Palin Blasts Ginned Up Threats; Threats to Congress Gets Political, White Powder at Weiner's Office; Talk Show Host Accused of Witchcraft
WOLF BLITZER, HOST: T.J. Thank you. Happening now, much more on this story -- John McCain and Sarah Palin appearing together on stage for the first time since their failed 2008 presidential race. This hour, can she help him avoid a new and embarrassing defeat in his home state of Arizona? Also, a possible -- possible health care emergency now that health care reform is the law of the land. There may not be enough primary care doctors to go around. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is investigating. And the pro-basketball star, the All Star, Gilbert Arenas, is sentenced for bringing guns into the locker room. What went on? What was going on? We'll tell you right here. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. Take a look at this picture. It says a lot about how high Sarah Palin's star has risen and how much political trouble John McCain is in right now. The 2008 Republican presidential nominee is facing a very stiff re-election challenge in Arizona. So he's accepting help from his former running mate, despite their occasionally a little bit of rocky relationship during the campaign. Palin was in classic form during her remarks about an hour or so ago. Listen to this.</s>SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A lot of things have changed since the last time we were together. One of those things is that John, nobody gave us a teleprompter this go around, so um...</s>PALIN: -- so it's time to kick it old school again, resort to the old poor man's version of the teleprompter, write my notes on my hand again. You know, many, many years ago, I competed in a pageant and...</s>PALIN: You know what? Coming then from an expert, I can tell you, he could win the talent and the debate portion of any pageant. But nobody's ever going to dub him Miss Congeniality, not out of the Washington elite. And we should be thankful for that. He's never been a company man. He's never been one to just go with the flow.</s>BLITZER: All right. Let's go with the flow right now. Our national political correspondent, Jessica Yellin, is in Tucson. She watched all of it. She was on fire and so was he -- Jessica, if you -- if you watched his speech. That's right. They were both very lively. And a very excited crowd, Wolf. I'll tell you, John McCain's opponent in the Republican primary here, J.D. Hayworth, told CNN he thinks Sarah Palin came to endorse John McCain simply to show her gratitude to him. And, boy, did she return the favor. She called him a maverick who will stand up to the Obama/Palin -- Pelosi/Reid agenda. She downplayed his many years in Washington, but insisted that he will fight the fight that this very Tea Party oriented crowd wants to fight against -- big spending and taxes. And John McCain hit a message that resonated very well in this crowd, that the Obama administration has not kept true to its promises. Let's listen.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: It was the Chicago-style, sleazy deal making, sausage making that went on behind closed doors in the speaker's office and Harry Reid's office and in the White House.</s>YELLIN: Now he was talking about health care. And he referred to the fact that President Obama promised to put it on C-SPAN and didn't. The bottom line, Wolf, Sarah Palin was trying to confer her good standing with the Tea Party voters onto John McCain. That was the goal here today. We'll have to see if it works -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Well, will it work? How much help will she -- she give him in a Republican primary? I assume it's a -- a huge amount of help.</s>YELLIN: Yes. It -- in -- on one sense, it should be, because these are the voters that John McCain needs to win back -- very conservative members of the Republican Party. But I'll tell you, I talked to many people in this audience who were here because they were excited to see Sarah Palin. But when they left, they said this does not change their mind. Either they're still undecided about John McCain or voting against him. There were some who said they were voting for McCain. But the undecided people here said Sarah Palin did not change their minds. So it will still be a tough fight ahead -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right. We'll watch it very, very closely. Jessica Yellin with that report. She's going to have another report in our next hour, as well. And now the icing on the cake for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on this, her 70th birthday. She signed off on the Democrats' fixes to the health care reform law a day after final approval by both the House and the Senate.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Can you imagine a more important birthday privilege than to be signing health care for all Americans?</s>BLITZER: The fixes head to the president's desk for his signature next week. Members of Congress are heading home for their spring recess. But no one expects them to walk away from the fight over health care reform. Let's bring in our senior Congressional correspondent, Dana Bash -- Dana, first, tell us what -- what you expect the Democrats will be hearing when they go back to their districts? They're going to be home for the next two weeks.</s>DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're going to be hearing a lot. But the most interesting thing, I think, is what they're going to be trying to say. This is the political moment Democrats have been waiting for, to actually have a law that they can sell. And each House Democrat is being sent home with one of these. This actually, Wolf, is Nancy Pelosi's. Her office let us have it. She doesn't need it. I think all this information is right here in her head. But it just shows you that not only are there -- is there information inside here -- general talking points about facts and figures about the health care bill. In here -- and I think we have it up here on the wall -- it -- it's very specific data for each Congressional District. This is Nancy Pelosi's 8th Congressional District of California. If we could show, for example -- I'll just give you one example of a data point. It guarantees, in her district, that 9,200 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage. Now, of course, this is a Democratic talking point. But it just shows you how they want to be very specific, Democrats, with the information that they're trying to give their constituents in</s>BLITZER: So they're going to study -- these Democrats, they're going to study this book...</s>BASH: Exactly.</s>BLITZER: -- on their flights back to their states and their districts.</s>BASH: And just in case they can't study, they have cards like this they can put in their breast pockets and...</s>BLITZER: Yes.</s>BASH: -- and things like that. So this is the official word from the Democratic Party. But they also have help from outside groups -- air cover. Ads are being -- beginning to run in the districts of some of the most vulnerable Democrats, like this one. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, COURTESY HEALTHCARE FOR AMERICA NOW) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And $86 million was spent on misleading ads to try and kill reform, all because they want to keep jacking up premiums and denying us coverage. But the insurance companies didn't win, because Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy said no to big insurance and yes to standing up for us.