Transcripts For CNN 20090904 : vimarsana.com

arson really fairly quickly in a few days, how do they get to that point in just a few days? well, each fire is a little bit different, but the things that we use are early on aerial photographs, sometimes satellite photographs, witness statements, the firefighters that will first arrived, they will know what the area involved was at the time they arrived. reporter: with those methods he says you can narrow down the point of origin to an acre or less, maybe even to a manmade on the like this burned out bottle. they comb with sifters and use dogs and look for witnesses. lisa. brian, you ve been doing fantastic reporting out there. thanks very much for that report. still ahead, the white house faces a potential new pr crisis over a presidential advisor s controversial statements. also the final farewell for michael jackson. and police scour cold case files as the search for more possible victims of jaycee dugard s alleged kidnapper. the standoff over the president s health care plan has democrats struggling to regain their footing in washington. but is the damage irreparable? that s the subject of tonight s face-off. joining me now, ed kilgore, managing editor of the democratic strategist. he says that democrats can regain momentum with health care and chris fire walled, political editor of the washington examiner. he says it could be tough for democrats to bounce back. chris, i want to start with you. you say this was a pretty brutal recess for the democrats. tell me why so. well, look, you ve had a confluence of events that have made this a trucely difficult time for the majority party and it s been reflected in low approve ratings for the president, bad approval ratings for congress, people don t think the country s going in the right direction because what you ve had is foreign and domestic issues. you ve had trouble in afghanistan. and you ve had the president not able to make a convincing case on health care. you have generally slipping confidence in the ability of the government to execute fundamental duties, people are worried and it s attaching itself to the democratic party. ed, can democrats recover? oh, absolutely. i mean, in terms of what chris just said is, i guess it s natural for hounds chasing a rabbit around a track to believe they re always closing in for the kill, but you know, the president s approval ratings by and large, and even if you look at particular categories of voters, it s pretty much where it was on election day last year. as you may recall, the president won. it was not a great month in terms of the polls, the dynamics or public perceptions but this is part of a long process and i think it was very predictable that will august would be a good month for opponents of health reform because they ve really had pretty much an uncontested say. when some of the misperceptions that have been put out there about health reform begin to become clear in the next month or so and when the president has his say next week, i think you ll see some positive momentum for democrats. look, there are people out there in the country though that are quite angry and we have a graphic. when they were asked the question, which party are they really angry at? the question was which party makes you angry, democrats, take a look at that number, 28% versus republicans only 17%. chris, comment on this. well, look, i mean when you re in charge, people are going to blame you when things don t go right. and that s the problem that will democrats are having right now is they won, they re in charge. it s their town and they re expected to run it. it s proving to be very challenging. and i think that competence questions are the big thing starting to dog the president and the congress. are they able to do the work. not whether or not the people agree with them. i mean, people mostly like the idea of a government-run health care concept, but they don t feel comfortable that the government can actually execute the things that they say. people like the idea of having a successful and an aggressive foreign policy, but if they don t feel like we can actually execute victory in afghanistan, they re not going to get behind the plan. so right now, the democratic party is sort of at a pivot point and the president s speech is going to be a crucial moment for this if he can reboot, offer something very different, offer something more dynamic and something that sounds a little more centrist and competent, then the democratic party is going to be in much better shape a couple weeks from now. from these town hall meetings, a lot of people, the theme that came up again and again is people don t trust the government. ed, these numbers we just saw, is that a warning for democrats? well, first of all, they don t much like insurance companies either. so there s a lot of mistrust going around among a lot of people and a lot of different institutions. as far as anger goes, something i ve always said whether it s democrats are angry or republicans are angry, unless that anger is communicable, you only get to vote once. it s pretty obvious that a lot of the anger we re seeing are from republican conservative-based voter who are very upset that barack obama won the election in the first place. it s understandable that they re angry. they have every right to express their anger but they re not necessarily representative of the public at large. chris, how should democrats proceed? should they shelf health care all together and start all over? most anybody would agree this would be a good time from a perspective to back up and reengage in a different way. but i don t think they re in a position to do that because the president has trouble on his left. he has trouble with his base right now, again because of afghanistan, but also because they re not convinced that he s still holding fast to the goals that they helped elect him to achieve. soap