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CNN Sunday Morning
Obama Nominates Three Assistants to Treasury Secretary Geithner; Faces of Faith
Aired March 08, 2009 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. From the CNN Center, this is CNN SUNDAY MORNING. It is March 8th. Hopefully, you set your clocks forward because it is 8:00 a.m. here at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, 7:00 a.m. in the heartland.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.
NGUYEN: Good morning, everybody. I'm Betty Nguyen.
HOLMES: Yes. Good morning to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes. I hope you did get those clocks in the right place, if not, some of you are late to church right now.
NGUYEN: I still don't know what to do with my extra hour today. Aren't you excited?
HOLMES: We have an extra hour? I thought we lost an hour.
NGUYEN: No, we're springing forward.
HOLMES: That means we just lost an hour, right?
NGUYEN: Oh!
HOLMES: See? Yes.
NGUYEN: OK. See, I have lost it with the lack of sleep last night.
HOLMES: Lost an hour and lost it.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: All right. Let's move on here.
NGUYEN: That, too.
HOLMES: Do we have a team in place? We have this economic mess and we don't have all the pieces of the puzzle in place to try to fix the thing. Now, the president is naming new treasury secretary nominees. This morning, we'll take a look at the new players in just a sec.
NGUYEN: And because people are losing their jobs and their homes, some are also losing their faith -- one woman's angry conversation with God. You got to hear this.
HOLMES: Yes, an interesting stuff here.
Also, always interesting -- Chuck. Charles Barkley is showing up for jail for his three-day jail sentence and he had a few things to say as always.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES BARKLEY, FORMER NBA STAR: Let's be realistic. I mean, I'm not going to kill myself. This is just a screw-up on my part and that's it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Chuck, as always, keeping it real, speaking his mind on his way into jail. Kind of a strange press conference, if you will -- not exactly how all inmates go into jail. Before he got locked up, he had stuff to say about the president, Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff, Chris Brown, Rihanna. He mentioned Betty in there, I think, somewhere.
NGUYEN: No he didn't. It was no holds barred actually. I mean, he pretty much spoke his mind and just called it like he saw it. You definitely want to see that.
HOLMES: In typical Chuck fashion.
But we will start with the economy. Of course, a lot of people out there are looking for jobs. Well, there is one place that's hiring right now -- the Treasury Department. They got federal positions they can't field just yet.
The president, though, is nominating three assistants for the Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. That is a very, very good thing.
Tim Geithner needs some help. He has about 17 top positions right under him that have not been filled just yet, Betty.
NGUYEN: All right. So, here are the nominees: David Cohen for assistant secretary for terrorist financing; Alan Krueger for assistant secretary for economic policy; and Kim Wallace for assistant secretary for legislative affairs. Right now, all three are serving as counselors for Geithner. They will have to be confirmed by the Senate.
And while President Obama is making moves to relieve the economic crisis, he's also trying to manage expectations in an interview with the "New York Times."
Take a look.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
PRES. BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES: I don't think that anybody has that kind of crystal ball. We are going through a wrenching process of de-leveraging in the financial sectors -- not just here in the United States, but all around the world -- that have profound consequences for Main Street.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HOLMES: And our deputy political director, usually in Washington, is here with us in Atlanta.
Good to have you here, Paul Steinhauser.
All right. He's talking about the economy there. A lot of criticism out there, there was, that he was talking down about it so bad. He needs to lift people up and make them feel like things are going to get better. Is that what he's doing now?
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: He's doing both. And he was answering a question there when will the bad times be over, and he said, "I don't have a crystal ball."
Listen -- but he also said in that interview with the "New York Times" that he gave on Air Force One on the way back from Ohio to Washington, D.C., on Friday, he said that by the end of this year, all of the pillars should be in place for a recovery to begin. So, he was giving a little bit of a timetable. Hopefully, that recovery in his mind will start happening in 2010.
And he also said things are not that bad that people should not start stuffing their money in their mattresses. He said, don't do that.
NGUYEN: Yes.
STEINHAUSER: The financial institutions are not going great, but they are still around and they are still doing OK.
NGUYEN: As -- you know, along with the economy, also talked about Afghanistan and really to get down to the point, are we winning that war? What did he have to say about that?
STEINHAUSER: Take a listen here. He was asked that question and here's what he said.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
OBAMA: No. I think that we are -- we are doing an extraordinary job. Or let me say it this way: Our troops are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult situation. But you've seen conditions deteriorate over the last couple of years.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
NGUYEN: All right. "Deteriorate over the last couple of years." Your take on this?
STEINHAUSER: Well, I mean, it's a tough question that he was asked and he said, that's the headline so far this morning from that interview.
NGUYEN: Yes.
STEINHAUSER: No, we're not winning. But he said, listen, our troops are doing well there. He mentioned some other things as well. And as you know, they are starting beef up forces in Afghanistan. That is one of the things he talked about in the campaign trail, toning it down in Iraq and moving a lot of those forces over to Afghanistan, that is already under way.
He also talked about maybe using something that worked well in Iraq, and that was reaching out to the Sunnis, the Sunni insurgents who were fighting the U.S. The U.S. reached out to them and brought them over to the U.S.' side. He's saying maybe we do that -- maybe we do that with some of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
NGUYEN: So, not winning, but changes are in the works, essentially.
