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CNN Sunday Morning
Deficit Talks Break Down; Congressional Staffers Rewarded; Flooding Disaster in North Dakota
Aired June 26, 2011 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you to our Sanjay Gupta for that this morning.
Hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes. And welcome to CNN SUNDAY MORNING.
It is a big week in Washington, D.C. -- big week for us all.
President Obama is meeting with Senate leaders tomorrow to try to discuss the country's deficit. As you know, we are trillions of dollars in the hole. But now, some people are making a stink over a few thousand dollars that some congressional staffers were paid in bonuses. We'll take you to D.C. to get to the bottom of this.
Also, 4,000 homes under water in Minot, North Dakota. But the mayor there says despite al their hardships, there is actually great news. We will explain.
But, first, President Obama is going to get in the middle deficit negotiations tomorrow. He has White House meetings scheduled with leaders of both parties as he's trying to break the stalemate over the raising of debt ceiling. Talks between the two parties, as you may know, broke down last week,
Our congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, has more on the disagreements keeping a deal from getting done.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To the surprise of Democratic negotiators, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pulled out of bipartisan debt ceiling talks, after what several sources tell CNN was a contentious meeting a day earlier over the issue of taxes.
In a statement announcing he's abandoning negotiations, Cantor said, quote, "Democrats continue to insist that any deal must include tax increases."
House Speaker John Boehner publicly backed him up.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I know the frustration that he feels when Democrat members continue to want to bring tax hikes into the conversation and insist we've got to raise taxes on the American people.
BASH: Democrats say it is in part about taxes. But behind closed doors, Republicans insist on cutting Medicare, but won't budge on eliminating tax loopholes.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Yes, we do want to remove tax subsidies for big oil. We want to remove tax breaks for corporations that send jobs overseas, and that list goes on. I don't know that's a reason to walk away from the table when we're trying to find a balanced approach.
BASH: Bipartisan negotiators led by Vice President Joe Biden have been working for nearly two months on how to reduce the deficit by trillions of dollars, a GOP condition on raising the debt ceiling. If that's not done by August 2nd, the Treasury Department says America will default on its loans.
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: I think that, you know, we have to act like adults here. We have to do something, as Senator Durbin said, by August 2nd, and we're going to do something by August 2nd. But the Republicans should stop playing chicken and pushing us too close to that line. It's not going to be good for our country or the world.
BASH: Democrats claim Cantor, one of only two Republicans in the talks, did not want to take the heat for negotiating a deal rank-and- file Republicans may not like.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Leader Cantor clearly got spooked by how this final deal has to come together.
BASH: In fact, in a quickly coordinated message, Cantor and other Republicans said it's now time for President Obama himself to do the negotiating.
BOEHNER: If we're going to meet the president's timetable to come to an agreement by the end of this month, that he needs to engage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Again, while they are bickering over billions and trillions of dollars, we need to talk now about few million. Money paid out as bonuses to congressional staffers.
CNN Radio Capitol Hill correspondent Lisa Desjardins joins me now from Washington.
Lisa, good morning.
And how much money are we talking about here?
LISA DESJARDINS, CNN RADIO CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: We are talking about $6.1 million in bonuses that went to House staffers in the first three months of this year. Now, T.J., this is a CNN exclusive. Your listeners, your viewers right now are the first ones hearing this. What we did is CNN spent three weeks going through 3,000 pages of House expenses, looking for these bonuses and we found up $6.1 million of them.
And those bonuses were reported at a time when House members were debating a government shutdown, and when many members of Congress have been calling for cuts to federal workers. But to their own staffers, many House members decided to give bonuses. Those bonuses range from $100 or under $100, to up to $17,000 per person.
And that nature, going up and down, and really not understanding the reason for the bonuses is part of the problem, according to Steve Ellis from Taxpayers for Common Sense.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE ELLIS, TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE: I think that lawmakers have to be very judicious about how they use the bonuses and they can't just be writing checks willy-nilly. That does not to say that staff shouldn't be compensated for their work, they do hard work. They work long hours.
DESJARDINS: But when it's in the millions of dollars?
ELLIS: Then you have to be questioning, is this a good use of the taxpayers' money?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DESJARDINS: So, of course, we did ask some of these lawmakers why they gave these bonuses, and we're going to show one of the responses that we got. This is from James Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina. He's well-known and he used to be the majority whip when Democrats were in charge.
They gave us a statement saying that "My staff worked extremely hard, including quite a few all nighters and many weekends, and I was fortunate to have a dedicated staff and rewarded them with an end of the year bonus that came from the remaining unspent funds allotted to my office."
So, there you go, T.J. And here's the thing -- members of the House get an allotted amount of money that they can spend, that they do not have to spend it. If they don't, that money means a lower deficit -- T.J.
