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Congress Still Negotiating Raising Debt Ceiling; Video of Norway Bombing Released; 9/11 Workers with Cancer Receive No Compensation from Fund; "This is an Injustice"; Oslo Bombing Aftermath; Vote on Boehner Debt Plan Today; House Votes Today on GOP Debt Plan; NOTW Staff Offered Jobs in Siberia; Is That You, Julia?
Aired July 28, 2011 - 06:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Moving on their own. With five days left until the deadline, House Republicans plan to vote today on raising the debt ceiling. Many saying it is not tough enough for them.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): New video from the moments after the blast in Norway showing just how powerful and devastating it was. We're going to talk to the man who documented Norway's darkest day.
VELSHI: And the rain won't stop. What happens when a country gets two months worth of rain in just two days?
CHETRY: Strange injuries for 500? "Jeopardy" host, Alex Trebek, running into trouble after chasing a burglar busted into his hotel room on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Good morning. It is Thursday, July 28th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. News on the debt. Is it settled?
CHETRY: You know what? More wrangling, more back and forth, but still no deal. And now, you're paying the price for Washington's inability to come to an agreement. The stock market down now for the fourth straight day. These declines coming as House Speaker John Boehner scrambles to rally Republicans in the House to get behind his plan.
VELSHI: Tougher than you may think it is. During the closed door meeting with House Republicans yesterday, the speaker had a blunt message for the hard lined conservatives. "Get your ass in line." That's his quote. Is that tough talk working? Joe Johns is live in Washington. Good morning, Joe.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ali. It's looking more and more like the speaker is going to have the votes on this, though Democrats in the Senate say the Boehner bill is dead on arrival if it does clear the House. It would certainly inform the end game as the Congress plays beat the clock here approaching August 2nd. These folks, of course, pushed this thing to the brink and now the cursing has started. Boehner telling his troops to get their "a" word in line as the Democratic Senate leader says Boehner's bill is dead on arrival.
Now, let's listen to what both sides in this controversy on Capitol Hill were saying as of last night.
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REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R-OH) HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: It is not the tea party caucus. Most of the freshmen are frankly in very good shape. It would be more what I would describe as hardline conservatives who want more. I don't blame them. I want more, too. But this was an agreement between the bipartisan Senate leaders and myself. It is what's doable. And I think we can get there.
SEN. HARRY REID, (D-NV) MAJORITY LEADER: I'm disappointed. I care about John Boehner. I think he is a good person. I have been disappointed that he has painted himself into this corner. It makes our job much more difficult. But I hope that the American people will learn pretty soon we are able to work our way through this. We have to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: So what is in this bill? You need to know this. The Boehner bill has what's described as a two-step debt limit increase, $917 billion in discretionary spending cuts over the next decade, setting up a framework for almost $2 trillion in more cuts.
Democrats say the problem with this bill, among other things, it puts the Congress in the position of having to go back to work on this problem possibly around the holiday season in December. The Senate Democrats working on their own alternative.
But in the event they cannot agree how they get out of this, that so-called 14th Amendment option has sort of been thrown back out there by some Congressional leaders on the Democratic side. The president's folks have said no. It is not an option, it is not an option, again and again. Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, House Democratic caucus chairman among others, talking about that.
As you know, what this does essentially says that hey, the United States debt cannot be questioned. Therefore the president presumably could, you know, put in an executive order and do an end run around the United States congress. Again the White House saying that's not an option. But who knows, Ali, what's going to happen if they cannot get a deal?
VELSHI: Who knows? All right, Joe, thank you so much. We will cover this to the bitter end.
CHETRY: Thanks, Joe. VELSHI: Senator John McCain taking on some tea party conservatives in the debt standoff, accusing them of abandoning reason. And as you will hear, that's not sitting well with Republican Congressman Joe Walsh.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: That is not fair. That is not fair to the American people to hold out and say we won't agree to raising the debt limit until we pass a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. It's unfair. It is bizarro.
REP. JOE WALSH, (R) ILLINOIS: It's bizarro and insulting for a guy like John McCain, who has been here for so long -- it's politicians like him that have gotten us to this point where we have a government we can't afford. And shame on him for saying that, for going after those of us who were elected six months ago to change the way guys like him have operated in this town forever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Interesting. I mean, the strong language and the in- fighting that's going on right now in the GOP, particularly in the House, because there are, as he said, I came in office six months ago. If I get booted out next year, fine. But can I cannot vote to continue spending the way we are.
VELSHI: Stay with us. In less than 30 minutes we will talk with Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey of Georgia. He's one of the conservatives who right now is against House Speaker John Boehner's plan.
CHETRY: Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is also against it. She says she is a no vote. She's been a fierce supporter of what she defines as a traditional family. But her family and upbringing has been anything but traditional. I had a chance to meet here yesterday and we talked. Here is a little bit of a preview.
