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CNN Saturday Morning News
Suicide Bombers Attack in Afghan City of Khost; President Obama Pushing for Health Care Reform; Obama's Controversy in Cambridge; Interview with David Petraeus
Aired July 25, 2009 - 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: From the CNN Center here in Atlanta, Georgia, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING for July 25th. Hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, happy Saturday. I'm Brooke Baldwin sitting in for Betty. We thank you for starting your Saturday with us.
HOLMES: Breaking story we're following out of Afghanistan where apparently Taliban militants have attacked government buildings. This is an ongoing situation, including some suicide bombers. We will get you the very latest, the details on that in just a moment.
BALDWIN: We are also talking about health care of course. It's an issue that affects not only your wallet but your wellness. The president trying very hard to push his plan to overhaul the nation's health care system but a lot of Republicans saying not so fast. The president focusing on the issue in his weekly radio and web address. We'll bring that to you in just a moment.
HOLMES: And if you did not get a chance to see "Black in America II" this week, well shame on you. You missed an emotional moment when the comedian D.L. Hughley actually got choked up about the teacher who made a huge difference in his life.
Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is what he's saying upsetting you so much?
D.L. HUHGLEY, COMEDIAN: Because I was this close to never making it, never being nothing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: That was there in Times Square. That was a moving moment. Do you have a teacher who inspired you to do great things? We all have at least one. Tell us about this, e-mail us, shoot us a line on facebook, tweet, twitter, comment on our blog, everything, cnn.com/newsroom.
HOLMES: We will turn back to that breaking situation we're keeping an eye on in Afghanistan. Specifically this is in eastern Afghanistan where there is heavy fighting. Afghan troops facing off with Taliban fighters in the city of Khost. This is south of Kabul. A U.S. military base is in the area as well. Suicide bombers attacked government buildings including an Afghan military hospital.
Our Ivan Watson joined us earlier from the phone from Afghanistan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we've got so far, from an Afghan military official and from some of the residents of the (INAUDIBLE) town called Khost is that there is some kind of attack mounted.
At least one confirmed suicide bomber attacking here, an Afghan military hospital in that eastern town of course and there are fears that there are other suicide bombers out on the loose right now and we're getting reports from these sources that Afghan troops are out in force in the streets trying to crack down, trying to maintain security in those streets.
Those accounts don't quite match with what the Associated Press has been reporting, T.J., quoting the defense ministry spokesman, General Azamin (ph) who has described up to three suicide bombers launching a series of attacks on government buildings in that town, backed up by other fighters using (INAUDIBLE) grenades and assault rifles as well in that attack.
That fits a pattern we've seen in the past evolving in Afghanistan, increasingly sophisticated attacks where there are waves of fighters initially with suicide bombers who break open the defenses and they are followed soon after by fighters on the ground with small arms showing that this insurgency has definitely involved -- evolved from its early days when it was much less competent at trying to mount attacks on some of these pretty well fortified government buildings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Ivan Watson making phone calls. As soon as we get any update on that breaking story, we'll bring it to you.
We're also talking this morning about the battle for health care reform. President Obama's calls for an overhaul have drawn really kind of a mixed reaction from the business world but this morning the president said small businesses have a lot to gain.
HOLMES: We heard from him in his weekly radio and web address as always. The president says a White House study shows insurance costs are disproportionately high for small businesses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because they lack the bargaining power that large businesses have and face higher administrative costs per person, small businesses pay up to 18 percent more for the very same health insurance plans, costs that eat into their profits and get passed on to their employees.
As a result, small businesses are much less likely to offer health insurance. Those that do tend to have less generous plans. In a recent survey, one third of small businesses reported cutting benefits. Many have dropped coverage all together and many have shed jobs or shut their doors entirely. This is unsustainable. It's unacceptable and it's going to change when I sign health insurance reform into law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Want to delve deeper, talk a little bit more about this. CNN's Kate Bolduan is at the White House or in our DC bureau it looks like with the latest. Kate, the question is, how or when does President Obama actually think this is going to get done now that Congress has said August isn't happening?
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is a good question Brooke. I mean, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday announced that the Senate will miss the president's deadline of a vote on health care by next month. The president seeming to take it in stride. He's now saying he wants to sign, he wants to have a health care reform bill on his desk to sign by the end of the year. But how is he going to do that? How is he going to accomplish that? That is becoming a harder question to answer.
We saw all this week the president trying to ratchet up, to crank up the pressure on Congress, public appearances, town halls, the primetime news conference on Wednesday, but facing this timeline setback, we can expect that the president will only continue trying to pick up the pressure and build momentum here to try to win over more support on Capitol Hill. He's traveling this week to North Carolina and Virginia to talk, no surprise, talk health care.
But bottom line it really comes down to from the White House's perspective, privately behind closed doors there is private arm twisting with members on Capitol Hill, some negotiating going on with members of Congress, but publicly, the White House is putting out their best pitch man, the president himself, to try to push and try to sell their top domestic agenda priority.
BALDWIN: Kate, when we talk about ratcheting up the momentum and all of this pressure right now, what about the momentum once we have this recess?
BOLDUAN: That is a very good question. I mean, publicly the president and the White House say, basically, it's not a big deal. They're not worried. The president and the White House saying that they prefer that Congress do this right rather than do it quickly, which I think many people would agree with. But this recess, this month-long recess, could bring some troubles for the White House.
I mean, this does offer a full month for critics and opponents of this -- of the developing legislation and the draft proposals that we've seen to spend this time to highlight and criticize and kind of campaign against this health care reform as it's taking shape. At the very same time if this past week is any evidence, we can expect the White House will also be waging its own aggressive campaign.
BALDWIN: Of course and we'll be looking for the president as he travels to North Carolina to talk health care. Kate Bolduan good to see you, thanks.
Another something that the president is talking about is this controversy in Cambridge.
HOLMES: Like he doesn't have enough on his plate. He admitted this was probably his fault that this thing got going. He made some comments and used a particular word that he shouldn't have at his press conference on Wednesday, essentially calling the Cambridge police, saying they acted ...
BALDWIN: ...stupidly.
HOLMES: Stupidly is the word. He came out and tried to calm things down a bit yesterday. Our Dan Lothian tells us what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It wasn't quite an apology but President Obama tried to put out a wildfire that was burning out of control, placing a five-minute phone call to Sergeant James Crowley.
OBAMA: I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up. I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department or Sergeant Crowley specifically. And I could have calibrated those words differently.
LOTHIAN: Words the president uttered at his Wednesday primetime press conference.
OBAMA: The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.
LOTHIAN: In his first sit down television interview, Crowley said he never wanted to take such drastic action.
SGT. JAMES CROWLEY, CAMBRIDGE POLICE DEPARTMENT: I was continuously telling him to calm down during this whole exchange because I really didn't want this either. Nonetheless, that's how far Professor Gates pushed it and provoked and just wouldn't stop.
