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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Senate Judicial Showdown Begins; Iraq Insurgents Continue Attacks

Aired May 18, 2005 - 17:00 ET

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

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now: a hot debate on the floor of the United State Senate, with serious consequences -- not just for today and tomorrow, but potentially for years, and even decades, to come.
Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

Car bomb carnage: did Iraq's most wanted man personally order the most recent wave of attacks?

Grenade: new information, it was live and it was a threat to the president.

DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE TYCOON: If we rebuild the World Trade Center in the form of a skeleton, Freedom Tower, the terrorists win.

BLITZER: The tycoon says he has a better and bigger idea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, for Wednesday, May 18th, 2005.

BLITZER: Thanks very much for joining us.

The battle lines have now been drawn on Capitol Hill and the stakes are enormous. The U.S. Senate began its long awaited showdown over the president's judicial nominations, some of them very controversial. At stake, the makeup of the nation's highest courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the future of hot-button issues like abortion rights for women, stem cell research, gay rights and prayers in school.

Republicans are threatening to change the rules to force a vote. Democrats are threatening to freeze all other Senate operations. We begin our coverage this hour with our congressional correspondent, Joe Johns. Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, and it comes down to just one judge, one nominee. That, of course, Priscilla Owen of Texas. The question is whether she and some other nominees should gate straight up and down vote on the Senate floor or if Democrats should have the right to filibuster. Here's a sampling of some of the debate today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BILL FRIST (R), MAJORITY LEADER: The issue is that we have leadership-led, partisan filibusters that have obstructed not one nominee but two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, in a routine way. The issue is not cloture votes, per se. It's the partisan, leadership-led use of cloture vote to kill, to defeat, to assassinate, these nominees. And that's the difference.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), MINORITY WHIP: When words are expressed during the course of the debate that those of us who oppose these nominees are setting out to kill, to defeat or to assassinate these nominees, those words should be taken from this record. Those words are inappropriate. Those words go too far.

SEN. HARRY REID (D) MINORITY LEADER: The filibuster is not a scheme, and it certainly isn't new. The filibuster is far from a procedural gimmick. It is part of the fabric of this institution we call the Senate.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Since the United States and Union of Soviet Socialists Republic avoided a nuclear confrontation in the Cold War by concessions and confidence-building measures, why shouldn't senators do the same by crossing the aisle in the spirit of compromise?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Now, negotiation continue to try to avert a showdown vote on this issue. Meanwhile, the question, of course, what will be the fallout? Democrats have already exercised their right to cut off the amount of time committee hearings can be held on Capitol Hill while this debate continues, Wolf.

BLITZER: So, what's the prospect -- when will we know whether or not this battle will be an all-ought war or whether a compromise -- a last-minute compromise can be achieved?

JOHNS: Of course, a compromise could happen any time. Some have suggested they'd very much like to do it today if they can do it at all. The bottom line is, the test votes on this issue are expected to come Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, Wolf.

BLITZER: Joe Johns reporting for us on Capitol Hill. Joe, thanks very much.

Republican leaders are throwing down the gauntlet by pushing for votes on two judges who are bitterly opposed by Democrats. Texas judge Priscilla Owen and California judge Janice Rogers Brown were nominated during the president's first term. Both nominations were blocked by Democrats.

Priscilla Owen has been picked for the fifth U.S. circuit court of appeals. She's been a Texas supreme court justice since 1994. Republican operative Karl Rove, at the White House now, ran her campaign years ago. As a lawyer in private practice, she worked for oil and gas interests. She's been criticized for stances on consumer rights, and on abortion. Janice Rogers Brown is nominated for the U.S. circuit court of appeals in the District of Columbia. She was elected to the California supreme court in 1996. As a conservative, Brown has been compared to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Critics point to her rulings opposing affirmative action, limiting abortion rights and limiting corporate responsibility.

We'll have much more on this Senate showdown. Coming up this hour, I'll speak with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch and Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, both key members of the judiciary committee.

Other news we're following, an audiotape believed to be from the terror chief Abu Musab al Zarqawi surfaced on several Islamic websites today. It defends suicide car bombings and says the killings of other Muslims are justified as part of the jihad against infidels. Just a short time ago, the Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers had this reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: But he says that it's OK for Muslims to kill Muslims, and not just any Muslims but innocent men, women and children. And that's what he has been doing, if you look at the statistics over the last couple of weeks. A lot of Iraqi men, women and children have died because this violent extremist is trying to convince others to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The audiotape surfaces as al Zarqawi is being directly linked to the new wave of attacks in Iraq. CNN's Ryan Chilcote has more now from Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT, IRAQ: A senior U.S. military official says Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted terrorist, ordered insurgents associated with his terror network to increase their use of car bombings. The military, according to the official, has intelligence that Zarqawi's lieutenants met last month in Syria. It is not clear if Zarqawi was present at the meeting but the military believes he gave the order to his lieutenants to include car bombings in their daily operations. Before, the official said, car bombs were used normally for spectacular attacks, like this assassination of an Iraqi government official last year filmed by insurgents.

Just after the reported meeting in Syria, Baghdad was awash in bombings. On this day, 11 car bombs went off before lunch. According to new data on attacks in the Iraqi capital there were twice as many car bombings in last two-and-a-half months alone then in all of last year. The official called last month Iraq's most violent since the offensive in Falluja.

The U.S. military says it is encouraged by what it sees as a relative lull in the violence over the last few days, and intelligence it says it's has gained in recent offenses like Operation Matador. But it says it is up against an enemy who has shown an ability to learn and adapt. Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Pentagon rules bar women from going into direct ground combat, but some critics say those rules are being stretched to the breaking point right now in Iraq. Our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is standing by live. He has more on this story. Jamie?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: And Wolf, right now the battle over the future of women in combat is being fought in the House Armed Services Committee. We don't yet know who's going to win.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: There is no question U.S. women are in combat. You could ask Army Sergeant Jennifer Greaston (ph) if she wasn't so busy test-firing her machine gun on a helicopter patrol over Afghanistan.

But, at issue is whether the Pentagon, pressed to fill the ranks, is skirting its own policy, barring women from serving in direct ground combat, especially in Iraq where there are no front lines. Take this firefight captured in an insurgent video. One of the heroes of the U.S. M.P. unit that killed 26 enemy fighters was a woman, Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester.

SGT. LEIGH ANN HESTER, U.S. ARMY: And immediately we went to the right side of the convoy and began taking fire and we laid down suppressive fire and pushed up and flanked -- flanked the insurgents and overcame, that day.

MCINTYRE: In fact, there are now some 9,400 female soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and so far 35 have been killed in action.

Some Republicans in the House, led by Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, think too many women have been put in harm's way.

Private Jessica Lynch's unit, for example, was never supposed to be on the front lines when it was ambushed after taking a wrong term. An amendment passed last week in a House subcommittee would bar women from such forward support units, a move the army says could close some 22,000 jobs to women.

The army has been lobbying heavily the full committee to soften the language, and on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld isn't conceding there will be any change.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I'm not just sitting around waiting. I'm having meetings with them and discussing it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: And some of those discussions have been over compromise language that could be introduced this afternoon. It would prevent the army from putting women in the most dangerous assignments but still give the army enough flexibility that women could stay in most of the jobs they're in now. Wolf?

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Thanks, Jamie, very much.

John Negroponte was sworn in today as the first U.S. director of national intelligence. The former U.S. ambassador to Iraq will be in charge of all 15 U.S. spy agencies, under legislation recommended by the September 11th commission. President Bush says Negroponte already is hard at work combining all those agencies into a single, unified enterprise.

Live ammunition, and a definite security risk: the grenade that landed within 100 feet of the president just last week, we now know was no dummy at all.

Judges in danger: Her husband and mother were killed in their family home, now this federal judge is speaking out for the first time here in Washington.

Also ahead,

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE MOGUL: In a nutshell, Freedom Tower should not be allowed to be built.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Rebuilding at ground zero: Donald Trump says he has a better plan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: No one realized it at the time except for the assailant, but the president of the United States had a very close brush with danger last week when he addressed a massive crowd in the Georgian capital of Tblisi. It turns out that a grenade later found at the site was very real.

Let's go live to our White House correspondent Dana Bash -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Wolf, investigators came to that conclusion after testing the grenade in what the FBI calls rigorous lab conditions. But they still do not know who brought the grenade in, who threw it and why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): The FBI now says someone in this crowd tossed a live grenade within 100 feet of the president and only a malfunction stopped it from exploding in Georgia's Freedom Square.

BRYAN PAARMANN, FBI AGENT: We consider this act to be a threat against the health and welfare of both the president of the United States and the president of Georgia.

BASH: The FBI director briefed Mr. Bush on the agency's latest conclusion -- that the grenade was hidden in a dark cloth when it was hurled towards him.

PAARMANN: This hand grenade appears to be a live device that simply failed to function.

BASH: Though the FBI is on the ground working with local authorities, this report directly contradicts a statement out of the Georgian Interior Ministry last week saying the device did not contain explosives and was merely placed in the crowd, not thrown.