</s>BLITZER: All right. So what about the Republicans? They've got some -- they've got some work to do, as well.</s>BASH: They have a glossy packet, also. They sent this home. The Republican Conference in the House sent this with all of their Republican members. Not as -- not as elaborate, but I think that their message is probably a lot more simple and we've heard it before. You see it on the wall here. This is the main page in here -- repeal of the government takeover of health care, repeal what they call job killing mandates and start over. In fact, most of the memo that the House Republican leaders sent out was really specifically, Wolf, about -- about jobs, because they believe that's the most politically potent issue. But they, too, have help from outside groups, most specifically, what you were just talking about with Jessica -- the Tea Party and The Tea Party Express. We have a map there. If you follow that blue line, that is where the Tea Party Express is going to head for the next two-and-a-half weeks, across the country, hitting a lot of the most vulnerable Democrats specifically. In fact, their communications director told us they're going to hit 40 cities in the next few weeks, in the words of the Tea Party, calling on lawmakers to remove -- calling on citizens to remove lawmakers who've, quote, "betrayed their constituents."</s>BLITZER: Well, I think it's great that they're going to have a serious debate on all these issues. The Americans public deserves to have that kind of debate. Let's hope that the threats and the violence and some of the ugly things go away. And I want you to clarify, because yesterday, Eric Cantor, the number two Republican in the House, he said this. I'll play a clip.</s>REP. ERIC CANTOR (R), VIRGINIA: A bullet was shot through the window of my campaign office in Richmond this week and I've received threatening e-mails.</s>BLITZER: All right. That was yesterday. Today, there's clarification. What are we learning?</s>BASH: That's right. The Richmond police said today that Cantor was not specifically targeted, that it was random gunfire. Now, a Cantor aide insisted to me that going into this press conference yesterday, Cantor knew that there was a preliminary investigation going on, but said that he admitted he didn't know anything more. Now that police have determined the gunfire was random, his office is clarifying. And his spokesman, John Murray, released a statement and -- and I'll read it. He said: "Given a recent spike in threats against Congressman Cantor and his family and his security, we're concerned the bullet found in his campaign office was related to a number of violent e-mails and phone messages, many of them anti- Semitic and some of them threatening gun violence." And he went on to say Cantor was very happy to find out that police attributed this particular incident to random gunfire. And as his statement made clear yesterday, that we need to move on. Now, Cantor's aides are making no apologies for having him talk about this bullet going through his window before he had all the facts. They insist that what's relevant is the context, that he has been getting a lot of threatening e-mails. Our colleague, Brianna Keilar, went to his office, saw some of them. They don't want to release them. They've read some of -- some of them to me over the phone. They're pretty intense. And a lot of them are geared toward his family and his religion.</s>BLITZER: I don't understand what does random gunfire means? What does that mean? Is he in a bad neighborhood over there where people have...</s>BASH: It seems...</s>BLITZER: -- gun wars?</s>BASH: Well, it seems that way. It seems as though the neighborhood isn't that great in Richmond. It happened late -- late at night or really early in the morning on Monday night/Tuesday morning. And it seems as though a bullet was fired into the air and it ended up going through the window and did end up -- the bullet was found inside an office building where Congressman Cantor has some campaign offices.</s>BLITZER: Yes, but it's still pretty frightening when you think of the history of the e-mails and the anti-Semitic literature he's been getting...</s>BASH: And he doesn't -- exactly.</s>BLITZER: -- and the threats.</s>BASH: Exactly.</s>BLITZER: It would still be very frightening.</s>BASH: Well, that's what his office is saying.</s>BLITZER: Thanks very much for that, Dana Bash. Turning now to the economy, new help on the way for many Americans who are drowning in mortgage debt. The Obama administration is responding to pressure to do more to help stop some of the foreclosure crisis. Let's go to our White House correspondent, Dan Lothian -- and, Dan, a major announcement from the White House today.</s>DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. And I should point out that we're not talking here about any sweeping changes, but rather tweaks to an existing program to help ailing homeowners that will impact up to four million people. I should point out, here are some key elements to this plan. First of all, if you are unemployed and if your home is underwater -- in other words, you owe more on the home than it's worth -- well, you could see your mortgage payments reduced by about 35 -- 1 percent or less of your income. And this is temporary. It would last anywhere from three to six months. Secondly, banks and other lending institutions will be given an incentive to cut the debt -- the amount that people owe on their mortgages if their homes are underwater. Banks, as you know, have been reticent to do this. They have resisted, so the administration hoping that this will provide some incentive for them to do it. And, finally, if you're current on your mortgage, but it's still underwater, well, you could still be able to refinance using an FHA loan. And, again, these are just measures that the administration is hoping will cut down on the amount of foreclosures that we've been seeing -- one in four homes out there in foreclosures. And they're tapping existing TARP funds -- about $14 billion of TARP funds -- to do that -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: The biggest rewards, though, the biggest help goes to those who aren't making their payments, is that right?</s>LOTHIAN: That's right. And, you know, you hear that time and time again, here I am, a responsible home own -- homeowner making my monthly payments and I don't get any help. It's the person who stops making the payments that gets this assistance. And the thinking behind this is, obviously, the people who are not making those monthly payments will eventually lose their homes. They go into foreclosure and that brings down the value of all the other homes in the neighborhood. So if you're making your payments, you might not be getting direct assistance -- a lot of assistance, but you'll be getting that help indirectly, because the value in the neighborhood will stay up -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, Dan. Thanks very much. Help on the way if you have trouble with your mortgages. We're getting inside information right now about a new nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia. Our senior political analyst, David Gergen, is working his sources. He's standing by. And a popular TV talk show host sentenced to die for practicing witchcraft. We're going to tell you how it happened, where it happened. Stand by for that, as well.