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Obama In Colorado Today; Obama Visits Louisiana Monday; Democratic Convention Starts Tuesday; Occupy Protests At DNC; Louisiana Canal No Longer A Threat; Monster Truck Crash Injures Three; Pilot Killed In Air Show Crash; Journalist Missing In Syria; Former Carmax CEO Supporting Obama; Songwriting Legend Hal David Dies; Lynyrd Skynyrd On Their Name

Aired September 02, 2012 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

In Boulder, Colorado, huge crowds are forming and people even camped out overnight. Not for a rock star but for the president of the United States. President Barack Obama is campaigning there today as part of his road to Charlotte.

Our Athena Jones is traveling with the president. So, Athena, will the focus be much different from the looking forward kind of concept that he delivered in Iowa on Saturday?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We expect the focus to be much the same responding to some extent to what we heard from the Republicans at their convention last week.

But as you mentioned, this is day two of the road to Charlotte tour that the campaign is calling it. You can see the crowd behind me. They've lined up since early this morning. They are still making their way in.

The president has arrived on site. He is expected to take the stage in about 30 minutes, but this is an important battleground states. It only has nine electoral votes.

But, of course, as you know when you trying to get to that magic number of 270, every little bit counts. It is going to be important to their calculus here.

I should mention that the president has been to Colorado 11 times since taking office. This is his eighth trip this year alone. So it shows you just how important Colorado is to their campaign -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And so the president clearly he is campaigning, but he still has to be the president of the United States and address more immediate matters including the damage from hurricane and Tropical Depression Isaac. He is heading to Louisiana tomorrow. What's his plan?

JONES: Well, he goes to Ohio tonight and has a Labor Day event in Toledo and then he heads down to New Orleans. We don't know yet. We know that he is landing in New Orleans. We don't know yet what specific communities he may be visiting.

That's still to come out, but he's been keeping in touch, getting briefings from FEMA and from local officials. He's going to be meeting with local officials on the ground to see what can be done, to see what's being done to help those people who have been affected down there.

This is one of those things the campaign and the White House were asked about timing of this and they always say that the first priority for the White House is to make sure that they don't get in the way of any sort of resources.

They don't want to divert resources from local governments that may need them. So his team decided that Monday is the day to go down there and do this. So that's what he'll be doing part of the today tomorrow -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, busy travel schedule for the president. Ohio, tonight, Louisiana then back to Washington and then, of course, on to Charlotte, North Carolina eventually for the DNC. How is the president preparing as he leads up to his night on the stage?

JONES: Well, I can tell you that the campaign officials say that he's still working on the speech. He's been -- writing it they say working on it on the way to Iowa yesterday. We're going to assume he continues to work on it.

We know from the past experience that we were told he likes to work on this sort of thing up until the last minute. Much of these events leading up to that day are going to be kind of preparing, previewing a little bit of his message, which is all going to be about the middle class.

Keeping that focus on the idea, trying to argue that he is looking out for the middle class more than his Republican rivals will be and so we'll get a little bit more about that today -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Athena Jones, thanks so much. Appreciate that.

All right, so the stage is set in Charlotte, North Carolina, but can President Barack Obama re-ignite the spark from four years ago? All the action of the Democratic National Convention gets under way officially on Tuesday.

First lady Michelle Obama will take to the stage. Former President Bill Clinton will also speak and you can watch all of it right here on CNN.

So likely you want to know exactly what that experience is like firsthand on the Democratic National Convention, from the inside perhaps, Tuesday join the CNN Election Roundtable with Wolf Blitzer and CNN's political team.

Submit your questions, get answers in realtime in this live virtual chat. Don't miss the CNN Election Roundtable Tuesday, at 12:00, noon Eastern Time by logging onto cnn.com/roundtable.

So two days away from the kick start of the DNC and already a gathering not far from the convention site. These people say they are part of the "Occupy" movement.