In fact, there are still many unanswered questions. Like how did someone toss a grenade here without the Secret Service, surveillance everywhere or even journalists on the scene seeing any disturbance? And how could the Secret Service allow that kind of device so close to the president?

JOSEPH PETRO, FRM. SECRET SERVICE AGENT: The Secret Service has the responsibility for the life of the president, but in a foreign country they don't have the authority, or the jurisdiction and they don't have the resources. So they have to depend on the local governments to provide those resources.

BASH: Just before the president spoke to the jam-packed thousands, U.S. officials in Tblisi told CNN the crowd had broken through a barrier and they could no longer be sure the area was safe.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Those are all issues that the Secret Service will look at and take into consideration for future events.

BASH: Law enforcement experts say an exploding grenade certainly would have hurt or killed Georgians in the square and caused panic. But Mr. Bush was partially shielded by bulletproof glass and his life was probably not in danger.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Officials in Georgia are appealing for any witnesses to come forward with any pictures, videotapes, anything that could help find the person they believe threw this grenade. And also, Wolf, they are offering what is equal to about $11,000 in a reward for any tip that could lead to an arrest and a conviction -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Dana Bash reporting for us. Pretty scary stuff. Thanks, Dana, very much.

Georgia's Interior Ministry says the grenade was a Soviet designed fragmentation device known as an RGD 5. It weighs about 310 grams, or about 11 ounces, is filled with 110 grams, or about 4 ounces of TNT. The grenade can be thrown from as far away as 43 yards with a fuse delay of some three to four seconds. The effective fragment radius is 15 to 20 meters and fragments can spread as far as 30 meters, that's just shy of the 100 feet from the president's podium where the grenade actually landed.

When we come back, a judge's dramatic plea asking the U.S. Congress for protection. She speaks publicly for the first time since her mother and her husband were murdered.

The battle over judges, enormous stakes in a Senate showdown as well. We'll hear from both sides. Senators Orrin Hatch, Chuck Schumer, they'll join me.

Plus, baseball, basketball and hockey join forces on the Hill as lawmakers focus in on steroids and pro athletes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A plea for protection today from the victim of an unimaginable crime, a federal judge whose mother and husband were murdered by a disgruntled plaintiff.

Our Brian Todd is joining us now. He has more on this story.

Brian?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, Judge Joan Lefkow has said little publicly in the two-and-a-half months since those murders and nothing before a microphone or camera. So there was a real air of anticipation over how she would handle herself at a Senate hearing.

(voice-over): Shadowed by a U.S. marshal as she entered a Senate chamber, U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow described an unfillable void since the day her husband and mother were murdered, a day she called her family's personal 9/11.

DISTRICT JUDGE JOAN LEFKOW: The father that sent every report card to grandma so she also could rejoice in what the children accomplished is no longer there and neither is the grandmother that made each of her 20 grandchildren and great grandchildren believe that that grandchild was her special favorite.

TODD: February 28, Judge Lefkow's husband and mother were found shot to death inside the family's Chicago area home. Just day's later, a former litigant angry with Lefkow for dismissing his case committed suicide, leaving a note confessing to the murders.

For the first since that, we heard the halting voice of a woman still coming to grips with her losses.

LEFKOW: I'm the wife that wakes up in the morning not to a cup of coffee presented by my husband of 30 years to reopen what we called the endless conversation of marriage, but to an open book that I was reading in an effort to banish the memories of 5:30 p.m. on the day our world changed forever.

TODD: A day that provoked a bitter debate about the U.S. Marshal Service. At the time, Lefkow was not under protection,had not asked for it and was unaware of any threat.

Since then, federal judges have complained that the Marshals are underfunded, understaffed and often unable to protect them.

JANE ROTH, U.S. CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE: We do know across the country that they are reporting to us -- they will get fired if they do it publicly -- but they are reporting to us what their staffing patterns are and how those staffing patterns are going down in recent years.

TODD: This judge lays that responsibility at the feet of the Bush administration. But the head of the Marshals Service defends his boss.

BENIGNO REYNA, U.S. MARSHALS SERVICE: The president's budget, had it been fully funded as requested, we would have achieved an additional 462 positions that are vitally needed in every district and every area of the Marshals Service.

TODD: And the Marshals say help is on the way in the form of $12 million just approved by Congress and the White House for home security systems for federal judges.

TODD (on camera): Judge Lefkow now has a full protective detail assigned to her. Just last Friday she was eating at a Chicago restaurant and a man slapped a derogatory note on the window just outside her. The note didn't have her name on it but the Marshals believe it was intended for Lefkow. A Marshal gave chase but the man disappeared into the crowd.

BLITZER: That's scary, too.

Brian Todd, thanks very much for that report.

The country's second largest city is getting a new mayor. The challenger, Antonio Villaraigosa, beat incumbent Jim Hahn by a wide margin in yesterday's mayoral runoff election. Villaraigosa was a city councilman and former state assembly speaker. He will be the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since 1872, while Hahn is the first incumbent to lose office in more than 30 years.

On the chopping block, "60 Minutes," the Wednesday edition, won't be making it into CBS' prime time lineup for much longer; what that means for the embattled reporter and former anchor man, Dan Rather. That's coming up ahead.

Plus, Senate showdown: The debate over Bush's judicial nominees heating up on Capitol Hill. Two senators, Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Chuck Schumer, weigh in on the filibuster fight. That's coming up.

And later, Trump Towers: The Donald says he has a better plan for rebuilding Ground Zero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. More now on the filibuster fight and the looming Senate showdown over judicial nominees. I talked about it earlier with two key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Senator Hatch, Senator Schumer, thanks very much for joining us. I'll begin with Senator Hatch.

We hear the words "filibuster," "roll call," "up-and-down vote." To a lot of viewers out there, this sounds like normal Washington politicking. Why should people really care what happens on the Senate floor in the coming days?

SEN. ORRIN HATCH, (R) UTAH: Well, because federal judges are appointed for life, and both sides believe this is one of the most important responsibilities that we as senators have.

And of course, for 214 years, except possibly in the case of Fortas, although there's a real argument against it, but at least there it was a bipartisan filibuster, if that's what you call it, except in that case, we've had 214 years of no filibusters once a nominee...

BLITZER: But, Senator Hatch, what about during the Clinton administration, all those nominees that he put forward that weren't even allowed to come up for a vote?

HATCH: Well, we looked at that, you know. And frankly, always at the end of eight years of a president's term, there are always people left over. But we got through, in the eight years of President Clinton -- and six of those years, I was chairman -- 377 confirmed judges, the second highest total in history.

The only one who had more was Ronald Reagan, and he got five more. But Reagan had six years of a Republican Senate to help him. Clinton only had two years of a Democrat Senate, and he had me. And I did the very best I could.

BLITZER: All right. What about that, Senator Schumer?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK: Well, the bottom line is, yes, they held up 60 and approved 377. We've approved 208 and have held up 10.

And, you know, they get into the argument: Well, you shouldn't filibuster. What's the difference, if they don't give them a vote and don't let them come up, or we try to block it by the means at our disposal?

The Founding Fathers wanted the Senate to have input. They didn't want the Senate to be a rubber stamp. And because 10 or 218 judges haven't been approved, we are on the verge of changing the way the Senate functions and sort of rolling over the rights of the minority. It shouldn't be a majority vote of 51-49, a narrow majority, when it's so important in terms of lifetime appointment of people of awesome power, federal judges.

BLITZER: Go ahead.

HATCH: But all 10 of those were Circuit Court of Appeals nominees, all of whom had the approval of the American Bar Association, the Democrat gold standard. And most of them had the highest ratings in the American Bar Association. And all were qualified.

President Bush has had the lowest number of Circuit Court of Appeals nominees confirmed of any president in recent history. You just can't say, well, only 10 were left off. Well, those were 10 very important positions that were absolutely critical to the country.

BLITZER: But Senator Hatch, you've been in -- Senator Hatch, you've been in the Senate now for almost 30 years. If you blow up this filibuster rule and change the rules of the game along the lines right now -- you know what it was like to be in the minority -- what happens if the Republicans wind up in the minority down the road?

HATCH: Well, I think we ought to have no filibusters, because we didn't have them for 214 years. That's been the tradition of the Senate. It's worked very, very well, and nobody ever accused the Senate of blowing it up or doing anything else, because we didn't filibuster. And I think that's a very, very important precedent that we ought to be following.

BLITZER: All right...

HATCH: Our friends on the other side, of course, are filibustering really for the first time in history once these people have reached the floor. And in the process, if we do what I would say we should do, we would bind both parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, from doing this again.

And by the way, I have a good record. I never voted against cloture, in other words, to sustain a filibuster, in my whole period in the United States Senate, now 29 years.

BLITZER: All right.

SCHUMER: Yeah, well, look. Two things, Wolf. First, Bill Frist, who's leading the charge and says 214 years, just voted for a filibuster in 2000 against Richard Paez. They didn't win, because Clinton reached out to them. George Bush has never reached out to us. He wants it his way or no way.

And one other thing. If your child came home and said, I got a 95 on my test, Mom or Dad, what would you say? You'd say great job. What the Republicans in effect are saying is, you should get 100 percent, and you should break the rules...

