Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Saturday Morning News
Pastor Critical of Romney; Herman Cain Enjoying Rise in Popularity; NBA Lockout Continues; Cardinals to Face Brewers in NLCS; Retail Secrets Revealed
Aired October 08, 2011 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: We are at the top of the morning now. Good morning you to all.
Faith back in the forefront of the race for the White House after an influential Evangelical leader says Mitt Romney belongs to a cult. But calling Mormonism a cult is actually nothing new. We'll explain.
Also new this morning, and not good news of you NBA fans. It's all but certain the first two weeks of the NBA season will be canceled and maybe more after the owners issued an ultimatum to the players.
This is your CNN SATURDAY MORNING, 7:00 A.M. here in Atlanta, 6:00 A.M. in Fayetteville, Arkansas, 4:00 A.M. in Scottsdale, Arizona. Wherever you are, glad you're right here.
And did you hear what happened yesterday? Really blew up into a controversy last night. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is facing new criticism for being a Mormon. Nothing new here really.
But this time it's coming from a pastor, an influential pastor of a mega church in Dallas. His name is Reverend Robert Jeffress. Now, he happened to be on hand to introduce Rick Perry at the Conservative Value Voters Summit in Washington. He was critical of the Mormon Church and told our Jim Acosta and told a number of reporters that Mormonism is a cult.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you don't mind me saying, Pastor Jeffress, you created a bit of a stir coming out of that speech because in talking to reporters, you said in pretty strong, plain language what you think of Mormonism. You describe it as a cult. And you said that if a Republican votes for Mitt Romney, they're giving some credibility to a cult.
Do you stand by that comment?
REV. ROBERT JEFFRESS, SENIOR PASTOR, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF DALLAS: Oh, absolutely.
And that's not some fanatical comment. That's been the historic position of evangelical Christianity. The Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant denomination of the world, has officially labeled Mormonism as a cult. I think Mitt Romney's a good moral man, but I think those of us who are born again followers of Christ should always prefer a competent Christian to a competent non-Christian, like Mitt Romney.
So that's why I'm enthusiastic about Rick Perry.
ACOSTA: But what do you say to those voters out there who say that religion, his Mormonism, shouldn't be an issue in this campaign? He's just as American as everybody else?
JEFFRESS: Oh, I agree he's just as American as anyone else. And Article Six of the Constitution prohibits --
ACOSTA: And Mormons do say they are Christians.
JEFFRESS: Yes.
ACOSTA: They say that. They believe in Jesus Christ.
JEFFRESS: A lot of people say they're Christians and they're not. But they do not embrace historical Christianity. And I, again, believe that as Christians we have the duty to prefer and select Christians as our leaders. That's what John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, said.
And, again, I think when we've got a choice as evangelicals, between a Rick Perry and a Mitt Romney, I believe evangelicals need to go with Rick Perry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Again, this is not the first time we heard someone call Mormonism as a cult -- certainly not the first time that Romney has come under attack for his beliefs. He faced criticism that's very similar to this when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination four years ago, even had to deal with some -- kind of some nastiness out there on the campaign trail and some people didn't even want to shake his hand.
Look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hello, sir. How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm one person who will not vote for a Mormon.
ROMNEY: Oh, is that right? Can I shake your hand anyway?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now, a lot of people just don't know a whole lot about the Mormon Church. Well, let me tell you, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded by a farmer named Joseph Smith in the early 1800s. He says an angel guided him to a hill in New York state and there on that hill, church doctrine says Smith found golden tablets detailing how Christ visited an ancient civilization in the Americas. Those tablets are the basis for the Book of Mormon.
Smith claimed he saw God and Christ in the flesh on a hill in Palmyra, New York. He and his followers fled persecution in New York, headed out west and eventually settled in what became Utah.
Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are considered prophets and apostles of God. Mormons do believe in Christ and God and they do consider themselves Christians.
Now, Pastor Jeffress, he is backing Governor Perry and says basically Americans should not vote for Romney because of his Mormon faith.
Again, all this was happening at the Values Voter Conference. That summit there in Washington, D.C.
A number of the other candidates were there, including Mr. Herman Cain. You know he has been pretty popular here lately, it seems. He's near the top of a number of GOP presidential polls. Friday at that summit, the former talk show host and CEO of Godfather's Pizza were feeling good about his new found popularity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HERMAN CAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you very much.
