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tv   Larry King Live  CNN  January 26, 2010 9:00pm-10:00pm EST

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several hundred. so i think there is sort of a enclaves of population that's not getting enough, but you see a lot that do. >> larry king is starting right now. >> larry: tonight, many children are on the streets, living in makeshift camps. many fear that many will be targeted for illegal adoption or trafficking or sold for sex slaves. state of the union address, a 40% approval rating. questions over whether a $787 billion stimulus is working. can he convince an increasingly anxious country that he's getting the job done? we'll talk about it next on
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"larry king live." >> larry: a program reminder before we swing into things. tomorrow night is the state of the union address. it will begin at 9:00, pre empting us, so we'll be on at midnight and 6:00 p.m. pacific time, and among our guests will be senator john mccain. so "larry king live" will be at midnight eastern, 9:00 pacific tomorrow night following the state of the union and cnn's political team discussing the state of the union. we're going to go to haiti and we begin with christiane amanpour, our chief international correspondent and the host of "amanpour" seen on saturdays and sundays on cnn. christiane, you just got there this week. what's your overview of this after a two-week occurrence that has developed into a nightmare?
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what's your read? >> well, the thing is, it's getting better, if you can say that, in certain instances. obviously, we've heard since the earthquake struck of all the difficulties getting the food, supplies and meds out to the people. that is getting better, whether it's here in port-au-prince or out in jacmal or in the southern caribbean coast. trying to facilitate the airlifts, provide security and get the supplies out is certainly expanding, but it's not enough to meet the needs of every single person. right now the big issue for many people is still trying to get enough food and clean water, although many individuals, many people here in haiti, many businesses are doing their best also to give free food and water. but the big issue is shelter, because so many of the buildings, certainly in port-au-prince, have been either destroyed or damaged, and what they want is huge kind of industrial strength tents like
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we see in many other disaster areas where the u.n. and other organizations come in and put up these huge, green tents where whole families can be live, where there can be sanitation, where it can be hooked up to water. there are millions of people also who need homes, and people are worried about what happens when the rainy season sets in and what happens when the hurricane season sets in, and just to give these people some shelter and someplace to live. >> christian, if the word normal can be used, i don't know if it can be used, when can things be back to an approximation of normal in haiti? >> well, you know, in every disaster, the most incredible thing is how small pockets exhibit traits of normality so quickly, so in this city, right now the traffic is congested. right now in many parts, along many roads, commerce is freeing up, whether it's the people who sit on the side of the roads making, selling or baking food and selling that as well, whatever it might be.
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but on the whole, this is a major emergency situation, and, therefore, it is nowhere near normal whether it's in shelter, as i said, whether it's in getting enough food or water, whether it's in the government being able to fuchnction and sh it's in charge and getting the message out, whether it's in children in no schools. school just stopped the day of the earthquake. hundreds of schools around the country, the three main universities, colleges, were either damaged or destroyed. and according to the education minister, the education system is in total collapse. so children, many of whom have been separated from their families, either because their parents have died or they don't know where they are, many have been left alone, traumatized. they don't have any recourse. they can't even go to school to have some kind of familiar surroundsings, some way of soothing their stress and giving them a sense of normality. so it's going to take months and months and months just to get out of the emergency phase, and
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then you have the major reconstruction and development phase, and that's what people here are hoping will come true and come forth according to all the promises that be made to them, even after the cameras leave. >> larry: you're an expert on governance and how they operate or fail to operate. how is the government of haiti operating? >> well, you know, so much has been said about their lack of capacity even before the earthquake. it's not a sound state, haiti. there is an elected government. it's a fragile state. over the last several years, it was beginning to make progress in association with the united states which really had been looking at haiti for the last year, more businesses were coming here, there was more investment. one of the main industries, which is the gaman industry, was really beginning to thrive. it was on the verge of thriving. there are special u.s. congressional legislation which allowed tariff-free, duty-free
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import of clothes into the united states. there is a big boon for employment here and the economy here. that now has to get back on its feet again. the government, its buildings were collapsed. many, many members of the government were killed. it's barely reconstituted itself in a former police headquarters near the airport. the government is not showing to the people that it's in charge, that it's not getting out there and delivering its message. i spoke to a former prime minister that said on the day of the earthquake or afterwards, i would have asked the united states or the international donors to give me six huge tents, put them outside the damaged or destroyed congressional palace, let the people know we're here, we're operating, we have a situation room, we can tell the people what we have to do, divide the city up into sectors and look like we're in charge and actually do things. that hasn't actually happened yet. >> larry: and that's christiane amanpour on the scene in haiti.
