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CNN Saturday Morning News

Italian Cruise Ship Tilts in Water; GOP Presidential Hopefuls Battle in South Carolina; NFL Playoffs Continue

Aired January 14, 2012 - 10:00   ET

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

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: And we start this morning with breaking news from Italy. We have these brand new pictures for you. Investigators want to know why this crowded cruise ship hit land. When it happened, passengers jumped from the deck in to the water below. Now three are dead and as many as 70 people may be missing.

Joining me on the phone is CNN producer Livia Borgasi.

Livia, what do we know about the people who are missing?

LIVIA BORGASI, CNN PRODUCER (via telephone): The number of the people that are missing is not yet clear because there is some discordance between the lists of passengers and staff that the Costa Cruise has given to the authorities. So there are still about a number between 50 and 70 people missing. They could as well not be dead, hopefully. They could as well still be on the island, maybe having slept in a hotel and not being alerted that most of the other passengers were brought to Italy or eventually being held in a hospital.

FEYERICK: Do you know, the people -- are there members of the cruise line who are there helping these people? Are they getting the directions and the information? Because many of these people lost everything they have, their identities are on that ship. Their cell phones, their ability to communicate. Who is there helping them?

BORGASI: The Costa -- the cruise company is helping them. We also have information that they're helping because apart from their goods, most of them left on the vessel, on the ship, also their documents. And some of them without a passport cannot go back. They're foreigners and they live abroad. So the cruise company is helping them through all the formalities in order that the passengers can go back home as soon as possible.

FEYERICK: OK. Livia Borgasi there out of Italy, thank you so much. We appreciate it. We'll be checking back in with you as we monitor this story, that ship slowly shipping there and divers in the water actually looking to see if there's anybody either in the water or perhaps still in the ship. And the sun's going down soon. So they're trying to do as much as they can now.

Let's bring in Alexandra Steele, who has been looking at conditions in the water and on the land around the island. Alexandra, give us the lay of the land, what this ship is encountering, what rescuers are encountering. ALEXANDRA STEELE, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is a group of islands between Tuscany and Corsica, and this island, Giglio island is one of those islands. It's 17 miles long. And I just want the show you, give you a little perspective on Google Earth and where it is. Of course it is in the Mediterranean.

And I was reading some reports of this happened at 10:30 at night. People had just gotten on to the cruise ship and a lot of them dressed in evening wear, women in dresses. As the reports of freezing they were because they couldn't get to the rooms and in the dresses and happened at night.

But in terms of the temperatures, how warm or how cold it is, this is where the ship is. It hit the eastern side of the island. The topography there on the eastern side is a lot gentler than the western side. Western side major steep cliffs and there are cliffs that go from the top about 1,500 feet all the way to the sea. So there's a look at where it is in the island, in the west side versus the east side, this hitting the eastern coast in the west rockier.

But the water here is crystal clear. It's a huge site for diving. So in terms of visibility, it is incredibly clear and some of the cleanest in all of Italy. It's never that cold, as well, this water. Water temperature on the whole between this time of year, between 55 and 65 degrees, air temperatures running between about 40 and 55 degrees. This happened at night, so it's probably about 42 degrees. But so temperatures not that cold in the water, obviously, at night, as well just in a little dress it's quite cold but it's very clear, the water.

So it's really interesting to see what exactly happened with this. So we'll certainly try to find out more. Weather not a factor. It was dry. No rain of any sort. And also the surf seemed very quiet, as well. Very calm surf at that time. It doesn't look or appear that weather really played a role at all, deb.

FEYERICK: What's amazing is looking at this ship and just how close it is to land there. One of the journalists Barbie Nadeau said that passengers reported an electrical problem of some sort, and you have to wonder whether the captain and the crew there was dealing with some sort of an electrical problem and didn't realize how close to land they actually are.

And another point, and again, something very frightening for anybody who's taken a cruise. Everybody kind of grumbles with the life vests and go to the stations so you know which life raft to get in to. Our journalist there is telling because they just pulled out, they didn't do the drills. Many of these folks didn't know where they were supposed to be.

In is there a sense of what the weather -- is the weather consistent at this time of year in that region or are we going to see, for example, larger, you know, swells or anything that could perhaps hamper the rescue effort?

