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Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien

Interview with Cal Ripken, Jr.; Keeping Killer Whales Captive; U.S. Economy Adds 163,000 Jobs in July; U.S. Unemployment Rate Increased to 8.3 in July; Interview with Director Tony Gilroy; The Bourne Legacy's Dilemma; 163,000 Jobs Added in July; Ray of Hope

Aired August 03, 2012 - 08:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Welcome back to STARTING POINT. Today is the day the jobs report is released. We're going to break down those numbers, tell you how they're impacting the markets and get some instant reaction when they're released. That's all ahead this hour.

Also, Cal Ripken, Jr. is speaking out for the first time about his mother's kidnapping. At the same time, we get a look at the suspect on surveillance video. The baseball legend will join us, straight ahead.

And coming to a Wheaties box near you very, very soon, that would be U.S. gymnast Gabby Douglas. She made history, joined a list of names like Mary Lou Retton with her gold medal performance.

Plus, "Bourne Again," and that would be B-O-U-R-N-E. The Jason Bourne franchise rebooted but without Matt Damon this time. Will it still strike box office gold?

We have a packed show ahead for you. Director of the "Bourne Legacy" movies, Tony Gilroy, is going to join us, baseball legend Cal Ripken, Jr., University of Chicago economist and former Obama advisor Austan Goolsbee -- all our guests this Friday, August 3rd, STARTING POINT begins right now.

(MUSIC)

O'BRIEN: Wow, Frankie Beverly and Maze. It's "Golden Time of Day" right here on STARTING POINT. Again viewer request, it is viewer request Friday. So be sure to send us a request and we'll try to get it to you.

Our team this morning, Ryan Lizza, is a Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker", Abby Huntsman is the host of "Huff Post Live", Richard Socarides is the former senior adviser in the Clinton White House. Nice to have you all.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks for having us.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: I've had a hard getting the words out, reading up the teleprompter thing. Good thing it's Friday. I can rest up this weekend.

This morning, a legendary Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr. is going to talk publicly about his mother's bizarre kidnapping and her return. This was the weirdest story. Police in Maryland say Vi Ripken was mysteriously abducted from her home. It happened last week. They still don't know exactly who did it.

The 74-year-old taken at gunpoint, then she was bound and driven around in her own car. She was returned roughly 24 hours later. Police say they've received several tips since releasing the security footage. It shows the person, that guy right there with the hat on, entering a Wal-Mart. Officials also released this composite police sketch of the suspect. They're offering a $2,000 reward for any information that would lead to an arrest.

Cal Ripken, Jr. plans to hold a press conference in two hours at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

And I had a chance to talk with him a few minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: So, Cal, nice to see you. Thanks for talking with us. Appreciate it.

Let's talk about how you first heard that your mother had been kidnapped. How did you get the information?

CAL RIPKEN, JR., FORMER MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYER: My sister called me roughly about 9:00 at night and said there'd been a 911 call describing my mom's car and that a woman was tied up in the backseat and wanted to know if we knew where mom was. And of course at that point we didn't. And I think panic just went through the whole house trying to figure out what happened to mom.

O'BRIEN: Eventually she was found. Her hands had been bound. She was found in the back of her own car. She's 74 years old.

How is she doing? And how are you doing?

RIPKEN: Yes. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons I'm coming on to talk to you today is a lot of people are really concerned and asking questions about mom. And, you know, she's doing OK. It's been a traumatic experience, one I think none of us know how we would've handled. I'm just thankful that she's home.

But she's doing OK. She's a strong woman after all. She raised four kids with my dad away doing his baseball thing. So I think we're doing as well as we can expect.

O'BRIEN: They're trying to figure out now the motive and obviously trying to track down a person who they say is a suspect.

Do you have any ideas what the motive could be? It looks as if the kidnapper never mentioned your name. So, it doesn't seem to be a correlation there.

