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American Morning
Michele Bachmann Controversially Links Vaccine to Mental Retardation; Jennifer Hudson Loses Weight; Rebel Forces in Libya Prepare Push into Gadhafi's Hometown; Interview with Thomas Friedman; Obama "Very Confident" About 2012; Biden Touring Pennsylvania Flood Devastation; Palestinians Seeking Statehood; iPhone Fixer; Some Fans Not Happy with Jennifer Hudson Weight Loss; Sneak Peak of "Diana Nyad, Xtreme Dream"
Aired September 16, 2011 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Congresswoman Michele Bachmann now backing down from a gaffe that could derail her campaign. A doctor wagering ten grand that she is wrong about the side effects of a breakthrough vaccine.
Opposition forces storming one of the last strongholds of exile dictator, Moammar Gadhafi. They're trying to take control of Sirte, Gadhafi's home town, but are running out against heavy resistance.
ROMANS (voice-over): And full contact. The NFL with a new pat down policy after a stun gun embarrassment on 9/11 on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO (on-camera): Oh, good morning to you and Happy Friday. Yes, it's Friday, September 16th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with the developing story happening right now in Libya. Troops from that country's transitional government, the rebel movement, are advancing deep into Moammar Gadhafi's home town of Sirte at this hour. This is an important key development. It's not the only place the rebels are active right now.
Let's go straight to Ben Wedeman. He's reporting live from (INAUDIBLE) Libya this morning. He is the only reporter with the rebels in the south of the country. Ben, what is the situation as you know it?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, yesterday we saw a lot of clashes between this group of opposition fighters numbering at least 500 and some loyalist forces not far from here, just about two miles down the road. We're on an air base which was taken the night before last by the opposition fighters. Right here we have somebody posing on top of an airplane for us.
On this air base -- these are old training planes. They're not warplanes. There are about 15 are on this air base. The fighters are concentrated here. What they found in the air base, lots of weapons and supplies which will be critical, because the plan is to stay here a couple of days and move south to one of the main strongholds of loyalist supporters of Moammar Gadhafi.
And particularly important for them is they're looking for Abdullah Sanusi. He was the intelligence chief for Moammar Gadhafi, somebody who was critical in planning the attempt, or organizing the attempt to put down the rebels. They failed at that, Ali?
VELSHI: Ben, we're watching closely and, of course, those rebels moving into Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte. Ben, thanks very much. Ben Wedeman in Libya.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, to politics now. She may have overplayed her hand. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann now backtracking on a controversy she brought to the national stage, her comments about the HPV vaccine. Now, of course, this started the CNN Tea Party debate on Monday night, Bachmann blasting Governor Rick Perry for ordering young girls in Texas to get an HPV vaccine. The argument stayed mostly on his abuse of power. She seemed to have him on the heels of the debate. She seemed to score some political points. It looked like it gave her campaign new life, until this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELE BACHMANN, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will tell you I had a mother come up to me here in Florida after the debate. She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter. It can have very dangerous side effects. The mother was crying when she came up to me last night. I didn't know who she was before the debate. This is the very real concern, and people have to draw their own conclusion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: But immediately following that appearance, the American Academy of Pediatrics posted a statement on its website saying there is absolutely no scientific validity to the suggestion that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. Bachmann backed off a bit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BACHMANN: During the debate I didn't make any statements that would indicate that I'm a doctor, I'm a scientist or that I'm making any conclusions about the drug one way or another. I didn't make any statements about that. At the conclusion of the debate a woman came up to me distraught. She was crying and she thanked me for my remarks and said her daughter had a negative reaction. And that's all I related.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Then a respected biochemist upped the ante, Arthur Caplan, the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He tweeted this challenge to Bachmann. "Here's the deal. She has one week to produce her victim. She pays $10,000 to a pro-vaccine group if she can't. I pay $10,000 to a charity of her choice if she does." Caplan spoke to Anderson Cooper last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARTHUR CAPLAN, BIOETHICIST: I'm certainly willing to say she wasn't speaking as doctor or scientist because she was far off the planet in that area. And it's not acceptable. She's fear mongering, Anderson. There's about 4,000 women in the U.S. who die every year from cervical cancer, 450,000 worldwide. She said in that clip and said it a couple of times, you've got to take that into account that vaccine is dangerous. That's completely inappropriate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Other doctors have even called the comments by Bachmann "toxic," saying the damage has already been done.
COSTELLO: One of Bachmann's opponents Jon Huntsman is jumping on the controversy too, saying Bachmann needs to check her sources. On "THE SITUATION ROOM" Huntsman said Bachmann is qualified to be president, but by the narrowest of definitions.