STEELE: No. I think it's pretty consistent. The seas are typically calm this time of year. The weather is in the certainly the water not cold this time of year. It's also crystal clear. As I said this is a huge diving Mecca so you can just imagine how crystal clear those waters are for that.

So it's really quite interesting to know that in terms of that, but the closeness and the proximity, about an hour and a half drive from Rome to give you a big-time perspective but certainly a massive ship. And the enormity of the ship, Deb, talking thousands of passengers with 2,000 cabins. So can you imagine the size of the ship trying to snake through the teeny little islands when you see the gravity and the monstrosity of the boat and the bigness of it?

FEYERICK: Absolutely. These things are like little villages. Again, 2,000 cabins, you have to multiply that, you know, many of those two people per cabin if not more with families. If this water is that crystal clear, you have to wonder whether or not fuel is an issue or oil's going to be an issue and whether the damage to the hull was so great to begin to see a spill. I'm sure that that's one thing that authorities there in Italy trying to deal with and cope with, because the question is, how do you get that ship off of those rocks, off of that sandbar and either tow it to safety.

And looking at the pictures and the airline aerials, show the ship a little bit more submerged. At the same time you wonder if it's resting on the bottom there or sink altogether, which is just going to be a horrendous problem for authorities there. The water, 50 to 60 degrees, obviously, is chilly. It is not the worst-case scenario.

STEELE: And you're in an evening dress.

FEYERICK: Do you know, I mean, I assume -- we saw people in blankets wrapped up.

STEELE: Right. It was 42 degrees at night. It was 42 degrees at night. You know? Also, I mean, the gravity of this with the 4,600 people aboard at this hour at night, and when you see it looks like behemoth working through these little islands. It really seems unbelievable. There are a lot of shipwrecks in this area, believe it or not. I think there are two major ones and what the divers go look at a huge diving Mecca for people. That's why they go. The island really isn't that inhabited. It's quite mountainous and a lot of lush vegetation.

FEYERICK: All right, Alexandra, thank you so much. We are now joined by one of our journalists who has before briefing all morning on the scene there now, Barbie Nadeau. She's been speaking to a number of the passengers. Barbie, first of all, let's start. Bring us up to date on the latest what you've learned so far.

BARBIE NADEAU, JOURNALIST: Right now all of the passengers are off the ship, obviously. They're out of immediate area and dispersed to three different locations in Italy to be flown back to their original homes or stay until their departing flights are to leave. This was to be an eight day cruise. A lot of these people have a return ticket eight days from now. What we don't know is what caused this accident. All of the passengers I talked to had the same story. Electricity went off. They felt this incredible shuffling scraping sound, that was the boat running up on the sandbar, and then immediately started to tilt and list to one side. There was little communication given by the cruise company in terms of emergency procedures. They hadn't yet done the safety drills that they usually do within the first 24 hours of the sailing.

So the people that I spoke to this morning, there were hundreds and hundreds of people here, about on this old abandoned school, basically, eating some cookies and being given blankets and water and all, they were all in a state of distress. They left their valuables on the ship. They didn't know where they were going to sleep that night. They didn't know how to get a hold of their family members to tell them they were OK. They were all in various states of shock and distress, let's say.

But they're out of this immediate area right now. Many of them are staying in Rome and a town from which they departed for this particular cruise ship.

The Italian coast guard has given out a little bit of information. One, particularly interesting point is that the ship never made a mayday call to the Italian coast guard. The Italian coast guard only got involved once the evacuation was already under way. Which means the ship captain and the ship officials weren't calling out for help. So that's going to be a key point in the investigation.

The captain of the ship has been questioned already by port authorities here, so I'm sure as the days go we'll learn more about just what the investigation will entail and where it's leading. But it seems that this is nothing to do with bad weather or with bad sea conditions but probably a faulty equipment on the boat of some sort. No electricity at one point and running aground would seem to indicate they didn't have the proper steering.

FEYERICK: The mayday call very, very important. And 50 to 70 people are now missing. Are you seeing divers in the water? Are you seeing -- are they trying to collect either belongings or right now are they focused really on some sort of rescue and recovery mission for those who have not been, you know, accounted for?

NADEAU: Right now what they're trying to determine before anything is if those people missing are a result of bad recordkeeping, if the manifest from the ship doesn't match the number of people who actually left on the ship. Basically, they're trying to scary that, because the authorities here first looking at this as a possible administrative error.