LOTHIAN: The president now concedes that his good friend Henry Gates Jr. also played a role in how all this turned out.
OBAMA: There was an over reaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe based on what I heard that Professor Gates probably over reacted as well.
LOTHIAN: This came just hours after a group of police officers in Massachusetts made it clear what they wanted to hear from President Obama. STEVE KILLIAN, PRES., CAMBRIDGE POLICE PATROL, OFFICERS ASSN.: I think when the time is right they should make an apology to us. I think the president should make an apology to all law enforcement personnel throughout the entire country who took offense to this.
LOTHIAN: The president admitted that this controversy was taking attention away from his top domestic priority, health care reform. Beyond smoothing this over with the arresting officer, Mr. Obama said he hopes this becomes a teachable moment.
OBAMA: Where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other and try to focus on how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities.
LOTHIAN: The White House said that President Obama called Professor Gates, had a positive discussion and invited him here to meet with Sergeant Crowley in the near future. The president and Crowley had earlier talked about all three of them getting together here at the White House for a beer.
Dan Lothian, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: And the president wasn't the only one in this situation talking yesterday. Also talking was Charles Ogletree, the attorney for Professor Gates, a fellow Harvard professor. I sat down with him yesterday. You'll hear from him and hear how he also tried to calm things down a bit. That's coming up just before 9:00 Eastern time.
BALDWIN: Turning our attention to Iraq, the man really who has been calling the shots for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan says innumerable challenges still remain.
HOLMES: We're talking about General David Petraeus here. He is assessing security in that war-torn country and he spoke exclusively with CNN's Arwa Damon in Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even though the U.S. is reducing its combat role In Iraq, the American general in charge of both Iraq and Afghanistan told us in an exclusive interview that Iraq is still the center of the fight against international terrorism.
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. CENTCOM COMMANDER: You have the al Qaeda connections, senior leadership and the (INAUDIBLE) tribal areas of western Pakistan extend into Afghanistan, threaten Pakistan and then very much threaten the rest of the world. There are links from there to al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, which has reestablished itself in south Yemen and then certainly Iraq is in the center of all this. It's very, very important geo-strategically.
DAMON: That is mainly because of its location but also because control of Iraq's natural resources, oil and gas, is so strategically important. The general, who served nearly four years as a commander in Iraq, was one of the main orchestrators of America's surge strategy there. He says there are Iraq lessons that apply to Afghanistan.
PETRAEUS: Some of those lessons are very obvious. Again, you shouldn't start clearing until you have your plan to hold and build. It wasn't just the surge. It wasn't just 30,000 more forces here. It was the employment of those forces in a manner that focused on security of the people and did it by living with the people and then also sought to help the process of reconciliation. Because you cannot kill or capture your way out of this kind of endeavor.
DAMON: And that realization is why America implemented another strategy in Iraq it wants to carry over -- reaching out to its enemies, in Afghanistan's case, the Taliban.
PETRAEUS: There has always been activity at local levels, which one would characterize as reaching out to elements that were willing to be part of the solution instead of a continuing part of the problem.
DAMON: Those efforts, though not yet on the scale of what they were in Iraq. There is the realization that when it comes to combating global terror, brute force is not the solution.
PETRAEUS: Well, this is not the kind of struggle where you kill or capture the bad guys, take the hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade. At the end of the day, it is about education.
It is about, in a sense, accepting modernity, pragmatic, progressive leadership of countries and that's the ultimate solution and that's why, again, I mentioned that this takes a whole of government approach. Again, you just can't kill or capture everybody. You have to kill or capture the condition.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DAMON: And so T.J. as we have been hearing, this is very much going to be an intense, global challenge where each country is going to have to play its role so that the entire world can be a safer place.
HOLMES: All right. And speaking of safer places, today a vote is happening that could help make Iraq a safer place. This vote is happening up in the Kurdish region up in the north but for the whole of Iraq, it is a big deal as well. What's happening there with the vote? Tell us why.
DAMON: It really is a big deal T.J., first and foremost, because observers will tell you that it's going to help cement democracy, but also because of the rising tensions that we have been seeing between Iraq's Kurdish and Arab populations. The elections are taking place in an area in the north of Iraq that is governed by the Kurdistan regional government. They'll be voting on a president and they will be having a parliamentary vote as well.
This vote is critical because in the run up to these elections we have been hearing some very inflammatory rhetoric coming from some Kurdish leaders especially with regard to the disputed territories that are along something of a de facto trigger line between the area that is governed by the KRG and the area that is governed by central Iraq.
Something of a relief, though, to people today is what we are hearing from leaders on both sides and that is that they hope that the outcome of these elections will help them lay down a road map to the future of the relations between the two regions because that is one of the many points where western officials fear the Iraq project could eventually implode in on itself if we see a war breaking out between the Kurds and the Arabs.
HOLMES: All right, again, another important day for Iraq. Arwa Damon for us in Baghdad, thank you so much.
Let's turn now to Iran. Not exactly the video I'm going to show you here. Another protest is happening. We're used to seeing the protests, people protesting the election in Iran but this one is in South Korea. This is one of a number happening across the world today, a day of action.
Human rights groups come together calling these rallies in cities across the world. Some 40 cities, at least 15 countries are taking place and showing their support for the Iranians who of course were protesting what they saw as an unfair election last month which is still yet to be resolved even though they have set a date now for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be sworn in. So it's moving forward even though some people still calling that election unfair.
BALDWIN: Fraudulent, yes.
He's been arrested and accused of taking $25,000 in bribes but the mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey says he will not step down.
HOLMES: Also, he is just one of a group of elected officials, also rabbis accused of corruption. This whole case here is just confusing. This is just the latest in a string of lawmakers acting above the law. We'll have that for you.
Also what else we got? We got Josh Levs.
BALDWIN: Josh Levs.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey guys, we got half truths from President Obama and from a Republican lawmaker at least according to politifact.com and these statements are all about the money being spent to rescue the economy. We're going to break it down for you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Oh, my goodness. We're talking about the nation's economic stimulus package, billions of dollars, countless claims, a lot of people unhappy. HOLMES: Unhappy, so let's check out the truthfulness of some of the things that are being said. Josh Levs (INAUDIBLE)
LEVS: Hey guys. All right. So trillions, billions, or millions? It seems like there must be all this recovery money flying around because lawmakers keep talking about it that way even if it feels like it hasn't hit you yet. But along with this money are also a lot of claims which we need to break down.
So we'll bring in Bill Adair from politifact.com. Hey, Bill.
BILL ADAIR, POLITIFACT.COM: Thanks for having me Josh.
LEVS: Thank you. Let's start off with this. You're talking about a claim from President Obama now that talks about $43 billion. What's that about?