Three months ago the pundits -- the political pundits said Herman Cain can't get the nomination. Herman Cain cannot win the presidency because he doesn't have high name ID. He doesn't have a kajillion (ph) dollars and he's never held public office. But let me tell you what the American people are saying. They don't care about a kajillion dollars. America wants to raise some Cain, not more money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now, he really got that crowd fired up, got a number of standing ovation. He also went to continue to slam the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, calling out those protesters and calling them capitalists.
Four minutes past the hour now. Some new details this morning about the White House involvement in that whole Solyndra loan deal. They're coming from emails the administration has now sent to Congress. Two House panels are looking into why the White House pushed for $535 million in federal loan guarantees for a California solar energy company that the president visited. That company eventually went bankrupt.
The loan was approved in May of 2010. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in August of this year.
Just give you one little taste of some of these emails, one of them from an Energy Department advisor who's talking about getting the loan approved says the White House is, quote, "breathing down my neck on this," end quote. The White House, however, has been defending its handling of that loan.
Also, we know this week we saw the death of Steve Jobs after a battle with cancer. Well, his funeral apparently was held yesterday. It was a quiet family gathering. "Wall Street Journal" reporting that funeral was held yesterday. The paper quoting an unnamed source who says the service was small, and a private affair. No details about actually where it happened. But we do know, this innovator, Steve Jobs, died Wednesday after that long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Also at five minutes past the hour now, we continue to watch this cantaloupe recall because the number of deaths has gone up now. They're a link to those contaminated cantaloupes. Up to 21 now have died of these listeria bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says at least 109 cases overall of listeria have been reported in 24 states and they're still afraid that number is going to go up.
These tainted cantaloupes were traced to Jensen Farms of Colorado. They were recalled last month. They do believe that all the cantaloupes are out of stores. But again, they expect the number of incidents to go up of listeria because you could have eaten one of these things months ago and might not feel sick yet.
We turn to New York now where the district attorney there in Queens says a two-year investigation broken up a $13 million global crime ring. Police have arrested 86 people in a series of raids that started Tuesday. They're looking for another 25 suspects. The D.A. says the ring used forged credit cards and identity theft.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARTOON CHARACTER: Someone's got to stop her from going through with this fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Well, someone has stopped some of the actors from going through with their fight. The fight between 20th Century FOX and the producers of the hit show, they say it's now over. This dispute is over. Both sides have come to an agreement for a 24th and 25th season of "The Simpsons." The negotiations had stalled over pay for the actors who do the voices of those iconic characters. The details, though, were not announced.
Reynolds Wolf, I say good morning to him at six minutes past the hour.
Why that look on your face, Reynolds?
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we're just sitting here in the weather cube and just having a conversation about how many years "The Simpsons" have been around. It's hard to believe it's been around for over two decades.
HOLMES: It's something now. We got the other competitors, you know, with "The Family Guys" of the world and "The Cleveland Show." But still, FOX is doing all right with their animated show. WOLF: All of them are doing OK. All are doing just fine.
Hey, switching to weather. One thing that hasn't been doing well is Texas. You know, Texas has just been dry as could be, a lot of the farmers and ranchers really been suffering just over this past season. Well, now, we're making the jump into fall. And with it, we're having some heavy rain just moving through parts of the Lone Star State.
Not only that, but there's also the potential for flooding, possibly widespread flooding in places like Lubbock and Midland. We're going to talk about that coming up in a few minutes. Plus, we're also going to talk about your travel weather for this weekend.
T.J., let's send it back to you.
HOLMES: All right. Reynolds, thank you kind, sir.
Well, we don't know if this will be the year that LeBron James can get his first NBA title. He might not even get to play in the NBA this year. Well, it's not just him. It's all the players because right now, it appears at least the first two weeks of the season going to have to be canceled after they couldn't come to an agreement on a meeting this weekend.
Who's to blame? We'll get into it in a couple minutes.
Stay with us on this CNN SATURDAY MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Reynolds, we love our director, Deidre. All right? We love her. All right?
WOLF: Of course. She keeps us informed. She's the one back there giving the commands of what you see on TV.
She gets in my ear and says, hey, that's a picture of L.A. I didn't know if the LAX gave it away. But we love her. We love, love Deidre around here.