There are divers, though, looking at the ship right now. It's late afternoon here. The sun is low so in terms of the conditions, they'll -- they're going to perhaps -- probably stop in a couple of hours is what they're saying and divers out all day long at the ship trying to ascertain whether or not there are any bodies down there, whether, you know, anybody still left on the ship but they're leaning towards the idea that this is possibly an administrative issue more than an actual emergency in terms of accounting for 50 to 70 people.

A lot of the crew members, as well, had been on this cruise ship, this has been a part of an eight-month cycle for a lot of people on the cruise, a very, very long time. Some of those people they're not sure if they had gotten off at the last port of call to finish their shift. That's some -- that's what the cruise company was saying earlier this afternoon when I spoke to them. There are all sorts of reasons for the discrepancy, including the fact that there could still be very many bodies trapped under the ship.

FEYERICK: Which is, you know, that also doesn't engender a lot of faith if they don't know how many people were on that boat. There's certain cruises every time you go on and off, you have to swipe in so that they can account for every single individual. So in that sense -- but what about do you know has the coast guard made any statements that the cruise line had any sort of record or any violations against it? Were they having problems? Or is this one of the better cruise lines?

NADEAU: Well, no. This was -- this was -- this was a cruise line, a Mediterranean cruise line that had in 2008 or 2009, I have to confirm that for sure, I think in 2008, had an accident in Palermo where it ran up against port there. It had suffered some damage.

But generally a reputable cruise line, it's one of the more budget cruise line. People said it was the price. It was a good price for this type of cruise. Also an offseason cruise. After the Christmas holidays, these cruises are -- it was a full cruise, but it wasn't an overly expensive cruise. A lot of people took it as a winter vacation for a good deal on it.

FEYERICK: Sure, sure.

NADEAU: As for their safety records, they had no violations that we know of yet and the Italian coast guard said that they had a clean record and reputable company. Any of that kind of information may come out in the days ahead.

Right now, the cruise officials line have been working to help the evacuation on the ground in Italy to try to get these 4,234 passengers and crew into any place other than the Tuscan seaside to try to get them to other cities to get them in to hotels, some food and clothing. You know, a lot of people are distressed and extremely tired and they're cold. They've been, you know, the weather's not bad here in Italy this time of year but if you're in your pajamas you are a bit chilly.

FEYERICK: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm sure a number of people treated for hypothermia. Barbie Nadeau, thank you. We'll check in with you in a short time. Thank you for bringing us the latest. We'll let you do more digging and then we'll check back in with you. Thank you so much. That Italian cruise ship there on the side listing, three people dead, 70 missing.

Turning now to politics, one week to the South Carolina primaries and the GOP candidates are fanning out across the state. We are heading there live coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: And to politics now and the battle for South Carolina. That state's primary now just one week away. Mitt Romney has a narrow lead in the polls there. But check out where he stands in our new CNN-ORC national poll, a commanding lead over the field. That's where he stands and that, of course, makes him the target of the other five hopefuls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWT GINGRICH, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm primarily focused on the contrast with Governor Romney and then saying to people, if you look at the polling data, clearly conservatives are going to rally around one candidate, and it's probably going to be me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: And joining me now from Greenville, South Carolina, with more on the action there, CNN political reporter Peter Hamby. The conservative vote is a diverse vote. There aren't just one set of conservatives to vote for one candidate. And if this vote is split, well then, it's almost a shoo-in for Mitt Romney.

PETER HAMBY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right, deb. You know, evangelical voters, social conservative voters, they don't vote as a bloc entirely. I was struck last night by what speaker Gingrich said right there, that conservatives are eventually just going to come around to him. Rick Santorum is also getting very big crowds here in South Carolina. They're kind of the two main candidates dividing the conservative anti-Romney vote.

But again, Rick Santorum did an event here in Greenville, and listen to what he said earlier. Also, he is going after Romney and ignoring Newt, too. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANTORUM, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're looking for someone, we're looking for someone who can be the anti-establishment candidate. The establishment is trying to ram down the people of South Carolina everybody else's throat Governor Romney as if he's the inevitable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAMBY: So both Santorum and Newt Gingrich are going after Mitt Romney, kind of ignoring each other. Governor Romney likes that because, frankly, they're dividing up the conservative vote and, like you said, allowing him space to kind of scoot in to -- scoot out of South Carolina with a win just by winning 25 percent, 30 percent. You can do that here, deb. It's kind of an interesting strategy from the conservative candidates in the race.

