Return to Transcripts main page

Rick's List

Eight Big Banks Under Investigation; Attempted Assassination in Thailand; Miley Cyrus Grinding Controversy

Aired May 13, 2010 - 16:00   ET

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

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

A quiet day for stocks, but plenty of noise coming from Wall Street. Eight big banks have been named in an investigation by the New York State attorney general.

And Poppy Harlow is joining us now to bring us up to date on what's going on with this.

Poppy, what you got? What's the news?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rick, you know, this is the top of my list, top of CNN Money's list today, the banks under pressure.

Let's look at the banks we're talking about, folks, eight of the biggest banks in the world, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Citi, followed by Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Credit Agricole, and Merrill Lynch.

Those banks, Rick, are being investigated by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Why? He wants to know what their relationship is with the rating agencies? And there's a lot of history here.

Cuomo has been after the rating agencies for years. He struck a big settlement with them in 2008 all about -- Rick, we come back to mortgages. These mortgage-backed securities, these financial products, they go from the banks to the rating agencies. The rating agencies put a grade on them, like a AAA.

SANCHEZ: And by the way, when you say rating agencies --

HARLOW: Right.

SANCHEZ: -- for the viewers who don't follow this stuff, you're talking about credit ratings. In other words --

HARLOW: Rating agencies, exactly.

SANCHEZ: Saying -- saying that corporation --

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: The corporation that makes this yellow highlighter is worth --

HARLOW: Right.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: -- is worth a -- a -- four A's, a AAA rating --

HARLOW: Right. No --

SANCHEZ: -- because their books are so good --

HARLOW: Yes.

SANCHEZ: -- when, actually, they're not so good, right?

HARLOW: That's a -- it's a great way to explain it.

Fitch, Moody's, S&P, those are the big rating agencies. They put grades. AAA is the best grade you can get. They put them on these securitized debt, basically. What does that mean? It's a product -- It's a product that a bank issues.

And if you as a buyer see a AAA rating, you're going to buy it and think it's very safe. Well, guess what? They gave AAA ratings to subprime mortgages.

So, you've seen the attorney general going after these rating agencies. But what is interesting is now he's going after the banks and saying, hey, Wall Street, what role did you play in this? What role did the banks play? Were the banks and the rating agencies too close?

This is a big deal. All of the banks either, Rick, not commenting or saying, listen, we're cooperating with this. But look at what's happened this week, Rick -- Rick, with the banks. Look what has happened.

They have investigations against Goldman Sachs, reported investigation against Morgan Stanley, and now eight banks being investigated by the New York State attorney general. So --

SANCHEZ: Good for them..

HARLOW: Yes.

SANCHEZ: They should -- they should be investigated.

By the way, what did the market do today?

HARLOW: Down. Down 116 points on the Dow, as you see it. Let's pull up the Big Board, if we can, quickly, folks a down day on Wall Street, the volatility not coming to an end, the Nasdaq, the S&P 500 down.

Rick, a tough day on the Street, and you can bet it was those banks stocks dragging everything down today.

SANCHEZ: Makes all the sense in the world. Poppy, thank you so much. Appreciate it. HARLOW: You got it.

SANCHEZ: Have you seen what's going on in Thailand, folks? This is unbelievable. It's -- well, it's a political assassination attempt that takes place right before your very eyes. He was in the middle of doing an interview with a reporter when it happened. We have got the video. We have got the protests. We have the story and all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ (voice-over): OK. Here's what is making today's LIST.

Who financed Faisal Shahzad? Who helped him? Raids today in Boston to answer those questions.

Miley, Miley, Miley. Disney's sweetheart bumping and grinding on a grown man? And you say what?

Audiences aren't buying it when openly gay actors play straight roles. That's what a "Newsweek" writer said. Now some of the biggest names in Hollywood are saying, boycott "Newsweek."

The lists you need to know about. Who's today's most intriguing? Who's landed on the list you don't want to be on? Who's making news on Twitter? It's why I keep a list.

Pioneering tomorrow's cutting-edge news right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. Here we go. I'm Rick Sanchez. Hour two. Time to pick up the pace of today's LIST for those of you who are now checking in.

Number one, an attempted assassination in Thailand. Viewers might find this video disturbing. Here we go. Here it is. This man, shot in the head, he's the leader of a rebel group in Thailand. He used to be a general in the Thai military, but defected. And now someone -- someone -- has done this to him.