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WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": Is she qualified to be president of the United States?
JON HUNTSMAN, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think she meets the constitutional requirements, of course.
BLITZER: The constitution is one thing. But in terms of experience, her expertise, her knowledge, is she ready to become commander in chief?
HUNTSMAN: I would never go beyond what the constitution requires. Leave that up to the people to decide. They always typically make the best choices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Huntsman said he also opposed a mandate requiring all girls to receive that vaccination, but that Bachmann's comments on the vaccine only confused voters.
VELSHI: New this morning, a Florida judge ruling Casey Anthony's lies are going to cost her about $98,000. That's a lot less than prosecutors actually wanted to pay. They wanted her to pay over half a million to recover the costs of investigating two-year-old's Caylee Anthony's disappearance. It was the lies she was convicted on, and the argument is that those lies caused a lot people to spend a lot of money looking for her baby.
ROMANS: They didn't convict her of killing her daughter but lying of where she was and why she didn't know where she was.
All right, the Pentagon says the military's controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning openly gay men and women from serving, that will officially, officially, end next Tuesday. Two Republican lawmakers are asking the repeal be delayed, saying they need to be better informed about the policy changes.
COSTELLO: Let's talk about Brandon Wright, shall we, because he is one lucky man and thankful to be alive. The young college student pulled from underneath a burning car in Utah after his motorcycle collided with that car in a parking lot. Well, he held a news conference from his hospital bed just to say thank you to the brave bystanders who lifted that car off of him and saved his life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRANDON WRIGHT, RESCUED FROM BENEATH BURNING CAR: I just wanted to thank all the heroes that put their lives on the line to save mine. I'm forever in debt. I can't thank them enough. And I just hope they know how much they mean to me.
I woke up to a man in a green shirt just kneeling over me and trying to get me to talk and keeping me awake. And I'd really like to meet him, too, just because he did not -- did not let me close my eyes and go back to sleep. Really, without him, I don't know if I would have hung in there.
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COSTELLO: Brandon says the sight of his mangled motorcycle made him cry. He suffered a fracture to his right leg, burns to his leg, but no damage to his head despite the fact he was not wearing a helmet, something that will change because he says that will not happen again.
VELSHI: Excellent. And most people shouldn't wait for an accident to remember to wear a helmet.
All right, it is - what, seven minutes after the hour. So long summer. Did you feel that last night?
ROMANS: I couldn't believe it.
VELSHI: A cold night.
(WEATHER BREAK)
COSTELLO: Now it's your turn to talk back on one of the stories of the day. The question for you this morning, what does Jennifer Hudson's weight-loss controversy say about obesity in America? I know. Jennifer Hudson, please. Hear me out. There is no doubt Jennifer Hudson is skinny now. Since she appeared on "Oprah" she's down to a size zero, saying, and I quote, "I'm prouder of my weight- loss than my Oscar," a far cry from 2007 when she was a whole lot curvier. Jennifer said at that time "I love my size answers think everybody should have some kind of meat on her bones. I never bought into that."
Her change of heart about her weight has some fans steamed. The Cafe Mom blog writes "It's confusing to kids who struggle with celebrity worship and their own self-esteem, especially girls with body image issues and their own weight struggles."
Actually, you could argue all of America is confused about body image and weight. Audiences love that show "The Biggest Loser," yet criticize Hudson for losing weight? Some criticize Michelle Obama for her anti-obesity campaign. Somehow promoting healthy eating is equivalent to a nanny state.
But the facts are the facts. About one-third of adult Americans are obese and heart disease is the number one killer in the United States. As for what Jennifer Hudson is saying now --
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JENNIFER HUDSON, ACTRESS: It's about what you want for yourself, how you feel about yourself. It's about good health, and at least for me it's about good health but overall, what you want for yourself. If you want to be that big girl, be the fiercest big girl you can possibly be, and I will be the healthy fierce girl I can possibly be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: So the talk back question today, what does Jennifer Hudson's weight-loss controversy say about obesity in America? Facebook.com/AmericanMorning. Facebook.com/AmericanMorning. I'll read your comments later in the hour.
ROMANS: How did she lose all the weight?
COSTELLO: Weight Watchers. She's a spokesperson. She exercises like a fiend, hours a day. I mean, she really exercises. And she eats right. You know, she follows the Weight Watchers program still.
ROMANS: At her peak, she wasn't taking care of herself? Did she say that?