he has to do something on health care, but again, he s really trying to thread an almost impossible needle here because he has to do enough to keep his base which is losing its enthusiasm engaged but not continue to push away voters in the middle, and that s what the game s all about is a third of americans in the middle who really run the show in this country are skeptical and they re worried. i don t think that it s a permanent damage to the democratic brand, but i think that right now, a very different approach is what s needed. okay, ed, very briefly, how would you thread that needle chris was talking about then? well, it s pretty clear that the house is going to pass a bill. pretty close to what they ve been talking about all along. the tough job is in the senate. just this afternoon, we heard reports of a possible deal between senator snowe and the white house for a sort of triggered public option. that s on one of the real hot button issues in health reform. that s an important step. i think the senate will pass a bill, the real test is going to come in conference committee. you know, getting that through the senate later down the road. but we re months away from that and the president s really going to get his first opportunity next week, not only to reframe the debate or reboot it as chris said, but also to deal with some of the frankly lies that have been put out there about health reform over the last month or so. we ll have to end there. gentlemen, thank you for joining me, ed kilgore, chris stirewalt. now some other stories we re following. ray has the very latest for us. inness. police in nevada are trying to determine if the man charged with kidnapping a california girl 18 years ago is also responsible for several unsolved cases. phillip garrido was charged with abducting jaycee dugard and keeping her captive in his backyard for 18 years. he was also convicted on charges of rape and kidnapping back in 1976 and sentenced to 50 years in prison. he served less than 11 years before being paroled. also about 200 family members and friends paid their final respects to michael jackson last night in glendale, california. the singer was interred at the forest lawn memorial park more than two months after his death. last week, the los angeles coroner ruled jackson s death a homicide. the coroner determined a fatal combination of drugs was given to jackson just hours before he died. no arrests have been made. and an extremist environmental group is claiming responsibility for toppling two radio towers in snohomish county, washington. the group, the earth liberation front says the towers were downed over health and environmental concerns. the earth liberation front is a group of radical environmentalists that has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks since the 1990s. and the university of oregon has suspended a top running back for attacking an opposing player after thursday night s loss. legarrette blount punched a player for allegedly taunting him on the field. he even punched a teammate and charged some fans in the stand. blount will not play in any games this year, including bowl games. he will, however, be allowed to keep his scholarship and remain on the football team. and those are some of the stories we ve been following tonight. he really nailed him. you thought in more than one angle, too. thanks, i knees. just ahead, liberals in congress tonight demanding president obama include a public option in his health care plan. also the president s school speech under scrutiny. is he overstepping his bounds? and new controversy surrounding white house advisor van jones and some of the comments that he made about republicans. well, the answer to that is they re [ bleep ]. tonight, we will have moral stunning statements. these are statements you ve never heard before from jones. we will have those coming up next. 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well, the answer to that is they re [ bleep ]. i was afraid that was the answer. whoo. that was a technical a and barack obama is not an [ bleep ]. in 2005, he was quote in the east bay express saying by august, i was a communist. when explaining about his radicallation following the acquittals in the police beating of rodney jones. jones said if i have offended anyone with statements i made in the past, i apologize. the green jobs guru has come under scrutiny by conservatives. before this jones was primarily known for environmental work. back in may in comments on the san francisco chronicle s website, jones even won the praise of former ebay ceo meg whitman, now a republican candidate for governor in california. i am a big fan. he s done a marvelous job. whitman says she is distancing herself saying it s clear he holds views she entirely rejects. and tonight, republican lawmakers are turning up the heat. the chairman of the house republican conference, congressman mike pence, is calling on jones to either resign or be fired. and he wants a congressional hearing before any more czars are appointed since advisors like jones don t have to go through a senate confirmation. thanks very much for that report, mary. joining me now in washington, white house reporter for politiconial malik ca henderson and here in new york, former political director for the white house, ed rollins. and syndicated columnist and cnn contributor miguel perez. we have some new comments. we just saw that piece mary did have some of the statements van jones has made. there s new comments that have come to light. i feel i need to provide context. it was a lecture back in december of 2005 and he was actually saying we need to be compassionate towards all kids, black kids, latino kids and white suburban kids who might be committing some type of crime. let s roll the tape. you ve never seen a columbine done by a black child. never. they always say, we can t believe it happened here, we can t believe it