WOLF: That's a nice shot out there. It's not bad. You got to love that. It says LAX. I mean, you know, if you don't like airports, you want to put an E-X in front of that and that's what it feels like, you know? It feels like, you know, what you need when you go through security lines. It can get frustrating.
But you know what? East Coast, West Coast, no travel trouble spots, which is great. Center of the nation, a little different.
HOLMES: All right.
WOLF: You make that drive going from, say, Dallas over to El Paso? You have ever made that drive?
HOLMES: I have never made that. WOLF: OK, good. This kind of leads into what I'm talking about. When you make that drive on a freeway, you're going to go over a couple of places here and especially when you're in Amarillo and Lubbock, where you have these dry river beds, dry rivers, today those things are going to be full. Water is going to be just roaring down those things. It's something that ranchers and farmers are hoping for in the Lone Star State. It's going to be too much too late.
HOLMES: Too much.
WOLF: And too late. I mean, growing season is over. Let me show you what we're talking about.
We've got a big line of thunderstorms that extends for over 1,000 miles right across parts of the Central Plains. You're also seeing some yellow boxes that are popping up here and there. At least areas surrounded by these yellow boxes. Those are the severe thunderstorm warnings.
And we could see anywhere from, say, six, maybe as much as 10 inches of rainfall imbedded in some of these as we make our way through the weekend. Not just today but it's going to stretch through Saturday and into Sunday also. Meanwhile, the back half of the system, we got much colder air that's spilling down into the Rockies.
So, let's put this together. You got a lot of moisture coming through and a lot of freezing conditions and the highest elevations. Well, what that means, you could see anywhere from, say, a foot of snowfall in the highest peaks.
We're not saying right downtown Denver. No. But back in these ski resorts, the snow is coming down. Probably not that perfect powder that's coming later on in the season, but you're going to be getting some stuff in this early nice state.
In Florida, not so much. If you're hoping for a great day to head out and about and really enjoy the parks or even beaches, it's going to be a very damp day for you. Still nice there if you like any days of beaches. From Port Orange southward to Port Pierce, you're going to be seeing the scattered showers, everything coming from the Atlantic and driving right on through.
The reason why we're seeing that is because we have an area of high pressure that is building up off the Eastern Seaboard. That high is going to keep things pretty tranquil in Boston and New York, even in the nation's capital. But it's also going to pull a lot of the moist air into parts of -- say places like Orlando, even in Atlanta. We're not expecting the rain. But humidity levels going to start stacking up. So, you'll feel the difference in the afternoon.
Salt Lake City, back all the way to Phoenix, even to Los Angeles, plenty of sunshine there. High temperatures out to the west. Fairly comfortable depending on where you happen to be. You don't mind 44 degrees in Denver, you're going to be happy.
Wrapping things up in Salt Lake City with 56, 68 degrees in San Francisco, 63 in Seattle, 82 in Minneapolis, 88 in Dallas, 80 in Atlanta. And Boston, home of the Red Sox, 80. That's the high.
All right. T.J., you're up to speed. Your turn, my friend.
HOLMES: All right. Thank you, kind sir.
All right. We're going to turn to a little sports here. And for you NBA fans, bad news.
It looks like at least the first two weeks of the NBA season is going to have to be canceled. A meeting between the NBA and its players union scheduled for this weekend to get a deal done is not going to take place. They couldn't agree to the terms of even the meeting to talk about the terms of a deal.
You get what we're saying here?
So, they said if they couldn't get a deal done by Monday. They would likely have to cancel the first two weeks. It looks like that's what's going to happen.
The NBA spokesman Tim Franks said, "We told the union today that we were willing to meet as early as Sunday. We also advised them that we were unwilling to move above the 50-50 split of revenues that was discussed between the parties on Tuesday, but we wanted to meet with them to discuss the many remaining open issues. The union declined."
So, that is it. Now, 50/50 to you might sound like a good deal out there. But in this deal, it's not. The two sides were about 53-47 with the players getting the 53. They were trying to get closer and closer together. Owners now want to do it 50/50. Players say no way.
WOLF: We've got a 3-year-old and 5-year-old at home. Some of the fights they have in the den over toys actually make more sense than some of the fights I've seen in professional sports in both the NBA and the NFL.
It's really sad to say. The fans are the biggest losers of all.
HOLMES: Yes. But the baseball fans are pretty happy right now.
