from Wisconsin into very close to Lake Michigan, eventually we could see the showers as far south as Rockford, perhaps even Chicago, before the day is out.

So any travel plans that will take you through Chicago, be prepared for those delays. But again as you mentioned towards the top, very dry conditions in the desert southwest, wind is really going to be enhanced in the afternoon with some gusts topping 40, perhaps 50 miles per hour by late afternoon.

It's very warm for you also in the central and southern U.S. High temperatures in the 100s for places like Dallas, Houston with 98. The high humidity it's going to feel like it's beyond the century point with St. Louis 96, 96 also your high for Atlanta, 84 in Washington, D.C., 80 New York, 75 Boston, Salt Lake City with 82 and San Francisco into Los Angeles, highs into the 50s and 60s.

That's your forecast, guys. Let's pitch it back to you in New York.

ROMANS: All right, thanks, Reynolds.

CHETRY: A couple weeks ago he was raising money for tornado victims. We actually talked to him on the show. Now country music star Trace Atkins is dealing with his own tragedy, his home in Tennessee burned to the ground on Saturday.

Atkins and his wife were not there at the time, but their children were. His wife says everyone got out OK and that they followed the plan the family had in place to meet at a tree outside of their property. The nanny reportedly said she heard the spark and got everybody out before the fire. It's not clear, though, what caused it.

VELSHI: All right, when we come back we have a new presidential candidate joining the GOP field. We'll tell you about that when we come back.

ROMANS: And we want to know what are the issues motivating you, but we're also going to talk about the issues motivating voters. It's an interesting list. We'll bring it to you after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: The Republican field is getting bigger today. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is expected to make it official that he is in the race for the White House.

Santorum who lost re-election in Pennsylvania has already hit early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina several times.

VELSHI: Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney coming off his first official weekend on the campaign trail and after sharing the spotlight with Sarah Palin in New Hampshire, he'll be one on one tonight with Piers Morgan.

Sarah Palin is not showing up. It's Romney's first time, first prime time interview since he made it official, that's 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time today.

ROMANS: All right, radio talk show host and former pizza executive Herman Cain is climbing in the polls. He'll be in Iowa today taking part in a family leader lecture series in Iowa and Sioux City.

A Gallup poll last week showed Cain with the highest voter intensity score of any Republican presidential contender and his name recognition has nearly doubled since March from 21 percent to 37 percent now.

CHETRY: He had a funny on TV. He was saying that Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, they shouldn't be eating pizza with a knife and fork, ate it the old-fashioned way with his hands.

VELSHI: He's the former CEO - pizza. CHETRY: Meantime, the undeclared Sarah Palin has found herself trying to explain a little history lesson that she gave on the freedom trail this weekend. She said that Paul Revere's iconic ride was to warn the British. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: He who warned the - the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Palin later defended her take on Revere's midnight ride saying that she didn't mess up American history and Paul Revere's warning was essentially a message to the British that the revolutionaries were not going to back down.

VELSHI: Which it subsequently was after he got captured, but not the midnight ride. The midnight ride was actually designed to be silent.

CHETRY: Yes, it was very surreptitious warnings to the patriots because British had lived there, and he couldn't be firing shots.

VELSHI: And ringing bells.

CHETRY: Or he would have -- unfortunately done what he intended not to do which is tip off the British.

VELSHI: Presidential candidate Ron Paul says no one is laughing at his ideas anymore. When he ran for president in 2008, he warned about rising deficits and out-of-control spending, but he said no one wanted to listen. Yesterday on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" he blamed himself for that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE RON PAUL (R), TEXAS: I came into the conversation a good many years ago and my goal was to shrink the size of government, balance the budget, pay the bills, have sound money and live within our means and mind our business. I haven't done a very good job. It seems like we're going in the wrong direction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: As for the rest of the GOP field, Paul says he is not impressed. He says his opponents all represent the status quo.

ROMANS: In 17 months when Americans go to the polls to elect a president, the economy could be the deciding factor. Unemployment is above 9 percent and the number of long-term unemployed is rising.

Our next guests hear those concerns every day, two nationally syndicated talk show hosts with very different points of view, Ben Ferguson is a conservative commentator and host of the "Ben Ferguson Show."

He joins us from Memphis, and from Washington, Tom Hartman, host of "The Tom Hartman" radio program, which has a more liberal audience. Gentlemen, welcome.