It's amazing. You know, he was shot while he was doing an interview with a newspaper reporter. The guy who was shot, this general, he goes by the name Seh Daeng. And he's reportedly alive, but, we're told, in critical condition. Critical to know as well that he and his troops had broken off from the military, and they were protecting this group of anti-government squatters who call themselves Red Shirts.

The Red Shirts have been in the news for quite some time. Maybe the government's out to get him, but it's also turning out that a lot of those Red Shirts don't seem to like him so much either. In fact, a lot of people think that he may have been playing a role in all of this. Take a look again at this, this video, and then I'm going to take you through it.

As I mentioned, there have been protests in Bangkok. This was from April 10, that video that you're looking at right there. And what we're looking at is really absolute chaos in these parts of Bangkok. This general, his troops are there to protect these anti-government demonstrators, supposedly.

But there's this deep suspicion that, in the midst of all this chaos, he may have been involved in some of the deaths of several dozen protesters himself.

We go now forward, and here's the scene hours ago, as this renegade general is brought to a Bangkok hospital.

All right, while all this is going on, one of our lead correspondents, Dan Rivers, is there. He's been on the streets today. He's been filing stories. And he just sent us this one a while back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the scene on the streets of Bangkok this evening. It's pretty anarchic. As you can see, it's basically mob rule on this corner of Lumpini Park.

About 100 or 200 meters down here, there have been some gunshots heard and at least one protester we know who has been shot and killed. But that doesn't seem to be persuading this group of protesters to go home. They're here. They have been searching cars.

This is the main intersection carrying the Rama IV road going to the east of Bangkok, and you can see the protesters have occupied this central traffic island, stopping and searching trucks primarily, with the idea they want to get a look inside to see if there's anything in the back, presumably looking for soldiers.

We understand the army's position is up the end of this expressway flyover here, that they are down towards the western end of the park. And that is where the renegade army commander Seh Daeng was shot through the head while he was being interviewed by the media.

We obtained some very dramatic footage just seconds after that shooting showing him being carried away to hospital. But now that shooting seems to have inflamed tensions here on the streets, and now this crowd seems exceptionally defiant, and the mood here is really one of anarchy and mob rule.

Dan Rivers, CNN, Bangkok.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: And, by the way, if you're wondering if this is going to lead to some kind of destabilization of the government of Thailand, I was fortunate enough to do an interview with an American who happens to be living there, Adam Darrow, who has been living for quite some time in Thailand.

And he suggested to me that the people in Thailand, as he can tell -- or as best he can tell living there and talking to them every single day, are still 150 percent behind the king, who has said he's not taking sides in this controversy. He just wants both sides to figure this thing out and somehow do it peaceably.

So, we will stay on top of that story.

Now this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It basically saying to a gay actor, if you come out, you don't deserve to work in this town. That kind of cuts against what America's all about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: So, "Newsweek" writes a column essentially saying that a gay actor who has come out and then plays a romantic lead straight role isn't able to do it. So, now Hollywood is coming down hard on "Newsweek" magazine for having one of its columnists write such a thing. That's ahead.

Also, who's financed the Times Square attempted car bombing? Who helped? Police have raided several homes and businesses in several cities. And we're all over it. I'm going to show you the raids and talk to some of the folks involved in this and tell you what they have found. Is it a tie to somebody else, an accomplice, perhaps a Pakistani Taliban? That's next right here on your LIST, your national conversation.

This is RICK'S LIST.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CALLER: Hi, Rick. This is Shanair (ph) from Illinois.

And I'm calling about the teacher hitting on the student. That is the -- the craziest thing ever. And she needs to be locked up for that, because, if that was my child, I'm telling you this now, somebody else going to get locked up, and it is not going to be her. It would have been me.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: All right. Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.

Now for my roundup list.

Number one, the president of the United States in his shirt sleeves, town hall meeting, Buffalo, New York, talking jobs, jobs, jobs, on his stop on the tour that he calls the White House to Main Street. All right, he told those gathered that he sees the economy growing again -- his words -- beyond a shadow of a doubt. He also swung by a Buffalo manufacturing plant and popped into a popular wing joint for some world-famous Buffalo wings.

Number two, FBI in several Northeast states today rounding and detaining people up on alleged immigration violations. Three men, all from Pakistan, are now in custody in Massachusetts and Maine. The feds are looking for so-called cash couriers that may have funded the failed car bombings in Times Square. We're told two of the detained people had no direct bearing on the case. Police are still investigating.

