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Parker Spitzer

Autism Report a Fraud; Opening Day for 112th Congress; From Majority to Minority

Aired January 05, 2011 - 20:00   ET

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


KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Kathleen Parker.

ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program. We have two big interviews tonight. Coming up we talk exclusively with Alec Baldwin about his future political plans.

PARKER: Plus, the man largely behind the Tea Party's success that brought Republicans back into power, Dick Armey.

SPITZER: But first, we begin with a breaking medical story. A dramatic development that impacts millions of parents. The infamous study that spread fear among parents reported to show a link between autism and vaccinations is now being called a deliberate fraud.

Not just bad science, but fraud. A report from the well- respected "British Medical Journal' states unequivocally that, quote, "Clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine square."

PARKER: And joining us to discuss this stunning development is CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Welcome, Sanjay. Thank you so much.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks for having me. Yes.

PARKER: Please explain to us what this means.

GUPTA: It's a big deal. This was the first time they actually looked at the study, which was a really small study to begin with. Just 12 patients, 12 children. And they found that not only was the data, the way it was collected, unethical. That charge had already been made. What they found was that it was absolutely inaccurate and that those inaccuracies were done intentionally.

Meaning that the actual information could have been found, it was available, that was ignored and instead essentially fabricated information was put in there. A couple of examples, real quick. Twelve patients, they said that the patients would get the vaccine and develop symptoms within a few days afterwards.

In one of the patients, they found that in fact the child had symptoms prior to ever getting the vaccine. Absolutely false. There's just no equivocating about that. And another other patient, they said the same thing. Developed symptoms a couple of days after. In fact, it was six months later which obviously greatly diminishes the likelihood that it was related to the vaccine.

So those are just a couple of examples of what they found.

PARKER: Well, and 12 people is a very small sample size. That's hardly taken seriously when it's that few, is it, generally?

GUPTA: I think you're absolutely right. Yet in 1998, it -- you know, it still credited it for having started what you are just describing, this sort of anti-vaccine fervor. First in England, certain then across the pond. And you know, really all over the world people started questioning vaccines more than ever because of the science that was published in the Lancet -- you know, a real journal.

PARKER: A real, legitimate journal.

SPITZER: Now is any reason given for the falsification and fabrication? The money alleged? Is there some bizarre motivation that might have been there to trigger this entire scare?

GUPTA: I've been asking myself that same question all day today and I don't know.

SPITZER: Right.

GUPTA: We've tried to reach out to Dr. Wakefield. We hear that he's in Jamaica. He's not return calls right now. We want to ask him that same question. Simply don't know. I mean we know he's written a lot of books about this topic afterwards. He has a center now in Texas dealing with this particular issue. But he has been widely discredited.

SPITZER: Because the impact of this study which seemed to validate what parents were looking for, which gave them an answer to that awful question any parent would ask, why did this happen to my child, had enormous health consequences. I mean what have they then?

GUPTA: Well, if you take England, first of all. At one point the vaccination rates dropped below 80 percent. Now what vaccinations sort of count on is what's known as a herd immunity. You're vaccinated, therefore, I'm more protected. Kathleen is more protected. If we're all vaccinated, we protect everyone in the room.

If one person drops out, then all of a sudden you start to put all of those people at risk. If you look at the numbers, they say, unless you get above 95 percent vaccination, herd immunity sort of falls apart. So you started to see many more cases of these very preventable diseases.

In the United States, you had what were called sort of pockets of people who didn't vaccinate. So it wasn't -- you couldn't say that the country sort of leveled off or started dropping in a certain rate but there were pockets. And certainly after those pockets of people not being vaccinated, you saw these diseases crop up. PARKER: Sanjay, you know that there's all these families out there that are going to hear this news and they're still going to believe that there's a connection between vaccinations and autism. What do you say to them?

GUPTA: Well, that wouldn't surprise me at all. First of all, Dr. Wakefield, given the news today is one thing, but he's already been discredited. The "Lancet Journals" were already retracted. That didn't seem to decrease the fervor toward anti-vaccine movement really at all.

I think what people would say is look, that science wasn't good. We now know that. But tell me what causes autism. Unless you can tell me that, then how do we know it's not something else that's related to this?

PARKER: Well, parents often speak about regressive behavior or usually developmental. It's not so much that there's a cause and effect and they don't seem to need that but the fact they observe and anecdotally can recount these regressive reactions to vaccinations, does that count for nothing medically?

GUPTA: It's a good question. I think, you know, it's a deeply personal one. And I'm careful here because I know exactly what you mean. But I think you have to look at the science. And the science that exists to try and establish that link, it's not there.

And the one paper now that people sort of hung their hat on is clearly not there. So I feel for them but this is -- maybe they should be looking in other places.

SPITZER: Proving a negative, as we all know, is almost impossible.

GUPTA: Right.

SPITZER: So proving there's not a causal relationship, you can spin your wheels for many, many years. The great unanswered question of course relates to the explosion of diagnosis of autism where it used to be 1 in 10,000. Now it's down to about 1 in every 110.