STEINHAUSER: Exactly.
NGUYEN: Got you.
HOLMES: All right. Busy week as always for the president, but certainly, this week as well, he got a couple of big ticket items on the schedule this week.
STEINHAUSER: Yes, another big week. Let's work our way back.
HOLMES: All right.
STEINHAUSER: On Thursday, he meets with officials from all over the country from the states to talk about how to use the stimulus money wisely. On Tuesday, he speaks in front of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and he's talking about education reforms. And let's look to tomorrow -- tomorrow, we know about stem cell. He's going to talk about the federal funding, right, for expanding the lines.
HOLMES: All right. Busy week, I know you'll be on it. Are you heading back to D.C.? Are you?
STEINHAUSER: Yes.
HOLMES: All right. Good to have you here.
STEINHAUSER: Great to be here. Thank you.
NGUYEN: Yes, it's nice to see you, Paul, live and in person. We do appreciate it.
You know, speaking of President Obama and stem cell research, all morning long, we've been asking you: Should President Obama allow funding for embryonic stem cell research? It is our email question of the day.
And you can send us your thoughts to Weekends@CNN.com. Or you can go to our Facebook pages as well, and we've got a couple of them up right now. And you can see what they're saying.
Stephanie Lee, this is on my Facebook page. She writes, "Stem cell research is controversial in itself. I don't think the government should be involved in trying to play God. There are so many causes that are privately funded and stem cell research is no different."
HOLMES: Yes. And another one, we can move right there to the right. Again, we're getting comments this morning as well, like Betty said, on our Facebook pages.
I got one here from Kyle at the very top, just saying there, "He sure should allow that stem cell research. Science has been given the cold shoulder for the past eight years. We keep talking about job loss. Put scientists to work. Who knows, maybe they'll cure something while they're at it."
So, we appreciate the comments, and we still will be continuing to share some of those throughout this hour. But we absolutely do appreciate you sending those in and participating in our newscast this morning.
NGUYEN: We got a lot more to come. Including this, it's your last day to find deals on Blu-ray players and flat screen televisions at Circuit City, that is. All of the remaining stores will close for good by the end of the day.
Now, at one point, Circuit City had 567 stores and 34,000 workers. So many shoppers turned out for these deals, the liquidation ended sooner than expected.
And this story for you. In Massillon, Ohio, the junior high there, Thomas Edison Junior High is looking for a custodian. And guess how many people applied in just one week? How about 700?
Officials have extended the deadline until Monday to handle the overwhelming response. They say many applicants are laid-off workers with heart-wrenching stories about the economy.
HOLMES: Thirty people dead, at least 60 hurt in a suicide bombing outside a police academy in Baghdad today. Iraqi official say the bomber had explosives on his vest and his motorcycle. Most of the victims: police officers and police recruits.
Now, this just coming a week after President Obama set 2010 as the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, that combat forces will be out by August of next summer. Iraqis, meanwhile, are trying to build up their ranks when they fully take over the security situation there.
And President Obama is looking for ways to help Mexico as well handle its violent drug wars, starting to get the attention of the president now. The chairman of the joint chiefs, Michael Mullen, just got back from a trip to Mexico City, checking on the situation there. A military official says Mullen briefed the president on the situation yesterday. You might have heard just last week, three people were found decapitated in Tijuana, among them, a U.S. citizen. It just happened within the past couple of days. So, the violence there really is something that we have become accustomed to, but Mullen has suggested that U.S. tactics in the fight against terrorism could be used by Mexico as it battles those drug-related violence.
NGUYEN: Well, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is back in Washington this morning after wrapping up a mission to Switzerland, the Middle East and Turkey. Clinton met with Turkish leaders in Ankara yesterday. Both the U.S. and Turkey pledge to pursue a Middle East peace agreement and to work together to fight terror groups.
Clinton also announced that President Obama will be visiting Turkey within the next month or so. That visit is planned for April.
HOLMES: All right. What a difference, Betty, a week makes.
NGUYEN: Yes.
HOLMES: Just a week ago here in Atlanta.
NGUYEN: Right.
HOLMES: We got -- it was gorgeous. It was snowing. It was beautiful.
NGUYEN: Look at these pictures. I remember watching it. It was coming down so hard. I don't know if I've ever seen it snow that hard in place outside of a ski resort.
HOLMES: Outside of a ski resort? Well, it was not the case here yesterday. After that snow, again, I can't -- I don't know what it ended up being. I know we're predicting one to three inches. I know Reynolds can tell us here in a second. But yesterday and today, it's beautiful here in Atlanta, mid-70s, sunny, gorgeous.
NGUYEN: It is absolutely -- I mean, I know it's March. A lot of people are still on the cold side but not here.
Reynolds, boy, is this the kind of weather that we should be expecting for a little while or is this just one of those one week- and-only things?
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, it's the time of the year when everything gets to a transition, when you're making that jump from, say, winter to spring, or, say, from spring to summer, or from, you know, any of the seasons you choose -- things get a little bit weird. That was one of those weird moments, no question about it. You don't have to have me tell you that.