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thank you so much. there is nothing more important in our lives than children, aren't there? nothing. with possibly thousands of children left without parents or families, there is a growing concern that haiti's orphans are at risk, but get this. child trafficking. who is protecting them? find out when we come back.
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>> larry: joining us now to talk about the risk of child trafficking and abduction in haiti after the earthquake, lisa lauman, in charge of child protection at save the children. also director of world vision in haiti. and cnn's own anderson cooper. lisa, how worried are we about child trafficking in this tragedy? >> well, larry, we were worried about and we're worried now. i will say that there are a lot of stories out there, a lot of rumors, and ea number of organizations, unicef, save the children, world vision, are trying to follow them up. today we haven't found evidence that any of these stories are true, but that doesn't mean these children aren't at risk. so it's important that all humanitarian actors remain vigilant. >> we don't know if their parents are living or dead.
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they're certainly open to this, aren't they? >> that is correct, larry. before the quake, there were about 380,000 children who were orphans in haiti, and you can imagine that number has increased and so you can believe we are mindful to try to keep track of these children and ensure their well-being. >> maggie, by the way, is coming to us via that skype gadget, which is amazing the way it works. anderson cooper, have you seen any evidence of that the all in your reporting? >> we've looked into it. we were given a heads up on two allegations, two stories that were floating around. unicef kind of turned us onto them. we investigated both of them. we did not get any evidence of any kind of trafficking in those two incidents. we've certainly talked to unicef and save the children who say they are certainly on the lookout. a lot of these organizations want to start tracking, get their hands around how many
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orphans there really are, who really is an orphan, who has family members they're separated from and want to take care of them. in have in sri lanka, there was certainly a concern about that. but kids are often sold off or given to poor families or other families living in the city, and those kids will grow up as domestic servants working for a family. so that's something that's a form of trafficking which happens right here in haiti and happened long before the earthquake. >> larry: lisa, how does trafficking work? give us the mode us op -- mo. what happens? >> often they develop relationships, and the kind of
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trafficking that happens in places like haiti, the stay with if phenomenon is something that happens when a family feels like they can't care for their children properly and they send them to be with another family in another area to provide domestic servants in exchange for food, clothes and possibly an education. what happens often, however, is that the terms of the child living there are not very well -- they're not monitored at all, they're not well established, can the children are treated harshly. sometimes there's violence, sometimes they're not entitled to the things they think they're entitled to and often they're sexually abused. they often leave those families at 18, which is when they are to be legally paid, and then they go on the streets. sdp >> larry: how much sexual slavery, maggie, is involved in
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this? >> larry, i think when children are abandoned and separated from their families, and that is a reflexes of their parents, they are exposed to all kinds of dangers, including sexual exploitation, which, of course, is not unheard of in haiti. we have seen some statistics suggesting that up to maybe a third of our young women, especially in the seedy areas, do suffer some kind of sexual violence. so it was here even before the quake, and there's no reason to think these numbers have decreased. >> larry: anderson, how do we know an orphan is an orphan? you see a little child on the street there. how do you know if the parents are living, father is living, mother is dead, how do you know? >> you don't really know. you can talk to them but oftentimes they are simply separated, and they will tell you, i heard my mother died, but i don't know. people just disappear here in the earthquake. a mother goes out to buy something in the store, the store collapsed on her, the
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child hasn't seen her but has heard through stories that she's dead. so there really needs to be a system in place. i know unicef is working on it, save the children as well, the red cross will be involved, to basically identify and catalog all these unkpd minors out there with the aim of reuniting them with parents out there, reuniting them with other family members or figuring out, you know what, these kids really are orphans and will need some orphanage here or some kind of international adoption. >> larry: we'll be back to find out if adoptions are taking place that shouldn't be adoptions. don't go away.