COSTELLO: She didn't exactly say that.
ROMANS: Right.
COSTELLO: She's aware of the controversy herself, so she's very careful what she says about it, because she doesn't want to anger fans, because when she was a size 16, she did embrace her weight and her curves and people liked that about her. So for her now being supposedly a size zero, times are tough when it comes to her fans.
ROMANS: She's beautiful. Every weight she's been, she's a very, very beautiful girl.
COSTELLO: And she won her Oscar at her highest weight.
ROMANS: Right.
COSTELLO: There you go.
VELSHI: Still to come this morning, President Obama and House Speaker Boehner each drawing a line in the sand with their respective jobs plans. We're going to talk with "New York Time's" columnist Thomas Friedman who suggests a little bit of political CPR is needed to resolve the economic crisis that we're in.
ROMANS: Shock there, maybe. Sorry.
The Palestinians ready to seek recognition as a state from the U.N. Why the U.S. is so determined to stand in the way.
COSTELLO: And, boy, is he good for what ails your iPhone. We'll catch you up with a self-described cell phone doc whose business is booming. Talk about American entrepreneurs.
You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. It's 12 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: As President Obama sells his jobs plan this week and Republican start to push back, there are some people who think the only way out of our current job situation has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. It's got to come from the outside, from possibly a third party candidate for president.
Thomas Friedman is one of those people. He's been talking about this for a while and does a great job of outlining the issues we face and the solutions we may have in his new book entitled "That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World it Invented and How We Can Come Back."
What a great title. Thomas Friedman joins us from Washington this morning. Tom, good to see. Thank you very much for being with us.
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, NY TIMES COLUMNIST, PULITZER-PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR: Great to be here with you, Ali. Thank you.
VELSHI: You have - it's right in the front of the book. You have a quote from President Obama which actually inspired the title of the book, but we actually have when he said it. Let's listen to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It makes no sense for China to have better rail systems than us and Singapore having better airports than us, and we just learned that China now has the fastest super computer on earth. That used to be us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The book is called "That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in a World it Invented and How We Can Come Back."
Thomas, President Obama said this - said something very similar in fact in his jobs speech last week, and it was one of the few instances where he got applause from both sides of the House. If that used to be us, Christine Romans makes this point all the time, what happened?
FRIEDMAN: Well, what happened, Ali, is that myself and my co-author, Michael Mandelbaum, argue is that we had a formula for success in this country.
It was a formula built on basically five pillars. Educating our people up to and beyond whatever the technology was, whether it's the cotton gin or the personal computer. Having the world's best infrastructure - roads, airports, telecommunications. Having the world's most open immigration policy that attracted the most energetic, talented people from around the world to our shores. Having best rules to invest capital and having the most government funded research to push out the boundaries of science and great new frontiers for companies.
If you look what happened over the last decade, Ali, which we call in our book, the terrible twos, the first decade of the 21st Century. The arrow is pointing down on all five of those parts of our formulas for success.
VELSHI: You have - so you look at education, infrastructure, immigration, rules and research, and we are - we are weak on every single one of those fronts right now. However, you sort of put it into a number of challenges that we have to deal with now in order to become more prosperous. We deal with the challenge of globalization, of the revolution in Information Technology, of chronic deficits that we face, and what you call a pattern of excessive energy consumption.
So reading this and listening to what you just said, one might think that you think the world or America right now is a place destined for - for a lot of gloom and misery. But I want to read a quote from page 297 where you actually seem optimistic. You say it's easy to be an optimist about America if you stand on your head, because the country looks so much better and so much more inspiring when viewed from the bottom up than from the top down. When you look at the country that way you realize the greatest generation has not died. That sounds very inspirational.
FRIEDMAN: Well, one of the things I've discovered, Ali, in traveling around the country, from my last book, which is about "energy" is the country is still full of energy from the bottom up.
With that chapter that you just read, the passage from a chapter is called they just didn't get the word. This country is still full of people who didn't get the word that we're down and out. That we're deep in recession and they just go out and start stuff and fix stuff, and invent stuff. And we need to be enabling and nurturing those people.
VELSHI: Let's talk about partisanship. I want to get to this whole idea of a third candidate, but I want to get there in a second. Because you acknowledge what so many of us acknowledge that there's hyperpartisanship in this country and - and some of the reasons you cite are us - 24-hour media.
You also talk about gerrymandering districts. You basically outlined that we've got a structure that is causing this hyperpartisanship. It's not just happening?