What we're going to be seeing today will be conditions that could be kind of interesting for parts of, say, the Ohio Valley and into portions of, say, the Great Lakes. There is a chance we could see some strong storms later on today, maybe even a little bit of flooding. One place that we might have some issues in your weather table would be Ohio. We also have some cool video for you. It's an iReport video from Ohio.
Betty and T.J., take a look at this. You heard of those polar bear plunges. Yes. Well, this was sent in from Jeff Pontsler, this is of people jumping into very cool water. Temperatures there are around 65 degrees but water temperatures around 35. You see one dude there in one corner of the screen wearing a suit and carrying a suitcase, jumping in.
This was for a very good cause. I can tell you for Special Olympics. You got to love that one for the cause, but guys, really, you got to be kind of crazy to just go and do that. I'm sorry. I mean, that's going to be a shock to the system.
What's going to be a shock to the system is going to be what you're going to be dealing with later on today in parts of the Ohio Valley. We're going to have some scattered showers and storms. I'm going to put this in motion for you and show you the places that are under definitely going to be under the gun later on into the afternoon hours. Primarily, places like, say, Cincinnati, back over to, say, maybe even Indianapolis or St. Louis, you could have some strong thunderstorms, at least a slight risk for today.
But then a bit farther to the north, as we head into parts of Michigan and then back into Wisconsin, you could have some flash flooding. Heavy rainfall there for the last couple of days. And when you have that additional amount, some places get up to maybe three, four inches of rainfall, you could have some flash flooding, a tremendous issue for a lot of people.
And you guys started off the weather forecast talking about the change that we've had from one week to another, today, we're really going to be feeling those in terms of the temperatures. Very quickly, take a look at the highs we're going to have for the day. Some places like, say, Atlanta going to 75; Kansas City, 56; Denver with 60; and 48 in Salt Lake.
That is your forecast. Let's send it back to you at the news desk.
NGUYEN: Not a bad one. Yes.
HOLMES: Seventy-five in Atlanta. Aahh!
WOLF: Aahh!
(LAUGHTER)
NGUYEN: All right. Thanks, Reynolds.
WOLF: You bet guys.
NGUYEN: Well, Congressman Neil Abercrombie says he's going to run for governor of Hawaii next year, but, you know, he didn't hold a news conference like what we're used to seeing.
HOLMES: It's what we're used to seeing, an official announcement.
NGUYEN: Right.
HOLMES: They build it up.
NGUYEN: Statements ...
HOLMES: All that stuff.
NGUYEN: All of that.
HOLMES: No. How did he do it? Twitter. He used that social networking site and ...
NGUYEN: It's a way of the future apparently.
HOLMES: Yes. This is the way we're probably going to see more of these things. And there it is. That's how he got the word out.
A campaign spokesman says Abercrombie has been Twittering, as it's called, for more than a year. Betty and I have been doing it for about an hour now.
NGUYEN: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: Yes, we're trying, folks. We just got on the Facebook, just take a step at a time with us here.
NGUYEN: Give us a few minutes. We're still learning the system.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: But Abercrombie there does use Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and, of course, Twitter. But he is the person that I signed up to follow on Twitter. I did it this morning, I haven't been following anybody. He's the first one. He's got these updates.
NGUYEN: But actually, if you're not on all of them, there is a mechanism, right, that if you write something on Twitter, it will show up on your Facebook page maybe even MySpace.
HOLMES: Betty ...
NGUYEN: Yes. I mean, it's way up here and we're still down here with it. But it's possible out there. So ...
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: We're going to get -- once we get it, whoa, look out, folks.
NGUYEN: Yes.
HOLMES: All right. Let's see here. He lost his freedom for the weekend, but he has definitely not lost his freedom of speech.
We're talking about Chuck. And he went into jail unlike any other inmate probably has ever gone into jail and he had a few folks to talk about going in. Maybe not the people you think he'd be talking about. Rush Limbaugh? Martha Stewart?
NGUYEN: Rihanna and Chris Brown?
HOLMES: President Obama? Stay tuned for that.
NGUYEN: And two more big names in the news: Chris Brown and Rihanna, are they still a couple and should they be?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Well, his nickname while he was playing was the "Round Mound of Rebound." And he is looking to rebound right about now.
NGUYEN: Yes.
HOLMES: Trying to rebound as quickly as possible. He got a three-day sentence this weekend for his drunk driving arrest. We're talking about Charles Barkley here. He began serving at Arizona's famous tent city actually and ironically, he's jailer, the sheriff out there, Arpaio, the same sheriff Barkley endorsed his autobiography a few years ago.
NGUYEN: He has his own tent for safety reasons and a true Barkley fashion. He held nothing back when he was asked, oh, a few questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARKLEY: Bernie Madoff is a crook. You guys aren't crooks. Martha Stewart went to jail and she came back out and she was Martha Stewart. President Obama is a good friend of mine. And I'd just like to think about him and, you know, I know, you know, Rush Limbaugh and a lot of jack (BLEEP) who are giving him a hard time right now.
You can never hit a woman. That's not acceptable. I wish both of them the best.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Well ...
NGUYEN: See?
HOLMES: He's got a lot.
NGUYEN: He's going to speak his mind. Well, Barkley was referring to the allegations against R&B singer Chris Brown. He was accused of assaulting his girlfriend singer Rihanna.