ADAIR: This is a claim he made many times as he talks about the economic stimulus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: It's delivered $43 billion in tax relief to American working families and businesses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ADAIR: We looked into that and found that there is some fuzzy math in that. The $43 billion includes some money that was used for the fix for the alternative minimum tax and of course, the AMT as it's called is a tax that was set up in the '60s to try to limit the -- put some restrictions on the wealthy but it has gradually spread to affect the middle class. So every year Congress puts a fix in so that it doesn't spread into the middle class.
Well, Obama is counting that in the $43 billion. We decided in talking to some experts that that's not correct to do that, that that's really exaggerating the impact of the stimulus. We ended up giving this a half true on our truthometer. He's right about the other parts that make up the $43 billion, but the $8 billion from the AMT fix we felt he wasn't, so half truth for this one.
LEVS: And speaking of half true, you've got another half truth. This is on the other side now. You're looking at one claim from a Republican. This is Senator Bennett, who talks about some road signs out there. Tell us about this.
ADAIR: Bennett is correct that the Obama administration has encouraged states to put up these signs, but the Obama administration has not required them and the other part of Bennett's claim that they have spent millions to do this may or may not be true. We haven't been able to get a good accounting of how much money has been spent on signs. It may be in the millions. It may not. We're not sure. So we gave this one a half true.
LEVS: (INAUDIBLE) You always have a steady supply, which is one reason we love looking at politifact.com every day and checking out your ratings. Bill Adair, thank you so much.
ADAIR: Thanks Josh.
LEVS: All right guys, back to you.
BALDWIN: Josh, thank you.
Let's talk about that story that broke out of New Jersey on Thursday. Now the mayor of Hoboken is saying, no, no. He is not going to step down even though he is accused of taking $25,000 in bribes. He is just one of this whole group of elected officials in New Jersey arrested this past week in a wide ranging corruption investigation. It seems perhaps like a story we've heard before. Politicians stepping out of bounds when it comes to ethics.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN (voice-over): Mayors busted -- assemblymen arrested as prosecutors in New Jersey named 44 suspects in a wide-ranging corruption investigation.
RALPH MARRA JR., ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY: For these defendants, corruption was a way of life.
BALDWIN: Americans elect our leaders to lead. But time and time again according to one watch dog group that promotes ethics in government, our lawmakers act as though they're above the law.
TOM PATTON, PRESIDENT, JUDICIAL WATCH: Who think that getting a job with a public trust is like winning the lottery and use it to line their own pockets as opposed to protect the taxpayer.
BALDWIN: There is disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich accused of trying to sell Obama's Senate seat. Former Detroit Mayor Kwane Kilpatrick (ph) tangled in text messages, pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice. And former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson, $90,000 in cash was found in his freezer. He's pled not guilty to charges of racketeering and bribery.
And it's not just allegations of corruption. Last month, married South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford got caught and confessed to an affair with a woman in Argentina. Presidential hopeful John Edwards admitted to cheating on his cancer-stricken wife.
Senator Larry Craig, who pled guilty to disorderly conduct after an embarrassing encounter in a Minneapolis airport and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer engaging in hooker hanky panky. Psychiatrist Dr. Lorenzo Norris says some men in power possess an unhealthy dose of narcissism and that can be a catalyst for acting out above the law.
LORENZO NORRIS, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: If you take that mix, a person that is vulnerable and you mix them with a lot of power, power which is isolating, which prevents them from feeling the shame and guilt which may have already kept them within bounds, then you get a recipe for what we're seeing right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: You know we're talking to Dr. Norris, went to the interview a couple days ago and he said as long as there are people in positions of power, the scandals will go on.
HOLMES: Some people just get drunk with that power and think they can get away with anything sometimes.
BALDWIN: They do.
HOLMES: Reynolds, go ahead. Take that segue.
(WEATHER REPORT)
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: If you're thinking about a good weekend getaway, why don't you try the great city of Tacoma. Here's some pointers for you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOLF: Tacoma, Washington is all about museums.
STIRLING KELSO, TRAVEL + LEISURE: Tacoma is on the Puget Sound. There are wonderful water views there and it's really Seattle's second city, a city that's coming into its own right now.
ROCK HUSHKA, TACOMA ART MUSEUM: Tacoma has three amazing museums within a two-minute walk of one another. the museum of glass, the Washington city history museum and Tacoma art museum.
WOLF: The Tacoma art museum provides a chance to get creative in the open art studio and the Washington state history museum has interactive exhibits for kids and adults.
KELSO: The Washington state history museum is really dedicated to history of the entire northwest.
WOLF: Across the Chihuly bridge of glass is the museum of glass where visitors can watch artists at work in the hot shop.
TIM CLOSE, MUSEUM OF GLASS: You walk into the hot shop and it's loud. There's fire and you get to see artists working (INAUDIBLE). You're always satisfied coming to the museum of glass.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: Love Chihuly's glass, it's beautiful. I'm a big fan.
HOLMES: Are you really?
BALDWIN: I am actually. (INAUDIBLE) absolutely.
In the red and waiting in limbo.
HOLMES: A lot of places are in that position but the really tough situation for the city of Philadelphia right now, we'll be talking live with the mayor, Michael Nutter, about the city's cash crisis.
BALDWIN: And D.L. Huhgley cracking jokes, so why is D.L. Hughley crying?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Dan Rather once said the dream begins with a teacher who believes in you. That quote really holds special meaning for comedian and CNN contributor D.L. Hughley.
HOLMES: During the premiere of "Black in America II" this week, CNN's Soledad O'Brien talked with DL and his teacher. Things got quite emotional.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LANG BOSTON, HUGHLEY'S FORMER TEACHER: I've been teaching for 38 years and yet I have not had any award at all. But I'm just telling you, right over here, knowing that I did something positive to create this gentleman right here, this wonderful person, I'll take that over any award they can give me.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: You -- you're crying. You are crying. How come it affects you so. You know, you joined a gang. You were not, you dropped out. You ended up getting your GED.
D.L. HUGHLEY, COMEDIAN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Why is what he's saying upsetting you so much?
HUGHLEY: Because I was this close to never making it. Never being nothing. So when I see people -- when I see people who don't believe they can do it, just one person can say one thing that nobody believes in you ever and then to have a dude say you can be what you want.
I remember we had a (INAUDIBLE) and I wanted to give my mother an apple and I got an apple and got it to my mother and she bit the apple and she said this apple is ripe like you are and I laughed and I told him, you're not ripe, you're going to be something. And I'll never forgot that. As proud of me as I am here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: What a moment sitting there. It was in the middle of Times Square.
HOLMES: You were there.
BALDWIN: I was there. I was listening. Just sort of the crowd, it was this quiet, quiet moment where people were just so touched. You know, a teacher, 38 years, who said he's never gotten awards but just knowing that he helped D.L. like that is worth it. HOLMES: That is what a lot of teachers do it for. Teachers know they're not in there for the money. They're not in it for the accolades. They are in it because they give a crap quite frankly. My mother was a teacher, retired, elementary.
BALDWIN: Dad was your principal.