FRIEDMAN: Well, like everything in the book we argue, the problem we're in right now, Ali, it's not just two years old from the subprime. It's really 20 years old and one of those features is a political environment that actually is designed to divide us, much we're actually divided.
The American people, we are convinced on the basis of some serious research we cite, are nowhere nearly as divided as our politicians.
VELSHI: And you think that the shock - the system that may have to break that is a third party candidate? That's where you started to lose me. Explain to me why you think that might be the logic and whether this third party candidate could actually become the president of the United States.
FRIEDMAN: Well, let's start, Ali, with where - what we need right now. We need basically three things.
We need to cut spending, because we have made promises to future generations we cannot keep. We need to raise revenues, OK? Because partly because we can't just cut Social Security and Medicare and shred our safety nets. So we need revenues to prevent that and, also, because we need to do a third thing, invest in that five-part formula for success.
Now, the problem we have today is, one party really wants to talk about investing.
VELSHI: Yes.
FRIEDMAN: One party really wants to talk about - and taxing. One party really wants to talk about not taxing. All right? And cutting. And there's actually no party that has that high-bred politics in the middle. That's what we need.
Politics is about incentives and right now these two parties, their incentives are to really appeal to their base. We're really big believers, change the incentives, change the politics. Move the cheese, move the mouse. Don't move the cheese, the mouse doesn't move.
Unless you move the cheese, possibly - you know, I hope we don't have to have a third party. I'd love to see President Obama have this position or Boehner, whoever. But unless you move the cheese by showing these politicians that actually there's a huge unrepresented middle here, all right, in this country, that's ready for cutting, all right? Taxing and investing at the same time -
VELSHI: Yes.
FRIEDMAN: -- then I don't think the politics changes.
VELSHI: Used to be that we all - not we, but candidates all looked for that huge middle and tried to appeal for them. Things are changing.
Thomas Friedman, a great read. Thanks so much for being with us. Thomas Friedman, is a co-author of "That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in a World it Invented and How We Can Come Back." What a great discussion. Thank you, Thomas.
ROMANS: Yes, absolutely.
VELSHI: Yes.
COSTELLO: Good adult conversations today.
VELSHI: Well, I knew it will appeal to you because of this idea that we forget as we - as we talk about the dismantling of our - our nation, that there are inventions in the world that came right from America.
COSTELLO: Oh, yes.
ROMANS: And, you know, you never can count America out. And I always say this to someone once told me that America has been - has been grieving the loss of its middle class for 350 years.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: Is the American dream dead? We've been saying that since men wear powdered wigs. You know, it felt - I mean, hopefully there's something that, you know, innovates and reenergizes it.
COSTELLO: On the subject of the politics, though, unless we change our primary system, which appeals of course to the most extreme voters -
VELSHI: Right.
COSTELLO: -- then a third candidate isn't likely to make much headway. I mean, there's got to be changes in the system -
VELSHI: Right.
COSTELLO: -- before we come up with this -
VELSHI: And he writes a lot about that.
COSTELLO: Right.
VELSHI: That the system does encourage this extremism.
COSTELLO: Exactly.
ROMANS: All right. Still to come this morning, what President Obama thinks about his chances for re-election in 2012.
It's 23 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: "Minding Your Business" this morning. Right now, U.S. stock features for the Dow, NASDAQ and S&P 500 are all trading slightly lower ahead the opening bell. Wall Street watching what happens in Europe very closely today.
The U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner making a rare appearance at a meeting of Europe's finance ministers in Poland this morning. He urged them to free up more resources to tackle a two-year-old debt crisis there. Investors are hoping more coordinated measures may be announced to this meeting to help the Euro zone stay intact.
New this morning, in a new poll, economists say there's a one in three chance the U.S. economy will slip back into recession in the next year. That poll was conducted by the "Wall Street Journal" as the most pessimistic since the recovery began.
On a lighter note, this might be a great time to refinance your mortgage. The average rate for a 30-year fixed rate loan fell to an unbelievably low 4.09 percent this week. That's the lowest 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate in 60 years that's according to Freddie Mac.
Don't forget, for the very latest news about your money, check out the all-new CNNMoney.com.
AMERICAN MORNING will be right back after this quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Despite disapproval ratings hitting new highs, President Obama told campaign donors in D.C. that his chances are better in 2012 than they were in 2008. Ticket the fundraiser held in Georgetown were at $35,800 per couple. So it was probably good to sound pretty confident in return for that cash.
COSTELLO: Vice President Joe Biden hitting north eastern Pennsylvania today where flooding from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee damaged or destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.