HOLMES: So, what kind of effect, you know, people going to ask this question, is this going to have on Brown's image, his career, which, of course, so much of his fan base young women?
NGUYEN: Well, her career, too, and the issue of domestic violence. Are they back together? Should they be back together?
HOLMES: Randi Kaye is looking into the story for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you understand that, sir?
CHRIS BROWN, SINGER: Yes.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wearing a gray suit and showing little emotion, Chris Brown stood before a judge to hear his arraignment pushed back until April. The complaint against Brown charges the 19-year-old with assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and criminal threat. Both felonies are in an attack against his 21-year-old girlfriend, the singer Rihanna. The alleged attack happened the night before the Grammys, when the couple was riding in his Lamborghini.
According to a detective sworn statement, Brown became enraged after Rihanna read a text message on his cell phone from a woman he had previous sexual relationship with. The affidavit says, Brown "took his right hand and shoved her head against the passenger window, punched her in the left eye, and continued to punch her in the face," causing "her mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter all over her clothing."
The affidavit says Brown then told her, "I'm going to beat the blank out of you when we get home! You wait and see! Now, I'm really going to kill you."
This photograph obtained from the gossip and entertainment Web site, TMZ, shows the victim's battered face.
(MUSIC)
KAYE: Young, rich, and immensely popular, the pair are known as the "Prince and Princess of R&B."
TOURE, ACCESS HOLLYWOOD: He's the boy who you could bring home to mom. You know, at least he seemed so before all of this. She's become this top R&B sort of icon, definitely one of the top young female singers around. Chris and Rihanna together was like too good to be true at first. It was like -- this has got to be a publicist dream to put these two together.
KAYE: That clean-cut image landed Brown several endorsements, including one with Wrigley, but the company has since suspended him as a pitch man.
TOURE: You know, that just murders your image. And for a guy who had this really clean cut sort of image, this just s a cloud like this over his head. It's just devastating. KAYE (on camera): Devastating, but it hasn't divided the pair, and that's what is so stunning. Weeks after the attack, the two are reported to have reconciled. A source tells "People" magazine, while Chris is reflective and saddened about what happened, he is really happy to be with the woman he loves.
(voice-over): Back together -- shocking to some, but not to everyone.
LISA BLOOM, HOST, "LISA BLOOM: OPEN COURT": I used to work in a battered women shelter, and two out of the three women ended up returning to their abusers. It's a very difficult sociological phenomenon that domestic violence survivors typically do go back.
KAYE: If convicted, Brown faces up to four years and eight months in prison.
Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: All right.
NGUYEN: People talking.
HOLMES: Yes, it has people talking. They'll continue ...
NGUYEN: Some people are outraged in fact.
HOLMES: Yes. And we've been hearing about it this weekend actually.
NGUYEN: Yes.
HOLMES: All weekend, in our Facebook pages. And we appreciate your feedback, by the way, there.
But we will get to some politics, a busy weekend of politics. As always, John King is waiting in the wings to start out what's happened, what's ahead, what will happen, what this all going to mean for you -- well, who better to talk about it than John.
NGUYEN: John King.
HOLMES: And he's coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: CNN "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JOHN KING" is coming your way in about 30 minutes. On the agenda: Economy, economy, economy. John King joins us now.
You know, speaking of the economy, we've been getting word of possibly another stimulus package. What is up with this one?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Betty and T.J., good morning.
The administration has not ruled out more stimulus money. Remember, $800 billion already approved, but since that money was approved, we got the jobs report just this week, another 650,000 Americans lost their jobs just last month. The unemployment rate is at 8.1 percent and hasn't been that high since 1983. So, there are many who say the economy might need more priming, and that would mean more money from Washington.
They haven't committed to that yet, but that is one of the things to keep an eye on as we go through the big spending debate here in Washington. And we try to connect it to the economic stress people feel at home.
HOLMES: John, you mentioned economic stress. You mentioned jobs. There are job openings right now at the Treasury Department.
NGUYEN: Yes.
HOLMES: What is going on here? I don't -- I mean, I don't know historically if it usually takes an administration this long to fill some of these positions, but given what's going on in the economy, this is critical that Tim Geithner get some help and he has a lot of spots to fill.
KING: It's amazing. Just this morning, the administration did announce a few new nominees to fill some of the top jobs at the Treasury Department. But if you're at home and you have a computer in front of you, and you go to the Treasury Department, there's a little spot on the Web site where it says "our officials" and you click. Right now, all you get is Secretary Tim Geithner.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: Here's a guy, you know, he's been -- he's been beat up a little bit in the political debate here in Washington. When he speaks, sometimes, the stock market goes down. But he's essentially been alone in a department where he's dealing with the AIG bailout, the big -- and other financial institutions bailout, dealing with the stimulus money, supposed to be helping the administration craft its economic policy, and he has been largely alone.
Remember, before the inauguration, people were saying, this was the smoothest transition in history. They were moving so quickly filling the big jobs. But then they went off the tracks, in part because of those controversies, Governor Richardson, Senator Daschle and others, when they had several nominees get derailed because of tax issues and other issues, then they got hyper-cautious you might say, and it's really slowed the process down.
NGUYEN: Well, John, you know, with so much going on with the economy and so much work to be done, some people are scratching their heads in knowing that President Obama is now focusing on stem cell research. I mean, he's signing this on Monday. Why now?