Number three, look at that poor little boy. He's hurt. And we understand that he hasn't been told he's the only known survivor. What a story of that fiery airliner crash that killed his parents, his brother and all 100-plus people on board the plane when it went down in Libya yesterday.

The airline says the 9-year-old boy -- he's Dutch, by the way -- he's already had surgery. And some of his relatives have already arrived in Tripoli to be at his side. No word yet still on why that Airbus 330 actually went down trying to land at Tripoli's airport.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BART STUPAK (D), MICHIGAN: Who's watching here? Who's -- who's making sure things are being done properly? They say they did tests, but when you push them on the tests, they can't tell you, cannot articulate what tests were done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: An outraged Congressman Bart Stupak asking the questions that I have been asking and -- and you have been tweeting about ever since oil began spewing into the Gulf.

He makes some important points that will put this entire disaster into a brand-new perspective, like, aren't you supposed to maintain something to make sure it works to avert a disaster? It's a simple question. That's ahead here on the LIST.

Also, we're going to tell you why Miley Cyrus, that darling of Disney, makes the list that you don't want to be on. It has to do with this TMZ footage. And everybody seems to be talking about this, many of you agreeing with me, many of you disagreeing with me.

Guess who just sent me a tweet a moment ago right here? Ashton Kutcher, addressed to me. I'm going to tell you what Ashton Kutcher says about this Miley Cyrus controversy. He kind of doesn't agree with me.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: And we welcome you back. I'm Rick Sanchez. This is RICK'S LIST.

And let's just go ahead and say it. Miley Cyrus is Hannah Montana. Whether she likes it or not, she is Hannah Montana. And Hannah Montana should maybe not be bumping and grinding with a 44-year-old man on camera. Miley Cyrus is today at the top of the list that you don't want to be on.

In this video obtained by TMZ -- she is a 16 years old -- parts of this, we don't show you, but you will see it from afar. A 16-year-old icon, by the way, who is a bona fide Disney star, she's also a heroine for little girls all over the country, including my daughter Savannah (ph), who watches her show when she comes home from school every single day.

This video was shot at a party last year. Cyrus has gotten the benefit of the doubt from me and from many others, because, after all, the -- it's the Hollywood atmosphere. And we get it. I mean, we get it. That's why her suggestive poses on several magazines were criticized, but generally explained away.

We called Cyrus' reps today, who told us today, no comment. Maybe it's because there have just been too many poses now to explain away, or maybe because, as you watch this video, they, themselves, may be wondering if this is one they can't explain away, not to you, maybe not to me, and certainly not to my daughter Savannah (ph).

Speaking of Savannah (ph), I tell her all the time, as I tell my boys, by the way, look, there's a line in life that you should just know to never cross.

I kind of wish that Cyrus' famous dad had told his daughter the same thing that I often tell my daughter and my boys. Maybe he did, maybe not. We don't know. Regardless, Miley Cyrus is today at the very top of the list that you don't want to be on.

I have been reading your tweets, and I know that many of you out there have been sending me messages about this. Many of you disagree with my perspective. Maybe it's because I'm an old fuddy-duddy. I apologize for that.

Here's Ashton Kutcher, certainly no fuddy-duddy. And here's what he has to say on this.

"Hey, Rick, your comments on Miley are completely unwarranted. She's 17."

She was 16, Ashton, when she took that video.

"What is this, the movie 'Footloose'? Judgment," he writes, "is unbecoming."

We certainly thank him for that, and we encourage everyone else out there to share their perspective on this.

Meanwhile, take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: What is their beef? Arizona targets ethnic studies classes in schools, practically banning them. Well, what's going on in Arizona? Well, it's not as clear-cut as it might seem. That's coming up in just a little bit.

Also, this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STUPAK: They say they did tests, but when you push them on the tests, they can't tell you, cannot articulate what tests were done.

I mean, any kind of test would have looked at it, you see that the thing is wired wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That's Congressman Bart Stupak calling out BP and the other companies behind the big oil collapse that created an environmental nightmare.

Here's point. There are now whistle-blowers coming forward that are saying that they were supposed to do tests, that they were supposed to do proper maintenance, and that some of that maintenance, even replacing a battery, wasn't done, and that may have led to this situation. It makes you think, doesn't it? Do you maintain your car?

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Where is Brooke Baldwin? She's supposed to be here to help me with this segment.