HOLMES: Dad was a high school principal. So I came up with that ...
BALDWIN: My mom was a teacher as well.
HOLMES: They're teachers. And you know, and we know that education and teachers have a special place in our heart.
BALDWIN: And we thank you for it.
HOLMES: Yes, we do thank you for it. And we've been asking people and we knew we're going to get these responses. We asked people, I just posted here asking who's that person that made a difference in your life, who maybe could bring you to tears, who put you on the right path? And some of the answers we are getting are about teachers.
One here from Joparke, says it was her grandmother actually, Elaine D. Hinkston, who was the one person who had the most influence on my life. I am who I am because of her. Rest in peace. And right under that from Emmy Mason says the person that made a difference in my life, Dr. W.F. Clarke, mentor and teacher.
Keep those coming in. It's interesting to see them. But no doubt a lot of teachers. A lot of those probably have coaches and things like that come in. You never know. You say the one thing to the one person at the right time when they need to hear it, and it makes all the difference in the world.
BALDWIN: And D.L.'s teacher, he actually said D.L. was so quiet. He had no idea. They hadn't talked in like 38 years and so a lot of teachers don't know. It's important to let them know. And also, "Black in America" we're re-airing this week.
HOLMES: Yes.
BALDWIN: If you missed just a second of "Black in America 2," our documentary, you catch it again this weekend tonight and tomorrow night 8:00 Eastern time.
HOLMES: Well, what does the city do when it's broke? Well, we've got the mayor of Philadelphia here. and he'd rather not be. Because they're a bit broke. He's live with me right after the break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. We all know, sometimes when money gets a little tight, you always make sure you take care of the things you have to take care of in your bills. You might let something go but you're going to have to pay the rent, you're going to pay the car note, you're going to keep the lights on for the most part. Well, that's kind of sort of what the city of Philadelphia is having to do right now.
Let's bring in the mayor of Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter. Sir, is that fair to say, you have cut everything you have to and you're just trying to keep the lights on right now?
MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER, PHILADELPHIA: T.J., thanks for having me on. Yes, in essence. We have some cash but we're worried about our cash flow. So it's kind of like payday's coming up on Friday but it's only Wednesday and you start to run a little low so you begin to ease up a little bit on your spending.
What we've said is that we're going to make payroll, debt service obligations, and any emergencies but we have temporarily suspended payment to many of our vendors and we'll evaluate on a weekly basis actually how much we're going to let out the door if you will in terms of payments. We're in a cash conservation mode. Pennsylvania has not passed a budget yet.
HOLMES: You're kind of held up by others right now. And again, you're telling me about $100 million because of the state and they may not pass the budget by August.
NUTTER: Right.
HOLMES: So, you're missing about $100 million if they don't pass one by August but beyond that, what happens if they leave, take a recess and they don't pass the budget?
NUTTER: Well, we would certainly hope not to get into that situation but we've started making contingency plans for how we would deal with that, further efforts to both conserve cash. We may have to start cutting back on some of our programs and activities. And unfortunately that will have an impact on the work force as well.
So it's a tough time all across America. I know you're down in Atlanta, Mayor Shirley Franklin having some of the same challenges. Mayors all across the country facing budget deficits because of this incredible recession.
HOLMES: And you've mentioned some of those other things that might have to happen. You don't want to get into -- certainly you don't want that to happen but is this the ominous plan C that's out there? People have a backup plan. That's B. But you're going on to plan C now ...
NUTTER: Yes.
HOLMES: Is what has been referred to in the press so what would that entail? That some of those layoffs possibly down the road?
NUTTER: Well, if we ever got to plan C, which is not getting the couple of legislative items that we've asked from our general assembly, we would literally have to layoff police officers, firefighters, close a number of departments in our city government and dramatically scale back the operations of the city. We do not want to go there. But of course we're the government. We have to plan for not only the good times but potentially the worst times.
And so we're taking it on a day by day basis. But we're going to do what we need to do to hold onto our cash position and make sure we can pay the essentials that government is all about.
HOLMES: And to wrap up here with you, mayor, a lot of mayors are, I guess, kind of disappointed that there was some stimulus money going out but states, municipalities, your cities like yours aren't allowed to use the federal stimulus money to just close a budget hole.
NUTTER: Yes.
HOLMES: Is that regrettable in your opinion? Do you wish you could? How much would that help you out if you could use the money in that fashion?
NUTTER: We're very appreciative for all that President Obama and his administration have done with regard to the Economic Recovery Act and we're looking forward to getting those dollars. We've made many, many applications. But you cannot substitute economic recovery or stimulus dollars for local funding gaps. And that is a bit of a challenge. I've mentioned that on a couple of occasions to representatives from the White House, but you know, the law is what it is.
We're going to have to take the steps that we need to take as executives of the cities of America while at the same time receiving these dollars to put people back to work. It is a little confusing to the public why we're getting all this money but still have to cut back on spending and programs and services.
HOLMES: Real quickly you said that's confusing to some of the public. One thing that is not confusing is when they hear sales tax increase. Are you pushing for it? With this one, it still has to get state approval but you're pushing for it and hoping to get it. Will that happen?
NUTTER: We're hopeful. We're asking for a temporary increase in our sales tax for five years of one penny on the dollar increase. It's all tied up as part of a larger budget activity in Harrisburg but we are -- we continue to make our case and we're hopeful.
HOLMES: Well, Mr. Mayor, sir, I certainly hope we can have you back here. We do a series. We have a mayors on a lot with us on our weekends. Hope to have you back and hopefully when we do we'll have much happier things to talk about sir. Thank you so much.
NUTTER: I look forward to it. T.J., thanks a lot.
HOLMES: Good luck to you folks there in Philadelphia.
NUTTER: All righty. BALDWIN: He's hoping plan C never has to happen.
HOLMES: A plan C. You know, if you have to go down to that ...
BALDWIN: (INAUDIBLE) firefighters, police laid off. That is not a good situation.
Will he or won't he? We'll be talking about the fate of Michael Vick and his future in the NFL.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Well, a former NFL quarterback is hoping to become a current NFL quarterback again. We're talking about Michael Vick. Michael Vick has paid his debt. Now he is trying to get his job back. Let's bring in our Rick Horrow, sports business analyst, former NFL consultant. Rick, good morning to you.
RICK HORROW, CNN SPORTS BUSINESS ANALYST: Hi, my friend.
HOLMES: We appreciate you being here as always.
HORROW: Yes, sir.
HOLMES: Michael Vick, all right? He is -- I mean, what is the NFL commissioner to do here?
HORROW: Well, first of all Roger Goodell took over in 2006, iron fist, great leadership. He's got a lot of latitude. Personal conduct policy, got it here. His factors he takes into account, nature of the incident, actual threats and risk to participants, prior or additional misconduct, whether or not charges are filed.