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REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: After my parents divorced our family went into below poverty. We had been a middle class, lower middle class family. But after the divorce, we went below poverty. And my mother made about $4,800 a year. I had to get a job, my brothers got jobs. They delivered papers. I got a babysitting job. I made 50 cents an hour. That was big money back then. But we wanted to help out. That's what we needed to do.
My mother also said that, you know, it won't always be this way. It will get better. She told us to buckle down and do well in school. And we all did. And we all made it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: We are going to have more of our talk coming up next, including why she thinks we don't have to as a nation raise the debt ceiling and why she will be a no-vote on the House speaker's plan.
Meantime, the worst downpours in more than a century triggering deadly flooding in South Korea. You look at the pictures, it is just devastating. More than 20 inches of rain falling on Seoul in the last 48 hours. Highways and roads washed away are impassable. Flooding is being blamed for 35 deaths, most of them from landslides. Hundreds of homes have been lost. You see that sea of cars barely peak peeking out from under the water. It is still raining there today at actually a rate of two inches per hour in some parts of the city.
And there's heavy flooding this morning in northwest Illinois. The sheriff's office in Joe Davies County telling CNN and there have been half a dozen water rescues but no serious injuries. They've had up to a foot of rain in some areas and say it is still coming down this morning.
VELSHI: Now, there's no rain in Texas. And people in south Texas now preparing for the worst as a tropical storm barrels towards them in the Gulf. Rob Marciano is in the extreme weather center. They cannot catch a break. It will be great if the tropical storm becomes something very weak and sprinkles some rain over south Texas, but not if it doesn't.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, that's certainly the hope. You don't want this thing to blow up into a major hurricane. All indications right now is that that probably won't happen.
The outlier here is that this is a very strong and still unorganized storm -- small I should say. As a small storm getting into the Gulf of Mexico, we don't know how intense it is going to get. The track of it is pointing it towards southeast Texas as we go through the next couple of days.
Here you go. Here is the forecast from the national hurricane center. Takes it somewhere between Brownsville, just south of Corpus Christi. Landfall expected tomorrow night, early Saturday morning, as a strong tropical storm, potentially minimal hurricane.
That is the ideal situation. Maybe if we were bumping it up farther to the north, forecast rainfall amounts could see up to a half a foot in some spots and will take tonight places like San Antonio. They will take it further north, Austin, take it in Dallas, although at this point it does not look like the moisture will get all the way there.
They got it in Iowa and I will and Michigan overnight, and I will talk about that. The flooding that we saw there last night and the -- swift water rescue have flood warnings posted for today because we have more thunderstorms supposed to fire along this front. Some of which could become severe.
Chicago, guys, broke a record for the month of July. They saw well over nine inches of rainfall, much of it come thing past weekend, and more of it expected to come today.
VELSHI: The problem with that record is that it wasn't a month of July's worth of record. It was most of it on a weekend that -- get hit again. We are going on what's going on out there. Rob, thank you.
MARCIANO: You bet.
CHETRY: It looked like a scene from a movie, but it was actually a real-life riot that took place outside of Brahmin's Chinese Theater in L.A. last night. Thousands of people tried to crash a jam packed movie premiere. Police arrested two people.
VELSHI: Do you know what the movie was?
CHETRY: We said it looked like something out after movie before standing there on the street.
VELSHI: Yes. I mean -- how badly do you need to see any movie that you would get involved? At what point in a crazy scene outside of a movie do you say to Chris, let's just not see this today? Is it the - like, what happens where people decide we are going to stick around and take my shirt off and start a fight about getting into the movie?
CHETRY: I heard "Winnie the Pooh" was really, really good.
VELSHI: I think, "Black Swan" I nearly caused a fight, a riot trying to get out of it. It was such a horrible movie.
CHETRY: Stop picking on "Black Wwan." I heard it was "Electric Daisy." It was a documentary.
VELSHI: Was it an angry documentary?
All right, TV host turned crime fighter, Jeopardy's Alex Trebek catching a burglar in the act in his San Francisco hotel room and then chasing her down a hallway. That's when his Achilles' heel snapped.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX TREBEK, HOST, "JEOPARDY!": The snap and the sound -- I played sports all my life. I called security immediately and gave them a good description of the woman. And they caught her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Police arrested the suspect, 56-year-old Lucinda Moyers on suspicion of felony burglary and receiving stolen property.
CHETRY: Still to come this morning, dramatic new video taken moments after Friday's terror bombing in Oslo. The man who shot it says he wasn't sure he would live to tell about it. He joins us live from Norway with more of these amazing pictures.