RIPKEN: Yes, we don't know. It's bizarre in that way. We don't know why. And again, everybody asks me and they wonder that we're sitting in the house and kind of being quiet, but we're respecting the investigation.

And I guess the other reason, though, was to come on with you today is that the law enforcement needs help. They need someone to -- if they know anything about the case or if they see the guy's picture and they understand who that guy is, they want to encourage them to call in.

But I guess we're just -- we hug our mom a little bit more, grab her a little closer and we're happy she's home.

O'BRIEN: Oh, my goodness, I can't imagine.

We've been showing while you've been talking a police sketch of the suspect and video that came from surveillance tape at a Wal-Mart. Let's roll that again while we continue to have our conversation. I know there's a reward out, as well. What can you tell me about that?

RIPKEN: Yes. I don't know. I haven't gotten too much into the reward aspect for information around him. I think that's a police issue. You know, I guess we just focus on trying to help mom heal.

And, you know, standing in front of you today using the national media as an opportunity to say law enforcement needs your help is really the message here.

But I think we're just thankful -- in some ways it seems like a weird movie that you're watching and then you're actually watching yourself in the movie and at some point you're going to realize it's a movie but it's real life.

O'BRIEN: Exactly. It seems so strange. We were hearing about it and thank goodness eventually she was found OK. You're going to hold a press conference I think to -- later this morning to give lots of information to other folks, as well.

And can you tell me about this surveillance videotape from Wal- Mart. What do we know about it? And why are they focusing on that person in the tape as a suspect?

RIPKEN: Well, I think they're pretty sure this is the guy. And I'm no police detective or anything, but I understand that they have a couple locations that he's gone to. And they've tracked those locations and were able to use surveillance cameras to see the car, to see him getting out of the car, to see him going in, you know, to these different locations.

And so they're sure this is the suspect. And with technology now where you're actually able to get images, there's also a sketch of this person, as well. But the police are very certain that this is the picture. They just need help finding him.

O'BRIEN: Well, I've got to tell you, the sketch and surveillance videotape is pretty clear, I think, if anybody gets a look at it who knows and they'll be able to identify him relatively easily.

Cal Ripken, nice to have you on to talk to us. I'm sorry that it's under such awful circumstances, but we hope you're able to figure it out.

RIPKEN: Yes. I wish -- certainly I do too. I wish it was under other circumstances, but thank you. Thank you vey much for having me.

O'BRIEN: You bet. My pleasure always. Nice to see you and tell your mom we wish her the best, as well.

RIPKEN: I will, Soledad, thank you.

O'BRIEN: You bet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Let's get right to Christine Romans. She's got an update on other stories that are making news this morning.

ROMANS: Good morning, Soledad.

This morning, at least 62 people have been killed in Syria in what's being called a massacre. The Assad regime pummeled the city of Assad. Meantime, the U.N. General Assembly is scheduled to vote later today to denounce the Syrian government for attacking and killing its own civilians. The resolution coming one day after former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan resigned his position as special envoy to Syria and say he's frustrated at finger pointing at the United Nations while Syrians are being slaughtered.

Tropical storm Ernesto moving through the Caribbean and could head into the Gulf of Mexico.

Meteorologist Rob Marciano joins us from the hurricane headquarters, the latest on Ernesto's track.

Hi, Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Christine.

Getting some reports in from St. Lucia, winds gusting to 63 miles an hour as this storm just moved to the west of those islands, now into the eastern Caribbean and the convection picking up, as well. It's cruising, westerly movement at 24 miles an hour, that will create some head winds incorrectly. And that'll limit some of its development.

But nonetheless, it's going to have a lot of warm Caribbean waters to go through over the next several days. So it will likely be gaining strength more readily through the weekend potentially becoming a hurricane just south of Jamaica and the official forecast track brings it towards the Gulf of Mexico as we get toward the beginning of next week. So, all eyes on Ernesto.

Christine, back up to you.

ROMANS: All right. And all eyes on Mars, Rob. Mars Curiosity, a huge NASA rover is set to land inside a crater Sunday night. It's expected to give scientists some amazing views of the Red Planet.