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>> larry: lisa, is it possible that a lot of children are being adopted haphazardly? >> larry, we don't actually know. we know that some children have left haiti already to go to other countries. i understand that the children who have come to the united states so far were children who were in the process of adoption,
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and so far along that there was almost no question or no question at all about what their status should be. i think the concern now is that we not rush to adoption and we not rush to the assumption that these children don't have parents or don't have extended families that might want to care for them. adoption may be an important and necessary option for them down the line, but the first thing we need to do is make sure that if they have family that is out there, if there are neighbors and community members who want to and have the capacity to care for them ethically and responsibly that we're in a position to let that happen before it's too late. >> larry: maggie, i know you met with the president and first lady of haiti. did you discuss the possibility of this problem with them? >> larry, i did have the honor of meeting the president and the first lady this morning, and i did have the opportunity to bring up to them world vision's concern with the well-being of
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children. and i'm glad to report the first lady was already aware of that and is working on an initiative and world vision is looking forward to perhaps assisting with them over the coming weeks and days, especially the first lady's office, about this initiative concerning children. and larry, can i just add one more thing? one of my colleagues from earlier, the haitian prime minister had, in his daily meeting he has with agencies, made it very clear in no uncertain terms a couple days ago that any hasty adoptions are not likely to succeed. the government has granted some expedited adoptions, but those are already in process, and they were done on formal requests from embassies here. so i do think the government is aware of the danger of hasty adoptions, though the impulse is certainly understood, and i don't mean to i mpugn those who
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would want to do that, but the government is very much aware of this problem and is on task of not letting that happen. >> larry: i'm trying to get a picture of this. are there a lot of children just running loose? >> you come across kids all the time who are identified as being on the run. you go to general hospital, i met a little boy named johnny who was five years old, didn't know his last name. the nurse there told me he didn't have anyone watching over him. she was particularly keeping an eye on him. i met another girl outside by the airport. i was in a church. they had about 20 kids identified as orphans. they had made a list of children up for adoption. it was unclear where they wanted them to be adopted from, i think they would have let me take one of the kids. so there are some adults, some locals looking after them but they really need to be watched over in i much more organized
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setting, by international groups, by haitian orphanages, and really get a sense of how much there are and what their needs are. >> larry: thank you all very much. the state of the union is coming up tomorrow night. all eyes will be on president obama. he gives his first state of the union speech. what is he going to say, what should he say? an outstanding panel to discuss it right after this.
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>> larry: joining us now to discuss president obama's state of the union speech and also writes for fortune magazine. libertarian, there he is. host contribute tore and stephanie miller, host of the stephanie miller show on the radio. okay, obama is going to propose a partial freeze, he's announced that already. he'll discuss it, i guess, at length tomorrow night. what do you make of it, ben? >> i've seen it many times before. it amounts to a small fraction of the federal budget. that cat is already out of the bag. the deficit is going to grow and grow and grow and grow unless they raise taxes by repeeling the bush tax. i think they'll have to repeal the bush tax cuts. it's a real crisis. both republic kanans and democr
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got us into it? >> ben, what do you make of it? >> i'm looking forward to hearing a speech by someone who knows america's place in the world market and has fiscal responsibility, and i hope obama is listening very carefully when steve jobs speaks tomorrow. i don't know, it seems we're in big trouble, and the good news is it seems the american people are realizing that when you're in debt horribly that maybe it's best to stop spending a little bit. >> larry: president obama, tanya, dismissed in the campaign when discussing a freeze. obama said it would be like taking a scalpel to it. here's what mccain had to say today. >> i think that the president understands now how serious this problem is and that it requires hatch et ceteets and scalpels.