VELSHI: And an awkward moment for Newt Gingrich all because of a T-shirt. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. We're tell you what that's all about when we come back. It's 10 minutes after the hour.
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CHETRY: Looking at live pictures in Oslo, Norway, where police are holding a news conference. They're updating members of the press on the latest developments in the aftermath of that horrific bombing and massacre that took 76 lives. They're releasing more names of the confirmed dead a little later this evening and also talking about a new interview conducted with the defendant in this case, Anders Breivik.
So we are monitoring developments for you and we'll bring you the latest.
VELSHI: We also have a CNN exclusive this morning, a dramatic new look at the immediate aftermath of the massacre. It is something you will not see on any other U.S. television network.
CHETRY: Johan Christian Tandberg was passing through a tunnel in downtown Oslo beneath the city's government plaza when that explosion happened. Eight people were killed.
VELSHI: Listening in for a second, this is the aftermath he put his camera on and started walking and seeing people. Let's listen for a moment.
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(EXPLOSION)
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VELSHI: You can see that -- you are seeing people on their cell phones. Tandberg says for a moment he thought he was going to die, too, before he started filming. But he survived. He recorded some of the most compelling video we have seen. This is seconds after the blast. He joins us now. Johan Christian Tandberg joins us live from Oslo.
CHETRY: Thanks for joining us this morning. First of all, you described this as almost like a war scene. War zone when you were walking through. Tell us what it was like in those moments after that bombing.
JOHAN CHRISTIAN TANDBERG, VIDEOTAPED AFTERMATH OF OSLO BOMBING: Well, the second I took to myself to get in order I went down from the tunnel and in three seconds I saw this building that was blown away like a war zone. I got the pictures back from 9/11 immediately. I started to record to document, and also I went inside the building to help injured people.
VELSHI: Your first -- Johan, your first reaction -- I'm sure others had the reaction -- you thought it was Al Qaeda.
TANDBERG: I was definitely -- I was 100 percent sure this was Al Qaeda. This is the attack we have been waiting for. Yes, I was 100 percent sure, terror attack against for way and Oslo. I was -- I was thinking of Al Qaeda. CHETRY: As it turns out, the suspect Anders Breivik is not only accused of carrying out that bombing, but then to hear about the horrific shooting that took place on the island at that youth camp. What is it like? How are you all dealing with this, especially you who is there actually when this happened?
TANDBERG: I have not had time yet to think about myself. I can tell you people all over Norway when they woke up Saturday morning and turned on the television, the number of dead have increased from eight Friday evening to more opinion 80 kids on Saturday morning. People all around the country are crying in front of the TV and still upset crying. That's what they are doing. They are still in shock.
VELSHI: Johan, tell me where you are in relation to where you were when the bomb went off and where you were take thing video from.
TANDBERG: I was in the tunnel underneath the government building in my car driving home. I heard this big bang and I thought it was -- first I thought it was a gas explosion. But the second after I saw the -- felt the air coming through the tunnel and my car moved. I had to lay down on the floor not to get the car the ceiling in my head. My car was still working, so I drove out and started to record. And from there I got my 15 minutes.
VELSHI: You weren't concerned of another bombing or the building would collapse? Your mind went into let me gather evidence mode? You were thinking you were going to record this because the police may be able to find someone? You actually headed right into the place where people were heading out of.
TANDBERG: Yes. Well, I was looking at one building. It was destroyed. So I did not go inside. But one building, the one I went into, was not that destroyed. So I went in to see if I could find anymore injured people in the stairs on the floors upstairs.
CHETRY: And you talk about all the buildings around you being blown out and big damage. How -- what was the extent of the people injured? What were you seeing around you? Were people able to walk away from that?
TANDBERG: First -- the first few minutes people were in shock. It was very quiet, silence for the first three minutes. Then we heard screaming as people got their ears back. People lost their hearing because of the bomb. They couldn't -- some of them were not able to hear. Some were not able to walk. Some were very injured. Unfortunately somebody also was dead.
VELSHI: Wow. Johan, very fast thinking. I hope it does help the police at least in understand thing a little better. Very, very fast thinking to get out of your car and try to document as much as of what was going on as possible. Johan Christian Tandberg was under the building attacked. He got out of his car and started filming and he joins us from Oslo.
CHETRY: Thanks so much for being with us this morning. VELSHI: An uncomfortable and awkward moment for Newt Gingrich and his presidential campaign staff. The former House speaker was meeting with reporters in Atlanta yesterday. And he has been talking about buying made in America a lot lately, insisting we need to beef up the manufacturing in this country and buy more American-made products.
So while he was in the middle of the exchange a producer for ABC News asked him to hold up a campaign T-shirt of his. Let's show you how this turned out.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of what you are talking about is taking America back to America. We asked for T-shirts to be sent to us, and you said they were made in America. I just picked up that one and it is made in El Salvador. It is printed here in Atlanta. And it was a big thing when we talked to your campaign about how you wanted things to be made in America. Do you have plans to change things?
