237th Birthday of the U.S. Army
LEMON: Want to update you on our breaking news. Chaos and confusion in Egypt after the country's highest court today ruled that the parliament must be dissolved. Parliament had only been in session for just over four months, and THE military now saying it has full legislative power. Riot police, military personnel taking up positions outside the court. The supreme constitutional court also ruled that a former member of Hosni Mubarak's regime, seen here, may run as planned in the presidential runoff this weekend. We are following that vote closely for you. It is a very busy day for the president in Ohio for his presidential election. President Barack Obama will be getting an up- close look at the World Trade Center construction site and briefed on the progress crews have made there. Pictures right there. Right now, crews are gearing up for the president's visit this afternoon, and it's been a long, complicated process. A controversial road for thousands involved in the rebuilding of this. You're looking at the time-lapse video of the construction site. After all this, President Obama will be getting a glimpse at just how much has been accomplished. To help us answer that question, before he gets there, Poppy Harlow at ground zero at the site of the World Trade Center for us. Poppy, crews are up to the 144th floor. What kind of progress will the president be looking at?</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM CORRESPONDENT: Don, he's been invited by the governors of New York and New Jersey. He'll be touring with them, will shake hands with some construction workers. He's going to look at a lot of progress, especially in the last year. Amazingly, they've been building One World Trade center behind me -- let's pan up to the top so you can see it -- at a very rapid clip. One floor a week is what they've been building. I am told that the president will go in the tower. I did is ask if he would go to the top and they said, we don't know and Secret Service probably wouldn't want us to tell you that, but interestingly, Don, this will be the president's first time inside One World Trade Center. He's going to sign a beam that will go at the top of the center when it's complete. This is a very big deal for the workers down here, Don, and we're just a few weeks away from the topping of this building, when it reaches that final height of 1,776 feet, a very symbolic number -- Don?</s>LEMON: I think it's interesting you can keep up with the progress of the Trade Center on social media. I get tweets all the time. I hear people saying, crossing from New Jersey, I can see the tower. It's amazing. But back now to the president. The timing of his visit is telling. It follows his visit to swing state of Ohio where he's going to talk the economy. The World Trade enter construction site is right in line with the president's push for jobs as well.</s>HARLOW: Absolutely. I mean, I'd be remiss not to mention this is a very political stop. This is the site with 3,500 construction workers, most of them, almost all of them, union workers, and those workers are key for the president. Right after he faced off today in Ohio with Mitt Romney, talking about the economy, talking about jobs, he'll head here, and he'll have that photo-op with these construction workers. And we just heard, Don, last Friday, when the president made that speech, pushing Congress to act on the Jobs Act, he talked specifically about construction workers that are out of work, wanting to put them back to work. So absolutely, this is political.</s>LEMON: Poppy Harlow, thank you. We will be watching. And after visiting the World Trade Center site, President Obama and the first lady will then head to two campaign fundraisers, one at Sarah Jessica Parker's house and another at the Plaza Hotel with Corey Booker and Mariah Carey. Two George Bushs, father and son, have had the distinction of serving as president of the United States. The 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush is at the center of a new HBO documentary called "41." It takes an intimate look at Bush and his presidency. The former president and his family screened the documentary on Tuesday, which just happened to be Bush's 80th birthday. Among other political and personal details, Bush talks about the historic moment his son, George Walker Bush, became the 43rd president of the United States.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was it like to see your son elected president?</s>GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Very emotional for me. Very proud father. First time it's happened I guess in the history of our country, except for the Adams. It was enormous and a source of great pride for the family.</s>LEMON: The documentary premieres on HBO. HBO, our sister network, on at 9:00 eastern, 8:00 central. Tune in. Happy 237th birthday. We're talking about none other than the U.S. Army. What began on June 14th, 1775, with the Continental Army, is now more than one million servicemen and women strong. Celebrations are under way all over the country as we speak, including the Pentagon. We find our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. So, Barbara --</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: I have a very special guest.</s>LEMON: You have a very special guest standing next to that tank of cupcakes.</s>STARR: This is U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey, also, of course, also chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's such a sport. He came out of the turret of this cupcake tank. Being an Army general, we want to ask how it felt. What was it like being in a cupcake?</s>GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: It was sticky, actually.</s>STARR: The chief of staff.</s>DEMPSEY: I'm the 37th chief. He was the 38th.</s>STARR: A nice moment to remember the troops. But you have spoken extensively about your concerns here in Washington about budget cuts and the threat to the U.S. military if these massive budget cuts go into effect, if Congress and the White House can't reach an agreement. As the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, what are your concerns?</s>DEMPSEY: My concerns are the uncertainty. We don't yet have a '13 budget from which to plan. And therefore we don't have a lot of the marks and the conference results from this Congress. So I don't know where I'm starting from. Secondly, it's the mechanism, which is -- which is draconian in the first year, and then it levels off in the following years. And therefore we have not been able to do any detailed planning. So I know what we did -- I know what the budget did to us in -- with a reduction of $487 billion as a result of the budget control act. But I don't know what it would do to us with another a $500 billion. But I know how hard it was to get $487 billion.</s>STARR: If there's another $500 billion in budget cuts at the pentagon, can the U.S. military fight and win? Do you think it raises the risk of instability of war around the world somewhere, whether it's Iran or Syria or wherever?</s>DEMPSEY: Well, it raises the risk, I mean, clearly. It's defining the degree of that risk that I'm struggling with right now. We'll get to that. But I'm not there yet. But to your point, we would certainly be less visible and active globally because we'd have a much smaller force. And nature abhors a vacuum. If we're not there, others will be, and that doesn't mean we have to be the world's policemen and all the rhetoric, but it does mean we have to engage and build partnerships, have to live up to our treaty obligations and so forth.</s>STARR: Last question. Your concerns about Syria right now.</s>DEMPSEY: Well, Syria, it's a transition. You probably saw overnight that the -- someone blew up a very famous Shiite mosque in Damascus, which, of course, gives us all pause that have been in Iraq and seen how these issues become sectarian and then they become civil wars and then they become very difficult to resolve.</s>STARR: We thank you so much for your time. So, Don, there you are. We sort of started with cupcakes, but we've shifted and got a little news from the chairman of the Joint chiefs.</s>LEMON: You have reached -- probably set a record here. This is unprecedented. You've reached a milestone in your career. Who can say they've interviewed the Joint Chiefs chair in front of a cupcake tank.</s>STARR: I want to tell you, before we came on camera, he turned to me and said, I'm not wearing any of these cupcakes on my shirt, am I? Always the general. Wanting to be clean.</s>LEMON: It's edible. You can take a bite if you want.</s>STARR: Absolutely.</s>LEMON: Thank you, Barbara Starr. We appreciate it. Barbara usually reporting from the Pentagon. For her latest report on national security, logon to CNN.com/securityclearance.