And it says other relevant factors. That's in here so the bottom line is he's got a lot of latitude. There is a lot of pressure on either side. Remember, Michael Vick served his time, 23 months, lost about $40 million in salary and endorsements. Falcons released him. On the other hand the acts were repugnant, premeditated, violence, he also covered up. It's a strange and very difficult case.
HOLMES: So for the NFL commissioner and the policy here, it is not just a matter of paying your debt to society or getting out of jail or serving your time or serving your suspension sometimes even. You still have to convince this guy that you deserve a chance to play again. You have to show him that you are truly sorry.
HORROW: Well, yes. Show you're truly sorry. Independent of whatever happens in the justice system. Legally, though, remember, this is a legal issue, as well, the more difficult the case, is the one where the court hasn't intervened. But the ones where the court have intervened, the court of public opinion makes the argument that the guy has already paid his time.
So the bottom line with Roger Goodell is something you and I can't talk about, notwithstanding the thousands of people who speculate, they've met. He's got to see it in his eyes. Is he sorry or is he not?
HOLMES: What's going to be the bigger challenge you think here for Michael Vick, again the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback? Is it going to be convincing a team that quite frankly he is in shape and can compete at that level again or is it going to be convincing the team that everything is going to come along with him, possibly the protests and all the attention and some of that negative attention? What's going to be the bigger thing to convince a team of to give him a shot?
HORROW: Same process. Here's the deal. If the suspension is lifted, it won't be unconditionally. There will be, I suspect, an opportunity to have a team sign him, go to training camp, see what kind of shape he's in. Then it's up to that team to weigh those two factors. If it looks like he's going to help the team win, then all the stuff that goes along with it, the team may want to take a risk and then maybe the unconditional suspension happens versus the conditional one. That may be the prediction here.
Listen, the NFL, a $7 billion industry, the Dolphins just sold for $1.1 billion. The Cowboys are $1.5 billion. There is a lot at stake in this decision just like everything else that the commissioner presides over.
HOLMES: Last thing though, football fans, they're going to support him, you think?
HORROW: Football fans are going to support him if he wins and there's the larger factor that say that he's already paid his time and the others we'll just have to see how it shakes out. It will be quite an interesting week and quite an interesting off-season, my friend.
HOLMES: All right. Rick Horrow, good to see you. Think you're going to be in Atlanta with us. It's going to be good to have you in, just to see you in the building coming up next week.
HORROW: I can't. I'm tearing up with the expectation of seeing you on Monday.
HOLMES: See. This is what happens when I try to be nice to the guy. He goes that direction.
BALDWIN: He goes there. he I like that.
HOLMES: All right, Rick. See you next week, buddy.
Well, still ahead we'll be talking of course, following up, maybe coming back from the edge here with this whole story about the Cambridge police versus the Harvard professor. Well, that professor right there. Also a Harvard professor and the attorney who is representing Skip Gates. We'll see what he says about the situation and why it's not really about race.
BALDWIN: And (INAUDIBLE) look at this video. Heavy rains making quite a mess for folks in the midwest. Reynolds, he's on top of it. And will tell you what to expect for the weekend. Will it be drying up? Stick around.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Reynolds Wolf earning his keep this morning.
HOLMES: Yes.
BALDWIN: Staying very busy. Normally you want a quiet weather weekend. Now you're talking crazy rain, tornado damage. A lot of heat.
WOLF: Oh, yes. I mean, late yesterday in Port Orange, Florida, right in central Florida, they had just a rough situation, 163 homes damaged, seven were total loss and one injury due to glass. And it's all caused by a tornado. Take a look at some video we have for you out of central Florida.
I mean, this is just devastating. You see a lot of roof damage in a few places, even a water spout that was detected right off Florida's east coast. You can see some of the damage there. A lot of downed power lines. They got power outages this morning, a lot of roof damages. I mentioned seven homes a complete, complete loss. I mean just demolished from the strong winds.
Now later on today the National Weather Service, weather pending will get up and take more aerial observations. As they do so they're going to give us a better idea. Was it one tornado, maybe two, was some of this damage cause by straight line winds? Still a mystery. We'll keep a sharp eye on that.
Let me show you the reason why it happened just yesterday. I want to expand this. And what happens when you have extreme heat in central Florida, which does happen, what it causes -- it causes a gliding sea breeze coming from both the gulf and also from the Atlantic.
And when you have that, all that moist air rises upward and that gives you some strong showers and thunderstorms and that is certainly the situation that happened yesterday. Of course, this tornado certainly rough times there.
And we could see some of that play out in parts of the Ohio Valley especially later on today. And as we follow along this frontal boundary back across parts of the central plains and then back into the Rockies, it's going to be big sky country where we could have some large storms, maybe even some hail producers.
Now we do have a live camera for you, I'm going to show you how things are looking out there. I believe it's in Orlando, Florida where things are looking pretty good this morning for the time being. A few quiet, scattered clouds here and there.
A lot of the debris I mentioned will be, again, a tall order for a lot of people. They are going to be going through and sifting through the wreckage. A lot of water damage in some of these homes and they could see more rain later today. Certainly not what you want to deal with when you are -- look at that roof.
All right. That's the latest we got for you. Again, it could be a stormy weekend and we'll give you the latest details coming up. Back you to guys.
HOLMES: All right. Reynolds, we appreciate you as always.
WOLF: You bet.
HOLMES: We will checking in with you shortly.
BALDWIN: Well, let's talk more about this controversy out of Cambridge that became the controversy of the week, the president weighing in on this thing. Harvard professor Henry Gates versus Cambridge police officer Sergeant James Crowley.
HOLMES: Well, maybe it's not so controversial anymore because the president came out and made some words yesterday. But Professor Gates, his attorney, that's him right there, Charles Ogletree sat down with him yesterday as well and he took down the same tone that the president was saying as well and hope that this whole situation could be a good thing. He explains why, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. The president has a busy schedule. He had to take time out yesterday to place a phone call and what a phone call it was that surprised the guy on the other end. He actually called the Cambridge police officer James Crowley who of course arrested the Harvard professor who is a friend of the president's.
BALDWIN: Yes, little did this officer know what would be happening after he stepped on his Cambridge porch last week. The president says he formed a favorable impression of Sergeant Crowley after talking to him on the phone. The president tried to dial down to some of the comments he made about the Cambridge Police Department.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: I, unfortunately, gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley, specifically. And I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley. I continue to believe based on what I have heard that there was an over reaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe based on what I heard that Professor Gates probably over reacted as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Yes, the president was talking yesterday, also talking with Charles Ogletree. He has been a big player in this whole situation because he is the attorney of Professor Gates. He sat down with me yesterday kind of trying to put this whole thing into a bit of perspective and also dial it back from being such a racial issue. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES (on camera): Did Professor Gates do anything wrong? Not in a legal sense and breaks some law but did he do anything wrong as a private citizen, as an upstanding citizen, as a responsible citizen and not give due reference to the police officer?
