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CNN Saturday Morning News

Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow Dies at Age 53; IndyMac Goes Bust; More Information on Iran and Its Nuclear Missiles Firings; Iraq War Veterans Fighting a Different Fight in California

Aired July 12, 2008 - 09:00   ET

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

DAN SIMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello from the CNN Center in Atlanta. This is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. I'm Dan Simon, in for T.J. Holmes.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Randi Kaye, in for Betty Nguyen.

We start with the death of former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. He lost his battle with cancer at the age of 53.

SIMON: President Bush released this statement just a short time ago saying, "He brought wit, grace and a great love of country to his work. His colleagues will cherish memories of his energetic personality and relentless good humor. All of us here at the White House will miss Tony as will the millions of Americans he inspired with his brave struggle against cancer."

KAYE: Tony Snow had an impact on politics whether he sharing the White House message or offering his take on the political goings on of the day. Political strategist and fellow CNN contributor James Carville joins us now on the phone from Napa Valley, California.

James, you knew Tony well. What would you say really stood out about him?

VOICE OF JAMES CARVILLE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Really charming guy. I know Reagan was kind of a hero of Tony's and he was really sort of like that. He had a sunny way. We, obviously, had, you know, a huge number of policy disagreements, but he never let that get in the way. He had a real easy going kind of affable way about him.

He's a really, really smart guy and he wasn't so much a political guy, as simply he was a real policy guy. He had a real touch about him. A real personal touch. A real way of people. He was truly one of the good guys in Washington when he was there.

KAYE: He held the job for just 17 months, but made a real impact, wouldn't you say?

CARVILLE: Rarely had I ever seen a -- somebody go into a job and just sort of like that, very, very difficult job, and he was almost like he had trained all of his life for this very job. He was a columnist, he was in a TV show, he had done any number of things prior to that, and he was, you know, came in and just from day one, stepped on that stage and until the day he left, he was really, really good at it. I think he did this administration a lot of good. KAYE: And like yourself, he was certainly never shy to speak his mind, was he, even before when he was a commentator, commenting on the president's style and substance?

CARVILLE: Right. But he had a real -- more than I did, he had a real gracious demeanor. He had a very easy way of doing it. He was a very kind of soft guy. He was able to make his point and able to make them human. I remember like he would get a question and he would kind of hit himself on the head as to how to let the questioner know how simple his question was.

He used his entire body to communicate. He didn't just communicate what he said. Basically, very seldom changed his tone, changed his pitch or volume or anything like that. He's what I know total body communication. He was able to get across his point. The other thing, he was very, very popular with the press corps and the administration where a lot of people in the didn't like the press, he was popular and he tried to get along with people.

KAYE: So many things to say about Tony Snow. James Carville, thank you so much for your thoughts on his passing this morning.

CARVILLE: I'm glad that you called me and he was a good friend and he was really a close person to my wife, to our family. Thank you very much.

KAYE: Thank you.

SIMON: And reaction still continuing to come in. But we're going to turn to the situation with IndyMac. It can turn out to be the most expensive bank failure in U.S. history.

KAYE: IndyMac was a major player in the mortgage industry and this morning, it is in the hands of federal regulators. IndyMac has been on the brink of collapse for months. News of the failure yesterday was unsettling for customers and for relative of employees who lost their jobs earlier in the week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hard times, man, because we're already like surviving off one income. Me and her, I'm trying to help out as much as I can because I just got this new job. Without hers, it's going to be real hard. I don't know what we're going to do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know enough about the financial sector, but it is disconcerting that you believe that your bank is very strong and then you start reading news reports that they're on the brink of collapse, their shares have dropped precipitously, and so, it makes you wonder, you know, well is my -- is that the best place for my money?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Even if you're not an IndyMac customer you may be wondering what the collapse says about the economy and the mortgage crisis and how you can make sure your bank is OK. Chris Isidore of cnnmoney.com joins us from New York now to help put this all in perspective. Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS ISIDORE, CNNMONEY.COM: Good morning.

KAYE: I guess you see some of these consumers, they don't know what to do. Should they keep their money in the bank, should they withdraw it right away? How is a bank customer to know when the time is to pull out?

ISIDORE: Well, for most bank customers at IndyMac, let alone customers at banks across the country, there really isn't going to be much of an impact. If you had less than $100,000 in your typical banking account, if you have less than a quarter million dollars in your IRA, your deposits are ensured and you're not going to be affected.

There are about a billion dollars of non-insured deposits that were in Indy Bank, about half of that could be lost, that's $500 million, that's real money, but that's actually a small percent of the deposits at IndyMac, about five percent. It's not that -- it's not that many people who are customers of IndyMac being affected. And the overwhelming majority of banks in the country are fine.