You know, if they're playing, they're fighting. It seems too many fights in sports these days, right? Well, here's our video segment to take you through this. We call it "Fotos."

I mean, here's the questions. Their team loses, what do they do? They fight. They cause trouble. It's a melee. Their team wins, what do they do? They fight. They cause trouble. It's a melee. Either way, it seems to happen.

This one started as a booze-fueled celebration in Montreal after the Canadiens bested Pittsburgh Penguins in a playoff game ended with tear gas, broken store windows, looters cloaked in garments that they had allegedly stole.

All right, look out, Justin Bieber. You have got competition. He's four years younger. He's from Oklahoma. And he's covered Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" at this sixth-grade talent show. You want to see how good this kid is, well, let's all take a listen for a bit here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SINGING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: His name is Greyson Michael Chance, 12 years old, tickled the ivory and the fancy of all these young girls who are looking at him. See, they started off kind of skeptical, but then they ended up swooning. The crowd went wild. The video went viral, and Greyson went to Los Angeles. He's now going to be on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

Also, police wrapped up a search for a crook that they say wrapped himself up in toilet paper. All right, stay with me here. He allegedly robbed this Lincoln, Nebraska, convenience store, taking cash from the safe and the register. I guess you could say that he really wiped the place out, interesting disguise -- crappy escape, though.

Police tracked the suspect using a canine who followed the scent -- yes, the scent -- to the discarded toilet tissue.

You can see all of our "Fotos," sans the jokes --

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: -- on my blog. That is "Fotos Del Dia" at CNN.com/ricksanchez.

Here's the question, because there's a lot of information coming out on the situation in the Gulf of Mexico with BP and some of the other companies involved in this. Did they do the tests? Did they do proper maintenance of the blowout preventer?

Well, there are people coming out now saying, no, they did not; no, they did not. You do it in your car to make sure your kids are safe. Did they not do it on something that could have created a disaster in the Gulf? Congressman Bart Stupak certainly thinks so. You will hear what he has to say next. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: I had to do something today that many of us have to do from time to time. And, look, it hurts, all right? I'm just going to be straight and honest with you. I came into work a little late yesterday and I came into work a little late today as well, because I had to take my car to the shop. We do that, right? As Americans, we need to maintain our vehicles.

And you want me -- you want to see what hurts? I mean, this is the -- this is the bill I got from the dealership, right? I know. It's just a one-time thing. It doesn't happen all the time. But this one is $1,600 in repairs, because, apparently, they had to change the fluids in my transmission. It's a one-time thing. You only have to do it once in a while.

What else they have to do? They had to go through some -- they had to change an oil filter, gaskets. I guess -- I don't know. All I know is, I now feel like my car is properly maintained. And when my kids are in the back seat, I know that my brakes are not going to go out, because, apparently, there is something called a brake battery. I didn't know.

Did you know there was a special battery in the car just for the brakes? There's a battery just for the brakes. And it was bad, and it had to be replaced. So, I replaced it. And I bit the bullet.

And the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go to the dealer and pay this kind of money just to maintain my car, which, to me, by the way, was running perfectly well, except it said time for maintenance. You have got to take it to the dealership. So, I did.

Why do I tell you this story? Well, here's why I'm telling you this story. Here's what we're learning right now. Two whistle-blowers have been coming forward over the last 24 to 48 hours, one of which, by the way, that we have contacted and has spoken to us and taken us through the preliminaries of this story.

And he's coming on this show tomorrow. He's coming on RICK'S LIST tomorrow to take us through more of this story. His name is Mike Mason (ph).

But what we understand is that some of the things that needed to be done, like I did with my car, proper maintenance to make sure it works well, may not have been done with this rig out in the Gulf of Mexico, and especially with that blowout preventer, which if it had worked properly, we wouldn't be in the mess that we're in.

They even talk about tests that weren't done, performance tests that they're supposed to do every couple of months, and some of the information that they had not filled out. And even a battery, a battery, they say. Just like my car's brakes, I changed the battery. I didn't like paying another $250, $300 for that. They apparently were supposed to replace a battery on the blowout preventer, and reportedly, they didn't.

This has Congressman Bart Stupak -- I mean, livid.

Listen to what he told my colleague John Roberts this morning on "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: You found that there were problems with the blowout preventer. What was going on with it?