ROMANS: Troops from Libya's transitional government advancing deep into Moammar Gadhafi's home town of Sirte this morning. They're looking to seize control of one of the last strongholds of the exiled dictator. If Sirte does fall, anti-Gadhafi forces will have complete control of Libya's entire Mediterranean coastline.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: OK, an important discussion you're going to be hearing a lot about over the next week. One week from today, Palestinian officials say they will submit a bid for full membership to the United Nations in order to be recognized as a state.
This is a plan the United States would like to stop in its tracks and has tried actively to do so. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling it short sighted and vowing it will not succeed.
She is calling on the Palestinian authority to negotiate statehood with Israel instead. Daniel Kurtzer joins us live from Princeton, New Jersey, this morning. He's a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and to Egypt. Ambassador, thank for being with us this morning.
DANIEL KURTZER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO EGYPT (1997-2001): Good morning, Ali.
VELSHI: This is a complicated issue because there are some people who know it very, very well and are deeply entrenched in it one way or another, and then there are other people who have tweeted and asked, what's exactly the big deal here?
What's going on? The Palestinians asking the U.N. for statehood? The U.N. likely to vote overwhelmingly in favor and the United States going to step in and veto it. Set the stage here. What's going on?
KURTZER: Sure. This is not an unavoidable problem. This is a human contrived problem. We have had efforts over the years to try to negotiate Arab-Israeli peace. Palestinians and Israelis have done pretty well actually over the years in narrowing differences.
The United States is a third party. Frustration has grown in the past two years over the inability to find a formula to get them back to negotiations. And as a result of that, the Palestinian authority that decided it wants to take its case to the United Nations in the hope that it will gain something diplomatically from an upgrading of its status.
The United States and Israel believe that this is not only a diversion, but it actually threatens to undermine the very fabric of negotiations. The point of saying this is not unavoidable, however, is that the three parties, Israel, Palestine and the United States, can find a way out of this either through returning to negotiations on the basis of a good formula, or crafting a resolution at the U.N. that's workable.
VELSHI: What's the thing that's standing -- what has changed in the last two years that has created such intransigence in the ability to get something done?
KURTZER: Well, I think there are three factors, one on each side. The Israeli side, you have a government in power, essentially a right wing government intent upon building settlements and so far, rejecting the appeals of the United States to return to the negotiating table.
On the Palestinian side, you have a very divided and weak policy. Divided between the West Bank and Gaza, and unable to make tough decisions on the ground, and on the United States' side, we've tried diplomacy, but then we failed to follow through.
VELSHI: You know, there's this inherent inconsistency of U.S. foreign policy, which confuses a lot of people in other parts of the world. In fact, angers some people in other parts of the world.
This is going to become very difficult symbolically when the U.S. has to step up and veto this. It's going to send a message into the Arab world that -- Israel did this in 1948. It realized that negotiations weren't going to lead to statehood. So it declared its independence. Why don't the Palestinians have a right to do that?
KURTZER: Well, there are significant differences. Israel declared independence and then in fact was invaded by a number of Arab countries trying to destroy the nascent Jewish state.
You have a situation here in Palestine today where Israel and the Palestinians have tried to negotiate it, but they haven't yet succeeded. I think the idea that bothers Washington is the unilateral nature of the turn to the United Nations. Palestine in fact declared itself a state. That's not the issue today.
VELSHI: Right.
KURTZER: The issue is whether it gains full or partial membership in the United Nations and how that impacts the search for peace.
VELSHI: And is there a symbolic problem that the U.S. might face if forced to do this in a week?
KURTZER: Well, it's more than symbolic, Ali. We've heard from former Saudi ambassador to the United States that there could be a change in our relationship with the kingdom, should the United States exercise a veto.
Now, none of us likes to operate under the threat of a change in a relationship, and the Saudis also have soul searching to do, but we also ought to pay attention when a long-standing ally says they're very upset at the direction of U.S. policy.
VELSHI: In fact, Turkey Al-Faisal, you're referring to, he wrote an op-ed in the "New York Times," which showed up last week and the title of it is "veto a state, lose an ally."
This is a serious issue that Americans should become very familiar with over the course of the next week so they understand what's happening. Thank you, Ambassador, for making this clear to us. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, former ambassador to Israel and Egypt.
KURTZER: Thank you.
COSTELLO: New this morning, football fans will now be subjected to enhanced pat downs. The NFL says it will conduct pat downs from the ankles all the way up on fans coming into stadiums across the country.