FEYERICK: Absolutely. Obviously, to state the obvious, the way you win is just to get more votes than the guy behind you but let's talk about the impact of the Tea Party. They're holding a meeting this weekend, the evangelicals, also, because they're trying to figure out who's the conservative candidate to get behind, and it's not Mitt Romney.

HAMBY: It's not. There was a conservative forum up here in Greenville and Spartanburg last night just talking to voters, you know, the stuff about Romney's faith. There are obviously questions of Mormonism that we like to talk about. It doesn't really come up.

But there are fundamental trust issues with Mitt Romney among conservative voters, you know, about his time in Massachusetts, whether he's a moderate, whether he truly is opposed to abortion and that sort of thing. Again, the voters are moving to Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. There's a tea party convention in Myrtle Beach with Republican voters on Sunday and Monday. Gingrich and Santorum are both speaking there. It's a dogfight for conservatives and Mitt Romney is very happy about that, deb.

FEYERICK: Absolutely. All right, Peter Hamby, thank you so much. The real question is whether in fact the conservatives can grudgingly get behind a candidate even if it's Mitt Romney. All right, Peter Hamby, thanks so much.

And of course, the debates that Peter mentioned, you can see that in Charleston right here on CNN Thursday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Tensions are ratcheting up between the U.S. and Iran, sparking fears of a potential showdown between the two powers. Take a look at this video. What you're looking at, Iranian military speedboats on the trail of the "USS New Orleans." The video was shot just over a week ago in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The Navy says Iran's military is more aggressive using these small boats. This was the first of two incidents like this last week. Here's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr who spoke on "Anderson Cooper 360" last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: The thinking is that the Iranians really were not looking for a shooting match. They were going to break off but they were going to cause a little heart- stopping action before they did that.

One of the things here is, look, the Iranians gained some intelligence getting so close to U.S. Navy ships. They were able to gauge the U.S. military response as they came at those ships. That gives them valuable information if the next time it's not just a cat and mouse game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Iran threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if international sanctions over the country's nuclear program are implemented. Well, we're following breaking news out of Italy. A cruise ship runs aground on a sandbar killing three people, as many as 70 people are missing, unaccounted for. We're going to bring you the latest on the search and rescue coming up just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Changing the world one house at a time -- that's the goal of one young man who's dedicated to helping others realize their dreams. Meet Justin Churchman. He's this week's CNN Hero.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JUSTIN CHURCHMAN, CNN HERO: To give someone a home, it's from your heart and it's to their heart. You literally change their life forever. My name's Justin Churchman. I work with an organization called Casas for Cristo, and they build houses in waters, Mexico. After I built my first house I just fell in love with it. It changed my heart and the way I saw the world. It's an addiction.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He organized a team and at 13 years old led a group of Americans across the border. He built a home and handed the keys of that home to that family in need.

CHURCHMAN: This is our first house that we built. We met this wonderful lady and I've just fallen in love with it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had a goal pretty early on that he wanted to build 18 houses by the time he turned 18.

CHURCHMAN: And my parents got behind me and supported me and Casas for Cristo supported me and on my 18th birthday I completed my 18th house.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is absolutely a young wonder. He's changing the world one house at a time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: Do you know someone like Justin who's making big differences in the lives of others? Well, tell us about them. Nominate them to be the next CNN Hero. Just go to CNNheroes.com and find out how to do it.

Mitt Romney's Republican rivals have been taking aim at him, calling him a jobs destroyer who looted companies. Well, now, he's firing back and says they've got it all wrong. But can he convince South Carolina voters with the state's primary just a week away?

Also, a cruise ship on the side, divers in the water looking for as many as 70 people who may be missing. What happened and why was there no call for help? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: It's 30 minutes past the hour. Welcome back. I'm Deborah Feyerick, and thanks for starting your day here with us. Well, let's get back to our breaking news story this morning. An Italian cruise ship flipped over after running aground. As many as 70 people may be missing. Here's how one survivor described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURIE WILLITS, PASSENGER: The boat tipped like he was turning but it didn't return to level. On the other side of the ship, which was the high side at this point, the lifeboats got stuck and there were people hanging safely but in midair for a long time and children crying and screaming and people actually jumping. We heard that passengers jumped, not passengers, but crew members jumped at the end in to the water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Now, journalist Barbie Nadeau is at the port where the passengers were brought after being rescued. Barbie, from where you're standing, what does it look like right now? What is actively going on?