KAYE: So even though this is the fifth bank failure this year, those who have accounts at other popular banks and well-known banks, shouldn't worry?

ISIDORE: Well, what you need to know is that most of the time when a bank closes, it's a very small bank, it's a small community bank. To put it in perspective, the last 127 bank failures in the last 15 years together don't equal the size of IndyMac. That's really why this is so notable. If it's a well-known bank, if it's a large bank, chances of it closing are actually pretty small. That being said, we are likely to see more bank failures to come.

We are seeing the banking system really put under tremendous stress and strain by the problems in the housing market and the credit markets and IndyMac is the most visible sign of that yet, it was a major lender of the types of loans where people did not have to provide documentation of their income, documentation of the assets. When the home prices were going up, that was no problem. The bank didn't have to worry if the person couldn't make the payment, they had title to a house that's worth than when it was purchased.

Now that's not the case and because of that, we had huge losses at IndyMac, we're seeing those losses spread across the entire banking sector, across Wall Street, and causing some real problems and the economy is going to have problems for some time.

KAYE: All right. Chris Isidore from CNN money.com, we'll have to leave it there. Thanks so much.

ISIDORE: Thanks.

SIMON: The IndyMac bank failure comes on the heels of concerns about mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their stocks took a pounding this week. Speculation about a government bailout rattled investors nerves. The head of the Senate banking committee tried to calm those concerns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD (D), BANKING COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: These are worthwhile investments, solid investments, these are very strong, viable entities today. The capital they have is good, its in excess of what's required under federal law. This is not a time to be panicking about this. These are reliable solid institutions and absolutely critical to the housing market in our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: Together, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac either hold or guarantee $5 trillion in home mortgage debt.

KAYE: A long awaited homecoming today for three Americans rescued in Colombia. The former hostages getting final clearance to leave a military hospital today. They've undergone reintegration as it's called and medical tests in San Antonio since returning to the U.S. from Colombia more than a week ago.

They spoke exclusively about their time in the jungle with CNN "Headline News" anchor Robin Meade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEITH STANSELL, FREED AMERICAN HOSTAGE: It's about ten pounds of chain 15 feet long, it's wrapped around your neck. It looks like this. OK and then about three feet behind you got, you have a guy holding your chain with a dog leash and then he's got a rifle pointed at your back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: The three men rescued from FARC rebels last week after more than five years in captivity. And you can hear the entire exclusive interview with Robin Meade and the freed American hostages tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

An accidental overdose.

SIMON: Is a hospital error to blame in the death of newborn twins? That story coming up here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIMON: Fourteen babies given an accidental overdose of a potent blood thinner, it happened at a Corpus Christi Hospital. Now, two of the newborns have died and parents want to know if there's a link. Our Ed Lavandera with the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The lives of little Keith and Kaylin Garcia are measured in hours, not years. The twins died just days after receiving an overdose of the blood thinner heparin in a Corpus Christi, Texas, Hospital. The twins' grandparents say they're devastated and shocked.

HECTOR CHAPA, GRANPARENT: They don't know what actually is the cause of death. That's why the first -- on the first child that passed on, Keith, they wanted to do an autopsy because they don't know what the cause of death was.

LAVANDERA: The Corpus Christi Hospital says pharmacists mistakenly mixed the heparin drug giving the Garcia twins 100 times the normal amount for babies their size. Christus Spohn Hospital officials confirmed the overdose was given to Keith and Kaylin and 12 other babies. One of those children is in critical condition, the others are stable. The hospital officials say adverse effects of heparin have not been identified in the Garcia babies.

VOICE OF BRUCE HOLSTEIN, CEO, CHRISTUS SPOHN: And we do not know at this time what, if any, role the higher than expected concentration of heparin played in this baby's death.

LAVANDERA: Autopsies have been performed on the twins but those results aren't public. The twins were born a month premature and put in a neonatal unit intensive care unit because they had slight problems breathing. But it's not clear yet if it was the heparin overdose or another medical condition which caused the death of the Garcia twins.

CHAPA: We want to know why it happened and why this heparin was given out, if and it was the cause, they left in perfect health condition.

LAVANDERA: This weekend the Garcia family was supposed to celebrate a baby shower in Keith and Kaylin's honor. But now the family will mourn them at a funeral.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: This just in. We want to talk to our Christiane Amanpour who is joining us by phone in London, England. We are talking about the military display, the claims and counter-claims of both parties involved in nuclear talks and missile firings related to Iran.

Christiane, there's been some dispute about the effectiveness and the range of these missiles. Can you help clarify for us what is really going on?