Let me start with you Ben, interested in what people are talking about in terms of jobs at this point. You've got this dual mission of deficit reduction and getting the fiscal house in order of this country.

At the same time jobs are a problem and big deficit cuts to programs could be more public sector job losses. What are people saying about that conundrum?

BEN FERGUSON (ph), HOST, "THE BEN FERGUSON SHOW": People are really concerned about the economy mainly because they saw unemployment numbers go up. They're not feeling the relief. The government programs that this president has been advocating for the last two years, really aren't working for the average American.

I mean, we just saw even people looking for summer work, young people, 24 percent unemployment with those between the ages of 16 and 19. I had a summer job every summer and most kids are used to that now, so they're feeling it and therefore the parents are seeing morality of this.

But I think one of the things people really get frustrated with is, you have a president that goes out last week and champions the car dealerships and says the big three are making money again.

At the same time they're seeing a report that says we're not going to get paid back billions of dollars we lent them. Why are they making money?

ROMANS: You want to talk about jobs then, though. So the bailout of the car industry saved some at least 20,000 jobs by most estimates.

FERGUSON: Sure.

ROMANS: And nonpartisan estimates. You know, conservative listeners want to say get the government out of my life that's going to mean more jobs lost?

FERGUSON: Well, it's an issue of leadership and their issue is why did we bail them out and not at least break even if they're making money off of our money. Why are my kids unable to find a summer job right now?

When this president is going out and former DNC chairwoman last week said illegal immigrants are part of the backbone of the American economy and they're a necessity.

A lot are saying I'm unemployed they have my jobs. They're not the back bone of our economy and they are not a necessity and I don't have a job because of it. ROMANS: Well, let's switch gears and talk to Tom because Tom, you know, jobs is a big problem, of course, we all agree that's a nonpartisan statement, yet the partisanship comes up in how to fix it.

You look at fixing jobs from a liberal perspective and you got people saying we need more stimulus. We need more spending. We need more juice to the economy at this very moment. Otherwise, it's like 1937 when we pulled our foot of the gas and went into another big letdown in the economy?

TOM HARTMAN (ph), HOST, "THE TOM HARTMAN SHOW": Yes. Absolutely. What we're seeing right now is the Republican plan for the 2012 election, which is basically starve the economy until then, keep jobs down like they did with the stimulus bill.

They took a third and turned it into tax cuts and no stimulus at all and Obama basically had to go with that to get anything. Crash the economy and then blame it on Obama seems to be the Republican plan here.

FERGUSON: Not the plan at all, Tom. It's not.

HARTMAN: It is absolutely the Republican plan.

FERGUSON: They want -- let me finish. I'm a conservative. I'm a Republican.

HARTMAN: Pretty up front about it actually.

FERGUSON: So I'll answer for my side if that's OK. We've never had a policy of actually crashing the economy on purpose. That may be the most ridiculous --

HARTMAN: Answer for yourself, but if you look at what Republicans in House and the Senate are saying, they're saying they're not going to allow this president to grow us out of this economy.

And Mitch McConnell said right up front his main political goal is not jobs. It was to make Obama a one-term president.

ROMANS: You know, guys. It's so interesting because what it always goes back to, is it goes back to conservatives who blame this president for our current economic situation, liberals who blame the last president for the tax cuts and the wars that led us to this situation.

So, you know, we'll never get people to change their mind on that. But it's interesting, Tom, when you talk about where we go from here, we do have to happen deficit reductions and fiscal austerity have to be in mind down the road. I mean, there's no question about that. What are liberals --

HARTMAN: I think there is.

ROMANS: Saying about how we do that in a thoughtful manner. HARTMAN: Well, right now our debt is about 90 percent of GDP, after World War II, our debt was about 126 percent of GDP. We were far more broke after World War II than we are now, and Harry Truman (ph) and Dwight Eisenhower (ph), the Republican president didn't cut anything.

No nation has ever cut its way to prosperity. They spent money like crazy. The GI bill gave people like my dad a free college education, back buying houses. Dwight Eisenhower was building highways like crazy and building schools.

Look at all the infrastructure around this country that was built in the 1950s by the Republican Eisenhower. They stimulated the economy to the point that we had within 10 years, paid off a debt that was 126 percent of GDP. They did not cut their way to prosperity.

FERGUSON: You're talking about economic policies that did work, what, we're talking years and decades ago.

HARTMAN: That have worked every single time in history they've been used.