Is there any logic that you've been able to get your arms around that explains this? Is it better diagnosis? Are there environmental factors? How do you -- how do you come to grips with this?

GUPTA: We don't know the answer. I mean that's a hard thing I think for a lot of people to admit. But it's the right answer. I think it's both the things that you just said. I mean I think that there is an increase in diagnosis and an increase awareness of this. I mean there were times in the past when children may have had this but it was called something else or simply ignored. Now it's given a label. Autism.

The second thing is, I do believe there has to be some sort of environmental factor here. We don't know what it is. Children are probably born predisposed to autism. They may live perfectly normal lives without any signs of autism. Unless they come in contact with this environmental trigger. We don't know what that trigger is. We don't know what the predisposition is yet.

PARKER: I assume there's ongoing research in trying to figure what the causes are. Where -- what's the status of that?

GUPTA: Well, the biggest sort of, you know, advances are coming in the genetic research. Really looking at what -- you know, you can, you know, sequence someone's entire genome now. You can look at the gnomes of lots of children with autism, compare them to normal children, see what is different there.

And I think that that's probably going to be where the real clues are. And then also try to figure out how the trigger actually works.

PARKER: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for being with us.

GUPTA: Thank you, Kathleen and Eliot. Thank you.

PARKER: Interesting development.

SPITZER: Thanks for joining us.

PARKER: Now joining us from Portland, Oregon is JB Handley. JB is a parent of an 8-year-old with autism and he's a founder of Generation Rescue, a group that believes there is a connection between autism and vaccination.

Welcome, JB.

JB HANDLEY, FOUNDER, GENERATION RESCUE: Thanks for having me.

PARKER: Thank you for joining us. Does today's report cause you to reconsider your position on vaccines at all?

HANDLEY: No. Not one bit.

PARKER: So explain that. Why don't you -- why doesn't this affect the way you think about it?

HANDLEY: You know, the original Wakefield study looked at 12 children. All 12 had autism. And the only conclusion of the study was that the 12 were suffering from a new form of bowel disease.

Andy Wakefield also reported that eight of the parents said that their children regressed after the MMR vaccine. So the notion that his study ever incriminated MMR as causing autism is false and the vaccine industry continues to beat this dead horse.

PARKER: So you think that -- when you talk about regressions, you're saying not so much that this -- the vaccine causes autism but that it causes a regression and what does that mean to you?

HANDLEY: No, so what you hear with many parents, and my son is one of these, is that the children are developing typically, in my son's case, up to 14 months, he was normal, and then they have a regression. They start to lose skills. They start to lose milestones.

And I've personally probably talked to over 1,000 parents where that regression took place immediately following a vaccine appointment. I think it's important for parents to understand, children are given 36 vaccines in the U.S. by the time they reach the age of 5. The MMR is only two of those 36 shots.

Typically the shots are given simultaneously. So an average child will get six vaccines in a single appointment. Yet we don't have a single piece of research to understand the potential risk of all those vaccines at once. So when someone tries to tell me that MMR alone doesn't cause autism but I take my child in for a vaccine appointment, they're getting six shots in 10 minutes, how am I supposed to feel reassured?

SPITZER: Well, JB, and I say this with overwhelming sympathy and -- for you and your son. But just listening to you, I've got to ask the question, there isn't a single study, and we've looked at all the science, that says there is any causal link between these vaccines and autism. And I know you're saying there is --

HANDLEY: That's just not true.

SPITZER: There isn't a study that disproves it. But there's no affirmative causal link there. And so don't you think it would make more sense to look at other potential causative factors?

HANDLEY: You know, what you're saying is simply false. There's a study out of SUNY, Stony Brook within the last six months that compared a group of children who got the entire round of Hep-B vaccine and a group of children who didn't and found that autism was three times more likely in one group.

There's a new study out of the University of Pittsburgh that took primates and vaccinated a group of them and didn't vaccinate the other and they're finding dramatic differences between the two sides.

So to represent that somehow the science has been done is simply false. More importantly, the science that has been done is what we like to call tobacco science. You take a group of kids who all got vaccines but got a little less mercury and compare to a group of kids who all got vaccines but a little more mercury, find that there's no difference in autism and then claim that vaccines don't cause autism.

The only appropriate study to do would be to look at a group of children who never got vaccines and a group of children who got all of them and see if there's a difference in autism rates and that study has never been done, despite many people trying to call for it.

So to represent that the science has been done on this and we should move on is simply untrue and the vaccine makers are highly effective at PR which is why I'm here talking to you guys tonight.

PARKER: Well, JB, you obviously feel passionately about this and we can certainly understand that. How do you feel specifically about when you find out that this particular Doctor Wakefield was actually deliberately fraudulent in advancing the claim that there was a connection?

HANDLEY: You know, what's interesting is there are 12 children in the original study in the Lancet, OK? The parents of the 12 children have all written time and again letters in support of Andy Wakefield. The study's conclusion was that the children were suffering from bowel disease and Andy went on to mention that eight of the parents claim the regression took place after the MMR.