REP. BART STUPAK (D), MICHIGAN: Oh, the blowout preventer, that's almost comical. But unfortunately, we have this economic and environmental disaster happening. The blowout preventer should come in and pinch off this pipe, cut it, and seal the well.

And there's a couple of things. There's some dead man (ph) switches, as well, we find out. The batteries didn't work. I mean, the blowout preventer was only down there since February.

In three months, the batteries went dead. Therefore, when you lost all power to it, the battery should have kicked in. That didn't work.

A key valve was very loose. I mean, it didn't happen in the explosion. It was loose, so therefore it's leaking fluid. You didn't have the pressure on the hydraulic system to move those valves to pinch off this pipe. There's a design flaw.

There's just a number of errors with this blowout protector, and the rules and regulations say when it's on the seafloor, you're supposed to check it every 30 (ph) days. They checked it, but they didn't run any critical tests, because if they would had, they would have realized that another part of it, another backup system to put these rams (ph) in there and cut off this pipe, was wired wrong.

It was wired wrong before they even put it in the sea. I mean, there's just an unfortunate number of errors on this one safety device. The fail-safe system failed us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: You were about to see in that video right there how that fail safe system works, by the way. You just saw the blowout preventer, those four levels you saw right there. They literally closed the thing.

Do we have that? Is there any way that we can show the viewers again how that thing works?

That's not it. Why are we showing this?

Let's come back to me. Come back to me, Dan, if you could. There you go.

Congressman Stupak continues on this. He says that the government's too close to the oil industry, and government regulators and regulating as well.

And, by the way, some 210,000 gallons a day has already been spilled. There's the video that we have been sharing with you. That's what's spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

And here's the video we talked about yesterday. BP has finally released it. Es early as tonight, crews will try to take a slightly smaller pipe, insert it into the one that's spewing, and try and drain the oil into the ship on the surface.

Yes, of course. We have been told that all these things that they have tried before will work. So far, none of them have. So we'll just wait and see.

Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It strikes a nerve because it's peddling a stereotype that for years, we have had to deal with, and that we're finally breaking through and making progress. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: To be or not to be a gay actor playing a straight man. This is an interesting question and it's a serious controversy started by a column written by a "Newsweek" writer. It's also a question that Hollywood is offended by, and they're calling for a boycott of "Newsweek." This is interesting.

Also students can protest all they want about the crackdown on ethic studies in Arizona classrooms. The new rule stays, at least for now. We're talking about that as well.

Banning ethnic studies. Why? We'll explain.

You're watching your national conversation, your list. This is RICK'S LIST.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: This is one of our most important lists that we do every day. We call this our trending list, because it really looks at the stuff that Americans are talking about. What are the stories that have conflict and controversy out there that everyone's clued into?

That's what Brooke does for us. She follows these lists and finds out what's really going on.

The story today, boy, what a surprise, Arizona.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. If it's not one thing, it's another. Right?

The story is out of Arizona. And I have this bill for you, House Bill 2281, in my hand. It's now officially a law because it was signed by Governor Jan Brewer.

And essentially what it does is it bans ethnic studies classes that "promote resentment of other racial groups." How did this start? It started in Tucson because of this ethnic studies program there.

I want you to hear from the state school superintendent in Tucson. He said it endorsed a separatist agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HORNE, ARIZONA SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT: In Tucson, what they did was they divided the kids into different races. So, African studies for the African-American kids; Raza studies for Latino kids -- raza means "The Race" in Spanish; Asian studies for the Asian kids; Indian studies for the Native American kids. And particularly in the Raza studies, they taught a very radical agenda, a separatist agenda.

We have testimony from teachers and ex-teachers that they were teaching kids they live in occupied Mexico, that the United States is oppressive. They were making them angry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Right. So you heard the words "radicalist agenda," "separatist agenda."

Meantime, there was a Democratic state legislator who's come forward and said to CNN, no, no, no, he was wrong, those classes have most definitely been opened to all students. I mean, I have more on that point in a moment, but first I want to walk you through this bill, now law.

Let's take a look at some of the caveats, if you will, with the text.

What it does, it prohibits classes that, number one, promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

SANCHEZ: Who's going to disagree with that?

BALDWIN: Right.

Two, promote resentment toward a race or class of people. Agreed.

SANCHEZ: Who's going to disagree with that?

BALDWIN: Three, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group. So you can't say you and not you.

Number four, advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of peoples as individuals. That's his whole point. Right? All together. All together.