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it requires a hatchet to bring it under control, and it requires the scalpel to eliminate the waste ful and unnecessary spending. >> larry: and john mccain will be with us tomorrow night when we follow all the following following state of the union. we'll be on at midnight eastern, 9:00 pacific. tanya, what do you make of it? >> i think the president is certainly bend to go a political rally, which is that people are now as concerned about this as they are anything else on the domestic agenda. during the campaign, certainly, people were really, really worried about health care. they were worried,frankly, about a lot of things in the now endangered health care bill. but right now they're worried about dollars. they're worried about unemployment, they're worried about a deficit and the long-term consequences of the economy. i think it's important the president be responsive to that. >> larry: everyone is hitting on
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the president who retains his popularity base, by the way. the clinton administration said a freeze right now makes absolutely no sense. how do you respond to that? >> well, i got called a chirpy apologist on my show today, larry. we, republicans and democrats, did not get us into this deficit. the bush administration got us into this deficit, but i agree with ben, significant reduction is going to require tax cuts. the rich are going to have to pay their fair share like they did under you're heroes reagan and eisenhower. we're how much higher? >> you said tax cuts, you mean tax increases, right? >> tax increases, right. i'm talking about the top 1% paying their fair share. i'm saying, larry, under their conservative heroes, reagan and eisenhower, the tax raises were much higher.
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i've had it up to here with the bipartisanship. we've gotten nothing from the republicans. i agree with you, i think he keeps trying, and i think to have significant deficit reduction which i think we need, you're going to have to have the rich pay their fair share. >> do you think the president is going rightward, ben? >> i think he's going rightward after the election in massachusetts, but i'm sorry to say i agree with your friend robert wright. we are still in a very serious recession. it needs all the stimulus it can get. >> larry: why is one senator in massachusetts causing all this upheaval? >> i don't know, i'm from massachusetts and i was there when they voted to govern instead of nixon, and i think it's an absolutely in
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describable health care thing with a lot of taxes to the middle class is not probably a good idea, and i think maybe american citizens know more than politicians about what you should do when you're deeply, deeply in debt, and that's stop spending money. >> but it's going to stop deficit reduction. the health care plan is going to reduce the deficit. explain that. >> larry: it's going to raise taxes on rich people, which is not necessarily a bad idea, but it's not going to reduce the deficit. >> that's not the only thing the health care plan does, just to step back a second and talk about massachusetts. yes, scott brown ran a magnificent campaign, yes, martha coakley ran a terrible campaign, but that this suggests the entire country has shifted, i don't think that's entirely accurate. hang on a second, hang on a second. one second, one second. we forget that there were tens and tens of millions of people who on election day, notwithstanding the enthusiasm a
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lot of us had for this president and this administration, there were tens of millions of people who said that they wanted sarah palin to be the number two person with her finger on the button. so the idea, yeah, this president has always had some opposition. he's going to have to mobilize, and i agree with stephanie. the time for bipartisanship may be past. he's going to have to set his agenda and hold it. >> larry: hold it, hold it, hold it. we'll be right back.
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stephanie, as a liberal, do you have a fear that your president is now a centrist? >> yes, i do.
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the polls back up what we've just been talking about in massachusetts. this is not about health care reform. they have health care in massachusetts which scott brown voted for. this is about we don't want to pay for the rest of the country's. that's the way he successfully framed that issue. the fact that the media has picked up the story, this is a rejection, they did poll by poll, that i just went through today, larry, on my show. this is not about rejecting domestic policies or health care reform. a year ago, the public was very clearly behind health care reform with a strong public option. i think what's happened is the president has lost control of the debate and allowed the republicans to lie about it and to frame the issue and to scare people and he's got to take that back tomorrow night. >> larry: what do you want to see him say tomorrow night. what do you want him to see? >> i just want to ask, if it doesn't show that, if massachusetts doesn't show that, why does obama think it shows that? he's the one that's changing course. i didn't write the speech tonight. i'm not the one -- i mean, it's
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obama himself that said. >> the wall street journal had details of the vote, and they said just the opposite of what stephanie said, which was health care was a very important event for them in their minds, and also they just didn't like the obama program. i believe he's popular personally but they don't like the obama program. >> but they have the health care program we're trying to get passed. and beyond that, you've got to look at who the voters were, who the voters were that were showing up at the polls, who was energyized to show up at that election. it was scott brown's folks when ran a great campaign. martha coakley fell asleep at the wheel and now we're taking her laziness as a refer referendum on the democratic platform, and i think that's wrong. >> larry: ben, you were saying?