On "EARLY START" this morning, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said Curiosity could be paving the way for people to pay a visit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES BOLDEN, NASA ADMNISTRATOR: We're going there because all of our previous indications from Mars reconnaissance orbiter, other rovers and satellites say that's a good place to go if we want to determine whether there are signs that the Martian surface could sustain life in its past, today, or most particularly in its future when we plan to send humans there in the 2030s.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: It is the most complex Red Planet touchdown ever attempted. It's being called "seven minutes of terror" as the rover will be lowered on cables, lowered by a rocket-powered sky crane. Very cool stuff, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: I can't believe you're talking about something that really exists called a rocket-powered sky crane. That sounds made up.

ROMANS: Paving the way for people some day to drop into a crater perhaps.

O'BRIEN: Yes, that's awesome.

LIZZA: That's very cool.

O'BRIEN: Yes, that's amazing.

All right. Christine, thank you.

Let's talk about America's newest golden girl.

I love this young lady, Gabby Douglas. I love her. I love her. I love --

LIZZA: How do you really feel about her?

O'BRIEN: I really, really love her. You know why? When she finishes her routine --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you like best about her?

O'BRIEN: When she finishes her routine and sticks her landing, right, and then she bounces up and does that.

LIZZA: That smile.

O'BRIEN: Yes. And, you know, not only did I do a great finish and people talking about being one of the most important parts at the end of the routine, you've got to nail it and then after that she does a little bounce like, see, I told you.

ABBY HUNTSMAN, HUFF POST LIVE: And her smile is so contagious.

O'BRIEN: Amazing.

So she is 16 years old. She became the third straight American, the first African-American to win the women's all-around gymnastics gold medal.

Brings us to Amanda Davies who's live in London this morning for us.

Hey, good morning.

AMANDA DAVIES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Good morning.

It is the most sensational morning here at the Olympic Park. But you can bet your bottom dollar it's even more special for Gabby Douglas after that yesterday.

My favorite fact of the day that if you rearrange the letters of Gabby Douglas' surname, it spells out USA gold. So, it was obviously written in the stars, wasn't it, what happened yesterday at the Greenwich Arena.

As you said, she put in that sensational performance, particularly on the vault, on the beam and then nailed that final floor performance. The Greenwich Arena was like Club Gabby with that techno music beating out. And now, she is the A-list, you know, all of the USA know her on first name terms, and this is where life really gets going for her. And I hope she's ready for a fantastic ride.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about Michael Phelps who also, you know -- you know, it's been a rough time when it's like, oh, and Michael Phelps won his 20th medal --

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: -- because everyone's talking about gabby, but huge for him, as well. And you're having those conversation about whether or not he was the greatest. You have to imagine that --

SOCARIDES: Best ever, what do you think?

O'BRIEN: If he's not, he's very close to it for sure. Right, Amanda?

DAVIES: Yes. It's really hard that greatest debate depends how you're going to measure it, doesn't it? But, people had been writing him off, consigning him to history because he's had something of a difficult week here in the pool. But, he wrote his own bit of history last night in the 200 IM becoming the first man to win the same event at three consecutive Olympics.

And you just have to look at his career statistics and see where that puts him. If he was a country, in terms of his medals won, if Michael Phelps was a country, he'd be better than 83 percent of the 204 countries that the IOC have represented at this London Games. And basically, what that means is that if he was representing swimming only, he would be the seventh most successful country in the list.

And that is just one man with 20 medals, admittedly, 16 of them are gold. And he is, of course, going for another medal tonight in the 100 meters butterfly. So, he might make it even further up that list by the time he leaves London and hangs up his goggles for good.

O'BRIEN: And one would have to imagine, you know, you've done well when they start saying if you were a country.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: Those comparisons mean it's going really well for you. All right, Amanda, thank you. Appreciate it.

Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT, a new book is slamming sea world for the trainers that have died for saying that some of the whales are actually suffering. The author of that new book is called "Death at SeaWorld" is going to be our guest in just a few moments. Here is Flo Rida. This is Thomas Mantools (ph) playlist. Thank you, Thomas. We like this. You know what?

LIZZA: Not enough rap on this show.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: It is rap heavy. I like that.

HUNTSMAN: It's a Friday.

O'BRIEN: It's a Friday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. SeaWorld trainers are preparing to get back in the water with killers whales. Trainers were removed from all water activity with the animals after that deadly incident back in 2010. You might remember, this is a trainer, Dawn Brancheau. She was drowned when a giant orca whose name is Tilikum pulled her into the pool and then thrashed around her.

Her injuries just devastating. Then, last week, we showed you some footage from 2006. There was a killer whale named Katsaka who dragged her trainer. His name is Ken Peters under water holding him for several minutes before he let him go, and he was able to come scramble to the side of the pool.

Dangerous series of incidents has resulted in disciplinary action against SeaWorld from OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, vowing to revamp the safety measures said it's going to let a select group of trainers reenter the water with the whales but only to give the medical attention.

A new book out called "Death at SeaWorld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity" claims safety, really, is only part of the problem. It was written by David Kirby, and he's with us this morning. Nice to see you.

DAVID KIRBY, AUTHOR, "DEATH AT SEAWORLD": Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for being with us.

KIRBY: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: How frequent are these kinds of accidents or -- accident may not be the right word, because I think some of these attacks seem very intentional when you read the details about these killer whales going after their trainers.

KIRBY: Some of them seem very intentional. There's been well over 100 aggressive incidents recorded at SeaWorld. We think that's only the tip of the iceberg. Several of those resulted in very serious injuries to the trainers, and of course, four people have died.

O'BRIEN: And then the whales, themselves, have died, two dozen.

KIRBY: Yes, more than that. And some of them have died in altercations with each other. They get aggressive with each other as well as with humans, which never ever happens in the wild, certainly not to this extent.

O'BRIEN: Is your theory that these animals should just not be in captivity at all?

KIRBY: I think the time has come for this practice to be phased out. I think, at one point, it did benefit society. It benefits science. We learned a lot about these animals in the early years, the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s. We now know that they are so intelligent and attached to their families.

They're so free ranging that they are particularly unsuited to captivity compared to say other animals. So, yes, I think the time has come to phase it out.

O'BRIEN: Of course, the argument is, listen, you learn a lot about them in captivity. If you have a generation of kids watching who are Shamu, you end up really inspiring them, and they want to love

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Yes. I mean, that would be a counterargument, I would think, right?

KIRBY: Well, first of all, you can go to the sea to see wildlife. You don't have to go to SeaWorld. I just came back from Washington State, Samoan Islands, where you can just pull over your car on the highway and go to the cliff and watch the whales playing in the kelp right below. And children were delighting in that.

Some places they have naturalists that can explain to you what's going on. And also, the education that's provided at SeaWorld is not really world class. People leave talking about the Shamu whales. There is no such thing as a Shamu whales. When you go to the Shamu show, you just don't learn that much about killer whales in the wild.

And finally, I mean, children love dinosaurs. They're crazy about dinosaurs. They've never seen one, and yet, they read about them, they learn about them. So, you don't necessarily have to see the animal in order to be inspired by it. It certainly does help, though.

HUNTSMAN: But what is the benefit of having the trainers in the pool with them? I mean, are we going to miss anything if they're no longer in the pool? I mean, it seems the last year or two, we haven't missed much.

KIRBY: Yes. SeaWorld has made record profits even without trainers in the water. The show is more exciting to watch, let's face it, when they are in the water, when they're launching from the backs of these animals. It is truly spectacular. Right now, they're just on the edge sort of clapping their hands and not doing much.

