Condoleezza Rice May Appear Before 9/11 Commission Again; Discussion with DNC Chairman
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The White House wants a rebuttal. What's behind the request to send National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice back to the 9/11 Commission. The heavy hitters in the Democratic Party put on a show of unity for the new leader of the party. And gun talk.</s>RICHARD ERNST, BALLISTICS EXPERT: His shotgun was basically an accident waiting to happen.</s>S. O'BRIEN: The defense is setting its sights on the central piece of evidence in the Jayson Williams manslaughter trial. Williams' former attorney speaks to us on this</s>AMERICAN MORNING. ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Bill Hemmer and Soledad O'Brien.</s>S. O'BRIEN: And good morning. Welcome, everybody. Bill Hemmer is off today. Miles O'Brien is sitting in for him. Nice to have you, as always.</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's good to be here. Everybody else is off. Should I take that as a hint?</s>S. O'BRIEN: It's nothing personal.</s>M. O'BRIEN: OK.</s>S. O'BRIEN: I'm going to write that down -- take vacation when Hemmer does.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Other stories we're following this morning -- is there a danger now to Pakistan's president after that new audiotape is played? It's said to be the voice of al Qaeda's number two. We'll talk to a journalist who has interviewed Ayman al-Zawahiri and we'll look at what influence he still might wield in Pakistan.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Also this morning, a request from the mother of the woman who is accusing Kobe Bryant of sexual assault. She's asking for a speedy trial. Will it change the court's schedule? We take a look at that.</s>M. O'BRIEN: And without Jack here, let's get right to the headlines. The FBI director, Robert Mueller, is reportedly saying terrorists could be planning to influence this year's presidential elections. Mueller told the Associated Press al Qaeda and other extremist groups could attack this summer during the presidential nominating conventions in New York and Boston. He also said that Islamic extremists could try to recruit local sympathizers who are less likely to arouse suspicion. In Taiwan, a violent protest outside the country's election commission building. Demonstrators stormed the building as the commission certified incumbent President Chen Shui-bian as the winner of last weekend's political election. Some opposition supporters have been demanding a recount. Chen won the election by 30,000 votes. About 300,000 votes were declared involved. Connecticut's governor says a fiery tanker crash could snarl traffic on a major highway for weeks. A tanker truck crashed and burned on Interstate 95 in Bridgeport, Connecticut last night. The mile long stretch of highway links New York and Boston. The fire was so intense that it melted a part of an overpass. Traffic is being detoured. A section of the highway could be closed for months. A judge in the Tyco trial has denied a defense motion for a mistrial. Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and the company's former CFO accused of stealing $600 million from the company. Jurors raised the possibility yesterday they may not be able to reach a verdict. In a note, they said the atmosphere in the jury room has turned poisonous. Jury deliberations expected to resume today. And in sports, the Crimson tide turning out to be the Cinderella team of March Madness. Alabama beat defending national champion, Syracuse, 80-71 in the Phoenix regional semifinals last night and that's just five days after stunning Stanford, the nation's number one ranked team and the region's top seed. And Soledad is still trying to get over that.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Yes.</s>M. O'BRIEN: I'm so sorry.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, whoever wrote that, for reminding me that I have not a chance now.</s>M. O'BRIEN: They kind of stuck it to you on that one, didn't they?</s>S. O'BRIEN: Yes, kind of.</s>M. O'BRIEN: Yes.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Yes. That's all right. I'll get them back.</s>S. O'BRIEN: National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice may appear before the 9/11 Commission again. The White House Counsel's Office has now written to the Commission seeking to have Dr. Rice testify, but not in public. Suzanne Malveaux at the White House for us this morning with more -- hey, Suzanne, good morning again.</s>SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. Well, Dr. Rice has offered up time before the 9/11 Commission to answer those questions privately, not to testify publicly, as the Commission would like. She did this back in February for more than about four and a half hours or so. But the reason why this is so urgent for the White House is that she has come under particular criticism, scrutiny, by Richard Clarke, as you know, President Bush's former counter-terrorism chief. He essentially said that she was incompetent, that there were two 9/11 hijackers that were in the country. Had she been doing her job, perhaps they would have been apprehended before this plot unfolded. These are the type of statements the White House feels that it has to fight back and fight back furiously. In that letter by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, he says, "In light of yesterday's hearings, in which there was a number of mischaracterizations of Dr. Rice's statements and positions, Dr. Rice requests to meet again privately with the Commission." But it is important to note, Soledad, of course the White House has not changed its position when it comes to testifying publicly. They say that will not happen. They don't believe that an adviser to the president who was not confirmed by the Senate should have to go before a legislatively created body and testify -- Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Suzanne, how do you think politics is affecting how the White House is responding to this whole controversy?</s>MALVEAUX: Well, as you can imagine, the pressure has been tremendous to try to get her out there publicly, this coming from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, as well as other commissioners, who said outright that they did not understand why it was that she could call reporters back into her office, why it was that she was in front of television cameras giving interviews and was not going to testify publicly before the Commission. Even family members are saying the same thing, as well. This shows -- and the White House certainly hopes to give the message -- that they are cooperating with the Commission. But they are going to do so on their own terms -- Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Suzanne Malveaux at the White House for us this morning. Suzanne, thanks. For the Democrats, it was a record setting night in Washington, D.C. Hand in hand, the party's big names stood as the torch of leadership was passed to presidential nominee in waiting, Senator John Kerry. The fundraiser brought in some $11 million to the Democratic coffers. Senator Kerry looked forward, he said, to a successful campaign against President Bush.