BLITZER: Senator Schumer...

SCHUMER: ...so you can get those 100 percent. BLITZER: ...is this really not a fight over these specific judicial nominees, but really a fight down the road involving new justices for the Supreme Court? A fight over such issues potentially as abortion rights for women, gay rights, stem cell research, lots of issues involving prayer in schools, church-state relations? Is that what this is really all about?

SCHUMER: It goes way beyond that. First, the judges who we've stopped don't belong to be on the bench. One of them they're highlighting today, Janice Rogers Brown, she said the New Deal was a socialist revolution. She said there should be no zoning laws in the taking of property. If you have a nice house in the suburbs, someone could buy the house next to you and put in a smokestack. She said there should be no child labor laws. She's an extremist. So we believe these people should not be put on the bench.

BLITZER: All right.

SCHUMER: But of course it relates -- let me just finish, Orrin.

HATCH: Let me answer that.

SCHUMER: Of course it relates to the future judges as well, but not simply the issues you've mentioned. It relates to the whole way this country has functioned from the 1930s on. And the people -- some of the people the president has nominated want to turn the clock back. They're proud of it.

BLITZER: All right, Senator Hatch, go ahead.

SCHUMER: The 1890s.

HATCH: The issues he's mentioned just aren't right. First of all, Janice Rogers Brown, sharecropper's daughter, worked her way through college...

SCHUMER: Called the New Deal a socialist revolution.

HATCH: Let me finish. Let me...

SCHUMER: ...didn't she?

HATCH: No, she didn't.

SCHUMER: She did so.

HATCH: No, she didn't. You're misquoting her.

SCHUMER: Read her book.

HATCH: You're misquoting both times.

SCHUMER: She said...

HATCH: Well, let me finish, OK. First of all, she worked her way through college and law school as a single mother. Held three of the highest-level positions in the California government. Was counsel to the then-Governor Pete Wilson; was appointed to the supreme court. Writes the majority of the majority opinions in the last number of years on the supreme court, that liberal court. And of course was reelected with a vote of 76 percent...

SCHUMER: Against no opposition.

HATCH: ...has the approval of the...

SCHUMER: No opposition.

HATCH: ...please, Chuck, I didn't interrupt you.

SCHUMER: You say 76 percent. There was no one else on the ballot.

HATCH: Well, she had....

SCHUMER: Twenty-four percent voted against her.

BLITZER: All right, hold on. Senator Schumer, hold on.

HATCH: Let me finish. She had the highest vote total of anybody running that year, including fellow justices. This is a terrific woman. These people have distorted her record. They're distorting what she says. She is conservative, and she's a conservative African- American.

And what they're afraid of is that if Sandra Day O'Connor leaves, this woman, if she gets on the Circuit Court of Appeals may very well be a candidate for the United States Supreme Court as an African- American conservative and they just can't tolerate that.

SCHUMER: What we're afraid of is somebody who has explicitly been so far out of the mainstream that she was, by a Republican court -- six-to-one Republican -- rejected. She was a dissenter in a third of the opinions, someone who said the New Deal is a Socialist revolution, has been -- said so on the floor, without dispute. Somebody who said all zoning laws are a taking. Somebody who said that senior citizens are cannibalizing their children by asking for Social Security.

This woman is an extremist. It doesn't matter if she's black, white, brown of yellow. She doesn't belong on the second-most important court of the land, where she alone, because she'll have a lifetime appointment, can undo the whole structure we've set up in this country...

HATCH: Now, come on. Let me -- well, let me...

SCHUMER: ...for sixty or seventy years.

HATCH: Can I say something?

BLITZER: Yes, go ahead Senator Hatch.

HATCH: My gosh! They've distorted her record.

SCHUMER: Absolutely not.

HATCH: This is a terrific woman. I interviewed her for three hours before a hearing, I fell in love with her. She's a terrific human being. She came up the hard way. They just can't tolerate the fact that she may very well think for herself as a conservative woman, as a conservative African-American. And to distort what she said, I think, is wrong.

And Chuck, you know better than that, and you shouldn't be distorting.

SCHUMER: Orrin, stop it.

HATCH: You've taken words out of context...

SCHUMER: She's called it a socialist revolution.

HATCH: You've taken -- out of thousands of cases...

SCHUMER: Look, don't...

HATCH: ...out of thousands of...

SCHUMER: Don't say I'm distorting something that we know are the facts.

HATCH: You are distorting. You are distorting.

SCHUMER: What they try to do is say she's a sharecropper's daughter, therefore we should be for her. It's her views that matter. It's how she'll rule from the bench, no matter what her background.

HATCH: Then, Chuck...

SCHUMER: She is one of the ten we've rejected...

BLITZER: All right, Senators...

SCHUMER: ...for a good reason.

HATCH: At least give me one last word.

SCHUMER: And that are the -- those are the facts.

HATCH: Then Chuck, why did the Bar Association rate her "qualified?"

SCHUMER: They don't look at her ideology.

HATCH: Oh, no -- they were your gold standard during the Clinton years. Why isn't the gold standard today?

SCHUMER: Half of them rated her "not qualified."

HATCH: Chuck, what you're saying is wrong, and you know it.

SCHUMER: No, absolutely not.

HATCH: You know it.

SCHUMER: It is exactly right...

HATCH: You know it.

SCHUMER: ...and you can say I know it, but you haven't been able to dispute a single one of the facts.

HATCH: We sure have. I'll answer every...

BLITZER: Senator...

HATCH: I'll answer everything you've said.

SCHUMER: She was -- she was one of these ten for a good reason, Wolf. And the reason was, she was way out in extreme.

BLITZER: All right.

SCHUMER: We have voted for conservative after conservative...

HATCH: Let me -- the reason is, she's an African-American woman who is conservative.

SCHUMER: ...but not somebody who wants to go back to the 1890s.

BLITZER: All right.

HATCH: That's the reason.

BLITZER: Senator Hatch, is there still room, even at this late moment, for a compromise that will avert potentially a change in the filibuster rule and, at the same time, a shutdown of the Senate -- which is what some Democrats are threatening.

As you know, Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, Republican Senator John McCain -- they're trying to work out some sort of memorandum of understanding to avert this shutdown, this so-called nuclear option. Do you believe that's still doable?

HATCH: Well, I don't know. I would be happy to try and find some reason to compromise this. But you know, the Democrats have been willing, maybe, to allow some votes but throw the others over the wall, including Janice Rogers Brown.

SCHUMER: That's what a compromise is all about.

HATCH: In fact, at one time -- in fact, at one time they said both women. So, they'd throw the two women over the wall for four white males.

The fact is, if they're so right then why are they willing to allow some to be voted upon, if they're not qualified, and throw others over the wall. Or, if they aren't qualified, why are they letting anybody be voted on?

BLITZER: So you...

SCHUMER: The bottom line is, because, Wolf, using the nuclear option would so set this nation back, in terms of comity, in terms of bipartisanship, in terms of checks and balances. If you give the majority -- and Bush only won by 51-and-a-half percent -- the right to win their way every single time, the America we know and love will not be right.

So the reason we are willing to compromise, Orrin, is not because we like these judges. But that's what the art of the possible is. We will not compromise on the nuclear option. We will not compromise on the grand tradition of the Senate.

BLITZER: Will you, Senator Schumer -- will you shut down the Senate effectively if the Republicans go ahead and change the filibuster rule?

SCHUMER: Absolutely not.

Here's what we will do. What we will do is we will use the Senate rules to put items that we believe should be heard by the Senate on the agenda. In the past, we've deferred to the majority to set the agenda. That's part of the comity of the Senate, the majority sets the agenda. But the minority has the right to filibuster.

And if they want to take that away, then we will use the rules, and you'll see things like minimum wage, buying prescription drugs in Canada, trying to improve our clean air and clean water act put on the floor of the Senate over and over again till we get votes on those things, up-or-down votes.

BLITZER: Senator Hatch.

HATCH: Well, they're already shutting the Senate down. They actually stopped committees from meeting after they invoked the two- hour rule today. I question whether they're going to allow things to go forward. We've had nothing but filibusters by them ever since.

Now, the one thing people need to know out there....

SCHUMER: Ten...

HATCH: ...one thing people need to know out there...

SCHUMER: ...out of 218.

HATCH: I would fight to my death to have the filibuster rule to protect the minority on the legislative calendar. But this is the executive calendar, which also means that we should advise and consent. That means not just giving advice from the Senate, but consenting, which means a vote up and down, either for or against the person. BLITZER: All right.

HATCH: What's wrong with giving these seven remaining Circuit Court of Appeals nominees, who have bipartisan majority support, a simple vote up and down and bind both parties so that neither party can pull this kind of crap in the future. I don't see anything wrong with that.

SCHUMER: Wolf, if they'll break the rules to change the judicial filibuster today, tomorrow they'll break the rules to change for executive branch appointees, legislative appointees...

BLITZER: Senator?

HATCH: There's no breaking of rules.

SCHUMER: ...and everyone else. He says he's only for it for judges, but the same way they're breaking the rules to do it for judges, they can do tomorrow on legislation.