So, SeaWorld, I think, thinks it's just part of the show to have the trainers to show that bond. They also claim that you can provide superior veterinarian care if you get in the water with the animals. But some animals they've never gotten in the water with, so you have to ask yourself, are those animals being consigned second class care if you really have to be in the water to --

O'BRIEN: SeaWorld said this. "SeaWorld's killer whale program is a model for marine's zoological facilities around the world. And the additions, we made in the last two years in the areas of personal safety, facility design, and communication have enhanced this program further still. Will these OSHA requirements and changes make a difference?

KIRBY: Well, this all comes to a head on Monday, I believe. SeaWorld has to certify to OSHA on August 5th that they have put into place all the abatements that OSHA mandated. Basically, OSHA said yes. We get the trainers out and keep them out or figure out a way to provide equal or better protection.

SeaWorld has spent up to $100 million putting in things like fast-rising falls bottom in their pool in Orlando, in a pool where two people have actually died. The idea if you put the trainer in and then something goes wrong, and the whale grabs the trainer, you can lift them both out of the water and somehow extract the trainer.

Well, that process takes over 60 seconds. And as you can see in these videos, these attacks, a lot of -- these animals can do a lot of damage in 60 seconds.

O'BRIEN: David Kirby, the book is called "Death at Sea World: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity." Thank you for coming in to talk to us about it. We appreciate it.

Let us know what you think of this story or any of our big stories this morning. You can send us a video, less than 20 seconds would be good if you want to make a point about anything. We're calling it "My End Point." Go to our blog at CNN.com/STARTINGPOINT to submit your video. Got to take a short break. We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Welcome back. I'm Christine Romans, "Minding Your Business" this morning. The big July jobs report comes out in a few minutes at 8:30 a.m. eastern. Economists surveyed by CNNMoney forecast 95,000 jobs added to the economy last month. The jobless rate is expected to stay steady at 8.2 percent.

Let's check in on the markets. U.S. stock futures and European markets are up ahead of the jobs report. Dow futures up about 80 points, but the jobs report could change all that.

Waste and employee theft at Amtrak taking a toll on taxpayers. According to government auditors, Amtrak is losing more than $80 million a year on its food and beverage service alone. Here's why.

Amtrak charges passengers $2 for a soft drink, but it costs the railroad about $3.40 to serve each beverage when you add in labor costs, throw in nearly $7 million a year and employee theft, and Amtrak squandered $834 million of taxpayer money over the last decade supporting the government auditors -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: That seems like it's solvable. Raise the prices on the soft drinks and the burgers.

ROMANS: They won't like it.

O'BRIEN: You know, then they're not forced to buy it.

ROMANS: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Anyway, that's my editorializing this morning.

This morning, "The Bourne Legacy" is set to open next week, but can the franchise continue without Matt Damon? Plus, as Christine was telling us, the jobs report for July about to be released. She'll be back to talk about those numbers. Here's Rebecca Black and "Friday." Listen, you know what?

HUNTSMAN: Terrible song.

O'BRIEN: Well, she's a young woman who is working on her singing. She got a little attention from some mean people on twitter and Facebook, but hey, a girl that loves to sing. My daughters like this song. So Rebecca, we support you. Here's "Friday."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Let's begin with some breaking news, the Labor Department just releasing the big jobs report for July, Christine has an update for us. Hey, Christine.

ROMANS: Hi there, better net job creation than we thought -- 163,000 jobs created in the month. This is the estimate, Soledad, more like what it's going to turn out to be. Couple of revisions, June was worse, but May was a little bit better. So the summer swoon looks like July had a little bit better performance in terms of overall job creation.

But when you look at the unemployment rate, that ticked up to 8.3 percent. Sometimes you see that move one way or the other based on how many people are entering or leaving the workforce. We'll dig into that to find out why the jobless rate did increase. It's 8.3 percent. But the number of overall jobs created. Wow, that looks messy. Sorry. A little bit better than expected.