They say they want to close the gap between the poor and America's super rich who they call the 1 percent. We are they say they plan to camp out during the three-day Democratic convention.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are taking the day off from stumping three days after the Republican convention ended. Romney and wife, Ann, were actually spotted going to church this morning near their New Hampshire home.

It is back to work tomorrow. The Republican presidential nominee will begin preparing for his presidential debates in mock sessions this week.

All right, now to Louisiana where this morning officials lifted an evacuation order for about 20 neighborhoods near the Mississippi border, residents had been told to leave because the water in a canal was dangerously high.

It jets of the nearby Pearl River. The canal was swollen by rain from Hurricane Isaac and it was threatening to burst through a lock.

CNN's George Howell talked with some residents before the danger eventually subsided. So, you know, how did authorities ultimately resolve this dangerous situation?

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fred, they were paying very close attention to this navigational canal. It runs right alongside the Pearl River that you see right out there. This is an off-shoot of the Pearl River runs north to south.

That navigational canal has two locks that hold back a lot of water, lock one and lock two. There was concern the other day that these two locks could fail. Now they've called in the U.S. Corp of Engineers. They are paying close attention to it.

Right now, they believe they have stabilized the situation. So that's why they lifted that mandatory evacuation. Right now, it is a voluntary evacuation but we do know, Fred, that where we're standing right now we could see some three feet of water.

We know that this river right now is well above flood stage. Flood stage is right around 60 feet. At last we check, it is 18 feet and should crest around 19.5 feet some time tomorrow.

Now when you talk to the local out here there is no mandatory evacuation. That is a sigh of relief for a lot of people, but they are still taking this very seriously. They are paying close attention to what happens. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: If this river starts to rise, what is your plan?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of here. Go to my mother-in-law's. My mother's out of town. Get away from the river.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it gets into the trailer. If we can just stay into the main trailer --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. If it just gets in the yard and stuff --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not going to leave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only thing about it in the front of this neighborhood --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can't get out --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, they raised the roads up since then, but I don't know -- usually you won't be able to get out after the water gets up so high in the front, you can't get in and out the neighbor. They had to get out in boats last time.

(END CLIP)

HOWELL: So, a live picture back here in Slidell, Louisiana. You see the Pearl River out there, see some of the debris. I'm sure you can see the current. It is pushing pretty good out there.

They expect the water to rise here in the next 24 hours in Pearl River, a town called Pearl River. That will be where it crests and within the next 48 hours, Fred, as I mentioned, we could very well see three feet of water where I'm standing right now.

WHITFIELD: So they're not at all out of the woods.

HOWELL: Not at all. And one other thing, you know, when the storm came through, when Isaac came through, a lot of homes took water. I'm told that what we will see here, if this rises another three feet -- I say "if."

When it rises another three feet it won't be nearly what they saw when the storm came through. So just as long as those two locks hold this community should be as okay as it can be. Those homes that took water will likely take water again, but nothing like it could be if those two locks fail.

WHITFIELD: All right, George Howell, thanks so much in Slidell, Louisiana.

A quarter million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi still don't have power five days after Isaac hit. President Barack Obama will be visiting the gulf coast Monday before he heads to Charlotte for the Democratic National Convention.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney visited Louisiana on Friday. Meanwhile, Isaac is still churning. On Saturday, the system dumped as much as six inches of rain in the Midwest. That area has been fighting severe drought. Flash flood warnings are in effect today for parts of Kentucky, Tennessee and the Central Appalachian Mountains.

So to find out how you can help the many people devastated by Isaac, visit our impact your world page, cnn.com/impact.

All right, an American journalist disappears while reporting on the conflict in Syria. What this former Marine was doing before he vanished.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Three people are recovering after a mishap at a monster truck event in Oregon. Wow, right into the crowd there. An onlooker captured that video on his cell phone of that out of control truck driving straight into a panicked crowd.

The driver says the rear wheels on his truck spun out and crashed through that barricade. Right after the crash he got out to check on the injured.

In Iowa, federal investigators are trying to figure out what caused a plane to explode in front of thousands of spectators killing the pilot.