BLITZER: Senators...

HATCH: This constitutional options...

BLITZER: ...we are...

HATCH: ...has been used four times by the Democrats. It's not breaking the rules. It's something that is a precedent. And we have a right to do it to bind both parties...

SCHUMER: Only by a two-thirds vote.

HATCH: ...to bind both parties so these judge nominees, whether Democrat or Republican, are treated fairly with an up-or-down vote (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: We have to leave it there, Senators, unfortunately. A good, solid debate. I'm sure the American people will be watching and understanding in the days to come the full stakes involved. Both of you, very, very good. Thanks to both of you, Senator Hatch, Senator Schumer, for joining me.

SCHUMER: Thank you.

HATCH: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: There has been a potentially important debate in the case of those two missing children in Idaho. We're standing by for details. We'll bring them to you right after this next break.

Also, we're following the story of those steroids in -- steroids being used by professional athletes. Why leaders in professional sports would prefer Congress not get involved in policing the use of performance-enhancing drugs, potentially offer (ph). And later, towers of Trump. Real estate tycoon Donald Trump, criticizing the current plans for ground zero and unveiling his own grand vision for the site. All that, still to come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: There's potentially been a significant development in the case of those two missing children out in Idaho. Let's head out to Coeur d'Alene. Sean Callebs is standing by with the word of the development. Sean?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, yesterday evening authorities here said that they were on the lookout for, what they termed a person of interest. His name, 33-year-old Robert Roy Lutner.

Well, a short time ago, authorities say that Lutner has contacted authorities and right now they are on their way to speak with him. Lutner is not a suspect. He's not being called a suspect in the case at this time. However, authorities believe he was at the home about the time the crimes were committed and that's why they say it is important they get to him and talk to him quickly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. BEN WOLFINGER, KOOTENAI CO., IDAHO, SHERIFF'S DEPT.: He's a person of interest because we know he was here at the residence on Sunday evening. Now, we don't know if he's involved in the crime, but we know he was here Sunday evening. That's the last timeframe we can put everybody here at the house alive. So, he's a person of interest. He may have seen something. He may have known someone else was here at the residence. He may have met somebody as he was leaving the residence, as he was leaving, they may have been coming in.

That's the kind of information we hope to get from him. But until our investigators get up and actually talk to him and interview him, that's all we're going to say now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLEBS: The 33-year-old Lutner apparently called investigators here in Coeur d'Alene. Authorities are not saying where Lutner is. They wouldn't say if he remained in the area, if he is in Idaho, or if he has moved out of the state or just how far. He was apparently driving a late model pickup truck when he left this area sometime on Sunday. Authorities had been on the lookout for that pickup truck. They say they are canceling, obviously, all those bulletins, as well. They will not say if they are looking for more than one person. But, Wolf, a potentially significant development. We'll keep you updated as authorities bring more to us. Back to you.

BLITZER: Those two little kids still missing; the mother, the brother and another friend, brutally killed only a day or so ago. Well, we'll check back with you, Sean Callebs, on this heart-wrenching story. Thanks very much.

Moving back here to Washington, while the U.S. Senate is focused in on judges, some House members are focusing in on steroid use in professional sports. Our national correspondent Bob Franken, joining us now, here. He's got details. You been following this all day, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Been following it all day. You had the head honcho's all of the major league sports showing up today, some tomorrow. They made a big deal out of the fact that they were invited as opposed to subpoenaed, like they had a choice.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): They represent very different major league sports in the United States, but the commissioners' and players' labor leaders from all of them have one thing in common: they would strongly prefer for Congress not to dictate how they deal with performance-enhancing drugs.

BUD SELIG, MLB COMMISSIONER: The ability of baseball to police itself is preferable to legislation. If we cannot do it -- and I really hope that we can -- I understand why legislation would be considered by Congress.

DON FEHR, MLB PLAYERS ASSOCIATION: It is an important notion that the people involved in the process have some role in putting it together.

GARY BETTMAN, NHL COMMISSIONER: We do not see the need for the proposed legislation as it would relate to the NHL.

DAVID STERN, NBA COMMISSIONER: If Congress sees fit to legislate here, I can pledge to you that we will meet or exceed any standard that you sit.

FRANKEN: The big leagues, all of them, are scrambling to create tougher steroid policies after months of bad publicity, particularly now that Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns has offered legislation that would require all of them to randomly test each player at least once a year, suspend any athlete caught cheating for the first time for two years, and suspend him or her for life the second time.

REP. CLIFF STEARNS (R), FLORIDA: I'm not convinced that an effective solution to this problem can be found in a system that allows those with a vested interest in the performance of the players and leagues to simply police themselves.

FRANKEN: He'll get more argument over that in the next session when the National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue testifies.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): Meanwhile, another committee will hear from at least one NBA player. Professional athletes are not the only ones competing. The politicians here in Washington are also jostling to be identified with the steroid issue. Wolf?

BLITZER: Bob Franken, reporting for us. Thanks, Bob, very much. We'll continue to watch this story.

We'll take another quick break. When we come back, freedom tower gets trumped: why real estate mogul Donald Trump wants to redo the future plans for ground zero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Three-and-a-half years after 9/11, New Yorkers are still arguing about new construction on the site of the World Trade Center. Now Donald Trump is weighing in.

CNN'S Jason Carroll reports.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Celebrity developer Donald Trump -- always the showman, never one to mince words -- was true to form when he unveiled a new plan for Ground Zero and criticized the existing one chosen after an international competition two years ago.

DONALD TRUMP: If you take a look at the adjoining buildings, it looks like a junk yard. You take a look at the roofs of those buildings, they are at different angles, they're all in odd shapes. It is the worst pile-of-crap architecture I have ever seen in my life.

CARROLL: Trump says he has a better plan. Basically, it calls for rebuilding the Twin Towers, a little higher, at least 111 stories. The original were 110.

Trump says the Freedom Tower, designed by architects Daniel Libeskind and David Childs, looks like a skeleton and the original glory of the towers should be restored.

TRUMP: A little bit taller a lot stronger, just plain better.

CARROLL: Trump's plan would scrap the Freedom Tower and the memorial which was also chosen during an international competition. 9/11 family member Charles Wolf, whose wife Katherine died in the Trade Center, says he's not sure how other family members will respond.

CHARLES WOLF, HUSBAND OF 9/11 VICTIM: Some people will not like this because it brings up too much pain. Some people will like it because it flushes pain.

CARROLL: Libeskind's original master plan has been modified several times. Most recently the New York City Police Department said the Freedom Tower should be moved farther away from the street for security.

New York Governor George Pataki is overseeing the process and just a few days ago he announced a new tower design will be unveiled next month. He did not comment on Trump's plan, but rebuilding officials said Donald Trump is entitled to his opinion just like the millions of people who actually involve themselves in the public planning process which resulted in the master plan. Site developer Larry Silverstein says he doesn't support Trump either. And architecture critic Paul Goldberger said someone like Trump -- best known for his casinos, reality TV show and buildings with his name on the -- may not have the right sensibility.

PAUL GOLDBERGER, PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN: Everything he's produced is ultimately about Donald Trump. We need a solution at Ground Zero that is going to be about New York, about America and about healing of the city. Trump, I don't think, is suited to that.

CARROLL (on camera): The architect of Freedom Tower, Daniel Libeskind, says that his design is respectful of history and defiantly alive. Trump is asking the public to write to Governor Pataki to support his plan.

Wolf?

BLITZER: Jason Carroll, thanks.

Other news, CBS canceling the Wednesday night edition of the news magazine "60 Minutes". The program will run through the rest of the season and there will be reruns this summer. Dan Rather, who recently retired as anchor of the "CBS Evening News," is expected to work on the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes".

Still ahead, a tragic love story played out on Olympic ice.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: As part of CNN's 25th anniversary, we're looking back at past newsmakers and where they are now.

CNN's Paula Zahn has this story.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A tragic love story born in the competitive world of figure skating. Ekaterina Gordeeva and her skating partner, Sergei Grinkov captured the pairs gold medal for Russia in the 1988 Olympics and again in 1994.

Along the way, they married and had a daughter, Daria.

But during a practice session in 1995, Grinkov died suddenly of a heart attack. Gordeeva found comfort in the same place she found love, on the ice, returning alone just three months later.

EKATERINA GORDEEVA, OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATER: To come back on the ice, was hard and at the same time it was a healing process.

ZAHN: Gordeeva became a household name and face, writing two books and signing several endorsements, including Target. She even launched her own fragrance line.

She eventually found love again, marrying a fellow Russian Olympic gold medalist, Ilia Kulik, and had a second daughter, Elizaveta.

Gordeeva has toured with "Stars on Ice" for seven years, but says her achievements off the ice are far most important to her.

GORDEEVA: I think, still, kids are the proudest moment. To be a part of the Olympic experience was very special, too, but I think that kids would be the first gold medal.

BLITZER: That's it for me.

Lou Dobbs standing by in New York.

Lou?

LOU DOBBS, HOST: Wolf, thank you. Have a good evening.