NEWT GINGRICH, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have no -- I have to ask the folks that ordered this. I didn't order it and I don't do it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was a rush order the volunteers got.
GINGRICH: One of the challenges with a volunteer campaign is lots of volunteers do lots of different things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: A volunteer campaign and lots of volunteers do things. But it was an awkward moment, as we said, because he had been talking about the importance of made in America.
VELSHI: Yes. I mean -- there are -- you can get T-shirts made in Canada -- in America if you wanted to. I think somebody just ordered them online somewhere.
All right, we are going to be back in just a few moments. "News of the World" staff may have thought that they hit rock bottom when their paper closed. But now they are being offered new jobs. You won't believe where.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It's 22 minutes after the hour. "Minding your Business' this morning.
The Dow had its worst session since June 1 yesterday, dropping nearly 200 points to end the day. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 also closed lower. They were affected by debt ceiling fears that continue to plague the market.
Right now futures for the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 are all higher ahead of the opening bell. Investors will be watching Washington closely today, looking for any signs of progress on the debt ceiling talks.
Futures are getting a boost from strong corporate earnings out this morning. Colgate Palm Olive beat Wall Street's expectations for the second quarter. Europe's biggest oil company Royal Dutch Shell says its earnings almost doubled, and U.S. competitor ExxonMobil is expected to post its earnings later today. That's the big one.
VELSHI: Investors also looking to new economic data out today for a fresh read on the health of the U.S. economy. The weekly jobless claims report comes out at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. The number of pending home sales for June comes out at 10:00 a.m. Economists, though, are expecting weak reports for both of them.
Wall Street runs on Dunkin' -- that's the buzz after shares of Dunkin Donuts' parent company Dunkin' brand jumped 31 percent after going public this week. The IPO raised $423 million for the company. Dunkin' Brands also owns Baskin-Robbins.
AMERICAN MORNING coming back right after this break.
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CHETRY: It's 27 minutes past the hour right now. What a beautiful picture of Central Park.
VELSHI: Unbelievable.
CHETRY: We have been lucky the last couple of days. It's been rough weather in other parts of the country, but we've been enjoying some nice temperatures.
VELSHI: and 74, partly cloudy, going up to 88 today. Beautiful, beautiful summer day here. Sorry for those of you not having it. Its' hot and rainy in other places, drought in yet others.
Anger and frustration boiling over at a town hall meeting in New York for those that became ill after ground zero and are seeking compensation.
CHETRY: And there is a ruling that cancer will not be included as one of the ailments that it will be covered by the 9/11 health fund. Our Deb Feyerick has details of last night's meeting. Just some powerful testimony, very emotional from people who have already suffered so much and feel they are being left behind.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, exactly, especially among people so healthy before 9/11 who then came down with all these various ailments in the decade following.
This is one of three town hall meetings by the Justice Department. The purpose is to explain how this new victims' compensation fund is going to work. That's the fund that was established by an act. The big issue coming up again and again last night, the decision not to cover cancer. And one man who spoke said he spent three months working at ground zero and fresh kill landfill, that's where all the debris was taken, five years later he was diagnosed with throat cancer.
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JOHN MARSHALL, RETIRED NYPD DETECTIVE: I just think that this is an injustice to people that have cancer. I'm a retired police detective. I was down there for three months. I want to show you something. Sometimes I have to eat through this tube because the muscles in my neck don't work to swallow. I breathe and talk through this tube. And I'm the lucky one because I have health insurance. All these other people have cancer and don't have medical insurance. You are pushing them aside.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FEYERICK: The decision not to cover cancer was made by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. A doctor reviewed all of the existing data and found no scientific evidence proving a link between exposure to the toxins at ground zero and cancer. Essentially there is no actual fingerprint.
The woman in charge of the money, Sheila Birnbaum, had nothing to do with excluding cancer. She told the audience to be patient and said if and when scientists can prove that link then they will be covered by the fund.
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SHEILA BIRNBAUM, SPECIAL MASTER, 9/11 VICTIMS COMPENSATION FUND: It is an emotional thing, and, you know, our hearts go out to people who have suffered cancer. But people suffer from cancer, all kinds of cancers, who are not exposed to 9/11. And I think we have to wait and see what the medicine is going to tell us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FEYERICK: Many doctors say that cancers take more than 10 years to develop. Even after exposure to environmental toxins. So the rate of cancer is no higher than the age group than it would be otherwise.
The only visible spike right now is in blood cancers specifically multiple myeloma. A study shows it has affected a higher than usual number of men at a younger age.