Everything started out pretty normal with three planes flying in formation yesterday at the Quad City Air Show. But then all of a sudden one of the planes nose-dived into a field while attempting a 45-degree bank.

Witnesses watched in horror as the plane exploded into a giant fireball as it hit the ground. The "Quad City Times" web site identifies the pilot as 58-year-old Glenn A. Smith of Frisco, Texas.

An American freelance journalist covering the conflict in Syria hasn't been heard from in more than two weeks now. Nick Valencia is joining me now with more on this journalist, the circumstances of his disappearance, who he's been filing for, all of that.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we do know is earlier this week one of those organizations that he was filing for, the "Washington Post," they cited a senior diplomatic source as well as other people that have intimate knowledge of this matter saying that he has been captured by the Syrian government.

Now it is important to note, Fred, that the lion's share of this reporting of this information is coming from, the Czech Republican ambassador to Syria after the U.S. embassy removed its embassy from Syria, the Czech Republic started acting in U.S. interests, in an official capacity for the United States.

She went on Czech Republic TV earlier this week citing embassy sources saying that she knows that Syrian government has him in detention, they captured him and he hasn't been heard from in more than two weeks. WHITFIELD: So what was happening potentially preceding his disappearance?

VALENCIA: Well, he was filing dispatches for places like "The Washington Post," McClatchey newspapers, CBS News, he was working as a freelance journalist. Now it's important to note, he did have conflict experience.

He was a U.S. Marine, had been to dangerous places like the Horn of Africa, he's based on a U.S. carrier, spent some time in Jordan. But this was one of the first times he reported in a conflict zone as a journalist.

Now the Syrian war as we know is among the most dangerous conflicts going on right now and the community to protect journalists are saying at least 19 people have been killed -- 19 journalists have been killed in Syria since November 2011.

But the official line that we are getting actually from the U.S. State Department, we spoke to them early this week. Our State Department correspondent, Jill Dougherty, saying that they're working through. They're check protecting power in Syria and getting information on his welfare and whereabouts.

The U.S. State Department appreciate the efforts of the Czech mission on behalf of our citizens. They follow by saying we have seen news reports Mr. Tice is in Syrian custody. However, the Syrian government has yet to confirm these reports with our protecting power, which is the Czech Republic.

We urge the Syrian government to respond on the Czech diplomatic note as soon as possible. So as far as we know CNN has not been able to independently confirm his whereabouts. He remains unaccounted for, more than two weeks last time he was heard from.

WHITFIELD: The 31-year-old Austin Tice, of course, his family is worried sick. Keep us posted on what we may hear about him. Thanks so much, Nick Valencia. Appreciate it.

All right, back to the campaign trail. Mitt Romney, well, he has been hitting the president hard about his record on the economy, but the former CEO of Carmax says the president deserves more credit and he will actually be one of the guest speakers during the Democratic convention. We'll talk to him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Back to the campaign trail. Mitt Romney has been attacking president about his record on the economy and job creation, but the president will have his defenders at the Democratic National Convention this week.

Among them -- Austin Ligon, the co-founder and former CEO of Carmax, I spoke with him earlier and asked him why he's supporting the president even though he isn't a registered Democrat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AUSTIN LIGON, CO-FOUNDER AND FORMER CEO, CARMAX: What the president did really in the first six months he was in office, first the auto restructuring program, which really in a very short period of time took two of the biggest industrial companies in the United States and saved them.

If you go back to that time, we tend to forget that when President Obama took the baton, he inherited a structural deficit from Mr. Bush, he inherited an economy that was in almost complete collapse.

And he inherited an auto industry that was literally on the verge of going into the deep abyss with two of the three big companies literally running out of cash.

And in about 90 to 120 days he sent a team in, they essentially assessed the management, concluded that they were incompetent, fired the management of both companies, fired the boards.

Brought in new people, took them through a structured bankruptcy process and got them on a path that has actually turned them both into profitable, successful companies.