END

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

Aired May 18, 2005 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now: a hot debate on the floor of the United State Senate, with serious consequences -- not just for today and tomorrow, but potentially for years, and even decades, to come.
Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

Car bomb carnage: did Iraq's most wanted man personally order the most recent wave of attacks?

Grenade: new information, it was live and it was a threat to the president.

DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE TYCOON: If we rebuild the World Trade Center in the form of a skeleton, Freedom Tower, the terrorists win.

BLITZER: The tycoon says he has a better and bigger idea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, for Wednesday, May 18th, 2005.

BLITZER: Thanks very much for joining us.

The battle lines have now been drawn on Capitol Hill and the stakes are enormous. The U.S. Senate began its long awaited showdown over the president's judicial nominations, some of them very controversial. At stake, the makeup of the nation's highest courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the future of hot-button issues like abortion rights for women, stem cell research, gay rights and prayers in school.

Republicans are threatening to change the rules to force a vote. Democrats are threatening to freeze all other Senate operations. We begin our coverage this hour with our congressional correspondent, Joe Johns. Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, and it comes down to just one judge, one nominee. That, of course, Priscilla Owen of Texas. The question is whether she and some other nominees should gate straight up and down vote on the Senate floor or if Democrats should have the right to filibuster. Here's a sampling of some of the debate today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BILL FRIST (R), MAJORITY LEADER: The issue is that we have leadership-led, partisan filibusters that have obstructed not one nominee but two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, in a routine way. The issue is not cloture votes, per se. It's the partisan, leadership-led use of cloture vote to kill, to defeat, to assassinate, these nominees. And that's the difference.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), MINORITY WHIP: When words are expressed during the course of the debate that those of us who oppose these nominees are setting out to kill, to defeat or to assassinate these nominees, those words should be taken from this record. Those words are inappropriate. Those words go too far.

SEN. HARRY REID (D) MINORITY LEADER: The filibuster is not a scheme, and it certainly isn't new. The filibuster is far from a procedural gimmick. It is part of the fabric of this institution we call the Senate.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Since the United States and Union of Soviet Socialists Republic avoided a nuclear confrontation in the Cold War by concessions and confidence-building measures, why shouldn't senators do the same by crossing the aisle in the spirit of compromise?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Now, negotiation continue to try to avert a showdown vote on this issue. Meanwhile, the question, of course, what will be the fallout? Democrats have already exercised their right to cut off the amount of time committee hearings can be held on Capitol Hill while this debate continues, Wolf.

BLITZER: So, what's the prospect -- when will we know whether or not this battle will be an all-ought war or whether a compromise -- a last-minute compromise can be achieved?

JOHNS: Of course, a compromise could happen any time. Some have suggested they'd very much like to do it today if they can do it at all. The bottom line is, the test votes on this issue are expected to come Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, Wolf.

BLITZER: Joe Johns reporting for us on Capitol Hill. Joe, thanks very much.

Republican leaders are throwing down the gauntlet by pushing for votes on two judges who are bitterly opposed by Democrats. Texas judge Priscilla Owen and California judge Janice Rogers Brown were nominated during the president's first term. Both nominations were blocked by Democrats.

Priscilla Owen has been picked for the fifth U.S. circuit court of appeals. She's been a Texas supreme court justice since 1994. Republican operative Karl Rove, at the White House now, ran her campaign years ago. As a lawyer in private practice, she worked for oil and gas interests. She's been criticized for stances on consumer rights, and on abortion. Janice Rogers Brown is nominated for the U.S. circuit court of appeals in the District of Columbia. She was elected to the California supreme court in 1996. As a conservative, Brown has been compared to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Critics point to her rulings opposing affirmative action, limiting abortion rights and limiting corporate responsibility.

We'll have much more on this Senate showdown. Coming up this hour, I'll speak with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch and Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, both key members of the judiciary committee.

Other news we're following, an audiotape believed to be from the terror chief Abu Musab al Zarqawi surfaced on several Islamic websites today. It defends suicide car bombings and says the killings of other Muslims are justified as part of the jihad against infidels. Just a short time ago, the Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers had this reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: But he says that it's OK for Muslims to kill Muslims, and not just any Muslims but innocent men, women and children. And that's what he has been doing, if you look at the statistics over the last couple of weeks. A lot of Iraqi men, women and children have died because this violent extremist is trying to convince others to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The audiotape surfaces as al Zarqawi is being directly linked to the new wave of attacks in Iraq. CNN's Ryan Chilcote has more now from Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT, IRAQ: A senior U.S. military official says Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted terrorist, ordered insurgents associated with his terror network to increase their use of car bombings. The military, according to the official, has intelligence that Zarqawi's lieutenants met last month in Syria. It is not clear if Zarqawi was present at the meeting but the military believes he gave the order to his lieutenants to include car bombings in their daily operations. Before, the official said, car bombs were used normally for spectacular attacks, like this assassination of an Iraqi government official last year filmed by insurgents.

Just after the reported meeting in Syria, Baghdad was awash in bombings. On this day, 11 car bombs went off before lunch. According to new data on attacks in the Iraqi capital there were twice as many car bombings in last two-and-a-half months alone then in all of last year. The official called last month Iraq's most violent since the offensive in Falluja.

The U.S. military says it is encouraged by what it sees as a relative lull in the violence over the last few days, and intelligence it says it's has gained in recent offenses like Operation Matador. But it says it is up against an enemy who has shown an ability to learn and adapt. Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Pentagon rules bar women from going into direct ground combat, but some critics say those rules are being stretched to the breaking point right now in Iraq. Our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is standing by live. He has more on this story. Jamie?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: And Wolf, right now the battle over the future of women in combat is being fought in the House Armed Services Committee. We don't yet know who's going to win.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: There is no question U.S. women are in combat. You could ask Army Sergeant Jennifer Greaston (ph) if she wasn't so busy test-firing her machine gun on a helicopter patrol over Afghanistan.

But, at issue is whether the Pentagon, pressed to fill the ranks, is skirting its own policy, barring women from serving in direct ground combat, especially in Iraq where there are no front lines. Take this firefight captured in an insurgent video. One of the heroes of the U.S. M.P. unit that killed 26 enemy fighters was a woman, Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester.

SGT. LEIGH ANN HESTER, U.S. ARMY: And immediately we went to the right side of the convoy and began taking fire and we laid down suppressive fire and pushed up and flanked -- flanked the insurgents and overcame, that day.

MCINTYRE: In fact, there are now some 9,400 female soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and so far 35 have been killed in action.

Some Republicans in the House, led by Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, think too many women have been put in harm's way.

Private Jessica Lynch's unit, for example, was never supposed to be on the front lines when it was ambushed after taking a wrong term. An amendment passed last week in a House subcommittee would bar women from such forward support units, a move the army says could close some 22,000 jobs to women.

The army has been lobbying heavily the full committee to soften the language, and on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld isn't conceding there will be any change.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I'm not just sitting around waiting. I'm having meetings with them and discussing it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: And some of those discussions have been over compromise language that could be introduced this afternoon. It would prevent the army from putting women in the most dangerous assignments but still give the army enough flexibility that women could stay in most of the jobs they're in now. Wolf?

BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Thanks, Jamie, very much.

John Negroponte was sworn in today as the first U.S. director of national intelligence. The former U.S. ambassador to Iraq will be in charge of all 15 U.S. spy agencies, under legislation recommended by the September 11th commission. President Bush says Negroponte already is hard at work combining all those agencies into a single, unified enterprise.

Live ammunition, and a definite security risk: the grenade that landed within 100 feet of the president just last week, we now know was no dummy at all.

Judges in danger: Her husband and mother were killed in their family home, now this federal judge is speaking out for the first time here in Washington.

Also ahead,

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE MOGUL: In a nutshell, Freedom Tower should not be allowed to be built.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Rebuilding at ground zero: Donald Trump says he has a better plan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: No one realized it at the time except for the assailant, but the president of the United States had a very close brush with danger last week when he addressed a massive crowd in the Georgian capital of Tblisi. It turns out that a grenade later found at the site was very real.

Let's go live to our White House correspondent Dana Bash -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Wolf, investigators came to that conclusion after testing the grenade in what the FBI calls rigorous lab conditions. But they still do not know who brought the grenade in, who threw it and why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): The FBI now says someone in this crowd tossed a live grenade within 100 feet of the president and only a malfunction stopped it from exploding in Georgia's Freedom Square.

BRYAN PAARMANN, FBI AGENT: We consider this act to be a threat against the health and welfare of both the president of the United States and the president of Georgia.

BASH: The FBI director briefed Mr. Bush on the agency's latest conclusion -- that the grenade was hidden in a dark cloth when it was hurled towards him.

PAARMANN: This hand grenade appears to be a live device that simply failed to function.

BASH: Though the FBI is on the ground working with local authorities, this report directly contradicts a statement out of the Georgian Interior Ministry last week saying the device did not contain explosives and was merely placed in the crowd, not thrown.

In fact, there are still many unanswered questions. Like how did someone toss a grenade here without the Secret Service, surveillance everywhere or even journalists on the scene seeing any disturbance? And how could the Secret Service allow that kind of device so close to the president?