was these suburban white kids. it s only them! now, a black kid might shoot another black kid. he s not going to shoot up the whole school. i ain t going to shoot up is the whole school. i might hit my cousin. but these young white men will be in so much pain and so isolated, they ll shoot up the entire school. where there is a concern, where is the love, where is the compassion for these young men? okay. let s get started first with ed. the white house today, robert gibbs he basically said you know, jones continues to keep his job when he was asked about this. is this a big problem for the administration? it s going to be a bigger problem because obviously, they re going to dig for anything he s said and he s been a very controversial man. i don t know the man. but at the end of the day, anybody in a high level white house staff position or low level, you don t embarrass the president. the president does not need more distractions. my sense is either he has to learn to keep his mouth shut or resign. nia, should he have been vetted more carefully. the thing is he is what we re calling a czar. he doesn t have to go through congressional approval. what you see now is a lot of conservatives who have had problems with a number of czars notice obama administration. there s something like 30 czars in his administration. this is giving them kind of a new talking point and a new flash point for really pointing out that these czars do need to be essentially vetted and to be looked at more closely. i think ed is exactly right. that they re going to be digging some more into van jones statements and probably other czars to see what they can uncover. it s hard to see how he survived, how he survived this, how he gets through the weekend. of course, next week we ll be focused more on health care and even the president addresses the students on tuesday. maybe if he survives the weekend, he ll be okay. i think what ed said is right, it s hard to see how he survives and it s kind of golden rule of not embarrassing the president. it seems like he s certainly done that. miguel, should he resign? i think it s coming. sooner or later. this is a guy who obviously goes overboard too much, too often. with youtube and the media nowadays, you can t hide those things. obviously it shows a lack of judgment on the part of the white house i think not having seen, this guy is an vowed communist. what is he doing in the white house? that s my question. i want to turn to another issue that conservatives have been talking a lot about. and this is the president s decision to deliver this speech to school children. but i have to say, it s not just the speech because other presidents have gone before schools certainly and have delivered speeches. but it s actually a lesson plan. if you take a look, and we ve got some graphics we re going to share with you. we went on the department of education s website and actually pulled these lesson plans called a menu of classroom activities and there s nothing you can say except calling these lesson plans essentially telling teachers what to teach in the class. let s put up our graphic if we can here. one of the items, why is it important that we lis it on the president and other elected officials like the mayor, senators, members of congress or the governor? why is what they say important? that s one of the items from this? another one, why dozen president obama want us to speak with us today? how will he inspire us? ed, do you have a problem with this? i don t have a problem with the president speaking to students and trying to inspire them. what i do have problems is the department of education is now trying to basically have a nationalized program. the role of education is moving more and more to washington both in the resources that they re allocate ang what have you and for the federal government to device a curriculum and maybe this being the first step, i think that s a disaster. local schools are very important. local school boards are very important, the backbone of america. we re going to have to take a pause here and pick up this conversation when we get back. first, this breaking news. police in glynn county, georgia, have arrested guy hooinz junior on eight counts of murder. you will recall last week, hooinz made a dramatic 911 call telling dispatchers he discovered his murdered family. hooinz was arrested on evidence tampering and drug charges after the bodies were found and released on bail. police will be holding a news conference later tonight. again, police in glynn county, georgia, have arrested guy hooinz, junior on eight counts of murder. hooinz made that dramatic 911 call telling the police he found his family members dead in their home. stay with cnn for more details. my health is important to me. it s critical that i stick to my medication. i cannot be one of the 61 million americans who do not refill their prescriptions on time. readyfill at cvs pharmacy automatically refills my prescriptions and reminds me to pick them up. you mean, reminds me to pick them up. [ chuckles ] stop by your local cvs pharmacy to ask if readyfill is right for you, and get a $25 coupon book. readyfill, only at cvs pharmacy. panel. i want to turn to you, nita. the white house has come under fire for president obama s decision to deliver this speech to school children, what are your thoughts? i think the big problem they had was that they had this appearance that the white house was putting teaching materials in teacher s hands and i think a lot of people saw that as the long arm of the federal government infringing on what should be a local matter. let s talk about health care, you have a set youp right now where you have got progressive democrats who are essentially saying, look, we want to have a public option in there. you ve got blue dog democrats saying you cannot have a public option in there. he s going to have to show that he s a leader, he