HOLMES: And this money, it's important to note -- $6.1 million you say in these bonuses, but how many staffers -- do we have an idea of just how many of them got this money? I guess, how many people was the $6.1 million divided among?
DESJARDINS: What we're talking about is a thousand -- what, we think it's hundreds of staffers. And here's one thing I want to say also -- these reports are very vague, and that's why it took us three weeks to pin down what we think are bonuses, what are not. And we reached out to 115 congressional offices to ask them, is this is a bonus? Is it not? Is it someone leaving and getting some accrued vacation time?
We asked questions, and we were very careful in picking this $6.1 million. These are things that just look like bonuses -- T.J.
HOLMES: And is this the norm -- and we're hearing about this and talking about this now, at a time of economic hardship in this country -- but is this essentially the norm on Capitol Hill for this to happen, year after year?
DESJARDINS: We have seen staff bonuses year after year. And here's the other thing -- we have not received this particular report, when a change over of Congress ever. This is the first time we have seen this report go online when Congress has changed hands like this.
It's a relatively new form. It used to be you had to go through these expense reports page by page by hand. Now, we have it online, but unfortunately, when they put it online, they made these categories more vague. It's actually harder to see what these guys are doing. So, it's very hard to compare to the past.
But we know there have been bonuses in the past. We're just now able to get an idea of how big they are.
HOLMES: All right. And to give our viewers an idea, let's go ahead and put this up. To my director, Deirdre, we can see some of the folks and averages of what they make on Capitol Hill. Chief of staff, roughly, $136,000, the press secretaries, $64,000, staff assistant though can average just around $31,000. And again, some of the staff and some of the local offices and some of the beginners up there make even less than that.
And, again, this range from a couple of $100 to, as we said, $16,000, $17,000, some of these bonuses.
So, Lisa Desjardins for us this morning on Capitol Hill -- we appreciate you as always.
DESJARDINS: Thank you.
HOLMES: And to our viewers, a little later this hour, I'll be speaking to the "STATE OF THE UNION" host, Candy Crowley, about where things stand in Congress on talks to raise the debt ceiling. She'll be talking to the former speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint, on her show, that starts in just about 51 minutes from now.
Well, still on politics, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann are actually running neck and neck in Iowa, that's according to a new poll there. Look at this, this is the first poll from "The Des Moines Register" newspaper on the Republican candidates.
Romney in the lead with 23 percent, but the lead is only 1 percentage point over Bachmann. She's at 22 percent. Now, she is supposed to officially announce her candidacy in Waterloo, Iowa, tomorrow. That is her home town. But at the same time, she has already been running.
Herman Cain is on the map with 10 percent of the vote.
Now, the bottom of the list, Tim Pawlenty leads the first to start running campaign ads in Iowa. He is polling at the rear.
Iowa, of course, is the first caucus state in the presidential election calendar.
And, unfortunate update to bring you this morning about a story we were telling you yesterday -- six people now have died after a tractor trailer slammed into a moving Amtrak train near Reno, Nevada.
Take a look at the cell phone video that kind of captures the scary moments right after this accident.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MAL: She's out there. Tell her to hang and jump! Tell her to hang and jump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's somebody over there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now, some of the passengers, as you're hearing there, were trying to help other passengers, give them an idea of how to get out of there, which was essentially have to jump from that burning train.
Investigators they haven't found all of the people who were supposed to be on that train.
Now, the truck tried to stop ending skidding 300 feet into the train. The driver died in the crash.
Well, more than 500 volunteers showed up to help search for a missing Indiana University student yesterday. Lauren Spierer's parents led the effort on what they called "find Lauren day." This is in Bloomington, Indiana. The 20-year-old student has been missing since June 3rd.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These parents deserve to know where their daughter is. We can't imagine what they are going through, so we wanted to come and be part of the search today.
JOHN SUMMERLOT, SEARCH COORDINATOR: We'll keep going as long as we have the resources and as long as we can keep pushing, as long as we're having volunteers. And there is a group of us that have kind of vowed to see this thing through to the end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now, Bloomington police say they are committed to solving the case. But, right now, they say they have no leads.
Well, Texans, one vote away from being able to have a Confederate flag on their license plates. Take a look. Here is the specialty plate proposed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The license board were supposed to vote on it earlier this month, but they weren't able to because one of their board members died a few days before the vote. So, now, they're waiting for Governor Rick Perry to appoint a new person to the board.
When they voted on this back in April, it was a tie. Nine states, though, already have special Confederate plates.