CHARLES OGLETREE, PROF. GATES' ATTORNEY: No. Of course he's angry. He has given two forms of identification at his house. He said, I am who I am, and he said, you know, all he asked, he said, I want to file a complaint against you because you're not listening to me. And I want to file a complaint against you and I want your badge and your number.
HOLMES: Did he ever, though, you said he was upset. So you're acknowledging that maybe he did come across as upset or animated or belligerent even. Could that have been interpreted by the officer as that?
OGLETREE: I'm not sure how the officer would interpret it but if ask you any homeowner how do you feel in your own house when you produce your identification and the officer knows that it's you, how do you feel? I can't imagine many people wouldn't be disappointed.
HOLMES: Is it possible that, and some would argue as well, but I want to ask your opinion, is Professor Gates guilty of some sort of profiling as well whereas he sees an officer, a white officer and he sees it as this officer is out to get me because I'm a black man rather than this is just an officer doing his job?
OGLETREE: Well, I mean, you've never heard me use the word this officer engaged in racial profiling, I said he exercised bad judgment and I think he did.
HOLMES: So do you believe this has nothing do with race?
OGLETREE: I don't know. We'll find out. I think there's a lot that hasn't been determined and a lot to be determined. The only time that this was not calm is when Professor Gates said, I'm going to file a complaint. Maybe he should have thought that and not said it but once he said I'm going to file a complaint, I like to have your name and your badge number, the dynamics changed. Because that's what he said and that's repeated over and over again. He says, why are you doing this? Is it because I'm black man and you're a white police officer?
HOLMES: Was he saying it as calmly as you are saying it to me?
OGLETREE: Well, the recordings will show. You can imagine that he is feeling this sense of indignity that people feel every day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: The recordings will show, he says. We'll see if we can get those recordings. He's talking about possibly the 911 call which probably won't tell us that much that we don't already know but also the recordings from the police traffic is what he's talking about to see if possibly the officers can be heard in the background, the officers were saying what the mood was. Maybe again, it won't matter anymore, trying to move this thing forward.
BALDWIN: But still it's still is sort of open ended to walk away from these things.
HOLMES: We will see. But we got a lot more to see now here at the top of the hour at 9:00 a.m. here in Atlanta, Georgia from the CNN Center. This is CNN SATURDAY MORNING, July 25th. I'm T.J. Holmes.
BALDWIN: Good morning, once again. I'm Brooke Baldwin, sitting in for Betty. It is 9:00 a.m. on the dot here in Atlanta. 8:00 a.m. in the midwest. 6:00 a.m. for those of you waking up nice early in the west coast. Thank you for starting your day with us. Breaking news.
HOLMES: Yes, a developing situation we're keeping an eye on out of Afghanistan, some heavy fighting erupted this morning. This happened in eastern Afghanistan. You can see it there in Khost as you see militants launched a series of attacks on buildings in that city. It's just south of Kabul, as you can see.
It included a bank and a military hospital in this attack. At least three suicide bombers detonated explosives. Others were surrounded by Afghan troops. The U.S. military base in this area, as well, but no word on whether or not the U.S. troops are involved in today's fighting. This is an ongoing situation. We understand that some of that fighting might still be going on as we speak.
We will keep an eye on that and continue to bring you updates there. But there is always an update on health care.
BALDWIN: Absolutely.
HOLMES: The president has been making his case it seems every single day for the past couple of weeks. This morning he is making it again and says small businesses could see a brighter future if the insurance system is overhauled.
BALDWIN: We heard him in his weekly radio address. The president saying the White House study shows insurance costs are too costly for small businesses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Because they like the bargaining power that large businesses have and faced higher administrative costs per person, small businesses pay up to 18 percent more for the very same health insurance plans. Costs that eat into their profits and get passed on to their employees. As a result, small businesses are much less likely to offer health insurance. Those that do tend to have less generous plans.
In a recent survey one-third of small businesses reported cutting benefits. Many have dropped coverage all together. And many have shed jobs or shut their doors entirely. This is unsustainable, it's unacceptable, and is going to change when I sign health insurance reform into law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Let's talk more about this with our own Kate Bolduan, live for us this morning at the White House. And Kate, now that we know that Congress, you know, they've said that August deadline won't happen, how does the president think this is going to get done and when might it get done?
BOLDUAN: Very good question, Brooke. The Senate majority leader Harry Reid did say late this week that simply we're not going -- it's not going to happen on the deadline that the president had set. They are going to miss that deadline, having a vote before they leave -- by the time they leave for the August recess.
The president for his part seems to be taking it in stride. He now says that he wants to have a bill on his desk. He wants to have this done by the end of the year but how they are going to do that, how Congress is going to do that, how they're going to accomplish it is becoming a harder question to answer very simply.
All this week you saw the president very much out there in front of this debate in public appearances, interviews, town halls, in the primetime news conference, really trying to speak directly to the American people to make his case.
But now facing this timeline setback, you can expect the president to only continue this. This week he is continuing to try to build momentum and with that support behind health care reform. He's heading to North Carolina and Virginia to talk, no surprise, about health care again yet this week.
Bottom line, when it comes down to it, Brooke, it really seems the White House strategy is privately a little arm twisting, negotiating with members of Congress on Capitol Hill but publicly they're really putting out their best pitch man, the president himself, to make the case that this needs to happen and happen quickly although they say, you know, correctly as well, Brooke.
BALDWIN: And we'll wait and see how the president can maintain this momentum and what might happen perhaps even during that recess. We'll wait and see for that. Kate, good to see you. Thank you.
HOLMES: Well, a lot of you will remember, the world watch last month as Iranians were beaten and killed for protesting the results of their presidential election.
BALDWIN: But now the world is letting them know, let them show their support for their struggle. To show solidarity, protests happening in dozens of cities all across the globe today. We have Frederik Pleitgen live at one in Berlin and Paula Newton live in London.
And Paula, I want to begin with you. I see some people over your shoulder. Tell us, set the scene for us and what is the tone among these protestors?
PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, clearly, they're still in the opposition green colors. As you said, really protests around the world in dozens of cities. What they're trying to do is show solidarity. We've seen in the last few weeks how the protests really in Iran have died down. A lot of people intimidated, refusing to go back out into the streets because fear has really gripped a lot of the protest movement now in Iran.
What these people have said to us is, look. We want them to know that if they want to speak out we will stand behind them. You know, the other critical issue here, though, has been, Brooke, that there have been at least hundreds of people taken off the streets, incarcerated.
And human rights groups and groups like these protestors here are saying they want to know why, why the hardline stand against the protestors and they're calling for the Iranian regime to really show some flexibility in letting those people out of their prisons, out of detention, and rejoin their families again.
BALDWIN: All right. Paula, thank you. And I know that these are happening all around the world, including Berlin.