In the past the pat downs went from the waist up only. This is apparently something that was supposed to start on opening day, but did not happen at every game. There may be new urgency after someone got into the Jets game on 9/11 with a stun gun.
VELSHI: And the Texas Rangers might want to sign this fan up. Check out how he handled a foul ball while he's talking on the cell phone. Doesn't even bothered, doesn't even get off the phone. He puts up his glove, doesn't interrupt the phone conversation. One sportscaster might say, smooth as the other side of the pillow.
ROMANS: Does he look?
VELSHI: Do that with both hands and gloves.
ROMANS: And he knew it was coming.
VELSHI: I knew it's coming.
ROMANS: All right, we had so much fun with this one yesterday. We're going to have some more Guinness World's Records to show you.
Up first, the world's largest natural afro. Don't be jealous, Ali. It measure 4 feet, 4 inches. It took 12 years to grow. One of the biggest problems she says is, it's always getting caught in trees.
VELSHI: Tall.
COSTELLO: All right, meet the world's most elastic woman. She says her flexibility comes in handy on long flights because she can just curl up in her seat, take a little snooze. She doesn't need a lot leg room there.
Just because it's Friday, our favorite video of the week, the record for most dogs jumping on a jump rope. By far -- playing it again, because, Carol, I loved this thing.
VELSHI: Look at it. It's hilarious, Carol.
COSTELLO: All that terrible economic news I do, please let me enjoy these dogs one more time.
ROMANS: OK, whatever.
VELSHI: All right, still to come this morning, after the super 11 dogs, beat the so-called doctors, nothing short of a life saver for all of you out there who are attached to your iPhone.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: It is 41 minutes past the hour. Good morning to you.
If your iPhone is bruised broken or it's just not working right, who are you going to call? How about Dr. Brandon?
VELSHI: He's not really a doctor, but he's called Dr. Brandon. He fixes all things Apple. We first met him last year. Turns out he's got an app for success. Poppy Harlow has been following the story and you revisited this.
POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: We did. It's amazing what a year can do for small business. A lot of small businesses are struggling. They can't get loans right now. Not the case for Dr. Brendan. He fixes everything Apple. Last year when we visited him, business was good, but now it's a whole lot better. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do everything from iPhone, iPads, and the iTouch.
HARLOW (voice-over): Remember him? Dr. Brendan, a.k.a, the iPhone doc. We introduced you to him last year when he was fixing everything Apple out of his tiny New York City apartment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Courtesy of China and that is a new iPhone screen there.
HARLOW: But a year's been good to the doctor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How's it going?
HARLOW: His business has exploded, like Apple stock.
(on camera): This is your first shop?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my first shop right here. My office is my apartment and coffee shops and the fiat.
HARLOW (voice-over): Now he's got four stores, eight employees and boasts 300 percent growth since January, thanks to customers looking for a quick fix.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're welcome.
HARLOW (on camera): Did you think about going to Apple?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To be honest, no, I didn't.
HARLOW (voice-over): Emily Espilino has come here six times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was bending down to tie my shoe in Philadelphia, and my phone dropped about 12 inches on the concrete.
HARLOW: The most common fixes? iPhones averaging $100, and Mac Books averaging $200.
(on camera): One broken screen. Two -- you got hundreds of them in here, and you know what that means? Big business for Dr. Brendan.
HARLOW (voice-over): But it's about a lot more than that these days. The web site's been expanded for more mail-in repairs and his team now makes IT service house calls in the Dr. Brendan mobile.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your metro is actually boiling the heat exhaust directly on to your server switch.
HARLOW (on camera): This is one of the downside of house calls, $115 parking ticket.
(voice-over): One secret of Dr. Brendan's success, hiring employees right from Apple, like Travis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not going after Apple's business. We love Apple. The product is simply so popular for very valid reasons. That's one of the reasons why we're here. There's simply so many of them out there.
HARLOW (on camera): Do you ever question the demand for Apple products would fall and that would hurt your business?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a great question. No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where we work with customers.
HARLOW (voice-over): The offers have started rolling in from franchisees and private equity firms, but he's not interested.
BRENDAN MCELROY, "DR. BRENDAN": In the beginning, I think it's smart to just, to do everything by yourself as much as you can handle. And I really didn't want to get in over my head in something I really didn't understand.
HARLOW (on camera): You're not ready to hand this business over to anyone yet?
MCELROY: Not yet, no. There's my other shop, right there.
HARLOW (voice-over): In fact, Dr. Brandon has his eye on global expansion.
(on camera): You're seeing strong growth, but the economy's tough. Are you worried?
MCELROY: No. No, I'm not worried.