So the notion that the data is somehow new -- what's new? They didn't suffer from bowel disease even though all the parents have represented that they did? People need to look at the details and not look at the headlines. This is an attempt to whitewash once and for all the notion that vaccines cause autism.

They're not just beating a dead horse, they're beating a horse that never existed in the first place. That's not what Wakefield study said. It's a seven-page study. It's on the Generation Rescue Web site. Anybody can read it for themselves and verify that what I'm saying is true.

SPITZER: JB, again, with all sympathy, and as somebody who has been a harsh critic of the --

HANDLEY: I don't need any sympathy.

SPITZER: Well, OK, but what I'm about to say --

HANDLEY: I don't need your sympathy.

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Wait, wait. JB, hold on one second.

HANDLEY: What I need is the facts and someone to look at the details.

SPITZER: What you yourself said is that what you glean from your anecdotal conversations is hugely compelling to you but unfortunately in terms of the scientific data and the analysis that sort of anecdotal conversational database simply doesn't establish the causal link that we are looking for in terms of really understanding this.

And I think that is this validates today.

(CROSSTALK)

HANDLEY: Look at the SUNY-Stony Brook study.

SPITZER: This one study that people have looked at was fraudulent.

HANDLEY: The University of Pittsburgh study --

SPITZER: Well, I think that's really where we are.

HANDLEY: Look at the SUNY Stony Brook study, the University of Pittsburgh study. You haven't done all your research and you're reaching false conclusions.

SPITZER: I think we have. All right.

HANDLEY: Parents, do your own work.

PARKER: All right. Well, we will look at that and, JB, thank you so much for coming on with us. And best of luck to you and your family.

HANDLEY: Thank you very much for having me.

PARKER: All righty.

SPITZER: Thank you.

PARKER: Coming up, he was Newt Gingrich's lieutenant in the last Republican takeover and an architect of the Tea Party insurgency in this one. We talk to Dick Armey next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK ARMEY (R), FMR. HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: We came here to fight the government. Wrestle this monster down. Get it to start minding its own business with some sense of respect and discipline. Get its hand out of meddling in the affairs of the private sector. Reduce its size and the burden that it places on the private sector to carry this fat, overgrown monster around. And this economy will grow and the economy will grow the jobs.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: A big day on Capitol Hill. A passing of the torch or the gavel if you will from the old Democratic majority to the new Republican rule. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CALIFORNIA: I now pass this gavel, which is larger than most gavels here, but the gavel of choice of Mr. Speaker Boehner, I now pass this --

(LAUGHTER)

PELOSI: I now pass this gavel and the sacred trust that goes with it to the new speaker.

God bless you, Speaker Boehner. God bless this Congress. God bless America.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP) SPITZER: First day for the new Congress and already the new majority is having to answer charges over a nag on their biggest promise, the much vaunted "Pledge to America" last fall had this one very specific guarantee.

And I quote, "With commonsense exceptions for seniors, veterans and our troops, we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone."

But new House GOP aides are backing out of that pledge, estimating the cuts will add up to only $50 billion instead.

PARKER: With us tonight is Dick Armey, founder of Freedom Works, an organization that helped fund and galvanize the Tea Party movement.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, thank you for being with us.

ARMEY: Thanks for having me.

PARKER: OK, Congressman, all these Tea Party-backed candidates are now in office and they got there by promising to cut spending. It's not looking too good that on the first day they have to kind of back pedal a little bit. But isn't this actually a function of the Republicans having already been pretty successful by, among other things, defeating the omnibus bill?

ARMEY: Well, the fact of the matter is they have been successful, as they did in defeating the omnibus. And the fact is, if you give them the first calendar year it's a whole different picture than what you have if you look at the remainder of this fiscal year.

But the focus should be on the size of government and rationalizing government. We need to go to the first principle of the "Contract with America," look at the constitutional legitimacy of every program, and if it's not constitutionally legitimate, get rid of it.

SPITZER: You know, Congressman --

ARMEY: And the fact of the matter, pare down the size of government so it's a decreased burden on the private sector of the economy and the jobs will follow.

SPITZER: Congressman, with all due respect, I've never heard such hope and smoking mirrors and dancing on a complete flip-flop of -- and deception in all my years. The only difference --

PARKER: Come on.

SPITZER: You haven't changed anything and you're suddenly claiming victory. But so let me ask you this question. You're suddenly citing the Constitution. So which programs are you going to eliminate? You can't even get to the $100 billion with all your vaunted constitutional -- foundation. What are you going to eliminate? Name one.

ARMEY: Well, you can rationalize in reform programs --

(CROSSTALK)

SPITZER: Congressman, wait a minute. Congressman, seriously.

ARMEY: Well, let's -- for example, make participation in Medicare and Social Security voluntary. Follow the road map. Let people be free to choose how they will conduct their life savings and how they will manage their own health care.

Get rid of this horrible -- this affliction called Obamacare and then take selected programs that are obnoxious and asinine like Americorps and just zero them out.

SPITZER: OK. But you would have voted, by the way, I presume for the tax cuts a couple of weeks ago?