Also, they say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Not really, it's worth about $2.3 million if this picture. This is -- what we're told -- is an authentic photograph of, yes, Billy the Kid. It went up for auction yesterday. It got $2.3 million. It was only expected to get around $400,000. But this is a 130-year-old photo. Apparently, Billy the Kid paid 25 cents to have it taken.
You are wondering who maybe bought it. Well, of course, a billionaire, William Koch is the name.
Well, at 12 minutes past the hour and thousands of people forced from their homes in North Dakota. The flood waters have engulfed parts of the city of Minot. We'll have the latest on the unfolding disaster after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Well, 14 minutes past the hour on this CNN SUNDAY MORNING.
Thousands of people in Minot, North Dakota, are out of their homes. Homes they know they may never be able to live in again. The Souris River is expected to crest today, several inches short of what was originally feared, and that's something.
CNN's Jim Spellman is Minot with more on this disaster.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM SPELLMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: T.J., it's just hard breaking for the people of Minot, North Dakota, to watch their city fill with waters over the last few days. This was once a major intersection in downtown Minot, with a train track and a tunnel that went under it, and now you think that you're in the middle of a pond or lake or something. Four thousand homes underwater, T.J., 12,000 people evacuated with very uncertain futures.
They knew days ago they could not protect this whole city from the floodwaters, that the dikes that they had were just too low, that there's no way they could do it. And with the water coming fast, time running out, they focused only on critical infrastructures like this city hall and the police station complex here. So, they built these temporary dikes here that were higher.
But you can see only after a day of having heavy water against it, already, storm drains are backing up and they have to pump the water out from the other side of the dike. It's quite an undertaking for them here. We have seen residents come back to try to take a look, try to peek and see if they can get any information about their homes. What they found so far is mostly bad news.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART COLLUM, EVACUEE: I hate to say it, but I had fears (ph) this morning, you know? It's a sickening feeling, you know, because I know when I come back, it's probably not be worth fixing because the house is almost 100 years old.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPELLLMAN: And, T.J., it's going to be a long way for people like Stewart Collum to able to get back into their homes. We've learned from the National Weather Service today that they are estimating that the water will stay essentially at this level through Thursday and above record flood levels for at least another week -- a real long-term disaster for the people here and the authorities trying to deal with this terrible flood -- T.J.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: All right. Thanks to our Jim Spellman.
Reynolds Wolf here with me now.
Now, I told our viewers, the mayor of Minot, with all this going on, he said there is great news. He says the great news is the river is going to crest a few inches below what they thought it was but several feet still above flood stage.
Help us understand why this is great news and it's not so good news.
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, what's great news just because -- I mean, less water in their town is certainly beneficial. It's definitely going to help them. The problem is, though, the reason why you have a lower number, lower level, or lower rise of water, and that is because further upstream, there had to be a levee breach or a levee failure someplace, somewhere that prevented the water from rising quite so high.
So, it is beneficial to people who happened to live in Minot. Unfortunately, though, for people further upstream, it's certainly not a good thing.
But, regardless of what happens, and let's look at this behind me. Now, T.J., and to the rest of America tuning in, let me show you what else we got.
If you take a look at these numbers up here, you kind of get lost in the verbiage of the numbers. Let me just show a few things. Look at the lines. You see this red stripe, this area right above here, that border, everything from there and above is -- well, actually from there and below, is your major flood stage at 1,155 feet.
Again, forget about the numbers, it's all above sea level. And this line here, the blue line that you see that I'm going to cover white, shows the water levels as we get into Friday, last Friday, again major flood stage, expected to crest or has crested overnight, around 1561. That's mindboggling.
Never in recorded history that happened in this area. And even as we fast forward over the next couple of day, into Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, it's still going to be above major flood stage.
So, even as the water recedes a little bit, the problem is still going to remain.
What they don't need in this part of the world is additional precipitation. Unfortunately, rain will be in the forecast but it does appear that the heaviest is going to be south of Minot, through Bismarck, back towards Pierre and to the southwest of Aberdeen.
As we pull more of to the south and back over to the east, we have had some heavy rain in places like St. Louis, much of that now driving into portions of the Ohio Valley, from Cincinnati, southwards to Evansville. You've had heavy rainfall now in Bowling Green, over to Somerset, even to Williamsburg, heavy rain along parts of -- let's see -- back along 75, any drive from 75, make the drive safe from Cincinnati southward to, say -- back towards Knoxville, you're going to have the heavy rain. Be prepared for it and drive slowly.
T.J., we've got a lot more to today's story, we're going to share that with viewers coming up in just a bit.
HOLMES: Reynolds, kind sir. Appreciate you as always.
And here we are at 19 minutes past the hour.