WOLF: Great baseball.
HOLMES: Not if you're a Phillies fan. What is going on in Philadelphia right now? The Cardinals beat out the Phillies who were actually heavily favored, not just to win the series but to actually win the World Series.
The Cardinals just barely got to the playoffs. But here they are moving on. They'll be taking on Milwaukee.
Milwaukee won a great game in extra innings last night with a walk off run.
So, National League Championship Series gets going tomorrow.
And it was 26 years in the making. But, finally, the Chicago Bears got their White House visit. This was yesterday, the 1985 champs. All right?
What took so long you might be wondering? Well, if you think back to 1985, right after that classic Bears team won the Super Bowl, Walter Payton, Refrigerator Perry, you remember that classic team and Coach Ditka there. Well, the space shuttle Challenger disaster happened just two days after the Super Bowl.
The team was supposed to go to the White House. That trip got canceled. So they never, ever made it up until now.
I'm sure it has to do, Reynolds with the current resident of the White House being a Chicago guy.
WOLF: Absolutely. I mean why not? I mean, it's a good fit. Have you noticed how it's funny that time changes some people? You look in the pictures. You recognize the faces. One guy who looks relatively the same is Ditka, pretty much the same. I mean, the guy hasn't changed much at all. He has just frozen in time.
HOLMES: Same attitude and fiery guy.
WOLF: What a character.
HOLMES: All right. Reynolds, thank you.
WOLF: You bet.
HOLMES: We'll see Reynolds, of course, plenty throughout the morning.
And something we want you to see and somebody we want you to know, a wreck at a race -- you see this? That car is on fire. And it's what a fellow racer came and did that we want to tell you about this morning.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. Seventeen minutes past the hour now.
Kip Hughes, you might now know him? You're about to know him, because we think we should know him. And let me explain to you why.
Take a look at this first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Seven years of announcing that is the worst one I have ever seen!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now, this is what happened before the announcement. A wreck at a stock car race at the Stock Car Nationals in Oklahoma. One of the cars flips over there, catches fire, and several people try and pull the driver out. He's pretty much stuck in there. They can't get him out.
Then comes along another guy in a helmet. This guy is a fellow racer. He stopped his car and that is who I want you to know. His name is Kip Hughes, another driver.
He ripped off the window netting. He keeps pulling and pulling as hard as he can and eventually get that fellow driver out. Flames were actually literally hitting Hughes' helmet as this was going on.
He says, as all this was happening, he was thinking about something that happened 20 years ago. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIP HUGHES, OKLAHOMA STOCK CAR RACER: You know, I was a little boy in the stands when the wreck happened with my father. And, you know, I know that that guy had family in the stands, just like everybody else did that was there, and I just want to make sure that, you know, nothing happened bad. You know, they didn't have to go through what, you know, my family had to go through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Driver Hughes rescue had burns to his hand, had some back pain as well. But, otherwise, doing OK. Kip Hughes was the event's defending champion.
We're at 19 minutes past the hour. I got some advice for you. The next time you go shopping -- that could be today -- when you go shopping today, whatever you do, when you enter the store, don't turn to the right. Retailers have figured you out and are tricking you into spending more money.
Clyde Anderson is here to keep you from falling forward, that is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: All right. Twenty-two minutes past the hour.
Let's say good morning to our Clyde Anderson, financial analyst.
CLYDE ANDERSON, FINANCIAL ANALYST: Good morning.
HOLMES: And we're talking about these stores that are studying us.
ANDERSON: Yes.
HOLMES: They're figuring us out and then they're tricking us into buying something. Now, how much time, energy, effort and money do they put into this kind of research?
ANDERSON: Millions of dollars.
HOLMES: Really?
ANDERSON: Millions of dollars. This is a big game. We got to realize the game and we got to play it like it's a game.
But we don't know rules a lot of times and so we lose.
HOLMES: OK. And they're spending millions because clearly they gets us to spend millions in the store.
ANDERSON: Exactly.
HOLMES: All right. Here's one of the tricks. It's the display. And even how they fold the clothes is meant to entice us?
ANDERSON: It's called the magic fold. It's the way they fold the clothes. It's a proper fold. It looks so neat.
But also you have that display with the wonderful model with the shirt on that's wearing the shirt. And then you believe you're going to look like that model in the shirt there. So, you're going to go ahead and purchase it. It looks so neat there standing there. You can't refuse that.