ARMEY: First of all, no member of Congress do I know -- you say some congressional aides. Well, no, congressional aides, they're a nervous bunch of people. The fact of the matter is, there is a great deal of savings that they can conduct. And if they follow the leadership of Paul Ryan and are assertive and bold they can do marvelous things to rationalize, repair, diminish the size of this government and liberate the private sector of the economy to grow on a resource base that allows them to achieve efficiencies.

SPITZER: Congressman, here's the problem. Here's the problem. You're now in charge. This isn't a campaign where you can use good rhetoric, and that's good rhetoric and -- as I said, I applaud it. But now you actually have to go through the budget and say here is what we're going to eliminate.

And with all the discussion of citation to the Constitution, all the discussion of rationalization, everybody, every leading Republican on Capitol Hill today, acknowledged you're only going to save $50 billion, and that is not even a drop in the bucket of the deficits that you ran against, the $4 trillion in incremental deficits you added by the tax cuts that you're trying to make permanent.

And so here's my question, the same one I had for you when you're on the show. And I wish you'd be here sitting next to us, it'd be more fun. Are you going to cut into Social Security right now to close the $1 trillion deficit we've got this year? Because that's where the money is. Or Medicare or Medicaid this year right now?

ARMEY: Well, Eliot, I must have misunderstood your own program because I was certain that I heard your reporter say according to some congressional aides. I have heard no member of Congress back away from their commitment to -- to get to $100 billion in reduction in the size of government and to do that within the first year. That is altogether possible. And don't dismiss beating that omnibus spending bill that the Senate majority leader trotted out within 48 hours. It was dead. That was a victory of grassroots America mobilizing votes in the Senate to kill a last-minute spending spree by the Democrats.

SPITZER: Let's agree on something that I think we can agree on. If we come back here in a month or two months and the budget that's been proposed by the Republicans doesn't affirmatively cut over $100 billion, will you agree that they have violated the "Pledge to America"?

ARMEY: No. First of all, if we come back --

SPITZER: How not?

ARMEY: Let's come back and see what they do. We've probably got the best budgeteer since John Kasich now with young Paul Ryan. Let's see if we can get a Congress that can rise to the occasion.

This House will lead the legislative agenda. We're going to have a steady movement towards that $10 million objective.

SPITZER: Can I throw in one last quick question? Because I just want to -- a former Reagan Defense Department official has said there are easily $1 trillion in cuts that we can find in the Defense Department budget, which will not only not help but will affirmatively help our defense because they will focus the resources.

Are you still saying you can't find anything in the Pentagon to cut?

ARMEY: Well, I'd like to know how you get $1 trillion reduction in a budget that is I think around $500 billion --

SPITZER: This is over a decade. $100 billion a year, minimum.

ARMEY: Over a decade. Look.

SPITZER: $100 billion a year right there.

ARMEY: You're talking to a fella that has understood and has said for years going back, in fact, to my sophomore year, that we can make efficiencies in defense and prove our defense preparedness by eliminating waste. Much of the waste forced on the Defense Department by members of Congress serving their parochial pork barrel interest.

So if you get Congress out of the way, let the Defense Department be run on efficiency defense basis instead of a pork barrel for my district basis, you can make substantial savings in defense and actually improve your defense readiness.

PARKER: Congressman, I want to just ask you, you've been the majority leader. What is John Boehner facing right now?

ARMEY: Well, I think he's got a great deal of unity. The swing of public opinion and the activist energy of the American people is in favor of the direction in which he naturally wants to proceed, which is toward reduction in the size of government.

And I'll go back to my friend Phil Gramm who said it so clearly so many years ago, we didn't come here to fight the deficit, we came here to fight the government. Wrestle this monster down. Get it to start minding its own business with some sense of respect and discipline.

Get its hand out of meddling in the affairs of the private sector. Reduce its size and the burden that it places on the private sector to carry this fat, overgrown monster around. And this economy will grow. And the economy will grow the job.

SPITZER: All right.

ARMEY: So what you got to do is wrestle the monster to the ground. And that's the federal government.

SPITZER: All right. Dick Armey, it's always great -- I love your metaphors. You think from listening to you the campaign was still going. Good luck governing -- with you governing with you and your buddies but we'll continue this conversation. Have a good time with it.

ARMEY: We look forward to it.

SPITZER: All right, thank you.

PARKER: Coming up, from majority to minority, Democrats now find themselves the opposition party but while the Republicans are celebrating, some Democrats are ready to push back.

Leading the charge is Congressman Anthony Wiener and he'll join us. Stay tuned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: There is no doubt about one thing and I stipulated already here today. We did not do a very good job in making the case on health care the first time around. This is now going to give us the second bite at that apple.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: Republicans are celebrating this first day of the 112th Congress while many Democrats lick their wounds.

SPITZER: But not all, Kathleen. Some Democrats are gearing up for a fight. Especially when it comes to issue number one for Republicans, the repeal of health care reform. Today President Barack Obama himself got into the ring and tweeted. And I quote, "It's up to us to fight back. Taking on Republicans who are pushing for repeal."

PARKER: Alongside the president, New York Representative Anthony Weiner. He's putting on his hockey gloves and joins us now.