Would you believe, a Major League Baseball team just played a home game thousands of miles away from home? And would you believe U2 kicked them out of their own home stadium. We'll explain this in just a second.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Twenty-one minutes past the hour.
Now joined by our friend, Joe Carter, from HLN Sports.
Good to see you. You've been doing great past couple of weekends. You always tell me, you got some good video for me. And you say you got some good stuff that viewers need to see. We'll get to that in a second.
But, first, don't mess with Bono.
JOE CARTER, HLN SPORTS: Yes, exactly. I mean, U2 was the highest grossing musical act last year. This is very much why that they basically kicked the Florida Marlins out of their own home stadium and moved them 3,300 miles to Seattle.
See? Originally, U2 was scheduled to perform in Miami in 2010. Bono hurt his back on tour. So, they rescheduled it for this coming Wednesday.
HOLMES: OK.
CARTER: Now, it's in this Wednesday. But they decided to move the Marlins out of their stadium, which is Dolphin Stadium and put them in Seattle because it takes four days to build this elaborate stage that Bono and U2 get up and rock on.
Now, it's pretty interesting because, you know, the stadium folks had a choice to make. Have a Marlins day, bring in 3,500 to 5,000 people a game, or bring in the highest grossing musical act in town?
HOLMES: That's embarrassing.
CARTER: So, they decided to have that concert --
HOLMES: That's embarrassing. Poor Marlins.
All right. The other -- you said you got a video. Let me see it. Set it up for me. You said you got some good video.
CARTER: File this story under man who loves his job. This is at the Braves Padre last night. He's a groundskeeper, and let's just say he's not afraid to be on camera. I mean, he's definitely not shy. And then he bust a little vintage Michael Jackson like --
HOLMES: Does he do this normally? Or is this spontaneous? He decided to do this one day?
CARTER: To my knowledge, this is spontaneous. He just decided, hey, man, it's Saturday and it's time to get down, and you can hear the crowd cheering.
HOLMES: Good stuff again, Joe Carter. Still does not beat John Wall's first pitch. Nothing beats that yet.
CARTER: My producers say, too. I thought that was better.
HOLMES: Good to see you, as always, buddy. Thank you.
Well, coming up, folks, the first lady, Michelle Obama, she's on her way back home, back to the U.S, back to the White House, after a historic visit to Africa. But some people are saying she was actually snubbed by an African leader while she was there. That's next in our "Passport."
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Twenty-five minutes past the hour.
Nadia Bilchik with me here for this morning's "Passport."
The first lady wrapping up a big trip to Africa. She's expected back here in the U.S. son.
Some are saying she is snubbed by an African president.
NADIA BILCHIK, CNN EDITORIAL PRODUCER: Some say that Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, not meeting her the day she arrived was a snub. But, T.J., he was in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He wasn't there. He sent his minister of correctional service and his third wife to meet her.
HOLMES: Now, when you say minister of correctional service, that sounds like the prison guy, is that right?
BILCHIK: He's in charge --
HOLMES: Of prison.
BILCHIK: A highly regarded person in government.
HOLMES: And the third wife?
BILCHIK: And the third wife, and she was very well-received. But in defense of President Zuma, his spokespeople say this was not a state visit. First of all, he was away, OK?
Then when he could meet with her, she was speaking at a Regina Mundi Church in Soweto. So, she couldn't meet with him.
And the fact is, this is not a president or head of state and she's not a cabinet minister. So, he wasn't obliged to meet with her. But I do think --
HOLMES: OK.
BILCHIK: A professor of politics at Johannesburg University said this, he said it was an opportunity. It was not a snub. But that he missed an opportunity to meet with her.
And then there is concern that there is a very difference of opinion between what Zuma thinks in the way NATO has dealt with Libya, and he would like the A.U. to be more involved, because of that. And, you know, today, Zuma is meeting with the African Union and to look at Libya.
HOLMES: We believe that's happening right now.
BILCHIK: That is happening right now.
HOLMES: But at the same time, would that necessarily come into play when it's the first lady? I mean, aside from it being a state visit, the first lady of the United States is on your soil.
BILCHIK: It would have been nice to have met with her, but according to his spokespeople, he did try, and she was speaking and she is not head of state.
But Michelle Obama did meet Nelson Mandela. This was a highlight and this is what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, U.S. FIRST LADY: The one thing I told him, you know, I wanted to make sure that he understood how important his leadership and sacrifice has been to who I have become, to who my husband has become. And in short, I just said thank you. It's really hard to know what to say to such an icon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BILCHIK: A beautiful meeting between the first black president of South Africa and the wife the first black president of the United States of America.
HOLMES: That's a heck of a picture. You can see the daughters were there as well. What a moment for them.
Nadia Bilchik with our "Morning Passport" -- appreciate you as always. Thank you so much.
