Republican Debate Scorecard; Missing Soldiers: Family Waits for Word
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Smoke-out. Wildfire right now in New Jersey. Roads closed, thousands evacuated. A military flare may have triggered it all. Plus, live strong.</s>LANCE ARMSTRONG, TOUR DE  FRANCE WINNER: Why wouldn't you spend $10 billion a year on the number one killer in this country?</s>ROBERTS: Lance Armstrong takes his crusade against cancer to Capitol Hill and into our studio on this AMERICAN MORNING. And good morning to you. It is Wednesday, May the 16th. I'm John Roberts in the nation's capital. Good morning, Kiran.</s>KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good to see you, John. I'm here in New York. I bet you're excited about getting a chance to talk to Lance Armstrong a little later.</s>ROBERTS: I am. I have interviewed him over the satellite, but it will be good to meet him in person. He was actually one of the inspirations for getting me involved in cycling. I used to follow him in the Tour de France back in the early '90s, when he wasn't a contender. And we used to marvel at the performances that he would put in. He really changed his riding style a lot between, say, '93 and '95. And then when he won the Tour de France -- so, it will be interesting to have him in here.</s>CHETRY: So, he got -- he was your inspiration behind riding, but you ride a Harley.</s>ROBERTS: No, no, no. But I also ride bicycles.</s>CHETRY: All right. Teasing you. Other stories on our radar this morning.</s>ROBERTS: Now to the Republican debate scorecard. Ten candidates seeking their party's presidential nomination met for round two last night at the University of South Carolina, and all GOP hopefuls spinning some measure of victory today. But what else would you expect? CNN's John King was there and joins us now live with the highlights. What was the big story of the night for you, John?</s>JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, it was a much more feisty and combative debate in round two than we saw a little under two weeks ago in round one. It began with some of the lesser-known candidates taking after the frontrunners, trying to get more exposures, trying to take the frontrunners down a bit. Rudy Giuliani's support of abortion rights came under attack frequently. But at one point, the frontrunners got into it as well. Senator Mitt -- former governor, excuse me, Mitt Romney at one point turning to Senator John McCain and saying he didn't like Senator McCain's work with liberals in Washington in the United States Senate, saying that work resulted in bad policy. Senator McCain quickly responding, saying he found Governor Romney a much different man running for president when he needs support among conservatives than he was when he was running for governor in much more liberal Massachusetts.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My fear is that McCain- Kennedy would do to immigration what McCain-Feingold has done to campaign finance and money in politics. And that's bad.</s>JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ),  PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have kept a consistent position on right to life, and I haven't changed my position on even numbered years, or have changed because of the different offices that I may be running for.</s>KING: It will be interesting to see if that tension between McCain and Romney continues as the debate is over and they're back out campaigning. John, also some significant differences on the issue of terrorism. A scenario played out near the end of the debate: "What would you do under circumstances of mass attacks here in the United States?" Senator McCain was very emphatic, saying he would not allow torture of any terror detainees. Both Governor Romney and Mayor Giuliani suggesting they would go a bit farther than Senator McCain in pushing for aggressive detainee treatment to try to get more intelligence information. That another difference we are likely to see play out in the days and weeks ahead -- John.</s>ROBERTS: And there was also an interesting adlib exchange, too, between Congressman Ron Paul and Mayor Giuliani over that particular issue, when Congressman Paul suggested that it was America's foreign policy that might have been responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Let's take a quick listen to that.</s>REP. RON PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years.</s>RUDY GIULIANI (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11th, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've ever heard that before, and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th.</s>ROBERTS: Giuliani there, John, got a much-needed round of applause because he's got problems with conservatives, particularly on the abortion issue, gay rights, gun control. Was that him trying to take an opportunity to really play to his strengths, which are security?</s>KING: Absolutely was, John. He showed a flash of anger and indignity, glared down the row at Congressman Paul. He demanded an apology, demanded that Congressman Paul retract that remark. For a candidate who was defined by his leadership after 9/11, but has been on the ropes a bit, especially among conservatives, for giving what many believe are confusing or conflicting answers on the abortion issue, that was a chance for Mayor Giuliani to say, here is my strength. He broke the rules of the debate, if you will, captured a moment. When you have 10 candidates on stage and it is hard to get much attention, you look for breakthroughs. And Mayor Giuliani certainly had one right there.</s>ROBERTS: All right. Well, maybe he'll parlay that into something this week. We'll take a look at that.</s>KING: We'll see.</s>ROBERTS: John King from Columbia, South Carolina. John, thanks very much. And a programming note now. Big debates are coming up here on CNN. The Democrat 2008 hopefuls debate on June the 3rd. Republicans debate June 5th in the important primary state of New Hampshire. We'll be carrying that live on CNN, and, of course, all kinds of programming around it, as well. So make sure that you join us for those two days. And let me tell you, we're also going to be having programming in between, ahead, and behind. So it will really be sort of a five-day extravaganza that we want you to be with us for. And this into the CNN NEWSROOM just a short time ago. The oldest daughter of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. has died. Yolanda King, seen here at her mother's funeral last year, was just 51 years old. She was an actress and an inspirational speaker. The family says they don't know the cause of Yolanda's death, but they think that it might have been -- might have been a heart problem.