Congressman, welcome back to the show.

WEINER: Actually the metaphor in hockey is taking off your gloves but I appreciate --

PARKER: You're -- I'm also a little lost in the metaphor of the president stepping into the ring and tweeting. That doesn't sound very scary to me. But anyway, you've gone from the majority to the minority. And -- so what's your plan as Republicans now aim at repealing health care?

WEINER: Well, look, there's definitely is a lot of fight in our caucus. We are prepared to stand up for this -- this gives us an opportunity to make the case on health care, maybe make it a little better than we did the last time. You know I've started a Web site, Democratswhofight.com, where people are sending their ideas on the way to take this case to the Republicans.

But, you know, early on here in the new administration, we've already seen that the Republicans are trying to figure out how to work this case as well. You know they have freely admitted that repealing health care doesn't save money it actually costs over $1 trillion over 20 years. They've even bent their rules in order to make that case.

So I think that the more the American people get a chance to see this debate play out, I think the better Democrats are going to do.

PARKER: You know one thing that's puzzled me, I mean the Republicans had this vast movement through the Tea Parties among -- Tea Partiers among others, you know, who are against health care, against health care. Where is the corresponding Democratic movement?

WEINER: Well, I don't know, I mean, you know, so much of what -- and I freely admit it was successful. So much of the effort against health care was wound up on making things up. Like, for example, repeatedly we heard people say, even on your show, people come on and say, the budget busting health care bill.

And yet here it is, they write their very first rule in the House, says that if -- when we repeal health care, don't look at the fact that it busts the budget. It costs an enormous amount of money. Health reform held down costs for consumers, held down costs for localities. And of course reduce the deficit.

You know, there is no doubt about one thing. And I stipulated already here today. We did not do a very good job in making the case in health the first time around. This is now going to give us a second bite at that apple and explain that if you're a social security beneficiary, you're going to get help with the doughnut hole or when you're on Medicare. If you're a young American, you're going to get help with health care. If you're someone who appears (INAUDIBLE), you're going to get help. The Republicans want to take those things away and maybe that juxtaposition is going to make our case easier.

SPITZER: Look, Anthony, I think that's exactly right. This should be viewed as an opportunity on the part of Democrats to play before the American public what the health care bill actually does and to move away from all the hypocrisy and dissembling on the part of the Republicans about what it would cost. And you're exactly right. The public has got to know the health care bill will save the American public an enormous sum of money, $1.3 trillion, over the next 20 years, as you say.

But you keep up on something very important, which is that the Republicans have bent the rules, the pay-go rules, so that they can cut taxes without needing to do anything on the corresponding side in terms of expenditures. Will they get away with that? Are you going to highlight that as part of the ongoing hypocrisy?

WEINER: Well, I hope so. I mean, one of the things is it's a little complicated for people to understand. The House of Representatives has rules that the Democrats wrote that says when you raise expenditures, you have to do something to save that equal amount of money. That's the way in order to help hold down deficits. This has actually been successful in a lot of cases, notwithstanding the overall growth in the deficit.

What the Republicans said is we're going to have a special waiver. Anything to do with health care doesn't have to do that same pay as you go process. Now why did they do that? The reason is everything they want to do in health care busts the budget. Every time they want to change an element of the health care bill that we just passed, it raises the cost to the American people. So their own effort is basically agreeing to the idea that many of us have talked about for a while, which is health care reform saves the American people a lot of money. Now the Republicans are admitting that on their very first day of work.

SPITZER: Yes, could not agree more.

PARKER: Anthony, Bill Daley has visited the White House. There's a strong indication that he may be the next chief of staff. What's your take?

WEINER: We needed another person from Chicago. No, I don't -- I have not heard the announcement but, you know, this is at the end of the day going to be about the president's leadership. Bill Daley has an enormous amount of experience. He's respected in the business community. He's someone that, frankly, knows the Hill and knows the agencies. I think it would be great. But not too many American people put their head down at night feeling better or worse about their situation based on a staffer at the White House. They do want to see the president showing the kind of fight that he showed today or at least says he's going to show today on taking this case to the American people.

SPITZER: And Congressman, I couldn't agree with you more about -- it's the president and the president who matters. And I agree with you, rather have Brooklyn than Chicago, but that being said, what we have also if we get Gene Sperling and Bill Daley, some senior people from the Clinton administration coming in with a lot of accumulated wisdom about how to run the executive branch. And I think that looks like a good thing in terms of getting this White House to focus and get its priorities straight and to learn how to fight.

WEINER: Well, I agree. You know, there's one other name I'd add. Jack Lew is the new head of OMB, from that administration. But remember something, we have some very eerie parallels between now and the last time the Republicans took over in 1995. And then -- then the Republicans said we're shutting down the government if we don't get our way. Now they're saying they're going to shut down the economy by not raising the debt limit if they don't get their way. I think that President Obama can take a page from President Clinton's book and say, you know what, let's remember the Republicans wanted this responsibility. Now they've got it. And the first thing they say they're going to do is shut down the entire economy by taking away the full faith and credit of the American government by saying they're not going to raise the debt limit. Very telling and very similar to 1995.