We're getting close to the bottom of the hour here now. Two of the men running for president are Mormon. For some voters, that is an issue.
But this morning, in our "Faces of Faith," we are going to look at the question: do you know who the Mormons are? Do you know what Mormons believe? That answer, after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: And we're at the bottom of the hour on this CNN SUNDAY MORNING. I'm T.J. Holmes. Welcome back, everybody.
Let's give you a look at some of the stories making headlines.
The Souris River is beginning to crest in Minot, North Dakota. It's expected to rise 12 feet over flood states but still expected to stay several inches below what they thought they'd get. It should start to slowly fall maybe starting tonight.
You can see though, what it looked like yesterday in Minot about 4,000 homes under water. More than a third of the city evacuated. Some people who stayed behind have been told to boil their tap water for at least a minute before using it. Also look at this cell phone video (AUDIO GAP) tractor trailer, Amtrak train collision near Reno, Nevada. Six people died when the trucks landed to the moving Amtrak train. Some of the passengers jumped from the burning train. Investigators say they have not accounted for all of the passengers.
And Gay Pride on full display in the streets of San Francisco; the annual gay pride weekend kicked off yesterday despite a financial crisis within the organization over the past year. The non-profit that produces the parade came up with enough cash and sponsors to keep it running for its 41st year.
Well, two of the men running for president are Mormons. Former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, has embraced his faith publicly. Former Utah Governor, Jon Huntsman says -- while he considers himself a Mormon he also draws inspiration from other faiths. And both men faced potential backlash from those suspicious of the Mormon faith.
The official name of the Mormon Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; and joining me now to talk about what Mormons believed is Anthea Butler, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ma'am, thank you so much for being here. I was talking to you in the break. You said if you walk down the street and ask people what are Mormons, what do they believe? You said, they would have no idea. Would most even know that Mormons are Christians?
ANTHEA BUTLER, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: No T.J. they would not and some of them will tell you that they don't believe that Mormons are Christians. But I think they sit within the rubric of what is Christianity and albeit that they have some very different beliefs.
HOLMES: Ok let's start with -- and it seems like the Mormon faith starts with the Book of Mormons.
BUTLER: That's correct and Joseph Smith, who is the founder and the prophet of Mormonism discovered this book through the angel Moroni who get -- who he had a vision of in the forest behind his home, which now the Mormons call the sacred grove in Palmyra, New York.
And he was directed to hill -- the Hill Comora (ph) which is not that far away from where his family home was and found some golden plates which were translated through various ways; there were various different accounts about how they were translated. And that became the Book of Mormon, which is called also in the parenthesis Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
HOLMES: Ok, Book of Mormon versus the Bible, the Mormon faith uses both. I guess, what's the difference and how do they discern which is which and when to use? How does that work, the relationship between the two books?
BUTLER: Well, the relationship between the two books is for Christians, the Bible is it. And there's a piece of revelation that says no one shall add to the book. But the Mormons consider this be another testament of Jesus Christ because it doesn't end with Jesus just simply ascending to heaven. It ends with Jesus coming to the Americas to speak to the Native Americans about his message.
And so this is what's very different about the Book of Mormon. And it's used just as much as a tool in Mormonism, as Christians would think about the Bible. For them it's a very important book.
(CROSSTALK)
HOLMES: Ok, how I guess is Jesus revered -- you spoke of Joseph Smith who found the -- the golden plates and translated this into the Book of Mormon. But how do Mormons view Jesus Christ. Is he revered the same as in other faith? And you referred to Joseph Smith as a prophet. I guess where do this -- these two kind of compare as far as being revered by the Mormons?
BUTLER: Well, let me just back up a little bit.
HOLMES: Ok.
BUTLER: Before Joseph Smith finds the Book of Mormon, he has a vision and he has a vision of God, the father, which in Mormonism is called heavenly father and Jesus, and Jesus is the son of God. Ok, he's not exactly the way the Christians think about this as God himself, although in Mormonism you can become a God but that's another piece of theology.
So you need to think of these as two different entities. And God and Jesus both have physical form. And so that's very important and that's a very important distinction between Mormonism and what I would consider to be mainstream Christianity.
HOLMES: All right, take off a couple of things, you kind of hit on it there. But I guess people try to understand the difference. So give us just a few here -- in the short time I have left of the difference between Christianity as most people would see it as mainstream Christianity and the beliefs of Mormons? I guess, point out some of the key differences.
BUTLER: Yes ok. So first, Mormons believe in a pre-existent life. You have a soul that is here before you come to earth. And you have made a decision whether or not to follow heavenly father.
