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CNN Saturday Morning News

Government Shutdown Averted; Gadhafi Forces May Be Retaking Libya; Hospital Errors Cause Concern

Aired April 09, 2011 - 09:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Good Saturday morning.

The United States government is still open for business. And they cut it close, a budget deal was struck with just an hour to spare last night and that avoided a shutdown.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, this is your CNN SATURDAY MORNING, glad you could spend a part of your weekend with us.

It's 9:00 a.m. here in Atlanta, Georgia, 9:00 a.m. in Washington, D.C., as well. We will take you there live in a moment.

Right now, 8:00 a.m. in Chicago. Some gray and rainy skies there, and there are some severe storms threatening the Midwest as we speak. Our Bonnie Schneider is coming up shortly.

Also, medical mistakes, we have all either been in the hospital or know someone who has been, but did you know these medical mistakes are happening ten times more often than originally thought? This is some scary stuff. You need to hear what you can do to protect yourself.

But we need to begin with what we saw last night. Last-minute budget deal was struck. The government is not shut down. Instead, we did see a compromise. In fact, we saw two compromises and we actually saw two deals.

Let me explain. One was a short-term plan. This one will keep the government running for another week. The President is expected to sign that at some point today. According to our Ed Henry, this could come maybe within the next hour. We'll get an update from Ed.

Also, the second deal, this is the bigger deal, the one that funds the federal government through September. That's the end of the fiscal year. This one calls for almost $40 billion in cuts from the president's original budget proposal. Republicans had originally called for $61 billion in cuts; Democrats said that was too much.

Another huge issue that the two sides ended up fighting over yesterday, funding for Planned Parenthood. Republicans dropped their demands to change funding for that program.

While Democrats agreed to still bring the issue up for a separate vote in the Senate, Democrats in the Senate also agreed to take up a Republican initiative to repeal President Obama's health care overhaul law.

Listen to the president now after the 11th hour deal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tomorrow, I'm pleased to announce that the Washington Monument, as well as the entire federal government, will be open for business, and that's because today Americans of different beliefs came together again.

In the final hours before our government would have been forced to shut down, leaders in both parties reached an agreement that will allow our small businesses to get the loans they need, our families to get the mortgages they applied for, and hundreds of thousands of Americans to show up at work and take home their paychecks on time, including our brave men and women in uniform.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right. I want to bring in our congressional correspondent, Brianna Keilar, as well as our senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry. Both were working late, working hard yesterday.

Guys, thank you both for being here.

Ed, I want to come to you quickly first. Do we still have that about right, your reporting that maybe the president was going to sign at around 10:00 a.m., that short-term continuing resolution, is that right?

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a source familiar with the negotiations says it could be as early as then. And it's stressing that time is not locked in yet because as I think we've learned yet again in the last couple of days, it's a lot of procedure up there on Capitol Hill. These things take a little bit of time.

But the bottom line is that the betting right now is mid-morning or so. This should be coming over to the president. We would expect he would sign that pretty quickly.

HOLMES: And Brianna, let me come over to you then, explain to our viewers why that one was necessary in the first place and why you essentially had to have two deals last night?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The long-term budget deal is going to - I mean it's not a simple process, let's put it that way.

HOLMES: Yes.

KEILAR: Ed was talking about there being procedure and it being complicated. It's kind of like what President Obama referred to, using a short-term stop-gap measure as they do the paperwork, if you will. So we're going to see all of that hashed out, put into legislative language. Because it's not as simple as saying, OK, this what is we agreed to and everybody votes on it. It has to be put in a bill form.

They came to an agreement last night I'm told by a Democratic aide, at 10:30 p.m., that's when the handshake was, T.J. And the negotiators had been told that actually the wind up to shutting down the government was going to begin at 11:00 p.m.. So we're talking 30 minutes difference.

I should tell you though I ran up the street to grab a coffee and I ran into Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio who was on his way out of town and I asked, I was talking to him about the deal and he said that he actually felt pretty confident yesterday around noon or so, talking to other Senate Democrats that they were going to come to a deal. We were getting really strong indications that they were coming to a deal, much farther into the day, into the evening.