HOLMES: I just thought they stack them because you want a clean, neat store. You say that plays on our mind.
ANDERSON: It plays on your mind. It looks so wonderfully stacked. You want to go ahead and purchase that shirt.
HOLMES: OK, here we go. You're telling me buy one/get one free is not a good deal sometimes?
ANDERSON: Not always. Sometimes it can be.
HOLMES: If I buy one, I get another one free. It's a good deal.
ANDERSON: Now tell me this -- do you always know what the original price was?
HOLMES: Yes.
ANDERSON: If you don't know what the original price was, how can you really know if you're getting a deal? That's what you got to look for. So, if you don't know that, they could be already increasing the price to go ahead and give you that. They're just trying up to the numbers.
So, the more units they sell, the better the numbers look.
HOLMES: OK, I don't know about that one. Buy one, get one free -- that always is a good deal.
ANDERSON: Sounds good.
HOLMES: All right. Here's the one. I teased it a second ago. When you walk into the store, don't turn to your right. This is something we would never think about.
ANDERSON: They're anticipating that you're going to turn to the right. The majority of people in this country are right-handed. And so what do we do, we turn to the right. So, they're going to put the higher cost items over to the right. They're going to play the music a little bit louder to the right hand side to attract you over to that side.
And so, the new items, the feature items, the things that are higher priced or higher ticket items, they're going to have to move it to the right.
HOLMES: So, chances are, you will -- aren't you going to eventually get around to that part of the store anyway?
ANDERSON: Sometimes maybe. Sometimes not. It depends on what you're doing. You may spend all your money before you get to the left.
HOLMES: OK, here's another one. Everybody knows this one. The little things at the counter as you're standing there waiting to pay, you see all this little stuff around you.
ANDERSON: We should know. We've known this. We talked about this. But we still fall for it. You know, it's the impulse items.
So, we're standing there. We're waiting at the register. That looks good. It's only a couple bucks, I'll buy it. And they know you're going to do that.
So, that's why they strategically place them there for you to go and buy stuff that you really don't need. It was not your intention when you came in the store and buy it.
HOLMES: OK. These little add-ons that you just reminded me.
Let's put -- OK, let's put up the graphic now. This is what we need to keep in mind when we go shopping. I had to do this today. So, shop with cash.
ANDERSON: Shop with cash. This is the best way to do it because now you know exactly when the cash is gone, shopping should be done as well.
HOLMES: Good point.
What do you mean know your favorite retailer?
ANDERSON: Know your favorite retailers. I mean, know the brands, and the prices of the brands. So when you go in there, you know exactly is this really a sale or not? Was this item less last week and increased it and now put it on sale? You need to know that.
HOLMES: What is the clearance thing there?
ANDERSON: Clearance thing -- you know, the clearance items are always in the back of the store. Go directly to the back of the store. If you look for the clearance items, and also the clearance items are usually messy.
You just overlook some of that. They do that intentionally. They want you to get frustrated and not buy those clearance items.
HOLMES: So, they're not really trying to get rid of it, huh?
ANDERSON: No, no, they're not really trying to get rid of it.
HOLMES: Now, resist the urge. You can't resist the urge.
ANDERSON: We've got to, especially in this economy. We got to resist our urge. We got to realize what we're doing.
HOLMES: People these days don't have a choice but to resist the urge.
ANDERSON: Yes. Well, you would think.
HOLMES: You would think. That's a good point.
ANDERSON: Exactly. We're still out there spending. Yes, we're still out there spending.
HOLMES: Clyde, good to see you as always, my man.
ANDERSON: My pleasure.
HOLMES: Good stuff this morning. Don't turn to the right, folks.
But we will be right back. Stay here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Stories making headlines:
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's faith coming under fire from a conservative Baptist preacher who suggests Romney's ties with the Mormon Church may turn off evangelical voters. Pastor Robert Jeffress of Dallas even go as far as saying Mormonism is a cult and Romney is not a Christian.
Also, police in Kansas City is still searching for a missing 10-month- old Lisa Irwin. Her parents are now coming under greater scrutiny. Deborah Bradley, the baby's mother, says police told her she failed a voluntary lie detector test. And investigators say the parents have stopped cooperating.
I'll be back with you with more live news at the top of the hour.