VOICE OF CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, indeed, when I first reported and commented on these missile strikes or rather these missile tests on Wednesday, I did say that sources have been saying that in the past and even now, Iran has exaggerated the range and the accuracy and the ability of these missiles.

And sources inside Iran are saying to me today, that make no mistake about it, we did conduct a missile test. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard did conduct a missile test on Wednesday.

On Thursday they sent off one that in fact did not go off on Wednesday, and, of course, there is this issue of the doctored photos. What appears to be happening is, according to my sources, that those missiles were fired, they are an act of muscle flexing, they are an act of muscle flexing, and -- excuse me.

They are an act of muscle flexing and they are designed to warn that they will defend themselves if there is any attacks from Israel and they're also designed, according to sources, to say that, in fact, if we do negotiate, which we want to on our nuclear issue, then we do not want that to be seen as a point of weakness.

KAYE: So Christiane, if they're so sure about their power here in the distance and the effectiveness of the missiles, why that doctored photo we saw this week where it actually shows that one of the missiles didn't even actually exist.

AMANPOUR: That I can't get an answer on that. They're not admitting doctored photos. But there is an understanding amongst all the sources that I have spoken to that, in fact, perhaps the claims about their effectiveness are not as great as they had claimed and presumably, other sources have said that perhaps doctoring those photos is aimed to show sort of muscle flexing and the kind of image they want to project.

KAYE: All right. This is not a story that's going to be going away. Christiane Amanpour live for us in London this morning. Thank you so much for helping us make some sense of that.

Mandatory evacuations come in, but not everybody gets out.

SIMON: And a lesson learned, a life lost in California, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIMON: She died on the floor of an emergency room hospital while employees, well they didn't do anything to help her. We now know what killed Esmin Green. Autopsy results show green died from blood clots. The hospital in Brooklyn has fired or suspended seven employees since Green's death last month. Her family says they plan to sue.

A groundbreaking heart surgeon has died. Dr. Michael DeBakey pioneered the modern heart bypass surgery and invented a number of devices to help heart patients. DeBakey developed the mobile army surgical hospitals or M.A.S.H. units for saving lives on the front lines. Dr. DeBakey died of natural causes at a Houston hospital. He was 99-years-old.

KAYE: From the front lines to the firing lines, Iraq war veterans are now fighting a different battle in California. CNN's Kara Finnstrom has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARA FINNSTROM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The fire ravaged woods of northern California.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's get those tool sharpen for tomorrow.

FINNSTROM: National Guards men Mike Valdevia and Robert Rosbia are now deployed near the front line.

UNIDENTIED MALE: Keep your dime in --

FINNSTROM: They're half a world away and on a far different assignment from their dangerous duty in Iraq.

SGT. ROBERT ROSBIA, NATIONAL GUARD, IRAQ VETERAN: In Iraq, you know we're getting shot at and people are losing their lives.

FINNSTROM: Rosbia operated a 50-caliber machine gun in Iraq. He served there for 15 months.

ROSBIA: Here we're protecting lives and this time I'm doing it with a cloud instead of 50-caliber machine gun. A semi rake/scraping tool.

FINNSTROM: Rosbia, a truck driver is also a husband and a father. And his wife couldn't be happier to have him serving near home. He's one of the first California guard troops to fight on the fire lines in more than three decades.

ROSBIA: She knows that there isn't somebody shooting at me and getting ready to cause me bodily harm, possibly take my life from me.

FINNSTROM: California needs help desperately. More than 1,700 fires have torched the state this month, exhausting firefighters. These fresh guard troops have learned to hack through brush and create open spaces where fully train firefighters can make a stand.

Sergeant Valdevia is a natural when it comes to cutting fire lines. The married father of three just happens to be a tree trimmer. He's also a veteran of enduring brutal heat.

SGT. MIKE VALDEVIA, NATIONAL GUARD, IRAQ VETERAN: The heat is actually kind of similar to the body. It start kicking up a lot of heat underneath the collar. So overseas we had temperatures of 117 plus.

FINNSTROM: But no complaints from these sergeants. They say this very different mission, back home in California, just feels good.

VALDEVIA: We've been driving back and forth. We get a lot of waves. We also get just people on the side we don't even know just honking.

FINNSTROM: Kara Finnstrom for CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON: And there's danger not just for those fighting the fires, but those who choose to remain in harm's way. Our Reynolds Wolf in Chico, California with news about an apparent fire victim and Reynolds, as you know, I was there for a couple of weeks. I passed the baton on to you.

When I was there things were looking good and then you take over and things get worse. What's going on?

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's been very bad. We have our first fatality, our first loss of life here in a community called Concow not far where from where we were located.