HOLMES: Well, if you see Senator Brown again, I appreciate it if you tell him thank you for all of us, if he knew at noon why did he put us through all of that.

Ed, we bring you back in here.

Ed, where was the president in all this late last night? He did come out and make the statement, but as the back and forth was going on, the negotiations, was the president actively involved, maybe not in the room but was he on the phones?

HENRY: Well, absolutely. He's working the phones all day, throughout the day yesterday. He spoke a couple times with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to push this along, his fellow Democrat.

But he also, according to White House aides, spoke to Speaker Boehner no less than four times, over the phone, including pretty late in the evening before this was all, you know, tied up finally and just about ready for a deal.

So the bottom line is, a president who faced a lot of criticism for not getting his hands dirty enough early on in the process, certainly turned it up in the last three or four days and frankly, in private, White House officials say there was all this hand wringing in the media, hand wringing among some lawmakers but they always felt, reserve your best weapon, the president for the final stretch. And in the end, it worked.

HOLMES: All right. Swell, guys, we appreciate you both this morning.

Had just a short time ago, Representative Israel say that this wasn't even act one. This was just the overture here, because as you know there are a couple big fights still to come.

But Ed, Brianna, always good to see you guys. Thanks so much.

I want to turn now to Libya. We're getting some breaking news out of there, specifically from our Ben Wedeman, he is just outside of Ajdabiya. Ben is joining me now. Ben, what can you tell us? We know there's been some back and forth with these cities, it seems exchanging hands, but now Ajdabiya, Moammar Gadhafi's forces may be making a move?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes. We understand that, T.J., from people coming out of there, that Gadhafi's forces have entered the city of Ajdabiya, normally home to about 100,000 people, but now more sits empty.

There's currently street fighting going on within the city, we're being told by opposition fighters that the Gadhafi forces approached the town from several directions in just small groups of two or three civilian cars and pick-ups, making it very difficult for any sort of air strike to take place by the NATO aircraft that are supposed to be patrolling the skies over Libya.

There was intense artillery bombardment of Ajdabiya and the outskirts preceding this Libyan Army advance. The opposition forces have regrouped on the opposite, the eastern edge of the city, trying to mount potentially a counter offensive, but the latest we're hearing, there's lots of street fighting going on within the city itself -- T.J.

HOLMES: Ben, remind our viewers of the importance of this city?

WEDEMAN: This is the last city on the road to Benghazi. From Benghazi - from Ajdabiya to Benghazi it's 100 miles, it's open highway. There are no defenses along the way, except a few scattered checkpoints manned by lightly armed teenagers and young men.

Really, the last city before you reach the capital of eastern Libya, the area controlled by the opposition forces. So if Ajdabiya falls there's little to stop Gadhafi forces from reaching the second largest city in Libya, and home to the transitional national council, which is essentially the opposition government here -- T.J.

HOLMES: All right. Our Ben Wedeman. Ben, just outside of Ajdabiya. Thank you so much. we'll continue to check in with him, developments there in Libya, happening today, where fighting continues in the all important city of Ajdabiya as he just reported there and Gadhafi forces seem to be making a move on that city.

Quickly, we want to turn back to this country and flood watches that are in effect. This is some serious stuff here, folks. You can see from the pictures here, a number of counties here in eastern South Dakota this morning are in trouble. Lakes there have been rising by an inch or more per day, this week. This is part of the annual spring thaw. It has created a big demand for a lot of sandbags. We're keeping a close eye on that.

Our Bonnie Schneider is in this weekend for Reynolds Wolf. We will be talking to her here in just a moment. We will do it actually right now.

Forgive me there, Bonnie Schneider. But yes, they do this every year. Quite frankly, routine for them, if you will. They know how to do it, do it well, they're just hoping it's going to hold.