NADEAU: Right now there's civil protection and ambulances and makeshift triage for tents set up. Up in a school not far from the port there's cots laid out, places to sleep, blankets, a little bit of food and water available for any passengers that might still be milling around the area.

We keep hearing here about 300 more people will be coming through tonight. That's not been confirmed by anyone but that seems to be the rumor and officials still on hand here and kind of looks like we might be seeing some more passengers come through tonight.

All sort are being processed through here, both through the Italian authorities and the cruise line who obviously for a number of reasons have to be -- find all of the people on their passenger manifest. Right now, there's 50 to 70 people who are not accounted for. But they cannot not be sure if they're missing at sea or never got on the ship or who perhaps got off the ship in terms of some of the crew members we're hearing may have gotten off the last port.

This was a cruise ship that had been basically in service for the last eight months doing a variety of cruises but the crew on ship for about eight months and possible some of those people actually disembarked at the last port and didn't somehow get their names crossed off that passenger manifest.

So right now, they're still actively searching the ship itself for bodies and personal effects and things like that that may be on the lower side of the ship which is underwater at this point, the bottom of it. There's lots of just still searching that, lots of emergency crews still in boats around the perimeter of the ship kind of securing the area, making sure that no one can access that ship that shouldn't be there.

FEYERICK: And Barbie, three people were -- are dead. One of them, as you described earlier, a woman who suffered a heart attack, a passenger it seems when she jumped in to the water. But as far as the mayday call, which apparently did not go out, it seems that the captain and the crew were dealing with an electrical problem, and that's when passengers describe the scraping, the dragging along the bottom. Why -- what explanation is being given as to why the captain didn't realize how serious this problem was?

NADEAU: Well, that is the question that everyone's asking. They have -- the port authorities here on the Tuscan shoreline have already questioned the captain who was not incidentally the last man off the ship. He was off the ship before a lot of passengers as we understand it.

But the Italian coast guard confirmed there's an investigation in to the cause of this accident because it wasn't whether -- it wasn't sea conditions and the ship itself did not make a mayday call. So if they had something going on that they weren't quite on top of, then it would be fault of the cruise line and the maintenance of the ship. So they're really going to be looking at that in the coming days and the captain is the first pivotal person in that investigation and they have already questioned him here in Porto Santo Stefano, which is about 18 miles from where the ship ran aground.

FEYERICK: Barbie Nadeau, thank you so much, on scene there at the site of the Italian cruise ship that ran aground and is now underwater.

Well, front-runner Mitt Romney is a focus of competitors, but can those attacks and negative ads slow down the march towards the presidential nomination? What we're seeing in South Carolina.

Plus, the Broncos versus the Patriots. The Saints versus the 49ers, -- yes, it is game day. But Chilly temperatures and snow might make for, you know, some interesting play.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: So, can Mitt Romney add another win to his victory column in South Carolina? Romney's record of cutting jobs as CEO of Bain Capital is the subject of attack film produced by a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A story of greed, playing the system for a quick buck. A group of corporate raiders led by Mitt Romney more ruthless than Wall Street. For tens of thousands of Americans, the suffering began when Mitt Romney came to town.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Now, Mitt Romney, of course, not taking that lightly. He fired back, promoting his business achievements.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a business Mitt Romney helped start, and this one, and this steel mill. Mitt Romney helped create and ran a company that invested in struggling businesses, grew new ones and rebuilt old ones, creating thousands of jobs. Those are the facts. We expected the Obama administration to put free markets on trial, but as the "Wall Street Journal" said, the GOP opponents are embarrassing themselves by taking the Obama line.

MITT ROMNEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Well, joining me now to talk about the campaign, CNN political contributor and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona and Republican strategist Lenny McAllister. Welcome this morning. Well, some polls show the race tightening in South Carolina. Is this because of the so called more conservative voting base, or are the attack ads paying off? Lenny, you first.

LENNY MCALLISTER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, it really is going to boil down to whether South Carolina wants to go puritan, libertarian, or just Republican. The attack ads are shrinking the polls right now bringing everybody back together. But if you look, everybody's close to Romney at the top of the poll, including Ron Paul.