JOSEPH PETRO, FRM. SECRET SERVICE AGENT: The Secret Service has the responsibility for the life of the president, but in a foreign country they don't have the authority, or the jurisdiction and they don't have the resources. So they have to depend on the local governments to provide those resources.

BASH: Just before the president spoke to the jam-packed thousands, U.S. officials in Tblisi told CNN the crowd had broken through a barrier and they could no longer be sure the area was safe.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Those are all issues that the Secret Service will look at and take into consideration for future events.

BASH: Law enforcement experts say an exploding grenade certainly would have hurt or killed Georgians in the square and caused panic. But Mr. Bush was partially shielded by bulletproof glass and his life was probably not in danger.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Officials in Georgia are appealing for any witnesses to come forward with any pictures, videotapes, anything that could help find the person they believe threw this grenade. And also, Wolf, they are offering what is equal to about $11,000 in a reward for any tip that could lead to an arrest and a conviction -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Dana Bash reporting for us. Pretty scary stuff. Thanks, Dana, very much.

Georgia's Interior Ministry says the grenade was a Soviet designed fragmentation device known as an RGD 5. It weighs about 310 grams, or about 11 ounces, is filled with 110 grams, or about 4 ounces of TNT. The grenade can be thrown from as far away as 43 yards with a fuse delay of some three to four seconds. The effective fragment radius is 15 to 20 meters and fragments can spread as far as 30 meters, that's just shy of the 100 feet from the president's podium where the grenade actually landed.

When we come back, a judge's dramatic plea asking the U.S. Congress for protection. She speaks publicly for the first time since her mother and her husband were murdered.

The battle over judges, enormous stakes in a Senate showdown as well. We'll hear from both sides. Senators Orrin Hatch, Chuck Schumer, they'll join me.

Plus, baseball, basketball and hockey join forces on the Hill as lawmakers focus in on steroids and pro athletes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: A plea for protection today from the victim of an unimaginable crime, a federal judge whose mother and husband were murdered by a disgruntled plaintiff.

Our Brian Todd is joining us now. He has more on this story.

Brian?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, Judge Joan Lefkow has said little publicly in the two-and-a-half months since those murders and nothing before a microphone or camera. So there was a real air of anticipation over how she would handle herself at a Senate hearing.

(voice-over): Shadowed by a U.S. marshal as she entered a Senate chamber, U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow described an unfillable void since the day her husband and mother were murdered, a day she called her family's personal 9/11.

DISTRICT JUDGE JOAN LEFKOW: The father that sent every report card to grandma so she also could rejoice in what the children accomplished is no longer there and neither is the grandmother that made each of her 20 grandchildren and great grandchildren believe that that grandchild was her special favorite.

TODD: February 28, Judge Lefkow's husband and mother were found shot to death inside the family's Chicago area home. Just day's later, a former litigant angry with Lefkow for dismissing his case committed suicide, leaving a note confessing to the murders.

For the first since that, we heard the halting voice of a woman still coming to grips with her losses.

LEFKOW: I'm the wife that wakes up in the morning not to a cup of coffee presented by my husband of 30 years to reopen what we called the endless conversation of marriage, but to an open book that I was reading in an effort to banish the memories of 5:30 p.m. on the day our world changed forever.

TODD: A day that provoked a bitter debate about the U.S. Marshal Service. At the time, Lefkow was not under protection,had not asked for it and was unaware of any threat.

Since then, federal judges have complained that the Marshals are underfunded, understaffed and often unable to protect them.

JANE ROTH, U.S. CIRCUIT COURT JUDGE: We do know across the country that they are reporting to us -- they will get fired if they do it publicly -- but they are reporting to us what their staffing patterns are and how those staffing patterns are going down in recent years.

TODD: This judge lays that responsibility at the feet of the Bush administration. But the head of the Marshals Service defends his boss.

BENIGNO REYNA, U.S. MARSHALS SERVICE: The president's budget, had it been fully funded as requested, we would have achieved an additional 462 positions that are vitally needed in every district and every area of the Marshals Service.

TODD: And the Marshals say help is on the way in the form of $12 million just approved by Congress and the White House for home security systems for federal judges.

TODD (on camera): Judge Lefkow now has a full protective detail assigned to her. Just last Friday she was eating at a Chicago restaurant and a man slapped a derogatory note on the window just outside her. The note didn't have her name on it but the Marshals believe it was intended for Lefkow. A Marshal gave chase but the man disappeared into the crowd.

BLITZER: That's scary, too.

Brian Todd, thanks very much for that report.

The country's second largest city is getting a new mayor. The challenger, Antonio Villaraigosa, beat incumbent Jim Hahn by a wide margin in yesterday's mayoral runoff election. Villaraigosa was a city councilman and former state assembly speaker. He will be the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since 1872, while Hahn is the first incumbent to lose office in more than 30 years.

On the chopping block, "60 Minutes," the Wednesday edition, won't be making it into CBS' prime time lineup for much longer; what that means for the embattled reporter and former anchor man, Dan Rather. That's coming up ahead.

Plus, Senate showdown: The debate over Bush's judicial nominees heating up on Capitol Hill. Two senators, Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Chuck Schumer, weigh in on the filibuster fight. That's coming up.

And later, Trump Towers: The Donald says he has a better plan for rebuilding Ground Zero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. More now on the filibuster fight and the looming Senate showdown over judicial nominees. I talked about it earlier with two key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Senator Hatch, Senator Schumer, thanks very much for joining us. I'll begin with Senator Hatch.

We hear the words "filibuster," "roll call," "up-and-down vote." To a lot of viewers out there, this sounds like normal Washington politicking. Why should people really care what happens on the Senate floor in the coming days?

SEN. ORRIN HATCH, (R) UTAH: Well, because federal judges are appointed for life, and both sides believe this is one of the most important responsibilities that we as senators have.

And of course, for 214 years, except possibly in the case of Fortas, although there's a real argument against it, but at least there it was a bipartisan filibuster, if that's what you call it, except in that case, we've had 214 years of no filibusters once a nominee...

BLITZER: But, Senator Hatch, what about during the Clinton administration, all those nominees that he put forward that weren't even allowed to come up for a vote?

HATCH: Well, we looked at that, you know. And frankly, always at the end of eight years of a president's term, there are always people left over. But we got through, in the eight years of President Clinton -- and six of those years, I was chairman -- 377 confirmed judges, the second highest total in history.

The only one who had more was Ronald Reagan, and he got five more. But Reagan had six years of a Republican Senate to help him. Clinton only had two years of a Democrat Senate, and he had me. And I did the very best I could.

BLITZER: All right. What about that, Senator Schumer?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK: Well, the bottom line is, yes, they held up 60 and approved 377. We've approved 208 and have held up 10.

And, you know, they get into the argument: Well, you shouldn't filibuster. What's the difference, if they don't give them a vote and don't let them come up, or we try to block it by the means at our disposal?

The Founding Fathers wanted the Senate to have input. They didn't want the Senate to be a rubber stamp. And because 10 or 218 judges haven't been approved, we are on the verge of changing the way the Senate functions and sort of rolling over the rights of the minority. It shouldn't be a majority vote of 51-49, a narrow majority, when it's so important in terms of lifetime appointment of people of awesome power, federal judges.

BLITZER: Go ahead.

HATCH: But all 10 of those were Circuit Court of Appeals nominees, all of whom had the approval of the American Bar Association, the Democrat gold standard. And most of them had the highest ratings in the American Bar Association. And all were qualified.

President Bush has had the lowest number of Circuit Court of Appeals nominees confirmed of any president in recent history. You just can't say, well, only 10 were left off. Well, those were 10 very important positions that were absolutely critical to the country.

BLITZER: But Senator Hatch, you've been in -- Senator Hatch, you've been in the Senate now for almost 30 years. If you blow up this filibuster rule and change the rules of the game along the lines right now -- you know what it was like to be in the minority -- what happens if the Republicans wind up in the minority down the road?

HATCH: Well, I think we ought to have no filibusters, because we didn't have them for 214 years. That's been the tradition of the Senate. It's worked very, very well, and nobody ever accused the Senate of blowing it up or doing anything else, because we didn't filibuster. And I think that's a very, very important precedent that we ought to be following.

BLITZER: All right...

HATCH: Our friends on the other side, of course, are filibustering really for the first time in history once these people have reached the floor. And in the process, if we do what I would say we should do, we would bind both parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, from doing this again.

And by the way, I have a good record. I never voted against cloture, in other words, to sustain a filibuster, in my whole period in the United States Senate, now 29 years.

BLITZER: All right.

SCHUMER: Yeah, well, look. Two things, Wolf. First, Bill Frist, who's leading the charge and says 214 years, just voted for a filibuster in 2000 against Richard Paez. They didn't win, because Clinton reached out to them. George Bush has never reached out to us. He wants it his way or no way.

And one other thing. If your child came home and said, I got a 95 on my test, Mom or Dad, what would you say? You'd say great job. What the Republicans in effect are saying is, you should get 100 percent, and you should break the rules...