HOLMES: Berlin. Our Fred Pleitgen, Frederik Pleitgen is there. Well, I don't know if you were able to hear Paula but a similar scene there for you?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN BERLIN CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right, T.J. I would say that about 1,500 people have showed up to this protest here. The protests here in Germany are a little more decentralized than they would be probably in Great Britain. You have protests here in several German cities.
This is the largest one all over Germany. The other thing they didn't say also, of course, did think about the people who are protesting in Iran but they also talked a lot about the people who were killed in the protests after that disputed election, presidential election there in Iran.
There were pictures put up of those who are allegedly killed. There were flowers laid down for those people. And you know, one of the things about these global protests, one of the things that the global protestors are calling for is for the international community to put more pressure on Iran and then certainly something that played a very large role here because Germany is one of the largest trading partners that Iran has -- T.J.
HOLMES: All right. Frederik Pleitgen for us and our Paula Newton as well, we thank you both.
BALDWIN: All right. Let's talk Iraq here. The chief of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan says Iraq is still the center of the fight against terrorism. I'm talking about General David Petraeus. He is in Baghdad and he sat down in Baghdad, talking with Arwa Damon in a CNN exclusive interview that innumerable challenges, that's how he phrased it, innumerable challenges remain in Iraq. He also says Al Qaeda operatives there are connected to others in Afghanistan and other countries.
But he did say on a bit more of a positive note that the transition of security duties from U.S. troops to Iraqis is going well. Meanwhile, today this is happening. Iraq's Kurdish population voting in presidential and parliamentary elections. The final results from the autonomous region of Kurdistan are not expected though for the next few days.
And he starts his day as the school bus driver for a number of students, finishes the day as the principal and he is just one of the amazing stories we've heard in our "Black in America 2" documentary series this week.
HOLMES: Coming up. We will meet him and explain why he says tough love helped him put students on the path to success. You don't want to miss a good conversation about some innovative teaching practices that are working. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am a black American teen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These are my words.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They come from my heart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are part of the reason I strive.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I strive to defy the statistics.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obey the restrictions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exceed the expectations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And discard the limitations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Wow. Young kids talking about exceeding expectations there. They are students and we've featured them numerous times on CNN. This is the Ron Clark Academy sharing their thoughts about being black in America and just really a few of the multiple, impressive teenagers achieving and excelling thanks to some pretty impressive schools.
HOLMES: Very impressive schools. One of those schools is run by principal Steve Perry. You need to know this man. You need to know this guy. And our Soledad O'Brien profiled his work and an incredible graduation rate and not just graduation rate, the rate of those who go on to college. You need to hear this. She profiled him in our "Black in America 2" series.
Take a quick peek.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEVE PERRY, CAPITAL PREP PRINCIPAL: Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Where's your coat, man? You're a tough guy. Good morning.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every morning at 7:30 a.m., you can find Steve Perry here.
PERRY: How's everything?
O'BRIEN: He's principal of Capital Preparatory Magnate School in Hartford, Connecticut.
PERRY: What's up, chief?
O'BRIEN: Each and every day he and the vice principal () greet each and every student as they walk through Capital's doors.
PERRY: How are you today?
O'BRIEN: For Perry, being a principal is all about the details.
PERRY: Whose grade is this? That's not ours. OK. Mr. Carter, you got to be kidding me. That's the fastest you can move, son?
O'BRIEN: From uniform inspections.
PERRY: Where's your blazer, son?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
PERRY: OK. Having it is not enough, right? Put it on.
O'BRIEN: To morning meetings.
PERRY: I know there are quite a few who have not done curriculum mapping.
O'BRIEN: He does it all.
PERRY: Then keep your mouth shut.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't do anything.
PERRY: Just keep it shut.
PERRY: I wake up at 4:45 in the morning and I drive kids to school.
O'BRIEN (on camera): You take kids to school.
PERRY: I do.
O'BRIEN: In your car? PERRY: I have to.
O'BRIEN: You pick them up.
PERRY: Every day.
O'BRIEN: Why? You're the principal.
PERRY: I know. I'm a bus driver in the morning though. You do what you got to do to get it done.
Come on, George. Get to where you need to be.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): And getting it done is priority number one for Perry and his staff.
PERRY: We have a school that is designed to send children to college. If we don't send children to college we're not doing our job.
O'BRIEN (on camera): How many of your kids go to college?
PERRY: Well, 100 percent of our graduates go to college.
O'BRIEN: 100 percent.
PERRY: 100 percent.
O'BRIEN: Every child who graduates.
PERRY: Every child who graduates from Capital Prep goes on to a four-year college. Period.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) finished. It's all set for you.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Children like 18-year-old Glorious Meneffee.
GLORIOUS MENEFFEE, CAPITAL PREP STUDENT: My blazer is in my locker.
I honestly believe if I hadn't gone to Capital Prep I think I wouldn't have finished high school.
O'BRIEN: In spite of a tough childhood, she's smart, hard working, a natural leader. And she has thrived she says because she is surrounded by other, motivated students.
MENEFFEE: Oh, OK. I know how to do this.
Everyone has a certain goal and that goal is to go to college, so when you kind of hear it, it spreads like wildfire, like I'm going to college.
No. I'm going to college. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you disagree raise your hand, that's fine.
O'BRIEN:: How does Capital send all of its graduates on to college?
PERRY: What we do right is we design the school that's year round. There is no reason why children should be home during the summer. What we do right is we have a longer school day. What we do right is we go to school on Saturdays. What we do right is work hard to get children to a place where they need to be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: And joining me now, live, that guy, Steve Perry. He's working on a Saturday, too. We got him here. He's the author of "Raggedy Schools" and founder and director of Capital Prep as you just saw there, the Magnate school in Connecticut. Good to see you, sir.
Again, also right next to me is Ron Clark. He's joining us. He's the founder of Atlanta's Ron Clark Academy. It gained national attention when some of his students created a rap song encouraging people to vote in last year's presidential election. Remember, you can vote however you like. You might remember that.
Good morning. You two are innovators and doing your thing and doing it well. I want to start with a quick question to both of you. And if you can't just give me one or two sentences to sum this up. How are you, Ron? I'll start with you. What is the key to the success in your school that we are not able to duplicate in every school in this country? Why are you succeeding? What is it?
RON CLARK, FOUNDER OF RON CLARK SCHOOL: I think it's all about passion that we have gotten excited about getting these kids -
HOLMES: Whoa, you are excited this morning.
CLARK: Yes. I'm excited about it. We have gotten excited about getting these kids involved. Not only do we work hard as teachers, we pull in the families and bring the families into our school. Our parents spend over 6,500 hours in our school this year really becoming a part of a big unit that works to really believe in these kids and lift them up.
HOLMES: Steve, I'll give the same question to you. A quick one or two sentence answer. Why are you able to succeed where so many others -- what is your strategy?