FERGUSON: Let me finish. You already have highways. We can't go out and build a bunch of roads to nowhere just because you think it's going to fix the economy.

HARTMAN: One country that's cut it ways to prosperity. China is building bullet trains. We're doing nothing.

FERGUSON: We're doing more in this country than in World War II and for you to act like --

HARTMAN: Let's have no more schools?

FERGUSON: Again, let me finish. If you want to hear what I have it to say you can let me finish and I'll tell you. But to act like America and what Obama ran on was the same economic type policies that we had after World War II, is a sad, sad story about our economy right now in this country. We are in a global economy, totally different.

ROMANS: Tom, you get 10 seconds to wrap it up, Tom. Thanks.

FERGUSON: Your guy had the House, the White House, and the Senate and his policies didn't work.

ROMANS: Ben I said Tom, you get 10 seconds. This is why people love talk radio. Learn how to come out of your shells and give your opinion with more force. Tom Hartman, thank you so much. Ben Ferguson, we have to wrap it up there, but that's it.

HARTMAN: Thanks for having me.

ROMANS: That in a nutshell is the voice of the people on talk radio.

VELSHI: Wow.

CHETRY: You know, we asked our question of the day, what is the single most important issue facing America today and some people said it's the partisan politics.

ROMANS: Yes.

CHETRY: Can't get over it, can't make it solve problems as long as that continues.

But we had some other interesting responses, as well.

@AYEO Twitter writes , "Our dependency on foreign oil. We must find new alternatives and embrace them.

Also, Dave Burrier (ph) on Facebook. "Jobs. I'm 57 and about to run out of unemployment. Our country is in need of repair, roads, bridges."

VELSHI: And that's exactly the point that these two guys disagreed on.

ROMANS: @freedomwriter92 On Twitter says, "Higher public education. The growing budget crisis is negatively affecting our future leaders."

And @roaringjake says, "The failure of our public school system."

So, a lot of you are writing in and saying education is really important.

VELSHI: As you were saying, Kiran, we got one from somebody who said partisan politics, we lack the ability to negotiate solutions to problems.

CHETRY: We can't even agree on what the problem is --

VELSHI: That's exactly right.

CHETRY: -- or the root of the problem. So, how do you get to solutions?

VELSHI: So you hear a lot of people -- politicians and pundits saying the single biggest problem facing this country, it's very clear that while our polling indicates that really jobs is the number one, people do disagree on what the issue is.

ROMANS: But even when you talk about the number one issue is jobs and there are all these reasons, as you heard our two guests, all these reasons different people think are feeding jobs. Is it politics, is it policy, is it ideology?

VELSHI: Is it the taxes, is it the deficit?

ROMANS: Is it stimulus, is it budget cutting? It's all of these different things.

CHETRY: All right. So we are going to continue to take your responses. We'll read some more in the next hour, as well.

Meantime, investors brace for some turbulence. We're going to look at the futures in just a moment.

VELSHI: And Yemen, President Saleh undergoes surgery after he was wounded in an attack on the presidential compound on Friday. There's been a ceasefire underway. It's holding right now. But a lot of people worried Yemen is devolving into full-out civil war. We'll tell you about that on the other side.

It's 46 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Forty-nine minutes after the hour. A lot going on this morning. Here are your headlines.

Breaking news from Iraq. Five U.S. service members have been killed. Two Iraqi security officials say the service members were killed during an early morning mortar attack at a U.S. Military base in southeastern Baghdad. This is the single largest loss of life among U.S. troops in Iraq in months.

A ceasefire is holding in Yemen. Thousands taking to the streets to celebrate the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He fled to Saudi Arabia where he's recovering from surgery after an attack on his compound. Yemen's powerful Hashib tribe and possibly al Qaeda are poised to fill the power void.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be back in New York City courtroom in a couple hours for arraignment on sexual assault charges. The former head of the International Monetary Fund expected to enter a not guilty plea. He's accused of trying to rape a maid at a hotel in New York last month.

Rick Santorum makes it official today. The former Republican senator from Pennsylvania will announce he's running for president. He'll he a do it from the coal fields of western Pennsylvania where his immigrant grandfather once worked.

Twenty-two hundred people chased by a massive wildfire in Arizona. It's already burned 180,000 acres and is still burning out of control.

Six hundred people in southwestern Iowa ordered to leave their homes after the Missouri River breached a levee. Crews trying to stop the leak from getting any bigger and dropping sandbags from the air.