BLITZER: Senator Schumer...

SCHUMER: ...so you can get those 100 percent. BLITZER: ...is this really not a fight over these specific judicial nominees, but really a fight down the road involving new justices for the Supreme Court? A fight over such issues potentially as abortion rights for women, gay rights, stem cell research, lots of issues involving prayer in schools, church-state relations? Is that what this is really all about?

SCHUMER: It goes way beyond that. First, the judges who we've stopped don't belong to be on the bench. One of them they're highlighting today, Janice Rogers Brown, she said the New Deal was a socialist revolution. She said there should be no zoning laws in the taking of property. If you have a nice house in the suburbs, someone could buy the house next to you and put in a smokestack. She said there should be no child labor laws. She's an extremist. So we believe these people should not be put on the bench.

BLITZER: All right.

SCHUMER: But of course it relates -- let me just finish, Orrin.

HATCH: Let me answer that.

SCHUMER: Of course it relates to the future judges as well, but not simply the issues you've mentioned. It relates to the whole way this country has functioned from the 1930s on. And the people -- some of the people the president has nominated want to turn the clock back. They're proud of it.

BLITZER: All right, Senator Hatch, go ahead.

SCHUMER: The 1890s.

HATCH: The issues he's mentioned just aren't right. First of all, Janice Rogers Brown, sharecropper's daughter, worked her way through college...

SCHUMER: Called the New Deal a socialist revolution.

HATCH: Let me finish. Let me...

SCHUMER: ...didn't she?

HATCH: No, she didn't.

SCHUMER: She did so.

HATCH: No, she didn't. You're misquoting her.

SCHUMER: Read her book.

HATCH: You're misquoting both times.

SCHUMER: She said...

HATCH: Well, let me finish, OK. First of all, she worked her way through college and law school as a single mother. Held three of the highest-level positions in the California government. Was counsel to the then-Governor Pete Wilson; was appointed to the supreme court. Writes the majority of the majority opinions in the last number of years on the supreme court, that liberal court. And of course was reelected with a vote of 76 percent...

SCHUMER: Against no opposition.

HATCH: ...has the approval of the...

SCHUMER: No opposition.

HATCH: ...please, Chuck, I didn't interrupt you.

SCHUMER: You say 76 percent. There was no one else on the ballot.

HATCH: Well, she had....

SCHUMER: Twenty-four percent voted against her.

BLITZER: All right, hold on. Senator Schumer, hold on.

HATCH: Let me finish. She had the highest vote total of anybody running that year, including fellow justices. This is a terrific woman. These people have distorted her record. They're distorting what she says. She is conservative, and she's a conservative African- American.

And what they're afraid of is that if Sandra Day O'Connor leaves, this woman, if she gets on the Circuit Court of Appeals may very well be a candidate for the United States Supreme Court as an African- American conservative and they just can't tolerate that.

SCHUMER: What we're afraid of is somebody who has explicitly been so far out of the mainstream that she was, by a Republican court -- six-to-one Republican -- rejected. She was a dissenter in a third of the opinions, someone who said the New Deal is a Socialist revolution, has been -- said so on the floor, without dispute. Somebody who said all zoning laws are a taking. Somebody who said that senior citizens are cannibalizing their children by asking for Social Security.

This woman is an extremist. It doesn't matter if she's black, white, brown of yellow. She doesn't belong on the second-most important court of the land, where she alone, because she'll have a lifetime appointment, can undo the whole structure we've set up in this country...

HATCH: Now, come on. Let me -- well, let me...

SCHUMER: ...for sixty or seventy years.

HATCH: Can I say something?

BLITZER: Yes, go ahead Senator Hatch.

HATCH: My gosh! They've distorted her record.

SCHUMER: Absolutely not.

HATCH: This is a terrific woman. I interviewed her for three hours before a hearing, I fell in love with her. She's a terrific human being. She came up the hard way. They just can't tolerate the fact that she may very well think for herself as a conservative woman, as a conservative African-American. And to distort what she said, I think, is wrong.

And Chuck, you know better than that, and you shouldn't be distorting.

SCHUMER: Orrin, stop it.

HATCH: You've taken words out of context...

SCHUMER: She's called it a socialist revolution.

HATCH: You've taken -- out of thousands of cases...

SCHUMER: Look, don't...

HATCH: ...out of thousands of...

SCHUMER: Don't say I'm distorting something that we know are the facts.

HATCH: You are distorting. You are distorting.

SCHUMER: What they try to do is say she's a sharecropper's daughter, therefore we should be for her. It's her views that matter. It's how she'll rule from the bench, no matter what her background.

HATCH: Then, Chuck...

SCHUMER: She is one of the ten we've rejected...

BLITZER: All right, Senators...

SCHUMER: ...for a good reason.

HATCH: At least give me one last word.

SCHUMER: And that are the -- those are the facts.

HATCH: Then Chuck, why did the Bar Association rate her "qualified?"

SCHUMER: They don't look at her ideology.

HATCH: Oh, no -- they were your gold standard during the Clinton years. Why isn't the gold standard today?

SCHUMER: Half of them rated her "not qualified."

HATCH: Chuck, what you're saying is wrong, and you know it.

SCHUMER: No, absolutely not.

HATCH: You know it.

SCHUMER: It is exactly right...

HATCH: You know it.

SCHUMER: ...and you can say I know it, but you haven't been able to dispute a single one of the facts.

HATCH: We sure have. I'll answer every...

BLITZER: Senator...

HATCH: I'll answer everything you've said.

SCHUMER: She was -- she was one of these ten for a good reason, Wolf. And the reason was, she was way out in extreme.

BLITZER: All right.

SCHUMER: We have voted for conservative after conservative...

HATCH: Let me -- the reason is, she's an African-American woman who is conservative.

SCHUMER: ...but not somebody who wants to go back to the 1890s.

BLITZER: All right.

HATCH: That's the reason.

BLITZER: Senator Hatch, is there still room, even at this late moment, for a compromise that will avert potentially a change in the filibuster rule and, at the same time, a shutdown of the Senate -- which is what some Democrats are threatening.

As you know, Democratic Senator Ben Nelson, Republican Senator John McCain -- they're trying to work out some sort of memorandum of understanding to avert this shutdown, this so-called nuclear option. Do you believe that's still doable?

HATCH: Well, I don't know. I would be happy to try and find some reason to compromise this. But you know, the Democrats have been willing, maybe, to allow some votes but throw the others over the wall, including Janice Rogers Brown.

SCHUMER: That's what a compromise is all about.

HATCH: In fact, at one time -- in fact, at one time they said both women. So, they'd throw the two women over the wall for four white males.

The fact is, if they're so right then why are they willing to allow some to be voted upon, if they're not qualified, and throw others over the wall. Or, if they aren't qualified, why are they letting anybody be voted on?

BLITZER: So you...

SCHUMER: The bottom line is, because, Wolf, using the nuclear option would so set this nation back, in terms of comity, in terms of bipartisanship, in terms of checks and balances. If you give the majority -- and Bush only won by 51-and-a-half percent -- the right to win their way every single time, the America we know and love will not be right.

So the reason we are willing to compromise, Orrin, is not because we like these judges. But that's what the art of the possible is. We will not compromise on the nuclear option. We will not compromise on the grand tradition of the Senate.

BLITZER: Will you, Senator Schumer -- will you shut down the Senate effectively if the Republicans go ahead and change the filibuster rule?

SCHUMER: Absolutely not.

Here's what we will do. What we will do is we will use the Senate rules to put items that we believe should be heard by the Senate on the agenda. In the past, we've deferred to the majority to set the agenda. That's part of the comity of the Senate, the majority sets the agenda. But the minority has the right to filibuster.

And if they want to take that away, then we will use the rules, and you'll see things like minimum wage, buying prescription drugs in Canada, trying to improve our clean air and clean water act put on the floor of the Senate over and over again till we get votes on those things, up-or-down votes.

BLITZER: Senator Hatch.

HATCH: Well, they're already shutting the Senate down. They actually stopped committees from meeting after they invoked the two- hour rule today. I question whether they're going to allow things to go forward. We've had nothing but filibusters by them ever since.

Now, the one thing people need to know out there....

SCHUMER: Ten...

HATCH: ...one thing people need to know out there...

SCHUMER: ...out of 218.

HATCH: I would fight to my death to have the filibuster rule to protect the minority on the legislative calendar. But this is the executive calendar, which also means that we should advise and consent. That means not just giving advice from the Senate, but consenting, which means a vote up and down, either for or against the person. BLITZER: All right.

HATCH: What's wrong with giving these seven remaining Circuit Court of Appeals nominees, who have bipartisan majority support, a simple vote up and down and bind both parties so that neither party can pull this kind of crap in the future. I don't see anything wrong with that.

SCHUMER: Wolf, if they'll break the rules to change the judicial filibuster today, tomorrow they'll break the rules to change for executive branch appointees, legislative appointees...

BLITZER: Senator?

HATCH: There's no breaking of rules.

SCHUMER: ...and everyone else. He says he's only for it for judges, but the same way they're breaking the rules to do it for judges, they can do tomorrow on legislation.