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's really it because in 2009, we came very close, you know, to a lot of flooding in Fargo, and that's actually one of the areas under a flood threat right now. We'll be watching the river very closely Sunday because that's when we're expecting it to crest very close to the record crest that occurred in 2009 when this was leading the headlines. It does happen every year, the spring thaw.

Now another thing that happens this time of year, especially in April is the severe weather. And it can come in the form of severe thunderstorms or tornadoes. Here's what we're looking at right now. A line of severe thunderstorms working its way across parts of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Now this storm system you're looking at here has a history of producing large and damaging hail, frequent lightning strikes and heavy downpours of rain.

With that said, we are looking at a severe thunderstorm watch box that extends all the way into Kentucky, parts of Ohio and this goes straight into 1:00 this afternoon. Another city that's going to see severe weather this weekend is to the north, in Chicago. Let's go there now. We can show you a live picture. Well, Chicago, you've got quite an interesting weekend ahead of you. Not only are you looking at the threat for severe weather, later today and especially for tomorrow, but a big change in the temperatures too.

Today's highs will be in the 60s. Tomorrow you will be in the mid to low 80s. That is unusual, but that's exactly what you're facing. You can see some of the rain sliding to the south of this city, not really impacting it right now. But again we're looking at a big severe weather threat as we go through the hours tomorrow.

A flash flood warning continues for parts of Missouri. This is an area that we've seen some heavy flooding occur near Hamilton, it's something we're monitoring. And we're not only monitoring the wet weather in the Midwest, but I also want to point out just the opposite in the southwest. Dry, windy, hot conditions, high fire danger, a really critical area in western Oklahoma. We've been talking about the fires there all week. But today, and tomorrow, something different is happening.

In New Mexico, the winds are picking up and they could get as strong, T.J., as gusts of 60 miles per hour. And that may cause dust storms in the area. So lots happening across the country with extreme weather for today.

HOLMES: All right. Bonnie, we appreciate you being here with us this weekend. We'll check in with you again throughout the morning.

Ten minutes past the hour now.

Tea Party politicians, went to Washington, promising big cuts. But did the new budget deal cut deep enough for their constituents back home? We're getting that answer, an answer that could be key to the 2012 campaigns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, 13 minutes past the hour now.

A trio of possible Republican presidential candidates are delivering their messages to voters in South Carolina today. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum all are speakers today.

They are attending the Greenville County and Spartanburg County Republican Conventions. South Carolina critical in the race for the 2012 nomination because it's primary comes early in the campaign, actually the third contest, though, coming after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Well, a lot to talk about at those events in South Carolina. A lot of talk will be about the budget deal that was just reached late last night.

Also, who stood their ground, who caved? Winners, losers? Possibly anybody win really? Let's get to it.

Well, a couple of familiar faces I'm so happy to be welcoming back to "CNN Saturday Morning," Lenny McAllister, Republican analyst, joining me from Chicago.

Good to see you.

And, of course, Maria Cardona. She is a Democratic strategist. She's joining me today from New York.

Guys, good to see you both.

We are actually going to start with a little multiple choice for you this morning. The question is, who actually came out looking good in this process? A, Obama, b, Republicans, c, Democrats, or d, none of the above? Maria?

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I actually think ultimately the president came out looking good in this because he came out looking as the adult in the room and he basically gave the image of the unifier which is something that we know has been a theme of his since the beginning of his campaign.

It's something he has wanted to push all along. He has been pushing from the sidelines and was very active this last week, as you know, calling both parties to the White House, calling both parties out to make sure that we get this deal because at the end of the day, the losers in all of this, if the government had shut down, would have been the American people. That's something that he knew he did not want to happen.

HOLMES: Lenny, what would be your choice? Anybody coming out looking better than another?

LENNY MCALLISTER, REPUBLICAN ANALYST: Well, you didn't put Boehner on there. If you put Boehner on there, I had to go with an A and B. The top two, obviously, would be President Obama, he does look like a unifier like this. He needs to get credit where the credit is due.