This becomes important because we have an election coming up here. We're also trying to see how healthy the economy and the labor market has been, Soledad, coming off this horrendous 2008- 2009 job drought. Now you have things a little bit better here than we thought, not -- you know, there really was a lot of concern about this, starting to look a little bit like last summer that was a little bit weak.

I want to dig into the numbers for you. We saw manufacturing increased 25,000. That was a little bit of a surprise. It looks like there weren't as many temporary layoffs in the auto industry. That's something interesting for Detroit and the auto sector. Food service jobs were increased. Low-wage jobs, a trend we've seen, Soledad, low-wage jobs increasing. You want to see high- wage jobs increasing overall for a good job recovery.

And the number of people who are long-term unemployed, a little bit of an improvement there. It's still not great, but the number of long-term unemployed 5.2 million was a little bit better than what we thought. And for some reason, I'll dig into this for you, the Hispanic unemployment rate fell sharply to 10.3 percent, still much bigger than the overall unemployment rate, but Hispanic unemployment fell from 11 percent to 10.3 percent, the other races and sexes were basically the same, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: What is the African-American rate? ROMANS: It's about 14.65 percent. It wasn't a big change in there. When you look at underemployment, it's depression levels, so that's still a structural problem that continues.

O'BRIEN: All right, obviously there are political implications, Christine.

ROMANS: Oh, yes.

O'BRIEN: As you talk about. So we're going to continue our conversation with the university of Chicago economist and former Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee will be our guest to offer his perspective on this report. Christine, thank you.

A short break, but still ahead, there was never just one -- I didn't say that quite right. There was never just one. "The Bourne Legacy" takes over Matt Damon's role. The director and co- writer is Tony Gilroy and he's going to talk to us just ahead.

Theresa Willis says she wants to hear "Eye of the Tiger." I love that. How long has it been since you heard this singing along with it in your car while you're driving.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching STARTING POINT. We're following breaking news for you. The Labor Department released the big jobs report for July. The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July. That's much more than was expected. I think the number they were looking at was 95,000. Unemployment rate, though, rose from 8.2 percent up to 8.3 percent.

In just a few moments, we'll be talking to University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee. He'll be our guest to break down some of those numbers for us.

Now, let's talk about action. The action-packed "Bourne" film franchise is back. This time Jason Bourne's not in it. It's called the "Bourne Legacy," and a new hero played by actor Jeremy Renner playing Aaron Cross. An agent of operation outcome finding himself in a life or death outcome, must save a beautiful woman played by Rachel Weisz. Here's a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down! You OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: "Bourne Legacy" opens in theaters next week. Tony Gilroy is the director and cowriter. He wrote and worked on the original movies. Is it going to be a challenge to move off a trilogy that starred Matt Damon and Jason Bourne and have a "Bourne legacy" with no Bourne? TONY GILROY, WRITER/DIRECTOR: Very risky. It was a big undertaking to do that. But what we -- what we've decided to do is to say that what you saw before was only a small piece of something much larger.

O'BRIEN: Because the government is doing this. There's more than one.

GILROY: And we're saying that Edward Norton is the mastermind of this entire franchise, and he's been watching the CIA fail to bring in Jason Bourne. And in the last film it went very public. There was a shootout in New York City and he escaped and that's -- these are all very public events and that threatens his empire. And Jeremy Renner is part of the collateral damage.

O'BRIEN: And so he's got to go.

GILROY: He must go. And Rachel Weisz plays a research scientist who works on the program and they need to stay alive together.

O'BRIEN: Tell me a little bit about what was the theory behind the whole Bourne character in the, you know, the idea was that you have all of these agents, basically, who are super human beings in some ways.

GILROY: Well, what we're seeing. There's -- I mean, there's actually very little suspense of disbelief in this. There's nothing that's really science fiction that's in this movie. There isn't anything that's not coming at us very soon. So it doesn't take long to look around and talk to people and realize there's a lot of programs that are very aggressively being pursued that are quite similar to what we're doing.

O'BRIEN: To make soldiers better than your regular human being.