Meantime, as I said, critics of this law say the classes never promoted resentment, they're not designed for one particular race, anyone can enroll. If you look at the demographics, which Barb and I did when we were looking at this story, demographics of these, a lot of these schools, it's minority-majority. So, majority Hispanics. And so a lot of people are saying, hang on a second, there are a whole lot of Hispanics in La Raza classes. One of the reasons is, is there's a lot of Hispanics at the school.

That's one point.

SANCHEZ: Are they really called "La Raza" classes?

BALDWIN: They are.

SANCHEZ: That doesn't seem right?

BALDWIN: Why?

SANCHEZ: La Raza? The race?

BALDWIN: The race.

SANCHEZ: Well, look it up. That's a movement, that's not a study. That would be like calling a class the Black Power class.

BALDWIN: Maybe they meant it -- who knows how they meant it.

SANCHEZ: Well, it's not even maybe. It is, as a matter -- it's a movement. I happen to know what it is. La Raza is a movement. It has nothing to do with --

BALDWIN: And maybe that's one of the reasons why Mr. Horne was perturbed.

SANCHEZ: Well, he should be perturbed.

BALDWIN: So, the students, though, they say, our education is under attack. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's really important that we don't just have one narrative, but we have a counter-narrative as well. But we can have multiple -- and we can choose from our beliefs what we want to believe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because we're not a racist class. We're with everybody. Everybody can take these classes. And to prove it, there's all nationalities in our classes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So when you go through some of these sound bites from the kids, they're all frustrated, or a lot of them that I heard from. And we can't mention the story and not mention, of course, what's happened within the month, the immigration law.

SANCHEZ: Well, but hold on. Because you know what? This is interesting. I want to stop you for a minute.

BALDWIN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: If he's saying that some of these classes are being taught by people who are saying those horrible things --

BALDWIN: Radicalists, separatist.

SANCHEZ: Radicalism and separatism, and trying to overthrow the United States government, well, he's right.

BALDWIN: Perhaps the issue is with the teachers.

SANCHEZ: With the teacher. Go in there and say, "Are you teaching these kids these things?"

BALDWIN: Exactly.

SANCHEZ: But to deny any student the right to learn about Asian studies -- I want my kid to know about Asians, I want my kids to know about African-Americans. I want my kids to know about Hispanic- Americans and Polish-Americans and Irish-Americans.

BALDWIN: Sure. Right. I took an African-American theater class in college, right? And I'm not African-American.

I mean, we all should be learning about other ethnicities, other races. It's just a matter of not being separatists.

SANCHEZ: Right. So there's a middle ground here that nobody -- again, every time we have these arguments like this, it's like there's two extremes and there's a middle ground, and no one wants to play there.

BALDWIN: But it's a good story to argue about. It's a good story to talk about.

SANCHEZ: See, you got me going again. You got me going again.

BALDWIN: Good. That's my job, Sanchez.

SANCHEZ: It is. It's a perfect trending story, and I'm glad we do this list every day. It's what America is talking about.

BALDWIN: Thank you, sir.

SANCHEZ: Good stuff. Appreciate it.

All right. Earlier, we talked about whistleblowers' claims that the huge Gulf oil leak could have been prevented if proper maintenance had been done. Those are the allegations that are being made right now on this blowout preventer, how well it could have worked.

Well, we're all about solutions. In fact, a list of three potential ways to clean up the Gulf, that's next as we list things for you that may end up being very helpful for the folks down there.

Stay with us. This is your national conversation coming right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Right now priority number one for BP is stopping the oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico. Number two on their to-do list is finding a way to get all that oil somehow cleaned up. And that leads to our list, three possible ways to clean up the spill.

Number three, NASA aerogel. It's a Styrofoam-like material. NASA describes it as a 99.8 percent air 1,000 times less dense than glass, highly absorbent. Aerogel could soak up the oil off rocks and birds, or even stop the oil from reaching shores.

Possible solution number two, peat moss. All right, you know, similar to what you might find in your back yard. But there's now a super- absorbent kind developed by a Norwegian company and already been used in an oil spill last year with good results.

Number one on our list of ways BP can safely clean up the oil slick, hair. Yes, hair, likes yours or mine or even your dog's hair. The hair is collected, woven, and then stuffed into mesh containment booms, which is a perfect vehicle for absorbing the oil. Did you know? All right. President Obama holds a town hall meeting. It happened just before we went on the air.