The firefighters found the body yesterday. Still no identification yet. They're going to have DNA tests. They're going to look also at medical records, dental records to find out who the person was. But certainly a bad thing. We're talking about a fire, Dan, that has burned over 49,000 acres and the fire fighters are doing everything they can to try to keep that from happening again.

Right now, we're actually in Silver Dollar Park in Fresno, California -- not Fresno, California, Chico, California. I'm sorry, where today places like Fresno, from Colorado Springs, from Flagstaff, Arizona, that come here to fire camp and today they're here just to get a little bit of a break, get something nice to eat, get a briefing, a pat on the back, and then they're going back out to the front lines. This is just actually a small sample, a small sample of over 300 fire fighters or rather fire trucks that have been out here coming from all over.

This particular unit, part of the California department f emergency services. They're here, you see them over here getting their hoses ready. It's going to be another blistering hot day for them. The fire already about 55 percent contained, but we're talking about a fire of enormous scope. It's high up in those hills, they're going to be battling, not only battles the intense heat, but if you look way off there, John, I don't know if you can get a shot of the rising sun, looks almost red in the sky. Well, the reason it has the weird hue because of all the smoke.

Right now, we've got very poor air quality in this part of the world, bad for residents, bad for the fire fighters. Conditions are going to improve in terms of the weather today. They're expecting temperatures not to be quite as hot. In fact, temperatures have been lower. The wind is also going to drop in intensity. The humidity is going to be going up.

So conditions in that regard are going to be much better. But still, no one's letting down their guard just yet. You see these guys here getting extra supplies, taking them out, getting ready for another busy day, doing what they can to battle this blaze. Some over 3,000 fire fighters taking part in this. And one thing that's just spectacular about this entire event, it is not just from California, I pointed out the other units that have been here not just from around the region or just in the states. You got units from places like Mexico, from Canada, from even into Australia and New Zealand too.

Sure the New Zealanders talk funny, I don't know how they're going to get the fire trucks across the ocean but they're here to lend a hand and they're going to do the very best they can. So, in that regard, it's a heart warming thing to see these guys work so hard and we're going to keep an eye for you as we continue to bring these stories, these guys from North Lake Tahoe.

Let's send it back to you in the studio.

SIMON: And they're going to have to get used to the California elements when you talk about the three things that fuel wildfire, fuel, terrain and weather in California, has the worst of all three. Reynolds, before we let you go, a few days ago I saw you hanging out at the camp where the fire fighters get a little rest. Talk about how they're able to sleep. Kind of unique in some parts.

WOLF: How these firefighters were able to sleep? Well, I'll tell you what, and speaking of sleep, that's one thing these fellows have been doing very little of. What's funny, so many people, so many of you at home, you're sitting and watching this, you go to work and you work your eight-hour day, you work 40 hours a week.

And that's a lot of work, don't get me wrong, but many of these guys will go out in the field and work 24-hour shifts, but if they happen to be in an area where the fire pops up again, they may work 30, 36 hours without a bit of rest. Right now, they've had a chance to clean up a little bit, they're going back out, and the few hours they've had of sleep, they're very fortunate to get.

Back to you.

SIMON: All right. Reynolds, nice work, we'll check in with you later.

Those California wildfires, looks like a record season, so many acres have burned and they have the driest spring on record. It's so bad.

KAYE: They're working hard though to put it all out.

Reaction to -- is now pouring in to CNN to the death of former White House spokesman Tony Snow. Josh Levs has some of your e-mails.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: The news of Tony Snow's death has generated a lot of reaction across the country today. Josh Levs is looking through some of the responses that we've received. Josh.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Obviously a lot of people just waking up to this news right now. We want to let you know also how you can weigh in on this. We are hearing from a lot of people.

This is our main story right now at CNN.com. Former Bush spokesman Tony Snow dies. We got people weighing in on all fronts here. Let's start with this e-mail that we've gotten from Darryl in Clarion, Pennsylvania, who writes "please send my thoughts and prayers to the Snow family. Tony was a good man and the country will miss him."

Here's how you can write to us, folks, it's at weekends@CNN.com, include your name and city. We'll be sharing e-mails throughout the day today. We also encourage you to do some i-reports. If you have memories of yourself with Tony Snow, experiences with him, send your photos and your videos to i-report.com. We'll be taking a look at those.

And again, Randi, we'll be sharing some of these throughout the day. I'll see you guys next hour with some of the e-mails that we're getting right now.

KAYE: All right. Thanks, Josh.

LEVS: Yes.

SIMON: A CNN exclusive, Inside Myanmar. Betty Nguyen reports on the desperate situation there. And it came two months after the deadly cyclone.

KAYE: But first, "OPEN HOUSE" with Gerri Willis starts right now.