KING: Well, number one, it's an important issue for many of his supporters and many people who believe you need to reverse the restrictions that President Bush put in place. This will be a big controversy. There are a lot of people out there on the conservative side who say that would be taking a human life, if you allow certain research on embryonic stem cells.
But the president told me in an interview just before inauguration, he wanted Congress to pass a law because he knows it's so controversial, and because, if Congress passes a law, the next president can't come in and issue an executive order reversing what President Obama is about to do. But clearly, they have decided that they have so much going on in Congress right now and they want to change this policy that they will start with an executive order that lifts most of the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, and then perhaps Congress will deal with it at a later issue.
But, Betty and T.J., you know, health care, climate change, the overall jobs picture, now, stem cell research, the bigger health care reform debate -- this president has a huge inbox. And they have decided at a time when he is very popular with the American people to try to do as much as you can perhaps before that political tide turns a little bit.
HOLMES: Yes, something else in that inbox, is going to be the war in Afghanistan. How big of a deal will it be to hear -- for the American people to hear the president say, "No, we are not winning the war in Afghanistan" as he told the "New York Times" in that interview?
KING: Yes. That is a sobering statement from the president; that he is echoing what Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week here on "STATE OF THE UNION" and what John McCain has said throughout the campaign for president.
What's interesting, T.J. and Betty, is that he says that, "No, we are losing in Afghanistan right now" even as he is already sending 17,000 troops into Afghanistan and could send another 12,000 or 13,000 more, the leading general there wants 30,000 troops. And many in his own party on the left, in the Democratic Party, are saying, you know, if you need those troops, could you first please tell us what the new strategy is?
And the administration is adding troops in the middle of a strategic review. So, it could be weeks, a little bit longer before the administration says here's how we think we can get back on the winning track. Some say you should wait until you have that plan before sending in the troops.
So, it's sobering statement from the president. One that reflects the realities on the ground in Afghanistan, but it will add to the political debate about: Should you be sending more troops and, if so, how many?
NGUYEN: John, we ask you this really quickly, we're about that at halfway point and the president's first 100 days -- how is he faring so far in the public eye?
KING: It's a great question, because if you look at the big number, his approval rating, he's doing just fine. He still gets 60 percent; some polls have him close to 70 percent in terms of public approval rating.
If you look a little lower, they're beginning to see some pressure points, people wondering about all this government spending. Some people -- I was in North Carolina this week, people who supported Barack Obama in that traditionally conservative state say, maybe I think there's too much government involvement in trying to fix the economy or trying to fix health care. So, there are some -- I wouldn't call them quite cracks yet, but you can see some pressure points on some of the big issues.
And the administration is well aware of that. It's one of the reasons they are trying to do as much as they can early on, again, while he has this honeymoon period and this ground swell of public support. He is still in the stratosphere when it comes to where politicians want to be. But, it's worth watching.
NGUYEN: All right. We are looking forward to it. It's starting at the top of the hour. John King, "STATE OF THE UNION," we'll be watching.
KING: Thank you, guys.
NGUYEN: Thank you.
HOLMES: Yes. We just serve as the warm-up act here for John King.
NGUYEN: All he needs is a tiny bit of teeing up and he will run with it.
HOLMES: Yes, he will run with it (ph). John, we appreciate you, we'll see you coming up.
But welcome back to you all.
(MUSIC)
HOLMES: Well, you heard the music.
NGUYEN: Welcome back, everyone. That's the cue.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: Here we are! I'm T.J., this is Betty.
NGUYEN: Good morning.
All right. Did you set your clocks ahead an hour? It is 8:30 Eastern Time. We lost an hour.
HOLMES: We lost -- yes.
NGUYEN: I lost so much of it. You almost forget that you've lost it. We are springing forward today and, boy, that meant it was difficult getting up.
HOLMES: It was tricky and you're scared to go to bed because you don't know the timing and we have to get up so early and we had clock -- different clocks set, it was a mess.
NGUYEN: I had three sets just to be sure.
HOLMES: It was a mess but here we are. We made it.
And we got some stories including one out of Iraq.
NGUYEN: Right.
HOLMES: A reminder of just how deadly it can be there.
NGUYEN: Yes, listen to this, a suicide bomber set off his explosives outside Baghdad's main police academy today. The Interior Ministry says the blast killed 30 people and injured 61 others most of them, police recruits. Now, the same academy was hit in December by two bombers.
HOLMES: And as we were just discussing with John King a moment ago, President Obama giving the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner some much-needed help. He has nominated three people as assistant secretaries. There names are David Cohen, Alan Krueger and Kim Wallace. You might not know the names, you might not sounds like it means much to you, but they will mean a whole lot to you as they assist Timothy Geithner in helping to get this economy back on track.
Right now, they are serving as counselors to Geithner however, because they haven't been confirmed, they don't have any real power to make decisions so they can only counsel him right now. So he is getting some help.
Well, have you ever been angry at God? Well, with tough economic times, a lot of people question their faith right about now. Our "Faces of Faith" guest this morning actually cursed out God and we don't recommend that at all.
NGUYEN: No. You're praying and you really want those prayers to be answered --
HOLMES: Yes.
NGUYEN: It might not be good if you curse him now.