Wolf Blitzer has been talking about it. By the way, it happened in Wolf's hometown. It happened in Buffalo, New York, so you know Wolf was paying close attention to see if some of his relatives or some of his buddies he grew up with were there asking the president questions.

That is next. Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. Time to do our economy list.

"I need a job." That's the message on the billboard that went up in Buffalo, New York, just in time for President Obama's town hall meeting there today. Buffalo's unemployment rate is lower than the national average. It's at 8.6 percent. That ain't bad.

The national average is around 9.7 percent. Still under double digits.

Recent indicators have suggested improvement in the job market. Employers added 290,000 jobs in April, the most in four years.

But Jeff Baker wants to refocus the national dialogue back to basic job creation. You see, Baker lost his job. That's the guy who put up the billboard, I think.

Is it? Yes, his 10-year-old family business, and figured he should spend his money on the billboard.

President Obama's visit to Buffalo is part of his White House to Main Street tour.

All right. Let's go talk to my friend Wolf Blitzer. He's joining us now and he's talking about this.

The president was pretty fired up today. I mean, he's going to be out there on the stump and he's going to be doing this. And look, here he is in your hometown, which isn't doing as bad as some other towns in this country.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: You know, it looks, with that number, 8- point-something percent unemployment, compared to when it was 9.9 percent, actually, last month, the national unemployment number. But Buffalo has lost so many jobs over the past few decades.

I know in the '60s, Buffalo was one of the top 20 cities in the United States. It had a population of about 600,000, 650,000, the city of Buffalo. Now it's under 300,000, the city of Buffalo, per se, not the entire suburban area.

So Buffalo's gone through some real pain. Lost a lot of the merchandising job from Ford Motor Company or General Motors or Bethlehem Steel. All those jobs are gone, are not coming back. They're trying to find some new high-tech jobs, some green jobs. They're working really hard, my friends in Buffalo, but it's a struggle.

SANCHEZ: Well, I'll tell you what Buffalo's good at. They're some of the best sports fans in the country.

I mean, I can't tell you how many times when I was a kid I would go to Miami Dolphins games, and there would sometimes be more Buffalo fans there than there were Dolphin fans. Of course, because it was an excuse for them o get out of the cold.

BLITZER: Because we love the Bills. We love the Bills in Buffalo. You know that.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Apparently, you and me and Russert -- Russert would talk --

BLITZER: Tim Russert, yes. He loved the Buffalo Bills.

SANCHEZ: He'd send me e-mails about the Buffalo Bills and how they were going to beat the Dolphins a couple of days before the games.

Look at this, folks.

Wolf, do you mind if I talk about this? I don't want to embarrass you.

BLITZER: About the soccer team?

SANCHEZ: Yes.

BLITZER: Yes, go ahead.

SANCHEZ: Yes. They're starting a soccer team in Buffalo, and they're having a contest to see what they should name it. Look at the list.

Matt, get into the list. Let's show the folks there.

All right. They've got The Bolts, The Blitzkrieg. They've got, as you see there, The Blue Collars, the Expos, the Rust, the Spokes. But look at number three -- The Wolf Blitzers.

They're going to start a soccer team in Buffalo and possibly call it The Wolf Blitzers. Right now, it's in second place. Thirty-two percent of the vote is going to Blitzkrieg, and 30 percent of the vote -- is that what it says there, guys? It's kind of far away. My eyes are getting old -- 30 percent.

Wolf, what an honor! This is cool.

BLITZER: I like the sound of that, though, the Buffalo Blitzers. That would be nice. The Buffalo Blitzers.

You know, it's soccer. If it were football, it would be a blitzing linebacker, the Blitzers. But, you know, the Buffalo Blitzers has got a nice ring to it.

SANCHEZ: Well, this shows that, you know what? That your town loves you, man. That's good. You know, the people --

BLITZER: And I love that town, too.

SANCHEZ: That's fantastic.

Wolf Blitzer from Buffalo, New York.

And what have you got coming up on your show?

BLITZER: Well, we're going to talk about these new arrests connected to the Times Square alleged bomber, what's gong on. We have got all of our reporters working this story, and we're going to have the very latest on that. Plus a lot of other news, as you know.

SANCHEZ: Look forward to it, Wolf.

"THE SITUATION ROOM" coming right up, folks.

Here's what we're looking at coming up here in just a little bit. Should gay actors only play gay parts, or is it just sometimes too difficult for a gay actor who's out of the closet to be accepted by the folks in the audience?