That's where doctors believe they may see the first 9/11 link, blood cancers like leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma. Clearly however, people who are sick now say they simply don't have any time to wait.
VELSHI,: So first of all why the blood cancers? If they find that link, do they think they extend it -- may extend coverage to other cancers?
FEYERICK: They might be able to extend coverage. Blood cancers develop at a much, much faster rate than other cancers. That's what a particular study found. But also, there are going to be other studies, which may not be scientific. But may be so powerful in terms of who is being diagnosed and how many rates of cancer people are coming down with specifically first responders. So that may shift the balance in the next year.
CHETRY: And there is a lot of hope that in the coming months they may change the ruling. But meantime, it is very distressing for a lot of these people that are suffering.
FEYERICK: Hanging on. Yes.
VELSHI: Coming up at 7:50 Eastern, we will talk to Dr. Jacqueline Molin. Her study suggests a link between 9/11 responders and cancer, but she says more research is need to confirm the connection.
CHETRY: All right, a look at your top stories now. CNN has exclusive new video of the aftermath of Friday's bombing attack in Norway. It was taken by an Oslo man who was driving through a tunnel beneath the city's government plaza when the bomb detonated.
VELSHI: Meanwhile, massacre suspect Anders Breivik is being held in solitary confinement. The Norway's prime minister calling for an independent commission to investigate the attacks.
CHETRY: There's heavy flooding this morning in northwest Illinois. Sheriff's office is telling CNN that there have been a dozen water rescues, but no serious injuries in some of the counties there. They have had up to a foot of rain in some areas and it is still coming down.
VELSHI: The House is planning to vote today on Speaker John Boehner's plan to raise the debt ceiling. The vote is expected to be close because some Republicans are very, very clearly still not onboard.
They complained that the spending cuts don't go far enough. Yesterday, the speaker met with Republicans and demanded they get onboard. NBC's Brian Williams asked the House speaker if there is a revolt going on within the House GOP.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Speaker, is it fair to say you have a -- bit of a rebellion on your hands? Do you feel --
BOEHNER: I have a little rebellion on my hands every day. It comes with the territory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: And I want now to bring in one of the House Republicans who is against Speaker Boehner's plan to raise the debt ceiling. Joining me from Washington is Congressman Phil Gingrey of Georgia, a member of the Tea Party caucus. Thanks so much for joining us this morning, congressman.
REP. PHIL GINGREY (R), GEORGIA: Thank you, Kiran.
CHETRY: So John Boehner yesterday tried to sell his plan to conservatives. It has been revised back to the drawing board if you will.
More cuts and the Congressional Budget Office now says it cuts $917 billion of spending over 10 years. Again, no tax increases. Are you onboard?
GINGREY: Well, I'm not onboard. I think it is the next best thing, but quite honestly the best thing is cap, cut and balance. That gives the president what he asked for. The $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling to take him as he asked for through the next election. And that sounds awfully political to me.
But in any regard talk about balance for us to be willing to allow him to do that and in exchange we ask the cut, cap and balance. The most important aspect of that to me is the balanced budget amendment. We need that desperately.
We have been, you know, many congresses, Republicans, Democrats, it does not matter. We just keep spending. The only way we can constrain ourselves is by the balance budget amendment where 49 out of 50 states have.
CHETRY: Congressman Gingrey because there are many who are upset about that issue. They are saying that it should not be tied to the debt deal. It is a very valid point.
And that spending obviously can't continue. But that hinging, passing a debt deal on passing a balanced budget amendment as Senator McCain put it, he called it foolish and said it is worse than foolish. It's not fair. He also called it bizarro. What do you say to that?
GINGREY: I completely, totally, 100 percent disagree with Senator McCain. We tie things together all the time. There are times when I'm opposed to tying things together. But this, in my opinion, is the only opportunity.
We will never get a balanced budget amendment unless we don't take advantage of this choke point, if you will, in -- as Rahm Emanuel says, no crisis should go to waste. I really believe this is a crisis.
I don't want us to default on our debt. We are not going to do that. But I can almost assure you that if this is the only vehicle to avoid that, then it is very simple for Harry Reid to remove cut, cap and balance off of that table.
Amend it if he wants to in the Senate and send it back to us. But let's take this opportunity once and for all to get this country's fiscal House in order and pass this balanced budget amendment. CHETRY: So you are quoting Rahm Emanuel about why no crisis should go to waste? I mean, let me ask you this.
GINGREY: I'm trying to be as bipartisan as I can here.
CHETRY: OK. There is one aspect of bipartisanship. You know, a lot of people respect the ideology in the Tea Party caucus. Are you ignoring the reality there is another party and have a majority in the Senate and that some compromise has to happen here or the nation is in serious trouble?