PARKER: All right. Congressman Weiner, thank you so much. Great to have you with us again.

WEINER: My pleasure, thank you.

SPITZER: Ahead, some of you may have heard about a conversation with Alec Baldwin. When we come back, we'll hear from the star of "30 Rock" and "SNL" and who knows, maybe the next big political star. You don't want to miss it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: You are a deeply political person. So you're going to get into this game? You have answers? You have thoughts? What do you run for and when?

ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR, ACTIVIST & BLOGGER: Well, I've had people approach me --

SPITZER: Never heard you stammer before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Our next guest has more facets to his personality than most people realize. Alec Baldwin is a scholar of classical music, a political activist, a writer, an actor, in everything from "30 Rock" to Shakespeare, host of the Oscars and star of that iconic film that can be seen most anytime on TV, "The Hunt for Red October."

I got to admit, Alec, you as Jack Ryan, the coolest CIA agent in history is still emblazoned in my mind. It is a great pleasure to have you here.

ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR, ACTIVIST & BLOGGER: Thank you, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPITZER: You, as I said, a powerful progressive voice. Big supporter of Obama when he was running. When I look at the Obama administration, lots of good things have happened. Wall Street has been bailed out, which is a continuation of Bush policies. We're still mired in Afghanistan, a continuation of Bush policies. And we have extended the tax cuts for the rich, which is a continuation of Bush policy. So the three fundamental legs of the stool continue. Where is the upside for the middle class that desperately wants better jobs? Its income has been stagnating. And I think that is the politics that you emerge from, saying, wait a minute, where is that middle class voice, and what's happened to it?

BALDWIN: Where is it -- but for me, where is Obama in terms of getting on television and giving a major address in which he singles out those members of the U.S. Senate. And he fingers those people in the U.S. Senate and he says to the American public, I wanted everybody in this country who is making more than $1 million to have their taxes raised and many of those people would understand him raising their taxes in order to take some of the burden off the middle class and I'll extend the Bush tax cuts to everybody making under $1 million. Over a million you have to pay more money.

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: And those people who held up that bill until he caved on that, why don't you get out there and just completely blow them away on national television? Why doesn't he --

SPITZER: But look, you are singing to the choir. I have been pounding tables saying please, Mr. President, negotiate tougher. Learn to draw a line in the sand and say this is right as a matter of policy. And we are past that issue, unfortunately, but I think it speaks to the mentality of the administration that is not speaking to those core values that you're talking about. It is the middle class has been suffering and the wealthy are getting the benefits right now.

BALDWIN: Well, the middle class in this country is a group of people right now who they're exhausted. I mean, when you see how people live in this country now, they're emotionally very fragile people, Americans, because America is -- the American experience is winding down a little bit, a notch. It's a terrible thing to say. We're not England yet.

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: And we're not -- we haven't lost our mojo completely yet. But the American experience is something that's winding down and what's going to be necessary to address that is leadership that convinces the American people that we're going to have to do with less and sacrifice as previous generations of Americans have done before in order to re-kick the engine again.

SPITZER: You're precisely right. And yet, instead, what the president did was say we will continue along the same trend, like borrow from China to give tax cuts to the rich so they can fix the capital and invest it overseas. And it simply doesn't make -- now, I want to bring this back to President Obama, who appears to be continuing this ill-fated strategy in Afghanistan. How do you square this? And does it leave you with an empty feeling in your stomach at this point? BALDWIN: I'm only disappointed in some of the people that Obama has surrounded himself with. I'm a fan of Obama, and I'm a supporter of Obama. And I think that we're going to wind up being at a juncture at the end of Obama's term where it's -- where it's similar to Carter but not the same thing, where we're going to be in the Middle East again. Middle Eastern politics is going to be kind of calling the tune to American foreign policy decisions. But the difference I think is that I think that Obama is a savior politician than Carter was. I think that Carter was a real ideologue and Carter was really willing to be a one-term president. And deep down inside, this is an opinion.

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: He didn't care enough about winning the election because if he did, he would have done a lot of things differently.

SPITZER: Right.

You're a bit oblique in saying people he surrounded himself with. You and I have had this conversation. Who? Who in particular captures the sort of status quo perspective that strayed from the sort of transformative agenda he laid out?

BALDWIN: I think that in the sense that work wasn't done to negotiate -- I mean, first of all, the bailout is viewed by many people, not even Washington factotums, its functionaries, rather, that it's been viewed as a success. That they spent $750 billion. They've gotten most of it back from the banks.

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: But nonetheless, a lot of that money still ended up going in the wrong place. I mean, the money was paid back, but it still ended up lining the pockets of very, very wealthy people. And I think at a time when people are being asked to raise their taxes and cut their spending and schools and roads and infrastructure and there's always problems in this country, I think that if you didn't do a better PR job of selling that bailout, Geithner should have been fired.

SPITZER: Well, look, I --

BALDWIN: Geithner is the one who should have swung from the yard for that one.

SPITZER: All right. Well, I made my point clear about Tim from way back. I don't think he should have been there in the first place because he created the structure that have failed and did not appreciate the structural flaws that were going to make it fail again.