So when you have -- when somebody is born on earth that means that you've made a correct decision to follow heavenly father, and you're born into a body on earth to continue to work out your -- your salvation in a sense. And then after that, and then after life, you can go to one of three different heavens ok.
In Christianity you don't talk about a pre-existence, you're born. And you work things out, if you're an Evangelical Christian and you believe that you can be saved or not, and then you have a choice of going to heaven or hell, correct?
So those things are different. You also have the difference about what books you revere or not. In addition to the Book of Mormon, the Mormons also have other books, the Doctrine of Covenants, Pearl of Great Pride. There's a whole other canon for Mormons that is different than Christianity.
HOLMES: All right, well, Anthea Butler, ma'am there is so much more I'd like to talk to you about and would like to reserve the right to give you a call later. Because this is probably going to be a big part --
(CROSSTALK)
BUTLER: Absolutely.
HOLMES: -- of this political campaign depending on how Huntsman and maybe Romney do along the way that this is a conversation we continue -- we should continue to have. But Anthea Butler, ma'am we appreciate your time this weekend.
BUTLER: Thank you so much.
HOLMES: Thank you so much.
BUTLER: Take care.
HOLMES: All right and for more stories about faith, you can go to our belief blog. That's at CNN.com/belief.
Well it's 37 minutes past the hour.
We have been telling you certainly a sad weekend here for a lot of us at CNN and our CNN family. We have lost one of our CNN originals.
Former CNN sports anchor, Nick Charles died yesterday at the age of 64. He had been battling bladder cancer for the last couple of years. Last hour I talked with our Sanjay Gupta who had a chance to sit down with Nick earlier this month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: He was told in 2009 that he essentially have about two years to live. And you know what would you do with that information? What would you change about your life? Would you dream bigger, would you get into day tight compartments?
He did a little bit of both. He got a lot of short term goals but also his dreams got even grander it seemed. He has a 5-year-old daughter, so he wanted to plan for her life. It's just a very inspiring guy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Yes, Nick Charles died just a week before his 65th birthday. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. Nick Charles, dead at the age of 64. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Well, all right. We are just 18 minutes and 35 seconds away from Candy Crowley and "STATE OF THE UNION". Candy, good to see you as always; how are you doing this morning?
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": I am very good, and you sound very good, too. But I think this is like heading toward the barn sort of thing with you.
HOLMES: You know, you can call it that but still we're always excited at this point to talk to you and to see who you're going to be talking to this morning. But a key -- this is a big week, because the President is doing what some people thought he should do, which is step in when it comes to this -- this debt ceiling talks that seemed to have broken down last week?
CROWLEY: Well, yes but -- but you know, in politics and in policy, timing is everything. And it's a pretty good time for the President. He's had this Biden group, obviously led by the Vice President with some key Republicans and some key Democrats, and they sort of did what they could.
Everybody knew eventually the President and the Speaker and the Majority Leader and Minority Leader on the Senate side were going to have to get together and say what can you pass? What can you do? And how much do I have to give in order for you to get your guys onboard?
It was always going to come to this. The question is when. And the President can stay out of sort of the nitty-gritty, this program or that program? Because now the big -- there's one big question to be settled. Will there be any increased revenues -- some people call those tax increases.
HOLMES: Yes.
CROWLEY: On the table and in particular for Democrats they want to cut subsidies to big corporations, in particular, oil and gas corporations.
HOLMES: All right and also this week -- it's a big week for the President, announcing how those 33,000 U.S. servicemen which are going to be coming out of Afghanistan. And got -- he got a lot of criticism from both sides really here?
CROWLEY: He did, yes. I mean, it's either, it's too fast and too many troops going out or too few and not fast enough. So the President who is frequently in this position likes to say, well, he must have done something right because everybody is mad at him.
I mean, there is -- look this is -- it's a 10-year war and I think all you had to do was look at the latest poll in which shows so many American -- a vast majority of Americans 55 percent to 56 percent want to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible.
And it is exacerbated by these budget problems. Because what you have is (INAUDIBLE) people in Washington going, you know, we're going to have to do something about Medicare and maybe something about Social Security, and we're going to have to cut this education program and that -- and meanwhile we're spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan every day. So it's just -- it had to come to this.
And the President wants going into a presidential election year cycle, the American public to look and say we are getting out of Afghanistan.
HOLMES: And you've got tell me your guest list coming up here in a few minutes. Who do you have this morning?
CROWLEY: Mike Rogers, the Republican Chairman of the Intelligence Committee on the House side; the leader of the Democrats on the House, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi; and also Jim DeMint -- Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. As you know, he's a Tea Party favorite and caused a lot of trouble for traditional Republicans in the last election is looking to stir up some coming up in the presidential election.