GILROY: Oh, there's been a very -- there's been a very strong motivation for that since World War II, and we're at the moment now where the science is actually meeting the moment and in a very real way.

LIZZA: What's the model here? You decided not to do the sort of James Bond model where you replace Damon with a new person and continue with his story line. Is this more like a spinoff of a TV show?

GILROY: It is episodic story telling on a grand scale. That's what's happening in mega-movies now. Our business is different in the thing that we've always been selling in these films is sort of authenticity and there's integrity to it. There's no cynicism about it. You can't do anything cheesy. We never wink at the camera. We're not sort of in the villain business in that sort of way either.

SOCARIDES: I love these movies because even though there's a lot of action in them, they're very sophisticated. The story lines are very nuanced. they're very entertaining, but they're really terrific stories.

GILROY: Thank you. That's -- that sort of integrity and behavior and action there. So we couldn't -- you couldn't replace Matt Damon.

O'BRIEN: Are you aiming for women or mostly men? Because I actually -- I watched all the Jason Bourne films and I loved them. And I realized I don't know that I was meant to be the audience.

GILROY: Man I don't know. I mean we're just aiming for two hours of just --

LIZZA: Just aiming to sell a few movie tickets maybe.

GILROY: No, I mean, just pure-out of adventure. I mean, it's really --

O'BRIEN: Well, if you're increasing Rachel's role right, I would have imagine that --

GILROY: Well, we've never had a woman walk her own story. I mean Franka Potente played Jason Bourne's girlfriend. Rachel Weisz plays a very -- a very -- it's a three-hander in a way. It's Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz and Jeremy sort of colliding.

HUNTSMAN: I think it's a perfect date movie. You have the action and you also have the romance and love story.

GILROY: It's perfect.

LIZZA: There you go.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Tony Gilroy. Thank you for joining us. Well this series is so great. And you're right, you can do iterations and iterations with that theme.

GILROY: We will see.

O'BRIEN: Yes I hope so.

SOCARIDES: Congratulations.

GILROY: Thanks for having me.

O'BRIEN: Thank you for talking with us. I appreciate it.

Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT, we're focusing, of course, on that big jobs July report added jobs; unemployment rate also went up, though. So what does that mean? We're going to talk to economist Austan Goolsbee up next.

Stay with us. Here's -- are we playing "Eye of the Tiger" again? What is this? I can't tell what that is. Oh that's "Midnight Oil". That's because they told me. I don't recognize that. We're back in a moment.

Thanks Tony nice to have you.

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O'BRIEN: Welcome, everybody. We're following "Breaking News" this morning.

The new July jobs report is out. The unemployment rate is at 8.3 percent, up from 8.2 percent. The economy added 163,000 jobs -- bit of a mixed outcome for the Obama administration.

Let's get right to Austan Goolsbee. He's the former chief economist for President Obama. He currently serves as a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Nice to see you. Thanks for being with us.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FORMER CHIEF ECONOMIST FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA: It's great to see you.

O'BRIEN: A higher number than what was expected. Some people were predicting something like 95,000 for that number. Yet at the same time we know that the unemployment rate has ticked up a little bit. Can you explain that?

GOOLSBEE: Well, there are two different surveys. One is a survey of businesses. That's where the payroll number comes from and the other is a survey of people. That's where the unemployment rate comes from.

The unemployment rate survey is a lot more variable. And so you tend to want to average over several months. It's not surprising that you can have an individual month where you've got quite solid encouraging report on the jobs front showing almost double what was expected, but see little ticks in the unemployment rate because people come into and out of the labor force.

O'BRIEN: I also understand if you round up the number, the numbers actually are quite close, but one rounds down to 8.2 percent and one rounds up to 8.3 percent.

GOOLSBEE: Right, yes.

O'BRIEN: And that kind of makes the big difference. So you call it quite solid and encouraging, that's how you would describe that number? 160,000 some odd thousands?