GINGREY: Well, you know, that's right. And as Speaker Boehner correctly as pointed out many times, we, the Republican Party only control one-half of one-third of the government. But we have a leverage point here and I think that every member understands that.
We have a unique opportunity. We control the House of Representatives. They have to have us. This takes guts. This is a tough vote. I love my speaker. I have deep respect for our leadership, but I just feel so strongly about this and I think I'm trying to do what is right for the American people.
Not so much what is right for our party or the political careers of our speaker or even yours truly. I'm going to stand strong on this. I'm going to vote no because I truly want us to have the opportunity to take cut cap and balance off the table in the Senate and get it passed.
Even if we have to do that a little bit beyond August 2nd, I hope it does not come to that, but it may take that.
CHETRY: So you are saying you are not afraid of losing your elected office to take this to the brink and to -- try to get a deal worked out.
GINGREY: Absolutely.
CHETRY: Are you willing to deal with the potential fallout though if indeed we are not able to get any type of deal -- potentially default and lose AAA credit rating and we see unemployment spike?
GINGREY: Well, Kiran, that's a different question, of course. The first question is no, I'm not worried about my political fallout. Certainly, I am worried about the country and the -- interest rates and all of that stuff.
I'm not oblivious to that concern. But you know, if we don't do the right thing, how do we know the Standard & Poor's and the other rating agencies, Moody's, are not going to downgrade us anyway?
They've already said that several months ago even without talking about raising the debt ceiling. So I think this Armageddon is going to occur if we don't do the right thing. I clearly believe that the American people look at this and say why would members of either party be opposed to balancing your budget?
We have to do that every day in our families and our businesses at home. That's what's going to save this country.
CHETRY: The reason is you guys want to balance the budget, but nobody -- no one is raising taxes and no one is touching any entitlement programs. You guys are cutting around the fringe.
GINGREY: Well, we are taxed enough. We are for tax reform and closing loopholes. We are for broadening the tax base so that more people are paying at lower rates. We are absolutely committed to addressing entitlement reform. At least on my side of the aisle we are.
CHETRY: All right, well, thank you for your point of view this morning. Congressman Phil Gingrey from Georgia. Appreciate talking to you. Thanks.
GINGREY: Thank you, Kiran, my pleasure.
VELSHI: Interesting conversation we are having with Congressman Gingrey. One thing we should talk about, he said we are not certain that Moody's and S&P will not downgrade us even if we don't default.
Two very different situations, he is right. It's entirely likely the U.S. could get downgraded. Getting downgraded the way they are saying they may downgrade us takes us out of our AAA credit rating.
If you default, you don't go one notch below. You drop way down here so very, very different case. We may get downgraded from here to here if we default we can go downgraded from here to here.
CHETRY: When you talk to Congressman Gingrey and Congressman Bachmann like I did yesterday, they say, we don't default if we pay the interest on our debt. We have the money in our coffers to do that.
VELSHI: The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board disagrees with them. Standard & Poor's disagrees with them. Moody's seems to actually take that view. That you only default on who you default to so if you don't pay Social Security that's not a default.
CHETRY: That's a nightmare scenario, but it is not necessarily default.
VELSHI: It is just important to realize that there are differences, there a lots of grades for -- still ahead, why Russia plans to sink the International Space Station into the Pacific Ocean.
CHETRY: Also, is this photo of Julia Roberts misleading?
VELSHI: No!
CHETRY: Air bush photos of the superstar have been banned in Britain. VELSHI: I think she looks fine. Have you ever go on vacation and gained weight? How about eight pounds in two weeks? Yes. Look at that. I eat stuff like that because I'm on vacation. I have no rules. Number one worst vacation spot for your waistline coming up next. It's 40 minutes after the hour.
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VELSHI: Good news, bad news for the staff of Rupert Murdoch's now defunct "News of the World" paper. They have been offered new jobs in Siberia. I'm not kidding.
Some 200 positions are available in the remote Russian region to the former "News of the World" staffers. It is believed that 283 people lost their jobs when the 168-year-old newspaper was shut down.
Last week Murdoch promised parliament that everything possible was being done to find them new jobs. I guess, Siberia is growing.
CHETRY: I guess it is.
A makeup ad featuring actress Julia Roberts is being banned in Britain. Why? Well, because British authorities say the Lancome ad right there is misleading because it is overly air bushed. It would make people believe that you can look like that if you put on makeup.
VELSHI: I could look like that if I put on makeup.
CHETRY: A female Member of Parliament reportedly raised questions about airbrushing saying it is contributing to young girls' problem was body image and confidence and a Maybelline ad featuring model Christy Turlington has also been banned.
VELSHI: Interesting. What do you think of that?
CHETRY: I understand the whole -- it is just strange because in the U.S. they can't regulate how people --
VELSHI: Well, I mean, we can regulate to a point -- self- regulating thing. It is interesting.