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>> i'm just saying i don't know what stephanie means. it's obama that's changed his course. it's not we saying he should change his course, he actually is. so apparently what he thought happened in massachusetts is different from what you thought happened in massachusetts, and i think he has a better view of it than you do. >> well, i beg your pardon, you think he might have information i don't have? >> i think i like him more than you. >> i beg your pardon. i want to wait, ben, i want to wait until tomorrow night and see exactly what the president is going to say. but i agree with you, ic think the lesson for massachusetts is that the health care bill is not liberal enough. the american people have wanted a robust public option. that's not in any of the bills anymore. that's been in every poll for a year. >> that is not the polls that i'm reading in the wall street journal or the new york times. i question what polls you're reading there. >> ben, for years, 70% of the american people have wanted a public option. >> larry: what does america
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want? >> america wants a public health policy that covers very poor people but does not disrupt life in america. they want the government to help on jobs -->> larry: they want no disruption, no sacrifice. >> i didn't say no sacrifice. in fact, i've said all along on your show and many others, i'm perfectly fine on relying on well-to-do people like stephanie. but i'm not for breaking up the whole barnyard. >> larry: my late friend henry lewis in las vegas used to say, money is not one thing. health is 3%. what is the value of health? what does it mean that someone can't get a prescription? isn't that a blight on the country? >> there is nothing more important than health. i don't think that anybody in this debate -- i haven't heard anybody say that people should be unhealthy and suffer and
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miserable. the question is, how do we help people? and there is more than one answer to that, and i think that you should always consider more freedom. i think that maybe letting insurance companies sell across state lines, letting there be actual insurance with deductibles that are assignable, letting individuals have the same kind of tax breaks on insurance policies that they would have if they had it through their insurers, try to do other sorts of things. i don't think anyone is saying that people should just get sick and die, although that's a cool position. >> the republicans aren't saying that, the republicans want health care for everyone, too. nixon proposed that in health care and the democrats killed it. >> how do you get health care for everyone if there is no meaningful competition? if the insurance companies can do exactly what they've been doing now and there's no competition. >> larry: we'll talk about the stimulus package when we come back.
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>> larry: don't forget all week long cnn is breaking down how the $787 billion stimulus money
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is being spent. you can get more definition about it all at cnn.com/stimulus. what do you make of the stimulus, ben? you're the economist on the panel. >> it doesn't seem to have pro dusd mu dusd much in the way of results. you can't get some results, but the results have been difficult to measure. back to our friend stephanie's point, a simple basic way to get health care for everybody and avoid the moral horror of people not being able to have health care is to write checks to people to be able to buy insurance policies. it's that simple. >> larry: the nixon plan. >> the nixon plan. >> larry: back to the stimulus plan. ben, do you think it's working? >> i don't know. i just don't think when you're in debt spending money is the right thing to do. i know that people are a lot smarter than me but i don't think they're a lot smarter than everybody. i think letting individuals have
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that money back is a really good idea. i don't believe the government is smart enough to let people know where to put money. >> except trickle-down economics does not work, has not worked, is responsible for great deficits, so i think the whole notion we don't let everybody pay taxes and the whole country will rebound, i think that's counter-factual. in terms of whether or not this stimulus is working and in terms of whether or not it will work in the long run, we all knew last year it was going to take time for some of that money to work its way through the system. perhaps if we really want to invest in the country, see about making a difference, we've got to realize, you don't always get -- things don't turn around in two months, three months, five months. sometimes you've got to let things work through the system. so i think it's too early to say right now. >> larry: before stephanie gets in, let me get a call in and you respond to it. alexander in louisiana. hello. >> caller: hi, how are you? >> larry: fine. what's your question. >> caller: here's my question. the president addresses health care and he's ridiculed.