HOLMES: All right, folks, you're just a few minutes away, Candy. Always good to see you but we will see you again here in just 15 minutes.
CROWLEY: Thanks T.J.
HOLMES: "STATE OF THE UNION" with Candy Crowley coming your way at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific Time.
But folks, are you one of the tens of millions that's being scammed by your phone company? Go grab your bill. You could be wasting hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: You might be one of the estimated 20 million people being wrongly charged hundreds and hundreds of dollars possibly by your phone company. But right now you can stop it from happening. How? Look at your phone bill, folks.
Our financial analyst Clyde Anderson joining me now; Clyde, always good to have you with us here. This is something the Federal Communications Commission calls cramming.
CLYDE ANDERSON, FINANCIAL ANALYST: Yes.
HOLMES: Explain what that term means in the first place?
ANDERSON: Cramming is just really simple as having unauthorized charges show up on your phone bill.
HOLMES: That's it?
ANDERSON: That's it.
HOLMES: All right. Now, and the key here that we are talking about land lines only.
ANDERSON: Yes. We're talking about land lines only. But it has popped up on some cellular cases as well. Wireless providers have gone and actually settled some lawsuits when they were doing this in the past.
HOLMES: Ok, what is this stuff? And I told people to put out their phone bills.
ANDERSON: Yes.
HOLMES: So what are we even looking for? Sometimes we see stuff and I assume that's supposed to be there.
ANDERSON: And that's what happens to most people. They see these charges and they look official. Usage charges, monthly service fee.
HOLMES: Usage charges, that's legit, right?
ANDERSON: No, no. I mean because your phone company -- what happened is, it happened when actually the FCC required people to start separating -- the phone company to separate these bills. In the past, they didn't have to do this, and now you see these charges that are bogus charges for the most part: calling plan, monthly fee, other fees.
You know a lot of times we'll see another fee and don't pay attention to something that said other fee. We'll just take it as what it is.
HOLMES: What is -- USBI, what is that?
ANDERSON: They look official, right? You think that was -- universal service -- it's really just these letters that they're putting in these; and these third party companies are charging you. And we're paying them, because we don't want to take the time to call the company.
HOLMES: Ok, now, you call the company, and they say, oh, yes, that's your service fee. Of course that's in there. How can you argue that?
ANDERSON: Well, if they're for service fee -- a lot of times they're going to tell you it's a third party charge, and that's what they have to do. If you still feel that it's a bogus charge, that's when you contact the FCC. Because you're going to contact them first and a lot of times they're going to let you know if this is a third party vendor or not or if this is a charge that's coming directly from us as your phone provider.
HOLMES: Ok, they know what they're doing? Now, some of these can accidentally charge you, oh, that wasn't supposed to really be on your bill. Are they making a conscious effort to get at us?
ANDERSON: Well, some of them are legitimate charges. What they're doing a lot of times is when you set up these phone plans --
HOLMES: No, this cramming thing. This cramming -- are they legitimately and consciously doing this?
ANDERSON: Well, now, some of them, yes. They're definitely -- they're targeting you. I mean you think about it, it's a big business.
You're talking about 20 million people being affected by this. And so you're talking about charges that range from $1 to $19.95. You're talking about a hundred-million dollars plus; these people are making huge amounts of money.
HOLMES: Now are we just talking -- I saw some, I think, four companies that had been fined, but they were small companies like out in Pennsylvania or somewhere. But are the big dogs doing this as well, the larger companies?
ANDERSON: I think we're going to see, you know, the FCC is working on something to really work with transparency. They're not really rolling out the details yet. They really want some more disclosure and transparency to come out. So in July we'll kind of see what they're talking about and what other companies they're going to target. But so far, it's been $11 million in fines handed down for this type of things.
HOLMES: And we have seen some examples. A fee might end up being a couple of bucks here, a couple of bucks there. But there have been some cases where people have gone years not seeing this and you are costing yourself hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
ANDERSON: Exactly. And also when you set up the phone charges -- when you set up your phone account, a lot of times you have charges on there that you're not using the services. The phone company is not going to call you and say, you're not using these services either. So you need to check that as well while you're looking at your bill.
HOLMES: All right. Good stuff. I was looking for my bill before this segment. I couldn't find my bill. But I'm curious now. Because I do -- I see a lot of those things, and I say, ok, surely --
ANDERSON: And we just pay. We just pay.
HOLMES: Man, I'm a sucker.
ANDERSON: Yes, yes.
HOLMES: All right.
ANDERSON: No. Sucker no more.
HOLMES: All right. That's good stuff this morning. We appreciate you as always.