HARLOW: Why?
MCELROY: Because I started this business in the middle of the economic meltdown. OK? If I was going to be worried, I would have been worried then. Not now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: What I think is amazing is, unlike a lot of small business owners, he hasn't taken out any loans whatsoever to fund this business. He doesn't really want anyone else having a say necessarily in it, and doesn't want to be in debt to anyone else. He's been able to do it largely because of the continuing demand for Apple products.
But, folks, before you use his service or anyone else's, if you have someone outside of Apple fix your iPhone or iPad, it might break your warranty. Something to keep in mind.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Does he -- he buys the parts from the people who make the parts for Apple?
HARLOW: He buys the parts -- this is fascinating. The first year we visited him, we found out he just called up a bunch of suppliers in China.
(LAUGHTER)
And he found out who made something either exactly the same as Apple --
VELSHI: Or close enough.
HARLOW: -- provides or close enough. He said it was a little scary. The first time, I just sent a check to China --
VELSHI: Right.
HARLOW: -- and hoped the goods would come.
(CROSSTALK)
HARLOW: They did and they keep on coming. I said, well, is it hard now? You have increased volume, four stores to service. He said it gets a little harder. But if Apple can do it, I guess the entrepreneur can do it.
VELSHI: Wow. I love that story.
HARLOW: A lot of fun.
And, folks, if you want to see last year's story on Dr. Brendan, we've got that and the latest is on CNNmoney.com.
VELSHI: Yes, great story.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: There are thousands of people turning out -- I mean, those -- that's where all of those components are coming from.
HARLOW: All of them.
VELSHI: That's brilliant.
ROMANS: If you can figure out where they're coming from --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Good for him.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Good for Dr. Brendan.
Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, we're talking about Jennifer Hudson. If you've seen her lately, you know she has lost an enormous amount of weight. But some of her fans aren't so happy about that. That's our "Talk Back" question of the morning. Let us know what you think, Facebook.com/Americanmorning.
It's 46 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: 48 minutes past the hour. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
Troops of Libya's transitional government advancing deep into Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte this morning. They're looking to seize control of one of the last strongholds of the exiled dictator. If Sirte does fall, anti-Gadhafi forces will have complete control of Libya's entire Mediterranean coastline.
A teachers' strike in Tacoma, Washington, now entering its fourth day. The teachers voted overwhelmingly to continue their walkout, defying court order to return to the classroom. The district has argued in court that 19 different judges in Washington State have ruled teachers' strikes are illegal since 1976. The strike impacts some 28,000 public school students in Tacoma.
62,000 grocery store workers in southern California could soon walk off the job, too. That's because talks between their union and a number of grocery chains have broken down. At issue, health care contributions.
L.A. Lakers' forward Ron Artest is no longer L.A. Lakers forward Ron Artest. Today, his name officially becomes Metta World Peace. His publicist says his new first name, Metta, in the Buddhist tradition, means loving kindness and friendliness towards others.
You are caught up with the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING, back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
In today's "Human Factor," she didn't let age, powerful currents or sharks keep her away.
VELSHI: Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with a sneak peak of his special, "Diana Nyad, Xtreme Dream."
What a woman, Sanjay.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: She exudes inspiration, Ali. There's no question. This is one of the most inspiring things I have had a chance to do here at CNN, and one of most inspiring people.
She set out to do something no human being has ever done before. Think about that for a second. She wanted to swim from Cuba to Florida, 103 miles. And there are so many things that impact a swim like that, besides the fact she'll be in the water for 60 hours expected, 200,000 strokes. That was what the -- the whole plan of the swim was going to be. But how do you eat? How do you stay hydrated? How do you avoid sunburn? How do you deal with avoid hypothermia? And as Christine mentioned, how do you deal with sharks?
Take a look at what we found. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice-over): One of their biggest concerns -- sharks.
LUKE TIPPLE, TEAM'S SHARK DIVER: These are great waters for sharks.
GUPTA: Luke Tipple is the team's lead shark diver. He knows just how dangerous these waters can be.
TIPPLE: We're catching this chambat (ph) hanging off the back of the boat.
In these particular waters, we'll be looking for oceanic white tips, hammerheads, tiger sharks, Caribbean reef sharks.
This animal has evolved to dominate the ocean.
They have a sixth sense. They can feel the electricity in the water. They know that we're there.
GUPTA: And that's why in 1978, Diana swam in a shark cage. Today, she just uses this.
DIANA NYAD, SWIMMER: Sharks are tremendously sensitive to this. This is actually in the kayak.