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he addresses and tries to make attempts to reduce spending, and he's ridiculed on that as well. how does the president really move forward to create a win-win situation so we can stop playing the blame game and really get some change in america? what does he have to say tomorrow night to get everybody on the same page? >> larry: good question. stephanie? >> well, let me give you a little tip. no matter what he says, the republicans will be against it. they've already written the speech. this is the problem. they have tried -- he has tried bipartisanship, larry, for a year. this is my point. they have said -- they have said they want to break him politically. they are not going to give him any help, and i agree, we're like kids in the backseat on the stimulus. are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet? it is working. you're not going to turn this economy george bush left you around in a year. it is working, and that's right, we can argue about how many jobs it's created, but it is working.
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>> all presidents get ridiculed. that's it. it comes with the territory. it's part of the job. all presidents get ridiculed. that's the name of the job. you get ridiculed and some people love you and some people hate you. >> what could obama say that could make stephanie not like him? >> what could he say that would make me what? >> what could obama say that would make you not agree with him? >> he would have to come and pee on larry's desk. i don't know. >> absolutely! i'd be all for him. >> larry: he's taken us down to the drejs. we'll be back. david gergan is standing by. he's advised many presidents. we'll ask his advice for the president in his stirs state of the union address tomorrow. all ahead. ♪ singer: was getting depressed 'cause of all of the stress ♪
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americans are missing here. today we went to the hotel montana where american families are holding out hope they'll find their loved ones, at least the bodies of their loved ones. we'll talk to a young woman who is missing her father from the hotel montana. we'll also talk to a young wife. an american was found in the rubble here, and she has basically disappeared, her body dumped into a dump truck, taken out to mass graves. we'll talk to him about why he feels this happened and why he wishes the u.s. government was able to do more. we'll also take you out to the mass graves. it's one of the most shocking scenes i've ever seen in my life. the haitian government not even fully burying people, literally dumping them out on the ground and leaving them. it has been two weeks now. we'll have all that ahead, larry, tonight. >> larry: anderson cooper, 10:00 eastern, 7:00 pacific. now let's go to new york, author of?
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wingnuts, and in boston, david gergan, senior political analyst and former political adviser to nixon, ford and bill clinton. many of these states of the union, how important are they, how lasting are they, what effect do they have? >> first of all, larry, it's hard to bounce off that report from anderson cooper and those pictures from haiti, isn't it? larry, not many have been memorable. occasionally a president can find his footing when he's in trouble. ronald reagan after two years in the white house lost seats in his second year and then came back in that next state of the union and gave a strong rallying cry and it really helped his presidency. bill clinton did the same thing after his first two years in office. so there are times. i think for this president, this has to be a moment when he relaunches his presidency. clearly, the cnn polls that are out today show we're a very
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divided country rye r right now. a lot of that glow is gone, people aren't sure they want to follow him. there will be a lot of people who want to tune him out tomorrow night, other people won't give him the benefit of the doubt. even so, he has this special moment and it's the most special moment he's going to have this year to rme his agenda of what he's trying to do as president and get people to rally behind him, and finally, finally take charge as a leader. >> larry: john avlon, what are you expecting tomorrow night? >> i think we're going to see a president who is back and focused on a lot of the messages from the '08 campaign. a lot of his actions have fallen short of those very high hopes people had. he needs to reconnect with moderates and middle class, the folks who determine win or lose in this country, and i think one of the ways he'll do that is by talking about the deficit. bill clinton say, the
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era of play to the base politics is over. he needs to focus on that message and attract people back to his cause. >> larry: david, do you expect a big announced tomorrow? something that's going to be the big headline tomorrow morning? >> there's no indication of that, the white house has been leaking out in very intentional wayses a sects of this, helpfuls a pkts of this. there is some talk about he may push tomorrow night for a repeal of don't ask don't tell in the military. that will be a surprise because i think most people think the headline out of this speech is going to be about jobs and deficits. and so far, larry, there's no indication that he's going to have any surprises on jobs and