</s>SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Never has the Democratic Party been more united than it is today. Never have we been more poised to win a victory in November.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Terry McCauliffe is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, joining us from Washington this morning. Nice to see you, Terry. Thanks for being with us.</s>TERRY MCAULIFFE, DNC CHAIRMAN: Good to be back with you, Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: You raised $11 million last night. That's the good news. Of course, the bad news is that you're still $100 million or so, roughly speaking, behind the</s>GOP. MCAULIFFE: Right.</s>S. O'BRIEN: What's your strategy for trying to catch up? Or do you think that you're just never going to make it?</s>MCAULIFFE: Well, they're always going to have more money than we have, Soledad. If we can keep the ratio to two to one, that's fine. I remind you, in the 2000 election, that the Bush campaign outspent the Gore campaign by $178 million and we did get 500,000 more votes. We're doing great. The DNC has had the biggest four months in the history of our party. Last night shattered the all time record by double. We have $25 million in the bank at the DNC, no debt for the first time in the history of our party. So we're going to have enough, Soledad, to be competitive, to get our message out. I don't care how much money George Bush has. He can run all the ads he wants, he can't convince someone that they have a job when they don't. To the 48 1/2 million Americans with no health insurance, he can't convince them with ads that they have health insurance and that the education system is working in this country. So we're very comfortable where we are today.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Yes, but there might be lots of people on the fence who would be convinced by an ad.</s>MCAULIFFE: Right.</s>S. O'BRIEN: And they certainly have enough -- the GOP, that is, certainly has enough money to run lots of those.</s>MCAULIFFE: Right.</s>S. O'BRIEN: But I want to ask you a little bit about the love fest last night.</s>MCAULIFFE: Right.</s>S. O'BRIEN: You saw Senator Kerry surrounded by former Presidents Clinton and Carter. Senator Edwards was there. Howard Dean, as well, was there. He talked a little bit, joked, actually, about how he hopes that he could sort of utilize them over the next several months.</s>MCAULIFFE: Right.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Let's listen to a little bit of what he said.</s>MCAULIFFE: Right.</s>KERRY: I was going to ask -- missed President Clinton as he came out and I wanted to ask both President Clinton and President Carter what are you doing every night for the next eight months? I think everybody here would agree that tonight we were treated, and the country was treated -- and I hope they heard two extraordinary American leaders tell it like it is. And...</s>S. O'BRIEN: He was joking, of course, when he wanted to see if they could free up their schedules for the next eight months to basically help support his campaign.</s>MCAULIFFE: Right.</s>S. O'BRIEN: But seriously, though, he certainly is going to try to leverage what they bring to the party. What specifically do you think Senator Kerry is going to do?</s>MCAULIFFE: Well, first of all, he wants to use the former presidents. He wants to use everybody who can help us get our message out across the country. I spoke to Senator Kerry after the dinner. He was very excited. We had Al Gore there. We had everybody there last night. We'd never had a party event like that in the history of our party. So he wants to utilize the former presidents. I mean clearly, if you go back and look at the Clinton-Gore administration, 22 million new jobs created, record surpluses. We now have deficits. We have three million jobs lost and millions of Americans with no health insurance. So the more Democrats we have out there reminding them what we had with 1992 through 2000, the greatest economic expansion in the history of our country -- you look at Jimmy Carter, a Nobel Prize winner, served with distinction, brought countries together, worked with nations throughout the world. So you bring the foreign policy, you bring the domestic agenda together. That's what you saw last night and that's what I think Americans are yearning to get back in the White House. And the failures of the Bush administration really were highlighted last night.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Many analysts say the focus of this election is going to be, as it often is, on the economy. And we heard Senator Kerry saying that he plans to create 10 million jobs over the four years if he were elected and was in office.</s>MCAULIFFE: That's right.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Easy to say, hard to do. How is he going to do it?</s>MCAULIFFE: Well, listen, you know, when President Clinton came into office, he said the same thing. We saw 22 million new jobs created. What John Kerry is going to do is get the economic engine of this country again. First, we going to do tax cuts, tax cuts to small businesses, tax cuts to middle income individuals out there across this country, to get the economic engine, to get the money in the hands of the people, you know, who need that money desperately today. Let's give someone a tax incentive to go out and hire someone. Let's do that for small businesses. He's got tax incentives for research and development. We can get this economy moving again. But the top one percent tax cut that all George Bush has relied upon hasn't worked. You just saw this week that Medicare now is in serious financial trouble. We saw two weeks ago Alan Greenspan say that Social Security is now in real financial trouble. He's created, George Bush has, a $520 billion deficit just this year. We've got to go back to surpluses. We've got to get the economic engine running. Only three out of 10 college graduates got a job last year. We've got to get everybody. We've got to go back to the days of full employment in this country, where people are moving, they're out spending money, getting the economic engine moving. And that's what John Kerry is all about. That's what this election is all going to be about -- jobs, education and health care.</s>S. O'BRIEN: DNC Chairman Terry McCauliffe joining us.</s>MCAULIFFE: Thanks.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Thanks.</s>MCAULIFFE: Thanks. Soledad.</s>S. O'BRIEN: Miles?</s>M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, an audiotape calls for the death of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. It's believed to be the voice of al Qaeda's number two leader. We'll have more on that and reaction in Pakistan, coming up.</s>S. O'BRIEN: In the Jayson Williams trial, the defense officers a contradictory theory on a crucial piece of evidence. A look at that is up next.</s>M. O'BRIEN: And a harrowing ordeal for one California family and their son. We'll tell you how it all turned out. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.