GUPTA: It's called a shark shield. And off the coast of the Bahamas, Tipple shows us how it works.
It's a shark-feeding frenzy at this block of chum (ph), until Tipple approaches and turns on the shark shield that hangs right above it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: It's a lot of faith, obviously, she has to have in that shark shield. These waters where she's swimming, known for sharks. That was, obviously big concerns but there are so many others that she just needed to plan for. And it took a year, literally, of planning to try and make this swim actually happen, guys.
VELSHI: It's unbelievable. We ran into her the other day, Christine and me, and it was just unbelievable.
ROMANS: And, you know, the thing about her, Sanjay, she's focused but flexible, I think. You have to be completely single minded but able to change your goals and change the way you're doing it to get to the end.
GUPTA: You have to have very good judgment. There's no question. This comes up over and over again among people I have interviewed who are sort of pushing beyond limits. Mountain climbers, who are so close to the peak but then they decide they can't do it that day because of weather and other things. It's very similar here. There's lots of conditions that play a role, the water currents, the water temperature, the exact weather. You need to have three days of calm, all of that. And she has to have good judgment. But in the end, though, still, that determined nature of her and that inspiring quality of her, at over 60 years old, to try this, I just found that absolutely remarkable.
COSTELLO: Even though she didn't finish, it doesn't really matter because she tried. And isn't that what's important?
GUPTA: I think so. Look, how many people -- she swam for 29 hours. She swam 59 miles in the water. Imagine swimming a mile, which is a lot, and then doing it 58 more times. And she did that in ocean water and very choppy conditions.
She had -- it's interesting, Carol, she had asthma attacks in the water, which is something she never had before. She thought she may have been having an allergy to some of the pain medications she was taking.
But you're absolutely right. And I felt the same way. It was just a remarkable, audacious attempt at doing something nobody has ever done before.
COSTELLO: That's right. And that's the secret to success. you have to try. If you don't try, you'll never succeed.
GUPTA: I never did (ph).
COSTELLO: I think that is what may be her final attempt. Maybe it's her final attempt. I don't know. But that's what it taught me.
GUPTA: Who knows? She's got more in her, I'll tell you that.
ROMANS: I think she try something else.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: I'm going to put my -- my money on -- it's not that particular goal, but she has something else big up her sleeve, eventually.
VELSHI: Well, don't miss the special. it is going to be good, Saturday night 8:00 p.m. eastern. Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes an exclusive look at "Diana Nyad's Xtreme Dream." I'm looking forward to that.
COSTELLO: All right. We asked you to "Talk Back" on one of the stories of the day. This was the question this morning, what does Jennifer Hudson's weight loss controversy say about obesity in America? Because not everybody is happy that Jennifer Hudson lost so much weight.
This from Lashundra, "Can we stop looking to other people, particularly celebrities, to determine who we should be for the day? Jennifer Hudson is entitled to be whoever she wants to be, big girl, skinny girl or somewhere in between."
And this from Sherry, "Let's not focus on her losing the weight but the healthy changes she has made in her life. Our children need to see our actors, actresses, athletes and singers making proper, ethical and healthy choices."
And from Andrea, "First, let's remember that Jennifer got paid to lose weight. Remember, Weight Watchers is trying to make money and it's all about image. It's good that she lost weight but she lost too much. She does not look healthy. But if it works for her, what can I say."
Facebook.com/Americanmorning.
VELSHI: I wouldn't say she looks unhealthy.
COSTELLO: She looks great.
ROMANS: I think she still looks curvy, too.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: I think don't think she's lost her curves. I think she is a very beautiful girl. And every weight she's been, I think she's been a very beautiful and very talented young woman.
VELSHI: Why do you guys pay me a little bit of money to lose weight? See if it inspires me.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Do it because you want to feel strong --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: You guys make a deal. We got a commercial coming up. You talk about how much you can pay me.
COSTELLO: OK, I'll give you a dollar per pound.
ROMANS: Oh.
VELSHI: You'll match it?
ROMANS: I'll match the dollar per pound.
VELSHI: We're in business.
(LAUGHTER)
Coming up ahead -- just do a little jumping jacks while I'm talking.
(LAUGHTER)
"Star Wars," "Star Wars" geeks, if you're out there. They're packing their bags and plastic light sabers right now because scientists may have found a planet where they will finally be at home, but they better pack something warm. It's pretty far away.
It's 56 minutes after the hour. I'll tell you what I am talking about on the other side. (LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: We're going to make you do this show on a treadmill.
(LAUGHTER)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