ANDERSON: My pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Listen to this. Listen to this now. A gunman holds off a SWAT team for 16 hours, and he was updating his Facebook status the whole time. But also get this, some of his friends were updating him on the whereabouts of the police. You'll hear the story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. "STATE OF THE UNION" with Candy Crowley coming up at the top of the hour but first, we'll give you a look at some of the stories making headlines this morning.
The Souris River in Minot, North Dakota expected to slowly start receding this evening. It's up to 12 feet above the flood mark but it's still several inches below what was predicted. More than 4,000 homes under water, and a third of the 36,000 residents have evacuated.
Also, take a look at this cell phone video recorded just after a tractor trailer slammed into a moving Amtrak train near Reno, Nevada. At least six people are dead, and officials say some passengers have not been accounted for. The tractor trailer raked and skidded 300 feet before hitting the Amtrak train causing two train cars to catch fire.
Now a police stand-off in Utah teaching law enforcement to keep an eye on social media. During a 15-hour stand-off with SWAT teams a gunman updated friends and family about the incident on Facebook.
Here now is CNN David Ariosto.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ARIOSTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For Ogden police, it began when fugitive Jason Valdez was spotted by an officer.
RANDY WATTS (PH), OGDEN POLICE: He has a long-standing violent and drug-related history with us. And he is a very well-known, long- standing gang member as well.
ARIOSTO: Police pursued and he locked himself in a motel room.
WATTS: When police made contact with him on the phone, he quite simply stated I'm not going back to prison. I have a gun. I have a hostage.
ARIOSTO: It was the beginning of a 15-hour standoff. Police shut down his phone service but did not realize they could not block his data service. Several hours in, the situation took a strange twist.
WATTS: We were notified by someone on the outside that he was coming up on Facebook and that he was discussing the negotiations and police activity.
ARIOSTO: He updated his Facebook status six times, quote, "I'm currently in a standoff. Kind of ugly. I love you guys, if I don't make it out of here alive I'm in a better place."
At one point he posted a picture of his hostage, whose face we have blurred with a note, quote, "Got a cute hostage, huh?" Relatives and friends chimed in, quote, "Keep your head up. Do the right thing."
But some tipped him off to police movements. Fearing others might do more to help the alleged fugitive, police considered shutting down his page. They weren't sure that they could. Ultimately Assistant Chief, Randy Watts, says they decided it was worthwhile to keep it up and running.
WATTS: We were gaining more than losing by allowing the Facebook activity to continue.
ARIOSTO: Another comment, quote, "End this peacefully." It didn't happen. Police eventually blew up the walls of the motel room. Police say Valdez fired off two rounds before turning the gun on himself. He's in the hospital in critical condition but expected to survive. He will face charges when he recovers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wanted his life. He didn't want to go back to prison.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That dude is a good dude and he'll do anything for anybody, ok. And he helped me out a lot.
ARIOSTO: Police say social media could have made the situation much, much worst if Valdez supporters had descended on the scene.
WATTS: We didn't see it developing but that was one of the concerns. And it is definitely a concern for the future.
ARIOSTO: Watts says other law enforcement should take note --
WATTS: If you have not seen it yet, you're going to see it. So, I would start preparing now.
ARIOSTO: Valdez faces two attempted murder counts, and one kidnapping charge. The hostage made it out without injury. Valdez's Facebook page remains active and public, and as you can guess, it's drawing a lot of attention.
David Ariosto, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: What do you say after that?
Let me hand it over to Reynolds Wolf right now to give you a look at your Sunday forecast. Any trouble spots, Reynolds.
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: There's quite a few actually. Right now we're watching parts of the Northern Plains and, of course, into the Midwest we have a chance of some strong storms. Maybe some flash flooding, small hail, perhaps even a few tornadoes that may pop up. Isolated but not expecting a major outbreak but just keep it in mind, there's always the chance.
Meanwhile in parts of the southeast, hazy, hot, humid; it feels like summertime in the Deep South with the summertime type low and then moisture coming in from both the Atlantic and the Gulf, you might be dealing with a few scattered thunderstorms along the coast, rain in portions of the northeast.
Meanwhile, out west, relatively dry for the time being. Enjoy it while you can, because this next storm system will bring some rain to much of the West Coast especially into Oregon and into Washington State.
Your temperatures very quickly where you can just kind of bathe in the southeast. Highs going up in the 90s; high humidity in Dallas with 98 degrees, 108 in El Paso, 67 in Billings, 77 in Portland, 65 in San Francisco. Back out towards Chicago it's 76, 81 in New York, 74 in Boston, wrapping it up in Washington, D.C. with 87.
All right T.J., your turn
HOLMES: Appreciate you as always buddy. And to our viewers and on behalf of Reynolds, we thank you as always for spending some time with us here on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.
Right now, it's time for Candy.