All right, we're still adjusting to life without shuttle flights. Now comes word that the Russians plan to plunge the entire International Space Station into the ocean when it reaches the end of its life cycle in 2020.
Russian space officials say the International Space Station is too complex and too heavy an object to just be left in orbit. You can leave behind lots of space junk.
You know, how that goes. It's predecessor, the space station MIR was sunk into the pacific in 2001 after 15 years. I guess, they are good at this. If they are going to sink it from space, they have good aim. CHETRY: I hope so because that's a large object. How interesting -- so, it's up in space -- you know how many shuttle missions have gone to deliver intricate parts.
VELSHI: Right, right. And they're going to dump it into the ocean.
CHETRY: At the end, 2020, boom!
VELSHI: If you were sad about the space shuttle mission coming to an end, can you imagine? Maybe if they did it well, it could be a tourist attraction.
CHETRY: That's right. You could go diving at the International Space Station --
VELSHI: Yes. But I think you -- that would be -- what a spectacle that would be.
CHETRY: Right. Drop it from space and it lands in Cozumel. A year later, everyone is scuba-diving.
VELSHI: Right, right. But if they missed this, it's bad.
CHETRY: It won't be that easy.
Well, come to America. You'll leave eight pounds heavier. There's a new study that says that tourists gain the most weight while visiting the United States. Researchers found that the average tourist piles it on thanks to our huge portions, all you can eat buffets, and our constant snacking.
See, this is the one, Caribbean.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: All-inclusive, lot of resorts.
CHETRY: We didn't understand the concept of all-inclusive until we went to Cancun.
VELSHI: Right, right.
CHETRY: We couldn't believe our luck. So, they say that the Caribbean, all inclusive resorts as well.
VELSHI: See, I would have thought that Americans who have all these things, big servings and all you can eat, and stuff like this, would just eat more in other places. I would have thought it was the other way around. That Americans gain weight wherever they go.
CHETRY: No, we've already reach --
VELSHI: Like I thought, you know, thin Slovenians or something come to America and they say, boy, the Americans eat a lot. I couldn't possibly eat that much. But, apparently, the thin Slovenians come here and eat as much as Americans do.
CHETRY: They get one taste of the corn dog and that's it.
VELSHI: Can't just have one.
More headlines next, including a tropical storm moving towards the United States. We'll tell you when it's expected to make landfall when we come back.
CHETRY: Also, a controversial decision not to cover the cancer treatments of 9/11 first responders in a health fund. It's sparking outrage and anger. Scientists saying there's very little evidence that actually links cancer to the toxins in the air when the World Trade Center collapsed.
Well, Dr. Jacqueline Moline agrees but says that there is a link between the two. And that more research could change those findings. She's going to be joining us, coming up.
It's now 47 minutes past the hour.
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VELSHI: Forty-eight minutes after the hour. Here are your morning headlines:
A vote on House Speaker Boehner's debt plan is scheduled for today. It comes after Boehner ordered his conservative colleagues to get in line behind the bill that would cut $915 billion in spending over 10 years.
Let's check in on the markets right now.
The stock futures for the Dow, NASDAQ and S&P 500 are all trading higher ahead of the opening bell. Investors are watching Washington closely today, looking for any signs of progress on the debt ceiling talks.
A big arrest in the hacking world. Police say the 19-year-old spokesman for the notorious computer hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec is in custody in Britain. The groups have claimed responsibility for a string of cyber attacks on high profile targets, ranging from Sony, Bank of America and the U.S. Senate.
Half a dozen water rescues but no injuries or deaths from heavy flooding in northwest Illinois. The sheriff's office in Jo Daviess County says they had up to a foot of rain in some areas and it's still coming down this morning.
A tropical storm watch in place right now for much of the Texas coast as tropical storm Don forms in the Gulf of Mexico. You can see the trajectory there. It's the season's fourth named storm, but the first to threaten the U.S. It could make landfall somewhere between Corpus Christi late Friday night or early Saturday morning.
You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING, back after the break.
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CHETRY: Fifty-one minutes past the hour.
You know, there's a lot of anger and outrage this morning over a health fund for 9/11 responders, ruling that the fund won't cover cancers.
Yesterday, we had a chance to speak to John Feal. He was a demolition supervisor at Ground Zero. He lost a foot there and he suffers from respiratory problems. He says he has attended 53 funerals -- and in 51 of those 53 deaths, it was cancer. He calls the ruling a slap in the face.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN FEAL, 9/11 FIRST RESPONDER ADVOCATE: We had no hazmat suits. We had no proper respiratory. Through the nose, through the mouth, and through the skin, it was absorbed and it's causing these blood cancers, these myelomas those leukemias, all of these cancers. Don't insult our intelligence. We are sick and dying, but we're not stupid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Joining us is Dr. Jacqueline Moline. She is the author of the only study to date that has suggested a link between cancer and 9/11 responders.