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on deficits he's already received a couple of body blows in the next couple of days. >> larry: john, do you expect any surprises? >> what david said, i think this is going to be a laser beam on the middle class. but if you want to understand the anger of independents, the reason why they voted by martins of 2-1 in new jersey and massachusetts is that middle class families, families all across this country have to balance their checkbook and they're offended by the idea in that time of manic recession that big business seem arrogantly exempt. they're allowed to balance their books on the back of the taxpayers and that's why he needs to return to the issues of the campaign. >> larry: but didn't they like big deficits? >> but in the midst of the war,
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at the time he was still the warrior president and a lot of people rallied behind him because of that. and that's not where this president is going, he's drawing down the war in iraq and more than anything else, let's go to john's point. a good leader is a good listener and someone who can spend the message, i have heard what you're trying to tell me in the middle class, i hear your anxiety. here's what we're going to do together if you will work with me and have a program that's credible that's going to provide jobs and begin to bring the deficits down in a courageous way. we have heard a lot of talk, we have seen very little courage. >> larry: and we'll be right back with john avalon and david gergen. don't forget we're on tomorrow night at midnight eastern, 9:00
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pacific. john mccain one of our guests don't go away. [ crowd gasps ] [ announcer ] if you think about it, this is a lot like most job search sites. - they let everyone in, - [ crowd groans ] so the best people can't stand out. join theladders.com. the premium job site for only $100k+ jobs... and only $100k+ talent.
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>> larry: let's take a call for john and david, indiana, hello. zplk hi, larry, is he going to
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focus at all on jobs and how he's going to put people back to work? i'm two years unemployed and he's talking about green jobs and everything. they're not retraining us, they want skilled labor, we're not skilled labor. where are they go to focus on jobs for those of us who are already skilled? where do they put us? >> larry: john, wouldn't you think jobs is going to be a big part of the discussion tomorrow? >> president obama can't promise that government is going to create the jobs. what he can do is create an energy sector that's clean and green that can move us into the 21st century. but big government and jobs run into a deficit. what he's got to do is give people mo have been out of a job for so long hope for the long
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run. >> larry: how much emphasis do you think, david, on terrorism in. >> i think it's going to be a minor theme in talk, but i will tell you, in massachusetts, scott brown made considerable use of terrorism in beating martha cokley so i think the president will be making a mistake not to deal with it. but he puts terrorism in the bigger picture of afghanistan and sudan. i think if he just gives a long laundry list of all the things he faces, that's going to be a mistake, the people are going to tune out. you've got to be theme mattic in this address. i think this is the hardest problem the president faces because he cannot wave a wand. he cannot throw money at this and create a job for the woman who just called. the government can't do that.
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what he has to do is create the conditions in which investments improve. there's more credit in the markets and that's going to require a confidence that he's got a firm handle on these deficits to get spending under control. interest rates are going to shoot up and it's going to knock us right off our feet again, we're going to go right back into another recession, so he's got to come down hard on discipline and courage which washington has not shown. we're in a difficult moment for this country right now. people are hurting, washington does not have answers and washington is rapidly losing the trust of all whole lot of people. >> larry: how about guantanamo, do you think it's going to come up? >> i don't think guantanamo is going to come up by name, but he's going to address national security and he should, because the country is at war. our country was deeply divided when he came into office over the issue of iraq and afghanistan.
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in one year, he's been able to largely depot -- de polarize those wars. he sent a reassuring centrist message and that's one of the reasons why he's been able to achieve what he campaigned on in that area. >> he ran has a domestic president, but john's right he gets his highest marks in foreign policy, that is where he is running a more centrist administration. >> larry: yes or no from both of you, does he get a billing bump tomorrow, john? >> we'll get a big bump, he gives a great speech. >>. >> larry: david? >> we gets a small bump. >> larry: don't forget cnn will have major coverage tomorrow night and then we'll be on at mi

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