If South Carolina starts sliding towards the libertarian principles that the Tea Party have been talking about over the last several of years you will see Ron Paul being an influence in South Carolina next Saturday. If they're looking for the pure conservative, there's going to see a bigger bounce for Newt Gingrich where he's gotten back up in to second place and you'll see him overtake Romney.

If people are going to acquiesce behind Romney, saying he's Republican enough for us, we'll go after President Obama, he'll win South Carolina and move in to Florida in a pretty much wrap it up getting to the beginning of March. But it will really depend on whether they want to go puritan, libertarian, or just Republican.

FEYERICK: OK. Well, Maria, let me ask you. We spoke to earlier Newt Gingrich former campaign manager and he basically said this is good practice. Now Mitt Romney assuming the nominee he'll know what's coming from the Obama administration. Is that the case or is there a weakening of his foundation?

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Oh, I think there's certainly a weakening of his foundation, Deb. And I think the reason why other Republicans have been going after Gingrich and Perry to tell them to cut it out is because those that believe that ultimately Mitt Romney will be the nominee are really afraid that these attacks are cementing in voters' minds what been the reality thus far of Mitt Romney's career, which is that he is somebody who's a millionaire 200 times over, somebody who has made gaffes on the campaign trail, saying he likes to fire people, making $10,000 bets like it's 10 cents to you and me, talking about a $1,500 tax cut to middle class like a temporary little Band-Aid, and saying to let the housing market go bust. This is clearly somebody who doesn't understand the struggles of working families, of middle class families of those hardest hit by the recession.

So voters are thinking, wow, do I want to vote for a guy who's just going to be in office to help his millionaire and billionaire friends the same way he did during his tenure at Bain Capital? That is something that's cementing in voters' minds, and I think Republicans are really afraid of that.

FEYERICK: And really, obviously, coming down to a fight over whether this really -- like a proxy for capitalism and whether it's -- how that's going to move forward. But Maria, a lot of attention given to Mitt Romney's family connections to Mexico this week, and he released an ad aimed at Spanish-speaking voters. Take a quick listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(INAUDIBLE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Now, Maria, with his tough stance on illegal immigration, how does this recent emphasis on his father's birth in Mexico. Is that going to resonate, or is that vote just really still up for grabs?

CARDONA: Here's what Latino voters will think and say -- which basically means, "Oh, please, do not insult my intelligence." Here's somebody who has already committed to vetoing the Dream act, which, by the way, has been a bipartisan legislation that the majority of Americans agree with, in addition to moving so to the extreme right on immigration policy that he now wants to deport the 11 million undocumented workers that are here. Latino voters will not vote for this guy.

Pew Hispanic had a recent poll that basically said that Obama will basically beat him three to one among Hispanic voters, and any Republican candidate to win the White House needs at least 40 percent. Mitt Romney is nowhere near that. He's in big trouble with Latino voters in the general election, Deb.

FEYERICK: Lenny, very quickly, Ron Paul you think he'll put a big dent in Mitt Romney?

MCALLISTER: No, not at this point. I want to get back to something Maria said real quick. The problem with the GOP is they end up seeing this as being a diversity moment. Remember, he speaks French, too. This is not speaking to diversity in America and this is just a weak attempt by the GOP to reach out to Latino voters. They'll try to do the same thing with black voters a little bit later on. It's a bad strategy. This is something you do over years, not over weeks or months.

FEYERICK: All right, Lenny, Maria, so interesting, as always. We appreciate your stopping by and speaking to us today. Thanks so much.

CARDONA: Thank you, deb.

MCALLISTER: God bless you both. Take care.

FEYERICK: You, too.

We're monitoring breaking news out of the Italy where a cruise ship is on the side after hitting what authorities believe is a sandbar. That is coming up right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: And we're now hearing from one of the passengers who was on the ship as it ran aground. Rosalyn Rincon joins us on the phone now from Italy. Thank you Ms. Rincon. We appreciate it. We understand you hurt yourself. First of all, how are you?

ROSALYN RINCON, ONBOARD CRUISE SHIP: A little bit shocked, sad, angry. I'm not one of the passengers. I was one of the staff members on board. I was working as a dancer on the ship.