GOOLSBEE: Yes, I'd say -- it's not -- you wouldn't break out the party hats, but certainly coming on several months where the -- the numbers were below expectations and fairly weak because the economy wasn't growing fast enough with the events in Europe and some of those things, this is a pretty solid number.

I mean it came in well above expectations. So you -- whether good or bad, you never want to make too much of any one month's number, because it's plus or minus 100,000. But it's a -- that's a solid foundation. If we got that again next month, I think people would be feeling a lot more relief.

O'BRIEN: So what is not working to spur job growth faster? What do you think has to be done or should be done?

GOOLSBEE: Well, I mean -- basically there's not much magic in the jobs number. It's tied to how fast the economy's growing. So -- some of the things that are out of our control that have been having a pretty significant negative impact are the borderline crisis events in Europe, foremost. Two, the slowdown in China and Asia.

So the world economy as a whole is a pretty precarious spot. It's been a bit of a bumpy ride for most of the year. And that does kick back on us. I think if Washington could sort out some answer or even perceive direction of what's going to happen with the fiscal cliff at the end of the year, I think that would -- that would help because you're -- you're likely to see people start freaking out a little bit in the markets over that.

And I think if we could press ahead on trying to shift the economy away from the sort of bubble-driven stuff that was driving the growth in the 2000s toward a more sustainable kind of growth like manufacturing, investment, export oriented, that's what's got to happen. That takes a long time. That's why this is -- that's why this hasn't been v-shaped. But that's what we've got to do.

O'BRIEN: And that's a lot of if's and a lot of big if's. Austan Goolsbee, nice to have you, sir, thanks for talking with us. I appreciate it.

GOOLSBEE: It's great to see you guys.

O'BRIEN: Thanks.

"End Point" up next, but first, though, meet this week's "CNN Hero".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAZIA JAN, CNN HERO OF THE WEEK: In Afghanistan, most of the girls have no voice. They are used as property of a family. The picture is very grim.

My name is Razia Jan and I'm the founder of a girls school in Afghanistan. When we opened the school in 2008, 90 percent of them could not write their name. Today 100 percent of them are educated. They can read. They can write.

I lived in the U.S. for over 38 years, but I was really affected by 9/11. I really wanted to prove that Muslims are not terrorists. I came back here in 2002. Girls have been the most oppressed. And I thought I have to do something. It was a struggle in the beginning. I would sit with these men and I would tell them don't marry them when they're 14 years old. They want to learn.

How do you write your father's name?

After five years now, the men, they are proud of their girls when they themselves can't write their name. Still, we have to take these precautions. Some people are so much against girls getting educated.

We provide free education to over 350 girls. I think it's like a fire. It will grow. Every year my hope becomes more. I think I can see the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Well, look at those numbers. Poor pasture (ph) conditions between 98 percent and 83 percent. Very poor. Terrible. Let's talk about our "End Point" this morning. Who wants to start?

LIZZA: I'll start quickly two points on the jobs numbers. I think on the policy, this is not great. I mean I think the best you can say is that we're not heading toward a recession. It's positive. But we're just -- we're still muddling along.

Politically, it may just be enough if this is the trend through the end of the election. This may just be enough for President Obama to get re-elected as long as he can -- as long as he has positive growth. It's very hard to defeat an incumbent.

SOCARIDES: Let me say about that. I mean it's certainly good news. I mean these are the best numbers we've had in five months. So, you know --

LIZZA: Good news.

(CROSSTALK)

SOCARIDES: -- it sure beats the alternative, right. You can't say that the numbers are going -- they're going in the right direction. And, you know, he's ahead now. I mean Obama's ahead in the polls, everybody sort of thinks he's got a little bit of an edge.

HUNTSMAN: I will give this -- I will take more of the conservative voice here and say Romney does have an argument here. I mean these numbers are still very sluggish. Let's not forget, it's lower than it's ever been in a very, very long time.

And that's our "End Point". No fighting on the set here.

Have a nice weekend, everybody. "CNN NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello begins right now. Hey Carol.