Well, that is the point that's been made by someone who writes for "Newsweek" magazine, and now Hollywood is saying, you can't say that, that's not fair. They're asking for a boycott.

We're going to take you through that story. You stay right there. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Let's get to the very top now of our pop culture list.

Welcome back, everyone. I'm Rick Sanchez.

All right. That guy I'm about to show you right now, his name is Sean Hayes. You may remember him from the TV show "Will & Grace."

Well, his performance on Broadway prompted an article, a "Newsweek" article, that says audiences aren't buying openly gay actors in straight roles. They compared him to maybe an older actor who was trying to also play that same kind of role, and audiences say, wait, he's maybe too old to be with that young actress.

That's the comparison that was made in the article, but it's getting a lot of heat. It's caused a firestorm in Hollywood.

So we asked our beat reporter on this, my colleague, Kareen Wynter, to dig deeper into this controversy. And here's what she's come up with.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOY BEHAR, "JOY BEHAR": You're not the only one who's really causing trouble here.

RAMIN SETOODEH, "NEWSWEEK": Right. And I wasn't meaning to cause trouble.

KAREEN WYNTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): But he has. Ramin Setoodeh wrote a "Newsweek" article in which he says audiences aren't buying openly gay actors in straight roles. He cites Sean Hayes' performance in Broadway's "Promises, Promises," calling it "weird, wooden and insincere," and calls "Glee's" Jonathan Groff "a theater queen."

JONATHAN GROFF, ACTOR, "GLEE": You deserve romance. No, you deserve epic romance.

JARRETT BARRIOS, GLAAD PRESIDENT: It strikes a nerve because it's peddling a stereotype that for years we have had to deal with, and that we're finally breaking through and making progress. It's not time to go back. We're moving forward.

WYNTER: Jarrett Barrios is the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. GLAAD is calling for "Newsweek" to apologize, a demand which echoes that of outraged "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy. In an open letter, Murphy writes, "I ask for an immediate boycott of "Newsweek" magazine until an apology is issued to Sean Hayes and other brave, out actors who were cruelly singled out in this damaging, needlessly cruel and mind-blowingly bigoted piece."

In spite of Murphy's call for a boycott, "Newsweek" isn't budging, releasing this statement: "Ramin Setoodeh wrote a thoughtful, honest essay on a controversial topic. It's unfortunate that his argument has been misunderstood and he has been unfairly accused of bigotry. We also hope we still get our advanced copies of 'Glee," because here at 'Newsweek,' we're among the show's biggest fans (even the straight folks)."

For many, the tongue-in-cheek part of Newsweek's response has added insult to injury. Barrios isn't laughing and says the article is part of a bigger problem.

(on camera): So what is it about this article that you feel is so harmful?

BARRIOS: It's basically saying to a gay actor, if you come out, you don't deserve to work in this town. That kind of cuts against what America's all about.

WYNTER: What happens if "Newsweek" doesn't issue an apology? What's your next move?

BARRIOS: Whether or not "Newsweek" takes the high road, we have already started an important conversation, and it's conversations like these that move America.

WYNTER: A point Setoodeh also agrees on.

SETOODEH: You know, I don't want people to stay in the closet. My goal is to get a dialogue going, because this was being -- you know, no one was talking about this.

WYNTER: Now it seems everyone is weighing in. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin just posted this blog on "The Huffington Post," the first to publicly defend the article, to a degree, saying, Setoodeh is "not homophobic, just wrong." And the firestorm of debate is better directed at "bigots who don't think homosexuals are fit to get married, adopt children, or fight and die for their country."

Kareen Wynter, CNN, Hollywood.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Let me bring you up to date on a breaking story that we're following for you.

Los Angeles police trying to smoke out a bank robbery suspect. This is some of the information that we have been getting over the last couple of minutes here.

Apparently, they're using tear gas. There were three bank robbery suspects, two males and a female, who are at large in the city of Long Beach.

It happened around -- well a couple of hours ago. Apparently, it happened in Laguna Hills. A California Highway Patrol officer heard the description of the vehicle that fled the scene over the scanner, spotted the suspects on the 405 freeway in Orange City, attempted to make the stop. Apparently, there may have been some exchange of fire.

We're all over this story. Obviously, as more information comes in and as it develops, you'll see it right here on CNN.

Here now, my colleague, Wolf Blitzer, and "THE SITUATION ROOM."