HOLMES: But she is going to be here with us and she went toe-to- toe with the Almighty. We'll see who came out on top of that one.
NGUYEN: Yes, and there is anger in the blogosphere over a bus driver's quest to keep an $800,000 house. We have those details coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. Congress has been passing a lot of bills it seems, a lot of stimulus this, stimulus that.
NGUYEN: Yes.
HOLMES: A lot of many, many bills are just out there. A lot of people are asking, when is that money going to get to me and my community? That is the question people are asking.
NGUYEN: Yes. Expected to cost the country, what, more than a trillion bucks. A lot of people -- they want to know, hey, when am I going to see some of it?
Well, our Josh Levs has learned what states are the first to get their hands on some of those funds. And which ones are they, Josh?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and it's really interesting, I started to hear some reports around the country that one state or one city here and there was getting some money.
And I didn't see it all up at recovery.gov yet. I called the Transportation Department, and they sent me their list. Check this out. It's just like massive Excel document filled with lots of words that just disappear. So don't worry about it because I'm going to give you the graphic anyway. Go straight to the graphic.
Ten states that are getting the first money here. And here it is guys. Arkansas, $23 million, Maine $35 million, there, Maryland $24 million, Mississippi $117 million, New York has a $48 million.
Then, we got five more for you, Oregon at $2 million, Rhode Island $11 million and Utah $70 million, West Virginia $10 million, Tennessee, $8 million. It's interesting because this list is kind of all over the place. It's not one specific region. There's not one specific reason that it worked out this way.
We have some video for you of -- the official first project in the whole country. This one was a stretch of highway over in Maryland along Route 650. So I asked the Department guys why is this the first one? And why were any of these chosen first?
And what they said is they were looking for shovel-ready projects where they thought it could happen like that within days or even the day that the money got sent. And based on that list, they decided to go with these ten states. Guys?
HOLMES: Well, ten states?
LEVS: Yes.
HOLMES: But you know, there are a lot of other states out there and a lot of other people wondering what is going on right about now. How do you -- because even we here at CNN, yes, it's hard to sometimes track down all of those numbers and figure out exactly where it's going and who is getting it?
NGUYEN: And what the state has planned.
HOLMES: Yes.
NGUYEN: Yes, so where can people go to find that?
HOLMES: Who gets that?
LEVS: Exactly, yes, that's the frustration, right? Because you still got four out of five states out there that are not on this list. Let me show you something that I found at recovery.gov. It's actually not linked from the main page but you can get there and it traces you through what's planned for each state.
A little easier if I get out of the way and use this cursor over here. You can click on any state and what it does is tells you how much money they plan to send. It actually, if you go ahead and click, then it breaks down the state for you.
So we're taking a look here at Davenport -- Davenport supposed to get about $5 million there total. You can you see the breakdown in any state. Check it out at there at recovery.gov. Also they'll link you to individual state web sites that show you how the state wants to use it.
And since it's hard to find both of these links I've put links of them up here at my Facebook page, joshlevsCNN and you can find that right now. So what we're going to do is reality check that and keep an eye on what's plan and see if the money actually gets there guys.
NGUYEN: All right, Josh, we do appreciate it.
HOLMES: We appreciate you.
Well, they say, laughter is good for the soul and in this tough economy it's important to chuckle just a bit.
NGUYEN: Yes and you'll have keep from crying, right?
HOLMES: That's the word right there. But what happens when God is at the butt of the joke?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN ISAACS, AUTHOR: ANGRY CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD: But, first, I have to say, I hate it when people say I'm spiritual but not religious. Now, to me that sounds like I'm emotional, but not psycho.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: Wow.
HOLMES: To me it's like --
NGUYEN: It's a one way to break it down, I guess.
HOLMES: Susan Isaacs and she is going to come along and explain her angry conversations with God. Stay tuned for her.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right, we got job losses around the country. Churches have seen an actual influx in people turning to their faith as a means of coping. The Church's message to people who are struggling is to continue moving forward. "Keep the Faith."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAWN WILSON, UNEMPLOYED: I pray a lot when I'm scared just to give me the courage to go on.
SHEILA JACKSON, MEMBER, ATLANTA FIRST UNITED: I've had to build my whole life all over again, jobs, income, food, clothing, all of it. But, you know, through God's help, he's kept me from getting, you know, running around here with a strait jacket on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: But what happens when you prayed and you prayed and you prayed and your prayers just don't get answered? Do you get upset? Do you get upset with God?
My next guest, Susan Isaacs, she got down right pissed off at God. Oh, Susan good morning. And she is a comedienne, also author of the book, "Angry Conversations with God." So tell me, are you still upset with God this morning, Susan?
ISAACS: I'm grateful to be alive. I am.
HOLMES: So you're better now?
ISAACS: I'm grateful to be awake.
HOLMES: And to be awake --
ISAACS: Yes.
HOLMES: So you and God have reconciled if you will and this book essentially sets up. You're having a therapy session. You and God are having issues with your relationship and you take God to therapy.
ISAACS: I do. You know, I read a book that said that I should look at my relationship with God like it was a marriage and I thought, well, then we definitely need to go to marriage counseling because we weren't getting along.