And in the markets, futures are down after a fifth straight week of decline. The Dow was off Friday by about 97 points after a disappointing jobs report. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 were also down.

You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING back after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Skyscrapers in New York City right now. It's 66 degrees. A little bit later, though, it's going up to a high of 80 degrees and it will be mostly sunny. VELSHI: Terrific weekend here.

CHETRY: Yes. It was a little chilly, actually.

VELSHI: It was actually a little cool.

CHETRY: But come Wednesday, we're looking at 90 -- above 90s.

ROMANS: Really? Whoa, summer is here.

CHETRY: So it's going to be sweltering -- yes.

ROMANS: Summer is here.

VELSHI: Well, we've been talking about the government ditching the food pyramid for a plate.

CHETRY: That's right. It's supposed to encourage folks to load up on their fruits and vegetables.

ROMANS: And one thing I've heard more and more about this, wait, half of our food is supposed to be fruits and vegetables, that could be a lot more expensive. Well, if you're worried about that, that eating healthy won't be able to fit into your family budget, think again. Turns out, eating healthy doesn't always have to cost a lot of money.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS (voice-over): It's a message from the very top.

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Fruits. We're going to do some fruits here, we're going to do some berries.

ROMANS: A call to arms from the first lady. Her Let's Move Campaign to combat high rates of childhood obesity and promote healthy eating and exercise.

OBAMA: We're all here today because we care deeply about the health and well-being --

ROMANS: But many people think eating healthier equals spending more money.

Not so, says Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan.

KATHLEEN MERRIGAN, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE: I've been on a campaign, crusade, if you will, a myth-busting exercise, trying to say that actually you can afford to eat fruits and vegetables much more than people think.

ROMANS: The USDA calculates --

MERRIGAN: A little bit less for vegetables, a little bit more for fruit. But if you boil it all down, it's 50 cents a cup. So that means for a 2,000 calorie a day diet, you would spend between $2.18 and $2.50 to meet that half a plate recommendation.

ROMANS: It's not always easy, but you can actually save money.

MERRIGAN: We know that in this country, on average, a family of four is spending about $185 a week on groceries. If you follow a healthy diet plan, as we propose, you can bring that cost down to $175.

ROMANS: Buy fruits and vegetables while they're in season. Frozen and canned are also OK. And have a plan when you hit the supermarket. And of course, there's always your own backyard.

(on camera): It's so interesting to see little first graders with their shovels talking about composting and running a household where you're healthy. You pack lunches, you try to pack sustainable lunches where there's no waste.

Tell me about that? A no waste lunch.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It gets a little dicey sometimes. At 7:35, you're trying to make all the snacks and all the lunches for the day. But I find the kids are watching over our shoulders going, oh, you want to make sure, don't put that in a wrapper, put it in a container that we can bring home and wash again. And it means the food that you're backing is better, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Now, here's the hard part. So if you're shopping for your family, you can make up the difference with slightly more expensive fruits and vegetables by staying out of the processed lines, the middle of the grocery store. When you're shopping, go around the edges, you stay away from the more expensive processed foods in the middle.

But you guys make a very good point. If you are struggling, the 99 cent menu is still a very attractive -- and that's something that --

CHETRY: And also, if you're working two jobs and you're doing all this stuff to keep your family afloat, it's harder to prepare fresh foods.

ROMANS: But that's why there's this big campaign to get everyone kind of on the same page, to start thinking about this. From school lunches, to how is our family that we're viewing food, to make sure our kids are eating that half a plate -- that we're eating that half a plate of fruits and vegetables.

VELSHI: Well, it's -- I think the issue is the myth is that it's not doable.

ROMANS: That's right.

VELSHI: It's doable, but it take a little more work. And once you get those fruits and vegetables, as oppose to these 99 cent menus, there's preparation involved, there's getting good at it, there's the fact that we constantly talk about the fact that kids constantly push back against vegetables. So it's a whole re-education campaign and it starts with this new message.

ROMANS: And it also starts with the kids. I mean, that's something we found -- that kids are the ones who were sort of learning this at school and pushing it back at their house.

VELSHI: Right.

ROMANS: For more information about budgeting your money, we've got more about all of those sort of subjects in my book, "Smart is the New Rich."

CHETRY: My five-year-old said, "Is butter at the top or the bottom of the food pyramid?" I said, you don't have to worry about that anymore

Our top stories are coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)