BALDWIN: Right.

SPITZER: So look, I completely agree with you that I've said that the president's cabinet was continuity, you can believe in, rather than transformation, which was what we all wanted.

BALDWIN: Right.

SPITZER: It seems to me --

BALDWIN: Not enough transformation.

SPITZER: There have been some good steps. We solved a crisis of insolvency on the part of the banks and the financial system was failing. We have not solved the larger crisis of middle class disempowerment and middle class suffering that seems to me to be driving American politics right now. I mean, is that your sentiment? You come from -- how many people realize you come from a very traditional blue collar middle class background.

BALDWIN: My father was a high school teacher. He had six children. I mean, we didn't -- you know, we didn't come from any kind of a privileged background. But I think that you and I talked about this earlier, where what we've seen in this country is kind of a reversal of in the '60s and '70s, there was a lot of the Democrats controlled the Congress for so long before Gingrich took over in '94. And for so long, it seemed that U.S. domestic policy favored a Democratic constituency which was an underprivileged constituency. And now, it's flipped completely the other way.

SPITZER: But the wealthy --

BALDWIN: The wealthy are the ones being served. But the point is, what's remained the same for 50 years is that the middle class are the ones not being served.

SPITZER: You are passionate about this stuff. You are more multifaceted than so many people appreciate. We think of you as Jack Ryan. We think of you "30 Rock," "Saturday Night Live," hosting the Academies. But you are a deeply political person. So you're going to get into this game? You have answers? You have thoughts? What do you run for and when?

BALDWIN: Well, I've had people approach me --

SPITZER: Never heard you stammer before.

BALDWIN: But I've had people approach me about running for jobs and moving to other locations and it's been a very difficult decision for me because I am a New Yorker and I do like living here and I would prefer to live here. And in New York there's a lot of planes on the runway ready to take off all the time any given time. There's a lot of ambition. There's a lot of entitlement in some circles with people who believe that there are certain jobs that belong to them.

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: So the answer is yes, it's something that I'm very, very interested in, because, you know, people would say to me all the time, why would you want to do that? And sometimes I don't want to do it because to leave what I'm doing now would be extremely painful, because I love --

SPITZER: You love to act.

BALDWIN: Well, I love where I've come to now, which is -- you know, the old line in my business is by the time you are old enough to understand the character of Hamlet, you're too old to play Hamlet.

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: And you arrive at a certain place now. I'm 52 years old. And you're just beginning in the last few years to really understand what you do and why it works. I've grown to really love where I am now in my business and to quit now when it really feels good and doing it feels good would be an enormously difficult thing to do. However --

SPITZER: Good, I was going to have to ask a follow-up. You're going to give me the answer.

BALDWIN: But, however, I do believe that people want to believe that someone who deeply cares about the middle class, for whatever reason, whatever your heritage and your background and so forth would like to seek public office. We've had men who are, regardless of their background, we've had men -- I don't want to say this in an anti-elitist way, but we've had men who are Ivy League, you know, groomed, running this country since 1988. We've had, you know, 22 years of Yale and Harvard running this country right now. And the problems aren't getting solved. There aren't -- because I think what's missing --

SPITZER: You almost sound like Sarah Palin.

BALDWIN: Well --

SPITZER: But you have the right answers is the good news.

BALDWIN: Well, but I think there's nothing wrong with that. What's missing is we need people obviously who are educated or a leader who brings the educated people in on his back, but people who really have not lost sight of what the middle class in this country needs.

SPITZER: Right, right.

BALDWIN: Because even if I had a job, which is a very, very, you know, interesting and unique job and there's fame and there's money and all this other nonsense that people equate it with, it's a job. It's work. And I think people in my business, some of them are very hard-working people. But whatever I've accrued in my career doing that, it hasn't changed me as a person.

SPITZER: OK. So everybody knows you're a spectacular actor, right? You've won all the awards. How do they know you're not just acting when you say all that?

Do you believe these emotions enough to persuade people? And in a way let me tell you something. Having been in politics, the public will sense that slightest bit of uncertainty or hesitation. BALDWIN: Well, I mean, I have to -- like anyone, I have to believe that if I put that out there, it's going to work. And if it doesn't work, then I -- either it's a question of I failed in delivering my message or people weren't ready timing-wise for whatever I was presenting.

You and I discussed this off camera as well. Too many people now are running for public office to complete some missing part of their own psyche. There's some need they have, some psychological need that they believe can only be fulfilled, Democrat and Republican --

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: -- who they're doing -- they're running for this office to complete themselves in some way, some image they have of themselves.

SPITZER: Rather than to --

BALDWIN: Rather than to serve.

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: Rather than -- I can't go to Iraq right now. I can't go to Colorado Springs, to the Air Force Academy and train to be a fighter pilot and go over and drop bombs on Pakistan. If I could, I might.

SPITZER: Right.