</s>CHETRY: The military now stepping up the search for three missing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. American troops going door to door in a Sunni stronghold known as the Triangle of Death. They are dropping leaflets and questioning hundreds of Iraqis. The soldiers were ambushed and captured over the weekend. CNN's Arwa Damon is embedded with the members of the division that are searching now for the missing soldiers. She called in to tell us more about that search in the last hour.</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The unit that we are out with right now has been patrolling for the last seven and a half to eight hours, and they're stopping to -- they're speaking with families that they're coming across, they're speaking with pretty much anyone who they can find. Because what they really are looking for are these nuggets of information.</s>CHETRY: Major General William Caldwell is holding his weekly briefing right now, and we will monitor it for you. Well, one of the four families anxiously waiting for word on their missing son is going through the experience for the second time in just a month. CNN's Chris Lawrence has more now from Torrance, California.</s>CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Three weeks ago, this family survived a horrible rumor, that their son had been killed in Iraq. Now they're living with the reality he is missing in action.</s>JOSEPH ANZACK SR., FATHER OF MISSING U.S. SOLDIER: Now that I know it's my son, it's real. It's really real.</s>THERESA ANZACK, MOTHER OF MISSING U.S. SOLDIER: I believe in miracles and I believe in prayer. And, you know, we need a miracle here.</s>LAWRENCE: Army officials notified the parents Sunday, less than a month after someone -- no one knows who -- started a rumor their son was dead. Friends asked about Anzack's funeral arrangements. His mom and dad received sympathy notes, and students at Anzack's high school even put up a sign to honor him.</s>SCOTT MCDOWELL, SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: And they were moved by what they thought was tragic news. They just put up, "In loving memory, Joe Anzack, class of 2005."</s>LAWRENCE: The rumors spread all the way back to Iraq, where the soldier updated his MySpace page to say, "I'm not dead."</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm alive. And I'm kickin'.</s>LAWRENCE: Anzack was on the lookout for terrorists Saturday when his unit was ambushed south of Baghdad. Within a few weeks, his mother has gone from fear, to relief, to complete shock.</s>T. ANZACK: So, I was OK as long as I heard his voice, but, you know, this is different, this is real. They knocked on our door and -- you know, and...</s>LAWRENCE: In Iraq, where soldiers face danger and the threat of death every day, there's a fine line between rumor and reality. Chris Lawrence, CNN, Torrance, California.</s>CHETRY: And again, as we're talking about this morning, they're going through this exact same thing yet again. We're going to be talking with Joe Anzack's father coming up in our next hour, 8:15 Eastern Time -- John.</s>ROBERTS: A night of high drama in Washington. Intrigue came out in a Senate hearing yesterday. Former deputy attorney general James Comey testified that back in 2004 he raced to the sick bed of attorney General John Ashcroft before two senior White House officials, chief of staff Andrew Card and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, could get there. Although Comey wouldn't publicly confirm it, they were apparently having a disagreement over the president's warrantless wiretapping program.</s>JAMES COMEY, FMR. DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Lifting his head off the pillow, and in very strong terms, expressed his view on the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me, drawn from the hour-long meeting we had a week earlier. And in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, "But that doesn't matter because I'm not the attorney general."</s>ROBERTS: Comey, who was serving as an the acting attorney general while Ashcroft was in the hospital, was refusing to re-certify the surveillance program. Comey and Ashcroft threatened to resign over the matter until President Bush, himself, stepped in, telling his staff to go ahead with the surveillance but bring it into line with law.</s>CHETRY: The Reverend Jerry Falwell being remembered this morning as preacher, as well as a political powerbroker. Doctors suspect he died of a heart rhythm abnormality yesterday in his office at Liberty University. Falwell founded the Moral Majority back in 1979 and turned the religious right into a political force to be reckoned with. He was outspoken about homosexuality, abortion and pornography. In 2004, he launched a new organization called the Faith and Values Coalition. The Reverend Jerry Falwell was 73 years old.</s>ROBERTS: So, how many times have you been waiting for a subway or waiting for a train and it's late and you start to get upset? Well, take a look at this amazing video that we have got to show you this morning from Argentina. This is what happens when there are delays in the train system down there. Delays sparked a huge riot at Buenos Aires train station last night. Commuters broke windows, set fires, looted nearby shots. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas. In all, 16 people were arrested, and we don't know if the train ever arrived. Coming up, we've got video proof that your mom was right when she told you not to play outside during a storm. A couple of kids got very lucky. And a difference in tone and substance. We'll have more analysis on last night's Republican debate. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. The most news in the morning is on CNN.