And I did. I think we all carry a voice inside our heads of what God is like and if we're having problems, if we actually vocalize that, we kind of get to see what our picture of God looks like and my picture of God had been influenced by my growing up, by things I had heard at church and things that I had internalized.
And when I actually -- God and looked at that, I realized that the God needed to change.
HOLMES: Well, you have -- and we're going to show people here -- were going to show people an idea of this conversation which some might find a bit shocking, but this might have been cathartic for you. But let's put up this first, when a part of the conversation where you, Susan, are saying to God in this therapy session.
What the blank God and God tells you to shut the blank up.
Now, to put it in those type terms --
ISAACS: Yes.
HOLMES: Do you think a lot of people go through kind of the same things you go through and this is just a very literal and real world way of having that conversation and getting past this?
ISAACS: I think it's very important for us to be honest with God. He knows everything that's in our heart anyway. And he wants to take that on. I mean, part of really becoming real with God is being as honest as you can and he can take that.
If he's a God of love and he is all powerful and he's all knowing, there is no reason to hide what you're thinking.
HOLMES: All right, and something else, we'll continue with this conversation here.
ISAACS: Yes.
HOLMES: We'll show something else from the book. Something having to do with sex a part of your conversation. That God is saying to you, "I don't have a problem with sex. I invented it, didn't I? I did not design the body to be celibate at forty."
You then say, "Therein lies the conflict."
God says to you, "It's your messed up culture that has set that conflict, not me. Please go have sex. Live out, Song of Solomon. Only do it married.
Now what are you hoping people -- and by, again, it might sound kind of shocking to some people to see it in these terms -- but what are you hoping folks will get from your book?
ISAACS: I'm hoping that people can bring all of whatever their cares are. Obviously, everyone is under a lot of emotional stress and we've maybe set up our life in a way that God is on the side and we can use these opportunities in our life right now to get honest.
And like the issue with intimate relationships. I think our culture has set up a bad dynamic where we try to postpone adulthood until we're 50, but our body is designed to be in relationships and be married and have great sex at 18.
So we've set up a conflict. And I hope that people take away from my book that you can bring, whether it's an emotional crisis, an economic crisis that brings that on --
HOLMES: Wow.
ISAACS: That God is with us in the midst of these things. He's not an ATM.
HOLMES: Well, let's hope --
ISAACS: He's not designed to take things, you know, to basically give us what we want. But he wants us to build our character and he does want us to have a happy life. He does.
HOLMES: Well, the book is called "Angry Conversations." But, again, like you said, you have reconciled. We have to let you go.
ISAACS: We have --
HOLMES: But you have reconciled.
ISAACS: We have worked our problems out.
HOLMES: So the therapy session was good for you. Susan Isaacs --
ISAACS: Ok.
HOLMES: And we appreciate you taking the time. This book got our attention. Good luck with it. But really, a pleasure talking to you, you take care.
ISAACS: Thank you so much T.J.
HOLMES: All right, Betty.
NGUYEN: All right. Now we do have a little something extra for you this morning. A look at some of the day's top stories through the eyes of students.
So stick around for some extra credit.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Who could use a little extra credit right about now? We've got some extra credit for you right here.
NGUYEN: Oh, yes. We are cranking out a new project. Every Sunday, we are going to be talking with CNN Student News host Carl Azuz about news affecting young people and he joins us now.
Carl, great to have you with us today.
HOLMES: Good to see you.
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS HOST: Thanks for having me.
NGUYEN: For folks who don't know, tell us a little about CNN Student News. AZUZ: CNN Student News is a ten-minute commercial-free commercial news of the day for middle and high school students. That's the group we target, we're not limited to that. We have home schoolers who use our show and international schools. We have some folks who tune in from France to Panama to Hong Kong to brush up on their English skills as well as catch up on current events.
NGUYEN: And this is on the Internet?
AZUZ: Well, actually, we are ubiquitous, which is the kind of word that you use everywhere.
HOLMES: Define it on CNN Student News.
NGUYEN: That is the word of the day, students.
AZUZ: Actually, it would be a word to the wise. We appear on HLN at 4:00 in the morning weekdays. If that's a little early for you or a little too late for you, you might find us at cnnstudentnews.com. That's where you can find so much information about the show, about what we do.
You can find extra materials that educators and you parents out there can use to explore issues in depth with your students. All of that is at cnnstudentnews.com and we are available as a free downloadable podcast on iTunes also totally free and totally commercial free.
HOLMES: Ten minutes, commercial -- I bet they wish we were commercial here sometimes.
NGUYEN: Sometimes maybe down just to ten minutes, too.
HOLMES: Yes.
How do you explain -- we sit up here and try to explain it but your audience is different, young folks. How do you explain all this tough stuff in the economy, war? How do you explain that to a middle school or high school student?
AZUZ: That's a good question. That is our big challenge and our mission.
What we're doing is we're taking a lot of the stories that you guys use; we are covering the war in Iraq, we are covering the crisis in Darfur. But we're telling them in ways that hopefully require more, that give more background information.
We're telling students not only what is making news but why it's making news and we do that through sheets available at our website. We do that through extra nuggets of knowledge that we provide in our show. It's all kind of with a goal of helping them just get a better grasp on what is going on in the world around them.
NGUYEN: When they get this information, do they share with you what they are feeling about it or how it's affecting them? What are they saying back to you?