BALDWIN: If I could, I might if I felt that was the answer. I want to serve my country. The only way at the age of 52 years old I can serve my country now -- there's a myriad of ways as a citizen, which I've done. I've been on boards. I've been involved in organizations for medical causes, arts-related causes, all kinds of energy-related causes. Animal rights, so forth. I've done a great deal of that. Every single person who's ever worked for me in my office said the same thing. They said working for you is more like working for a congressman than a movie or television actor because I'm so engaged in these other things.

SPITZER: All right. I finally got the answer to what you're running for.

BALDWIN: What am I --

SPITZER: I knew if I let you go on long enough --

BALDWIN: I think we should close for what I really want to run for is I want to run for this seat next to you. That's the seat I want.

SPITZER: That seat's taken.

BALDWIN: You and I could have a great show. SPITZER: Alec, it has been an honor to have you here. And your service on screen is spectacular, your service in other ways as well. Thank you for being here.

We'll have much more from Alec Baldwin tomorrow night including the first three things he would do if he were president.

Coming up next, last night we brought you an unsolved murder, the body of a former presidential adviser discovered in a Delaware landfill. Tonight, an update and the mystery has only deepened. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Five days have passed since the body of a former Pentagon official was found in a Delaware dumpster. The murder of John Wheeler who founded the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is only getting more mysterious.

PARKER: Details of Wheeler's last days have begun to emerge which contrast sharply with his accomplished career serving three Republican presidents and as CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Joining us with the latest is CNN's Susan Candiotti live in Wilmington, Delaware. Hi, Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kathleen and Eliot. Yes, it's really a mystery, and they're trying to piece things together largely based both on surveillance videos tracing his movements as well as talking to people who last had encounters with him. Some of them really pretty odd.

The last place he was seen is the building behind me. It's a residential and office building. And he was last seen there on Thursday. He was found dead several hours later the following day on New Year's eve. But let's backtrack and show you the surveillance video. And it's very, very interesting because he was seen at a parking garage last Wednesday afternoon. Actually it was early evening when he showed up there. And a parking attendant says that he was wandering around looking for his car there. That he wasn't wearing a coat, only had one shoe on. Said he couldn't find his parking ticket because it was -- it was in his briefcase. And when she asked him, where's the briefcase, he said it was stolen, but he wouldn't explain further. She also said he kept insisting that he wasn't drunk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IMAM GOLDSBOROUGH, PARKING LOT ATTENDANT: He was smiling. He seemed like he's a nice guy. The only thing that didn't seem right to me was just like, he just like looked like he was kind of lost. He was just looking around like he was in an unfamiliar place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: And adding to the confusion, about 40 minutes or so before that, he showed up at a pharmacy only about a half mile from his home. A druggist there confirms to CNN reports that he came to that druggist and he didn't ask for a prescription but he asked for a ride to Wilmington which was about 10 miles away. And when the druggist who knew him said no, but I'll call a cab for you, they said he just disappeared and that he was acting rather oddly.

Well, of course, we all know by now that on Friday morning at about 10:00 in the morning, workers discovered the body of Mr. Wheeler jutting out of a garbage truck. It had been found a few hours earlier. It had been picked up a few hours earlier by workers who unknowingly picked up his body. It was in a dumpster at about 4:30 in the morning. So a lot of confusion all the way around. And it turns out his car wasn't in the garage where he was looking after all. It turned out to be at one about a mile away from there. So, Eliot and Kathleen, still a lot of questions here.

PARKER: Such a strange story. Well, Susan, has there been anything more about the dispute that Wheeler was having with his neighbor there in Delaware?

CANDIOTTI: Well, yes, his lawyer confirms that, in fact, they did have a dispute because he said that he was in a disagreement with his neighbor across the street over a piece of property that was part of a historic preservation district. And Mr. Wheeler, according to the lawyer, didn't like that. Didn't think that the property should be developed as his neighbor wanted to do. Said that they had words about it. There was a dispute about it, but he said it wasn't acrimonious in any way.

PARKER: OK. Susan Candiotti, thanks so much for that update. We'll continue to follow this story. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Tomorrow night, part two of the conversation with Alec Baldwin. We talk about the strange convergence of comedy and politics, intentional and otherwise. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR, ACTIVIST & BLOGGER: The news was always a digest that someone else was authoring. What is news and what they're going to say about the news? And now I think people have kind of abandoned. They can go online and get the news from a desperate number of sources and now they would rather be entertained at the same time. With Stewart, Stewart to me is the opposite side of the coin of FOX News. He is the progressive version of entertainment as news. Now, in a way, he has this more of a strictly comedy branding, whereas with FOX News the comedy is not an intentional comedy.

SPITZER: Right. You and I may view it as comedy.

BALDWIN: Right.

SPITZER: Giving serious news, unfortunately.

BALDWIN: Exactly. Yes. But I think that they're nonetheless, that's more (INAUDIBLE) prop.

SPITZER: Righty.

BALDWIN: And opinion making. But I think that the two of them really are different sides of the same coin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: OK. Let's see, he got you to laugh and you got him to open up. I guess that's reason enough to keep watching. So make sure you're with us tomorrow night for more with Alec Baldwin. And until then, a special edition of "ANDERSON COOPER 360" starts right now.