But I think John Boehner was also a big winner in this as well. He was between the rock and the hard place when it came to the Tea Party, freshmen Republican congressmen, and the types of cuts America needs and the Democrats and he played it rather well and for President Obama, you go back to December with the tax cuts, you go to the START Treaty, now you go to this. He is starting to look like the post- partisan unifier that he campaigned on in 2008.

HOLMES: Now, Maria, do you see that as well? A lot of people thought that he was in a tough spot and he was being led rather than being a leader. We're talking about Boehner here.

CARDONA: I do think he was in a very tough spot, and you saw it in the - such an interesting process that occurred, which was that Democrats early on, agreed to the majority of the cuts that Boehner had asked for.

And what happened was, that when he went back to his Tea Party caucus, they said no, we not only want more, but we want these policy riders that would have made our air unsafe, our water unsafe, and importantly, and you've been talking about it this morning, the Planned Parenthood services that basically give services, health care services, to millions of American women, they wanted to get rid of all of that.

That was a line in the sand for them. So Boehner was between a rock and a hard place, because that was something that Democrats were not going to accept.

HOLMES: So Lenny, if Boehner came out looking pretty good and looked like a leader like you would say, did the Tea Party lose out here, because they wanted more and I know you spoke at a bunch of Tea Party rallies, you traveled around the country doing some work with them, would you say, though, that maybe they came out on the losing end?

MCALLISTER: No. They won because they got cuts. They're moving the cuts in the right direction and some of the conversations we need to have, they are bringing up.

Listen, the Democrats are more than willing to shut down the government when it came to Planned Parenthood and what people have to understand is, that Democrats, if nothing else, were willing to show that they will demagogue the Republicans and try to make it an ideological situation and they did in order to try to make sure that Planned Parenthood stayed with funding.

And it's very disingenuous because this was less about ideology and more about a constituency that will fund elections in 2012. The Planned Parenthood constituency is going to have a major impact on who gets money in 2012 including the president which is why the senatorial Democrats fought so hard to make sure that that rider was removed. And the Tea Party at least - HOLMES: Go ahead, Maria.

MCALLISTER: - exposed that for what it is.

CARDONA: Yes. I got to jump in here because it makes it sound like the Democrats were the ones who put Planned Parenthood on the table. It was completely the opposite. It was the Tea Partiers who said we need to make sure that Planned Parenthood does not get their funding and they were the ones who are outside of the Capitol saying, "Cut it, or shut it."

It was not Democrats who were cheering on their leaders for a shutdown. It was not Democrats who cheered in the room when their leaders came in with a prospect of a government shutdown. It was not Democrats who were basically saying, "We will cut it, if you do - we will shut it if you don't cut it."

So I think in the end, we saw that Boehner is between a rock and a hard place and this is going to be a huge test of his leadership because if you think this was bad for him, then we're going to have a tough budget battle, several budget battles, coming down the line?

HOLMES: Lenny, do this for me and wrap it in 10 seconds, should we be encouraged or discouraged with the battles ahead after what we just saw?

MCALLISTER: Encouraged because we can fight hard, but we can get to some resolutions and I think that if everybody keeps in mind the victories we tap from December to now, we can make the tough decisions and move forward as Americans together.

HOLMES: Maria, Lenny, guys, it's good to see you both. I hope to see you a lot more here on the weekends and we didn't even get to talk Donald Trump. We'll get to that next time. All right, guys. Maria, Lenny, good to see you both.

CARDONA: Thanks so much, T.J.

HOLMES: Talk to you guys soon.

MCALLISTER: Good to see you too, T.J.

HOLMES: Of course, we're all just human. Everybody out there makes mistakes, even in the medical field though. That's the last place you want them. A recent survey show medical mistakes happen a whole lot more often than anybody would ever think or certainly want.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, all of us have been in the hospital before, probably unfortunately will be or we have family members who have been through the hospital or will be. So Elizabeth Cohen joining me here now. It's certainly scary for all of us to hear that there are more and more mistakes happening at the hospital.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is and this recent report that just came out, maybe there are even more mistakes than we thought. I mean researchers have been keeping track of mistakes. A report that just came out that said maybe we haven't been catching them all because of the way that we measure it. So this new report says, one out of every three people seems to have something go wrong in the hospital that may be the result of an error, the result of someone doing something wrong.