AZUZ: They absolutely do. We have a blog at cnnstudentnews.com called "From A to Z" with me. We have a couple of blogs students would like share for you right now.
One of them is from Jacob. He says what is on his mind is the economy. He is saying it's taking down our standard of living and it's always on the news.
So this kind of gives you a clue as to how something is affecting so much of the American workforce now is affecting the younger work force as well, the future American workforce.
Another comment we had came in from Jessica. She was talking about President Obama's stimulus plan. She is saying that she thinks the president should put a lot of the money towards helping students out with college tuition. "As a student going off to college in the fall, I know that this is one of the main things that myself and other people are thinking about."
So you can kind of see how -- at least as far as we can tell -- it's affecting everybody and they're getting it.
HOLMES: It affects everybody. The parents but even the younger folks who are not in the work force, they see their parents going through these tough economic times.
A great service you all are providing. We look forward to having you here every single Sunday.
AZUZ: I look forward to getting up early to be here.
NGUYEN: But before we let you go, you want to give a shout-out, don't you?
AZUZ: Yes we do. We have a couple of students who have logged on to our Facebook page; that's the CNN Student News' official Facebook page.
I want to give a shout out to Mr. Caulfield's (ph) field's World War II students. They've logged on. We thank you guys for your comments on our wall. And I'd like to give a quick a shout-out to Mr. Shultz's students. They've been checking us out on Facebook and I wouldn't be surprised if a certain T.J. Holmes or Betty Nguyen were to swing by our Facebook page at some point.
NGUYEN: Oh, yes.
We have our own page and now we have one altogether. That's a nice team right there.
HOLMES: Carl, we appreciate it. Good to see you, buddy.
AZUZ: Thank you.
HOLMES: We look forward to having you here every Sunday. AZUZ: Appreciate you all having me.
NGUYEN: Every Sunday.
HOLMES: Every Sunday. Again, the CNN Student News project with Carl right here; you can catch him, you will see him every Sunday with us.
But we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: So a few weeks ago, CNN profiled a school bus driver facing foreclosure on her $800,000 house that she, you know, after airing this, didn't find some sympathy in the community.
HOLMES: Not at all, but she did find herself on the receiving end of a lot of outrage. CNN's Jim Acosta updates now the story.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: T.J. and Betty, a few weeks ago, we profiled a school bus driver facing foreclosure on her $800,000 house. After our story aired, the homeowner, Minta Garcia, found herself on the receiving end of America's bailout outrage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MINTA GARCIA, FACING FORECLOSURE: We're going to be losing the house and we're going to lose everything.
ACOSTA: You think you're going to lose everything?
GARCIA: Yes.
ACOSTA: When we introduced you to school bus driver Minta Garcia she told us her bank was threatening to foreclose on her $800,000 home in suburban Washington. She can no longer afford the house which is now worth less than her mortgage.
How much was the house when you bought it?
GARCIA: $800,000.
ACOSTA: $800,000.
And how much is the house worth?
GARCIA: Right now, it's like $675,000 on the market.
ACOSTA: Since then she has become the target of bloggers who say she is the poster child of America's housing crisis.
You feel attacked?
GARCIA: Yes, of course. I never thought they going to, you know, write those nasty comments.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Craig from Jackson on 1390 AM.
ACOSTA: Her story even spread to talk radio. On west Tennessee's 1390 AM, callers showed no mercy blaming Garcia and her bank almost equally.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We should not have to bail that kind of irresponsibility out. I mean, that's not our job.
MIKE SLATER, TALK RADIO HOST: People who are most upset about this are very self-reliant people and they don't automatically turn to the government to help them get out of their problems.
ACOSTA: Talk radio hosts are staging Boston tea party style rallies across the country protesting the nation's bailouts for banks and homeowners.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are spending money we don't have on social programs we don't need.
ACOSTA: Garcia says she and her husband, a construction worker, simply want their bank to lower the interest rate on their mortgage so they can try to make their payments. So if people say, Minta, you are irresponsible.
GARCIA: They say that because they don't know. I never asking for people to pay my mortgage or pay, you know, my bills or something.
TIMOTHY GEITHNER, U.S. SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: This plan will help homeowners meet their mortgage obligations.
ACOSTA: She is waiting to find out if she qualifies for the president's housing plan.
GERRI WILLIS, PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: I know it's frustrating but at the end of the day you have to think how are we going to dig out of this.
ACOSTA: CNN personal finance guru, Gerri Willis cautions allowing troubled homeowners to go down in flames could leave everybody burned.
WILLIS: You know how this is. You get one foreclosure in a neighborhood and all of the prices near that property start going down. You get two, the prices go down further and faster and it affects us all.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: The White House insists its housing plan does not bail out irresponsible home buyers. In order to get help, homeowners have to meet certain requirements to show they can afford to stay in their houses, a process Minta Garcia will have to begin right away -- T.J. and Betty.
NGUYEN: That is a tough one; really a double-edged sword. She took it on. She says she doesn't want anybody's help but if she qualifies, she will get our help because we're all paying for the stimulus.
HOLMES: They say it's in the best interest for everybody to be helped out. We shall see but a sad story all around but it's the economy.
Top of the show now: CNN's John King with "State of the Union."