BLITZER: Senators...

HATCH: This constitutional options...

BLITZER: ...we are...

HATCH: ...has been used four times by the Democrats. It's not breaking the rules. It's something that is a precedent. And we have a right to do it to bind both parties...

SCHUMER: Only by a two-thirds vote.

HATCH: ...to bind both parties so these judge nominees, whether Democrat or Republican, are treated fairly with an up-or-down vote (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: We have to leave it there, Senators, unfortunately. A good, solid debate. I'm sure the American people will be watching and understanding in the days to come the full stakes involved. Both of you, very, very good. Thanks to both of you, Senator Hatch, Senator Schumer, for joining me.

SCHUMER: Thank you.

HATCH: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: There has been a potentially important debate in the case of those two missing children in Idaho. We're standing by for details. We'll bring them to you right after this next break.

Also, we're following the story of those steroids in -- steroids being used by professional athletes. Why leaders in professional sports would prefer Congress not get involved in policing the use of performance-enhancing drugs, potentially offer (ph). And later, towers of Trump. Real estate tycoon Donald Trump, criticizing the current plans for ground zero and unveiling his own grand vision for the site. All that, still to come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: There's potentially been a significant development in the case of those two missing children out in Idaho. Let's head out to Coeur d'Alene. Sean Callebs is standing by with the word of the development. Sean?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, yesterday evening authorities here said that they were on the lookout for, what they termed a person of interest. His name, 33-year-old Robert Roy Lutner.

Well, a short time ago, authorities say that Lutner has contacted authorities and right now they are on their way to speak with him. Lutner is not a suspect. He's not being called a suspect in the case at this time. However, authorities believe he was at the home about the time the crimes were committed and that's why they say it is important they get to him and talk to him quickly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. BEN WOLFINGER, KOOTENAI CO., IDAHO, SHERIFF'S DEPT.: He's a person of interest because we know he was here at the residence on Sunday evening. Now, we don't know if he's involved in the crime, but we know he was here Sunday evening. That's the last timeframe we can put everybody here at the house alive. So, he's a person of interest. He may have seen something. He may have known someone else was here at the residence. He may have met somebody as he was leaving the residence, as he was leaving, they may have been coming in.

That's the kind of information we hope to get from him. But until our investigators get up and actually talk to him and interview him, that's all we're going to say now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLEBS: The 33-year-old Lutner apparently called investigators here in Coeur d'Alene. Authorities are not saying where Lutner is. They wouldn't say if he remained in the area, if he is in Idaho, or if he has moved out of the state or just how far. He was apparently driving a late model pickup truck when he left this area sometime on Sunday. Authorities had been on the lookout for that pickup truck. They say they are canceling, obviously, all those bulletins, as well. They will not say if they are looking for more than one person. But, Wolf, a potentially significant development. We'll keep you updated as authorities bring more to us. Back to you.

BLITZER: Those two little kids still missing; the mother, the brother and another friend, brutally killed only a day or so ago. Well, we'll check back with you, Sean Callebs, on this heart-wrenching story. Thanks very much.

Moving back here to Washington, while the U.S. Senate is focused in on judges, some House members are focusing in on steroid use in professional sports. Our national correspondent Bob Franken, joining us now, here. He's got details. You been following this all day, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Been following it all day. You had the head honcho's all of the major league sports showing up today, some tomorrow. They made a big deal out of the fact that they were invited as opposed to subpoenaed, like they had a choice.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): They represent very different major league sports in the United States, but the commissioners' and players' labor leaders from all of them have one thing in common: they would strongly prefer for Congress not to dictate how they deal with performance-enhancing drugs.

BUD SELIG, MLB COMMISSIONER: The ability of baseball to police itself is preferable to legislation. If we cannot do it -- and I really hope that we can -- I understand why legislation would be considered by Congress.

DON FEHR, MLB PLAYERS ASSOCIATION: It is an important notion that the people involved in the process have some role in putting it together.

GARY BETTMAN, NHL COMMISSIONER: We do not see the need for the proposed legislation as it would relate to the NHL.

DAVID STERN, NBA COMMISSIONER: If Congress sees fit to legislate here, I can pledge to you that we will meet or exceed any standard that you sit.

FRANKEN: The big leagues, all of them, are scrambling to create tougher steroid policies after months of bad publicity, particularly now that Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns has offered legislation that would require all of them to randomly test each player at least once a year, suspend any athlete caught cheating for the first time for two years, and suspend him or her for life the second time.

REP. CLIFF STEARNS (R), FLORIDA: I'm not convinced that an effective solution to this problem can be found in a system that allows those with a vested interest in the performance of the players and leagues to simply police themselves.

FRANKEN: He'll get more argument over that in the next session when the National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue testifies.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): Meanwhile, another committee will hear from at least one NBA player. Professional athletes are not the only ones competing. The politicians here in Washington are also jostling to be identified with the steroid issue. Wolf?

BLITZER: Bob Franken, reporting for us. Thanks, Bob, very much. We'll continue to watch this story.

We'll take another quick break. When we come back, freedom tower gets trumped: why real estate mogul Donald Trump wants to redo the future plans for ground zero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Three-and-a-half years after 9/11, New Yorkers are still arguing about new construction on the site of the World Trade Center. Now Donald Trump is weighing in.

CNN'S Jason Carroll reports.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Celebrity developer Donald Trump -- always the showman, never one to mince words -- was true to form when he unveiled a new plan for Ground Zero and criticized the existing one chosen after an international competition two years ago.

DONALD TRUMP: If you take a look at the adjoining buildings, it looks like a junk yard. You take a look at the roofs of those buildings, they are at different angles, they're all in odd shapes. It is the worst pile-of-crap architecture I have ever seen in my life.

CARROLL: Trump says he has a better plan. Basically, it calls for rebuilding the Twin Towers, a little higher, at least 111 stories. The original were 110.

Trump says the Freedom Tower, designed by architects Daniel Libeskind and David Childs, looks like a skeleton and the original glory of the towers should be restored.

TRUMP: A little bit taller a lot stronger, just plain better.

CARROLL: Trump's plan would scrap the Freedom Tower and the memorial which was also chosen during an international competition. 9/11 family member Charles Wolf, whose wife Katherine died in the Trade Center, says he's not sure how other family members will respond.

CHARLES WOLF, HUSBAND OF 9/11 VICTIM: Some people will not like this because it brings up too much pain. Some people will like it because it flushes pain.

CARROLL: Libeskind's original master plan has been modified several times. Most recently the New York City Police Department said the Freedom Tower should be moved farther away from the street for security.

New York Governor George Pataki is overseeing the process and just a few days ago he announced a new tower design will be unveiled next month. He did not comment on Trump's plan, but rebuilding officials said Donald Trump is entitled to his opinion just like the millions of people who actually involve themselves in the public planning process which resulted in the master plan. Site developer Larry Silverstein says he doesn't support Trump either. And architecture critic Paul Goldberger said someone like Trump -- best known for his casinos, reality TV show and buildings with his name on the -- may not have the right sensibility.

PAUL GOLDBERGER, PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN: Everything he's produced is ultimately about Donald Trump. We need a solution at Ground Zero that is going to be about New York, about America and about healing of the city. Trump, I don't think, is suited to that.

CARROLL (on camera): The architect of Freedom Tower, Daniel Libeskind, says that his design is respectful of history and defiantly alive. Trump is asking the public to write to Governor Pataki to support his plan.

Wolf?

BLITZER: Jason Carroll, thanks.

Other news, CBS canceling the Wednesday night edition of the news magazine "60 Minutes". The program will run through the rest of the season and there will be reruns this summer. Dan Rather, who recently retired as anchor of the "CBS Evening News," is expected to work on the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes".

Still ahead, a tragic love story played out on Olympic ice.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: As part of CNN's 25th anniversary, we're looking back at past newsmakers and where they are now.

CNN's Paula Zahn has this story.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A tragic love story born in the competitive world of figure skating. Ekaterina Gordeeva and her skating partner, Sergei Grinkov captured the pairs gold medal for Russia in the 1988 Olympics and again in 1994.

Along the way, they married and had a daughter, Daria.

But during a practice session in 1995, Grinkov died suddenly of a heart attack. Gordeeva found comfort in the same place she found love, on the ice, returning alone just three months later.

EKATERINA GORDEEVA, OLYMPIC FIGURE SKATER: To come back on the ice, was hard and at the same time it was a healing process.

ZAHN: Gordeeva became a household name and face, writing two books and signing several endorsements, including Target. She even launched her own fragrance line.

She eventually found love again, marrying a fellow Russian Olympic gold medalist, Ilia Kulik, and had a second daughter, Elizaveta.

Gordeeva has toured with "Stars on Ice" for seven years, but says her achievements off the ice are far most important to her.

GORDEEVA: I think, still, kids are the proudest moment. To be a part of the Olympic experience was very special, too, but I think that kids would be the first gold medal.

BLITZER: That's it for me.

Lou Dobbs standing by in New York.

Lou?

LOU DOBBS, HOST: Wolf, thank you. Have a good evening.

END

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