on them and were sucking up oil. coast guard today, according to the governor s office, actually shut down those barges. those barges are no longer working. the coast guard says they didn t have certificates of inspection, and they will be inspected by the coast guard tomorrow morning, but this has to make your blood boil. well, it is another way that the coast guard gets in the way instead of helping. what would have been wrong, with 12 coast guard guys in my office today, and why aren t they out there inspecting and working, and if they don t have the right equipment, shut them down then and shut them down for two to three days? it took us two weeks to get them approved. the boats voluntarily pulled back their operations, the coast guard says, and they ll get inspected tomorrow. that s unbelievable, anderson. at this point in time, every day, every hour, every minute counts. this is just another example of the unmitigated failure that the government response has been to date.
coordinated, and mobilized and that is the u.s. military. i to this day do not understand why they have not been brought in, in a serious way to get these problems cleared up, and we all would sort of have confidence that we have the best team on the field. because there s no team. anderson, you know that better than anybody, because you are re down there. julie, as a resident of new orleans, do you have any confidence about the federal response right now, about the bp response? of course not. i mean, i ve been down to grand isle, as you have. it looks like the keystone cops down there. fortunately, you have given billy a great pulpit to air that out everyday. four the president to sit there and say, don t worry about a thing, and we will fix 90% of this by the end of the summer, and we have $20 billion, and everything is going to be cool.
the news of bp s $20 billion claim. energy stocks led the rally, but at the closing bell the dow gained five points while the nasdaq and the s aens&p finishe flat. anderson? joe, thanks very much. just a clarification to note. at the top of the hour, one of our guests said that bp owns 20% of the company that makes corexit, dispersant that bp is using in the gulf. we ve been looking. so far, there is no evidence that that is true. research we studied show that is bp does not own a 20% stake in the company that manufacturers corexit. former bp executive sits on the board of the company that makes korexit. coming up, we ll take you into ft. jackson wildlife rehabilitation center. also ahead, culprits of the
more than $20 billion? a lot of questions about this deal that the president made. julia reed, contributing editor for newsweek magazine. and the author of house on first street and senior political analyst and former presidential analyst david gergen. yesterday, david, you were critical of the speech that the president made from the oval office basically saying it missed the mark. did they find their footing today? i think they continue to miss their mark on the cleanup. billy and others, you ve been very, very clear about that. it s still not well organized. anderson, i think this is the best single day the president has had since the spill began. this was a very solid step forward to get the $20 billion. nobody thought i don t think many people thought they would go that high. bp, in the negotiations with the president, with the administration, said they would like to cut it off at $20 billion and the president made clear, no, this is just the start. we re not setting any li
cares about the small people and we care about the small people. i hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies that don t care but that is not the case at bp. we care about the small people. bp cares about the small people. now it s entirely possible he just used the wrong word, probably just a mistake. probably meant to say little people. that would have been just as insulting. more likely, he want ed to say ordinary people. people around here understandably were insulted. i give him the benefit of the doubt, from sweden, not an english speaker. he issued an apology, saying he had spoken columnsly. that certainly is true. bp put out statements, apologizing for or restating their own statements, but these things happen. people misspeak. if by chance the chairman of bp doesn t know this already, which we think he does, there aren t any small people here. in all the weeks and months we ve worked in louisiana and in the gulf since katrina, we ve not m