s going to have to have them reach some kind of compromise, convince the liberal and the extremely right and extremely left to get to some kind of middle ground. the president has to try for his own sake to save some kind of health care plan, he s a logical guy, i think he ll go the moderate route. do you agree? the house is going to have a public option in it. but at the end of the day, the votes won t be there. the closer it gets to election day, these progressives are going to want it and the blue dogs are going to basically be worrieded about their own election. he s going to make the case that clinton really faced a backlash because he failed to deliver anything, not because he pushed for something too big, so that s the argument he s going to make and they re betting in the end that those progressive democrats who are pushing so hard for this public option are going to push for something rather than look like a failure in the end. thank you to our panel, always a pleasure, thank you for joining us. and coming up at the top of the hour, rick sanchez, he s in for campbell brown. what do you have for us. we have a story we have been following on cnn for quite some time. you may have heard about this, folks, eight people who were found dead inside a home, actually there may be nine dead because there s a 3-year-old who s still on life support. the reason police found out about this is that a man picked up the phone and called 911 and he said my family, they re in the house, they re all dead and the house is on fire. we have just been handed a piece of paper saying that they re going to charge this guy. his name is guy heinze jr. it sounds like they re about to issue an arrest warrant for guy heinze jr. who had already been picked up by the way, they had let him go on $20,000 bail, not let him go, but they posted $20,000 bail, and now they re going to be charging him for this heinous murder. we re also going to be talking to someone else who s a convicted child molester. back to you. that s a pretty packed show and we ll be tuning in. tonight the inspiring captain christopher carbone who returned to iraq despite life-threatening injuries from a roadside bomb. ecial lease offers now available on the 2009 es 350. if you get sick, or change jobs. eight ways reform matters to you. a cap on deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. no annual or lifetime limits on coverage. preventive care. covered. pre-existing conditions. covered. no higher rates due to genlér. extended coverage for young adults. no more coverage denied if you get sick. and guaranteed renewal, even if you do. learn more today. there s no way to hide it. sir, have you been drinking tonight? if you ride drunk, you will get caught. and you will get arrested. you know why i sell tools? tools are uncomplicated? nothing complicated about a pair of 10 inch hose clamp pliers. you know what s complicated? shipping. shipping s complicated. not really. with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service shipping is easy. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. that s not complicated. come on. how about.a handshake. alright. priority mail flat rate boxes only from the postal service. a simpler way to ship. i have to climb stairs 20-30 times a day. now joint comfort is easier with new triple flex liquid softgels. the first liquid softgel joint supplement formulated to work in as little as 7 days. learn more at tripleflex.com. nature made. fuel your greatness. and now heres, tonight we honor captain christopher carbone despite life-threatening injuries he never gave helping the people of iraq. christopher carbone is a man of uniform, one blue that he wears at the police department of wayne, new jersey, one green that he wore while on duty in iraq for the u.s. army. i m a cop and i always wore my badge with me, and that was my connection with home. he left behind a lasting legacy, not of guns but of responsibility and trust. that legacy began with the children of iraq when he told his dad of their needs. his dad and his community responded. soccer balls, pens, pencils, notebooks, crayons, rulers, you name it, we had it. the children are the future of what s going to become something positive in iraq and that s why supporting them to us was so important. that show of support didn t end with the children. the wayne police department collected bullet-proof vests and sent them to the iraqi police force. we provided them to them as a piece of body armor and also a show of the solidarity internationally between, you know, police. a show of solidarity that helped forge a bond of trust with the iraqi national police. during his second tour in iraq, c carbone sustained life-threatening injuries. we were on patrol one day, coming back from our village of ramadi to a village just south of there, i received a call on the radio that one of my bradleys required assistance. and the last thing i remember was turning to my driver and telling him to speed it up and there was a flash and i woke up outside the truck with mayhem around. it was an ied, roadside bomb. shrapnel to his legs and his face. there s approximately 20 titanium screws and plates on the right side of my skull that they used to put it back together. after three more years as a cop in wayne, carbone returned to iraq. to me it helped to lay a lot of demons to dead from the second tour. going back there and really being able to see the progress and see how things have changed and close that chapter and oech a new chapter on in iraq in my life and that was good and like i said, i have come home with lifelong friends. car bone received the army commendation medal for valor. it is one of the 11 medals and three ribbons that he is most proud of. carbone is serving in wayne now, but if the army calls me and says they need me at some point, so be it. but until then, i plan on patrolling in wayne and enjoying my time there.