PERRY: I have a very, very talented staff to start with but we're -- the talented staff is in a great system. We have a school that is designed to be successful. In the nation's most successful private schools, teachers are assigned the responsibility of a triple threat. They coach, they teach, and they advise. In most traditional schools, public schools that is, all teachers are expected to do is to teach. HOLMES: How, also, Steve, and many people are familiar, a lot of people saw our "Black in America 2" and were introduced to you there. We got so much good feedback. I know you're so sought after now because of that. It was so impressive and it made such an impression on people. But that tough love you gave those students as well, not letting them get away with anything. How critical is that?
PERRY: If you've ever been in love you know all love is tough so there's only one way to love somebody. It's to love them genuinely. We believe that correction is the highest form of affection. If I let a child walk around with a shirt hanging out then I don't really care about that child.
And oftentimes if I find myself doing is if I see two children walking together and one child's tie is not up to the top button, I asked the child next to him, son, why would you let this brother walk around like that? It's the responsibility that's shared. It's not just me doing it. It's important that everybody understands. I'm one member of an amazing team of children and parents and faculty. We win because we win together.
HOLMES: Ron, tell me, as well. You mentioned their families and how much time they spend with the children. Is that really key? No matter what a school does, it could be the best school with the best equipment and the best rated teachers in the country but if that child goes home and does not have that support and involvement at home, is he pretty much or he or she pretty much doomed to failure almost in a lot of ways?
CLARK: It makes it much harder. I think across our country we have a lot of dedicated teachers working really hard during the day but when the kids go home at night it's not the same type of atmosphere. And so what we do at our school is not only do we love them when they're in our school but we try to reach out to the homes. We visit every home for the first day of school.
HOLMES: Wow.
CLARK: I've been to all of my kids' houses. We go and meet with the families. And we're really specific with them about how they can get involved in the life of their child as a student and we bring them there and we build a family and it's awesome.
HOLMES: I'm going to bring you both in on this question as well. I'll start with you, Ron. We always talk about, and it should be talked about, the disparities, the racial disparities, the achievement gap between white students and black students. How do you close that gap? That's a very big question there but some say that race shouldn't be a factor in it. It's a matter of socio-economical issues and where the child is and in a poor school of course they're going to under achieve. Is that it, always?
CLARK: I think it's about expectations. When you look at your class, if you see kids that you in your mind are saying all these kids can't learn or these kids can't be as successful as other kids, if you already having that type of thought in your head, you're going to disadvantage these students. You really have to look at all kids regardless of ethnicity, regardless behavior, learning disabilities and you got to see potential and you got to believe that every child can be successful.
HOLMES: Steve, do you believe that's part of the problem, too, that maybe teachers come in with preconceived notions about what a child is capable of doing?
PERRY: Do I think so? I know so. We often have teachers who hide behind the nobility of the profession in order to get away with some foolishness. The truth of the matter is everything that somebody can do for a living, people can be horrible at it. There are people who are teachers who are horrible at it.
If they are looking this and they're thinking oh, man I got to go to work on Monday, maybe they shouldn't. Maybe they should find something else to do. My two children, my two biological sons, are black. There is not going to be an achievement gap between them and any white kid and nor there is going to be any achievement gap between any children in my school and any white kids.
We have an obligation, a moral obligation to provide the children of our communities with access to a world class education regardless of where they are. It's not about economics because the truth of the matter is that we find that even in suburbs that black children are being out performed by virtually every single group in the city such as Atlanta.
I'm told two years ago that 75 percent of the eighth grade has not passed the state examination to go into the ninth grade. That's a lot of middle class black folks in there whose children are being misled and miseducated.
HOLMES: Well, I want to -- the last question I have to ask for a quick response from both of you, is it just naive of us to believe that some of the things you all are able to do in a smaller environment, go to everybody, like you say, Ron, go to every school, every student's house, and are those things, can you not do that on a larger scale across this country?
Will it just cost too much money? We just don't have the time and resources to do it but you all are able to do it because you have smaller schools? I'm sorry. I really got to get a really quick answer from both of you. Steve, you go ahead.
PERRY: Money is not the issue. If money were the issue the best place to send children would be to send them to prison because we send the most amount of money on prison than we do high schools.
CLARK: I agree. At the Ron Clark Academy, it's our job to train other schools and to show them how they can do what we do. We invite over 3,000 people a year, teachers from all across the country that come to our school and they sit in our classroom and we teach them how they can make this possible in public schools and then they go out and make that same impact so, yes, it is possible. HOLMES: All right. If you all don't know these two, you need to know them. Ron Clark, Ron Clark Academy. Steve Perry, as well, you're going to see him a lot because we're going to get him back on our show every chance we get to wake him up. He has become a star now with this "Black in America." You were a star even before we ever introduced the country to you but I'm glad a lot more people know your names and yours too, Ron Clark. You guys are doing some great stuff at your schools. Thank you very much.
PERRY: Congratulations, Ron.
CLARK: Thank you. You too.
HOLMES: Thank you so much. Quick break. We'll be right back.
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HOLMES: A lot of people have been working like a dog but they're going to get paid a little more for doing it now. The minimum wage has gone up and that could help millions of Americans.
BALDWIN: It could help them but workers in a lot of states actually won't get the wage hike. And some analysts now fear that raising the minimum wage could mean losing jobs. Josh Levs is here to talk about that. Josh, this doesn't seem fair.
LEVS: Yes, it's interesting the way it works out. A lot of people don't realize these complexities when you dig in. We have some great details at cnn.com/jobs. It digs in to this but the basic idea, I'll just tell you where there is this federal minimum wage, right? But each state also has its own minimum wage. And states have to pay whichever is higher.
So when the federal minimum wage goes up that helps some people but if states are already paying more, they don't have to change what they're doing. It might get a little complicated. This will make it easy.
Take a look at this. We'll zoom in on the board. You can click on any state, including yours and you can find out what minimum wage is in your state anywhere. In a lot of cases, you see it's 7.25 which is the new federal minimum but in some places, you got Illinois, $8.
I pulled up a screen for you here. Let's just go over to this graphics because I want you to see some examples. These are the places that have the absolute highest in the country. Washington at $8.56. Oregon $8.40. Vermont at $8.06.
All right. Two quick things to bang through. First of all, we have some analysts in this story who say you know what, this will help millions of workers. Let's show you this. It's a 2.8 million. We have a graphic for you. 2.8 million workers overall will be affected. 1.6 million should be helped indirectly. But as you were saying, guys, there are also some analysts out there who say, you know what? These people will be helped but what about states having to pay that, then they might be struggling and that could lead to a loss of jobs, obviously. We have to wait and see how that plays up. Back to you.
HOLMES: Josh, we appreciate you as always. See you again shortly.
Well, what is next with Sarah Palin? Now that she is out of a job? Yes, stepping down, remember, as governor of Alaska?
BALDWIN: Yes, we have pictures of the moving truck, too. We'll talk about that coming up in our 10:00 hour.
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BALDWIN: We're back at the top of the hour. "YOUR BOTTOM LINE" starts now.