Thanks so much.
DR. JACQUELINE MOLINE, NORTH SHORT-LIJ HEALTH SYSTEM: Thank you.
CHETRY: Now, I mea, obviously, there's the emotion here and then there's the science.
And, first of all, let me just ask you, what do you make of the ruling?
MOLINE: Well, you know, Dr. John Howard is a wonderful man and he cares deeply about the responders.
CHETRY: Explain for the audience who that is.
MOLINE: Dr. John Howard is the head of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. And he's also the World Trade Center program administrator.
He's been involved in this from the very beginning. What is he looking at is what's been published in the literature so that he can definitively say, yes, there is a link in the science based on what is out there in the science so that we can cover it under this Zadroga Bill.
CHETRY: Do you eventually think that this will be changed and it will include cancers?
MOLINE: I think it's important that we revisit this on a regular basis and I think there will be information and there are ongoing studies, will get the results of them within the next several months. I think, over time, well, in all likelihood, change these.
CHETRY: Tell us about your study, because yours is the first to show at least some correlation or link. What did you find?
MOLINE: What we found was in young individuals -- by young, we define them as under 45 -- there was a higher rate of multiple myeloma which is blood cancer than we would have expected. When we look, overall, the rate wasn't elevated.
But when we look and compare those in a younger age bracket, the rate was elevated. And it was an unusual pattern. We don't expect to see folks at a young age with this type of cancer. So, we felt it was important to get it out in the medical community so that people would be alert and aware of this.
Our study didn't prove that there was a link, but it just showed that there was a possibility and it showed that we had to be vigilant and keep looking for this and other cancers.
CHETRY: I want to show a little bit of the emotional testimony because as we said, this is an emotional issue as well for people who feel that they were traumatized and now feel they are being sort of left out in the cold, they feel, when it comes to getting treatment and monitoring. Let's listen to one gentleman at this hearing yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN MARSHALL, RETIRED NYPD DETECTIVE: I just think that this is an injustice to people who have cancer. I'm a retired police detective, down there for three months. I want to show you something.
Sometimes -- sometimes I have to eat through this tube because the muscles in my neck don't work to swallow. I breathe and talk through this tube
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: "Talking through his tube, but I'm one of the lucky ones because I'm still here."
MOLINE: Yes.
CHETRY: You know, these are men who say how can there not be a link given I was healthy and I was fine and I worked down at Ground Zero or in Staten Island for several months and now I'm dying.
MOLINE: Well, you know, unfortunately, sometimes it takes time for us to be able to definitively get the answers and I feel for these detectives. I've seen many of them. I'm -- you know, I've been a part of the World Trade Center programs for almost 10 years now.
And they are our heroes. They responded. They went in there selflessly.
The health consequences of this, we don't have a full answer on and while many of them are saying, you know, enough time has passed, we should have these answers, it takes time in many cases for us to see if there are enough cases that are elevated from what is a common disease overall. We do know that it seems like when you hear this one has cancer, that one has cancer, that you're saying, my goodness, something is going on. I mean, in fact, that is why we published our report because we saw this.
I think, over time, we are going to have answers. I think we just need to be cautious and we want to make sure that our responders get the best science behind the cancer question.
CHETRY: So, I know, they are doing the study at Mt. Sinai. I know that they're continuing these studies.
The thing that's s interesting, though, and galling to some of us, is that we were told, you know, in the wake of 9/11, the air is fine, it's safe to breathe. I mean, the EPA came out and said the air at Ground Zero is fine. And now, 10 years later, we are seeing, obviously, respiratory illnesses, those have been shown to be correlated and people are saying, wait, we need time to determine if there was a level of toxicity to cause cancer.
MOLINE: Saying that the air was safe to breathe was one of the misstatements of all time from a health perspective. We certainly know that it wasn't meant for those people who were working on the pile. Unfortunately, it was interpreted that way.
And we do -- we have learned lessons which are make sure that people have respiratory protection. That they do go in and they know how to not only do the work they need to do in rescue and recovery, but protect themselves.
There are respiratory problems. Those occur right away. And we have seen that and those are covered now.
I think, over time, we may have different answers for folks. I know it is very frustrating that science moves slowly to give the answers that people are looking for.
CHETRY: Well, I know you're digging deeper and you're trying to figure this out and get to the bottom of it. Dr. Jacqueline Moline at North Shore Health Systems -- thanks so much for being with us.
MOLINE: Thank you.
CHETRY: All right. We're going to take a break. Three minutes to the top of the hour.
We'll have your top stories coming up.
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