HOLMES: All right. We hear one out of three, that doesn't sound too good for us going to the hospital. Well, how serious are these incidents or how serious, I guess, are these mistakes we're talking about? Are we talking about life threatening type? COHEN: Yes, some of them are. I mean, we're talking about sometimes accidents, mistakes that can kill people. Luckily that's not usually the case.

HOLMES: Right.

COHEN: To things that where something goes wrong and it needs to be fixed but in the end it doesn't end up being a big deal. But the point that experts make to me all the time is, "Why are these happening?" You know, they're preventable in most cases, why do these keep happening? So let's look at the kinds of things that go on.

HOLMES: OK.

COHEN: Because, they fall into different categories. So medication mistakes are the most common mistakes in hospitals. So I get the medication that's meant for you, or you get the medication that's meant for me, you get the wrong dosage, you get it the wrong time of day or something like that. Also bad surgical outcomes. Something goes wrong in surgery and often it is a preventable error, and hospital infections.

And you know, experts tell me that they believe that most, if not all, infections that you get in the hospital, could have been prevented. It's not just faith. Something could have been done to prevent that infection.

HOLMES: Now in the hospital we all feel like - OK, these are the he experts. They know what they're doing. It's like you're at the mercy of that hospital, that doctor, that nurse. So is there anything that you can actually do yourself to try to catch these things or you're really at their mercy?

COHEN: You're not completely at their mercy.

HOLMES: OK.

COHEN: There are definitely things that you can do. So let's take a look at some things you can do, some "Empowered Patient" tips.

First of all, and I know this sounds icky, but it's so important I just have to point it out. If you have a catheter in you, in any part of your body, you want to ask every day can this thing come out? Catheters are great places for infections. If you can get it out of you, get it out of you. Every day it's in there, that's the bigger risk that you're going to get an infection, one that could kill you.

OK. So that's the first thing.

HOLMES: All right.

COHEN: The second thing is check your medications. When you get that medication, check the IV bag or bottle, make sure your name is on it.

HOLMES: That's easy enough.

COHEN: You know your name. Or maybe you're too sick to know your name but the person who hopefully is with you, will know that.

And also, ask doctors and nurses to wash their hands. If they come in and you don't see them wash their hands, ask them. And it's awkward, I've been there, I've done it for family members who have been in the hospital, and they sometimes will actually give you a hard time, believe it or not, and they say, "My gloves are on, I'm clean." Well, I didn't see you put those gloves on. What if you put those on with dirty hands. That doesn't work. So please take them off, wash your hands, put on new gloves.

HOLMES: All right. I guess that is a tough spot for a patient to be in, to ask the professional to do that.

COHEN: It is but I always say you're not in the hospital to make friends. That's not why you're not there. You're there to come out alive and hopefully even better than when you walked in.

HOLMES: It's a big system, a lot of patients, a lot of hospitals, are some of these things just going to happen unavoidable or no, we need to be doing better?

COHEN: Well, you know, experts tell me that most of these are avoidable and that it's really too bad that hospitals haven't done a better job, but that hospitals are getting better. There is some data that says the hospitals are getting better at preventing certain kinds of infections or are getting better at catching certain kinds of mistakes. You know, years ago, they didn't really even own up to this problem. Now they're owning up to it much more.

HOLMES: As you always say, the empowered patient.

COHEN: That's right. You have to be one, especially in the hospital.

HOLMES: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. Great information this morning.

That budget dilemma in Congress settled, at least for now. But what about down the road? Could the education of the nation's youth be hit with a budget cut? A special edition of "Your Bottom Line" in three minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HOLMES: I'll be back at the top of the hour with more live news. But right now, CNN's Christine Romans with a special edition of "YOUR BOTTOM LINE."