FEYERICK: Tell me, first of all, what was going on. What happened in the moments leading up to -- go ahead.

RINCON: Well, I was in the middle of a show. I was in the magic show, so to be fair inside one trick in a box.

FEYERICK: Yes.

RINCON: So I didn't really see it like -- didn't know what was going on because I was in darkness and then eventually when I got out of the box I realized that everything stopped, the music stopped. The lights were pretty much blackout on the stage.

And then the ship all of a sudden went in to like one sudden tilt to one side. Which then it started to shudder and realized something wasn't -- something wasn't right. So literally -- and then everything that was on the stage, because we were on a tilt, basically fell on like sort of on top of everybody.

So I literally just ran backstage to meet my two other friends, colleagues that were in the show, dancers. We were told from that point that we had to go to our cabins. But it was literally -- there was no sort of signal to say what was going on until probably 30 minutes after into it we were told that obviously the captain of the ship was asking not to panic, that just an electrical problem. And it was -- this is the reason why we're in blackout.

But then my boyfriend is one engineer officer, so I literally got my phone and started to ring to speak with him. And so, obviously, he knows all this kind of thing. He asked me -- literally what happened and told me that, you know, it wasn't blackout. He told me that you have crashed in to something. This is the reason you're on a lean. We've got water coming in to the ship. But then after this, we had another -- which is basically fire.

FEYERICK: Yes?

RINCON: And they told us it was a fire. Obviously, then my boyfriend told me, no, this is just to explain not to panic the people.

And to this point another blackout. The ship went in to darkness. We then literally were told stay near our cabins. But I literally went in the cabin and put my life jacket so I was pretty much ready.

And then 40 minutes into that, after that, we were told to abandon the ship. And from that moment on, it was just chaos. I was with my friend, one of the dancers and we were trying to get to our life station. And we were just standing there and it was panic at the boat and, you know, and life -- the life rafts weren't opening. And we had to let the passengers go first because they're the priority. So we obviously were the last people.

We were all pretty much separated as in our department as in the dancers. So I was unable -- I was with my friend, and the water started to rise. And it was just one choice. It was either to jump and swim to the -- because we're near to a mountain or wait for a boat to come. At this point, there was a boat that arrived. And we literally just -- we were thrown in to the boat but I know some of my colleagues didn't have this opportunity so they had to jump off the ship. They had to swim to the mountain. They have been rescued on top of the mountain.

But my other friends were not too sure to what happened to them. One girl had to climb to the top of the ship and she got rescued by a helicopter. We're still waiting to hear on another three that we know that they are safe but we don't know exactly where they are. And we're just pretty much in a hotel really.

FEYERICK: All right.

RINCON: We have no passports. We have nothing. We have no I.D. We're just waiting to hear now from the English embassy, maybe to come and help us. We have been -- we have contacted our manager but -- on Genoa and said they will be in touch. No clothes, nothing.

FEYERICK: Just waiting?

RINCON: Yes.

FEYERICK: OK. Well, Rosalyn Rincon, thank you very much for sharing that story. Sounds like terrible moments of panic once the captain made the decision the only way to go was abandon ship and authorities looking in to why that call was made so late and why there was no mayday call made to the Italian coast guard there. Rosalyn, thank you very much.

RINCON: You're welcome.

FEYERICK: Stay safe.

And CNN Saturday continues right after this.

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FEYERICK: The big game in the NFL is the Broncos and Patriots tonight in Foxboro, and that means Tim Tebow, he gets the most attention these days, especially after that thrilling overtime win over the Steelers last week.

But whether Tebow wins or loses he still has an open invite from the Colorado state legislature. They want him to come say the pledge of allegiance.

Some Patriots fans preparing for the game in an unorthodox way. Witches in Salem, Massachusetts held this ceremony to try to help their team with the so called dragon blood power and herbs to get rid any bad energy and help quarterback Tom Brady. They say they don't want Tim Tebow to get hurt, they just don't want him to win.

Finally, the fine people of Green Bay are helping out their Packers. The team paid a couple hundred people to grab shovels and move snow at Lambeau Field. They get 10 bucks an hour for this. The defending Super Bowl champions play host to the New York Giants tomorrow afternoon. The other games this weekend are the Saints and 49ers in San Francisco today and the Texans and Ravens in Baltimore tomorrow.

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FEYERICK: We'll be right back.

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