WHITFIELD: You're also going to be responding to the Republican vice presidential pick Paul Ryan who said during the RNC that the president failed much of the auto industry.

And that particularly when TARP funds were used, the U.S. did not enjoy enough of a return so will you also be responding directly to that criticism?

LIGON: I don't think Paul Ryan knows anything about the auto industry. Don't think he has any experience or any depth of knowledge.

The reality is, we still don't know what the net cost is going to be, but whatever it ends up being, you're talking about a sector that represents 21 percent of total retail sales.

Millions and millions and millions of jobs and the cost of this was a tiny fraction of what the cost of bailing out banks were and we didn't really bail these guys out. The equity holders lost their equity.

A lot of the bond holders took a big haircut. If we had done to the banks -- or for the banks what we did to the auto industry, I think that would have been a big improvement, which is the people who were responsible for the incompetent management all got fired. They're all gone.

WHITFIELD: You are quite the surrogate for the Obama White House. How is it that someone who is not a registered Democrat is so committed to seeing President Obama back in office?

LIGON: Well, look, I'm a businessman. I focus on facts and not political rhetoric or anything like that. I think when a guy does a pretty good job, he deserves credit for that. The other thing I believe is, the best training to be president of the United States is to be president of the United States. I think President Obama has done a much better job than people give him credit for.

WHITFIELD: All right, the independent vote, it will be very pivotal in this election. What will the president need to say during this convention to kind of shore up that support?

LIGON: I've told the president several times when I've had a chance to meet with him briefly over the last several years is you should take more credit for what you've done well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Austin Ligon won't be the only CEO speaking at the Democratic National Convention. Jim Senigal, the Costco co-founder is also scheduled to give a speech.

Our live coverage of the convention starts Monday night, 7 p.m. Eastern even though the convention officially begins on Tuesday.

I mentioned the song, "Sweet Home Alabama" or "Freed Bird" and you know what classic southern rock band I'm referring to. Band members tell us the story of how they got that name Lynyrd Skynyrd and it has something to do with this man right here.

If you have to go out today, just a reminder, you can continue watching CNN from your mobile phone. You can also watch CNN live from your laptop, just go to cnn.com/TV.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, no matter your age, chances are you know his work. You recognize that tune, Hal David. The man behind these iconic tunes has died.

The Oscar and Grammy winning songwriter was best known for his partnership with Burt Backrack. A spokesman for the music association says David died in Los Angeles from complications of a stroke. He was 91, Hal David.

All right, they've been together for the most part some 40 years, their music sparking memories of weddings, proposals and school dances.

"Sweet Home Alabama," "Free Bird" and "What's Your Name," well, now you know exactly who I'm talking about, Lynyrd Skynyrd. I sat down face to face with vocalist, Johnny Van Zant and guitarist Gary Rossington and Ricky Medlock about how it all got started, beginning with the band's name.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was his gym teacher. I should let him explain it. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His name was Leonard Skinner with a different spelling, but he used to get us in trouble for having long hair in school. It was just down to our eyebrows or touching our ears back in the '60s but we liked the Beatles and we wanted to be a band.

But in gym class he noticed it shaking and stuff and kicked you out to get a haircut. After a while, we just quit school, said no we're not doing it, grew our hair and played in a band. Now you kids stay in school.

WHITFIELD: Right, doesn't work for everybody!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doesn't work for everybody.

WHITFIELD: What does Leonard Skinner think about that when he finally learned that Lynyrd Skynyrd is actually kind after play on my name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We spelled it different so he wouldn't sue us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We weren't that stupid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He opened up a realty company in Florida, Jacksonville, and a couple of nice clubs called Skinner's Place. He introduced the band a couple times on the tribute tour when we started back saying I'm the real Leonard Skinner and I'm going to introduce Lynyrd Skynyrd.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, in the 4:00 Eastern hour, there's more from the band members. We'll hear from their invitation to the Republican National Convention, but why they didn't appear.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield. "YOUR MONEY" with Ali Velshi is next. I'll see you right back here in the NEWSROOM right after that.

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