Obama Skipped Latino Conference; Ten Reported Dead In Syria
BALDWIN: Ten people died in protest-related clashes today in Syria. And another person died from injuries suffered just a -- from a couple days ago. That is according to a human rights group tracking a fresh wave of anti-government uprisings in Syria. And, you know, for weeks, we have been telling you that CNN has not been allowed to report from inside this country until now. That has changed. Hala Gorani is now in the capital city live for me in Damascus. And, Hala, tell me what you've seen in the time you've been there and if you can also just touch on some of these deadly clashes that have been reported. What happened? We can't hear her. We can't hear her. We're going to stand by and hopefully we can get her microphone turned on. Meantime, I see her over my shoulder, Candy Crowley standing by -- good thing she is -- with the latest news off the Political Ticker. Candy, to you. What do you have?</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: A little bit easier to talk from Washington, D.C., than from Syria. Listen, a couple things on the ticker, most of them having to do with 2012. There is a meeting this week of Latino elected and appointed leaders. It's in Texas. For the third year in a row, the president was invited. For the third year in the row, he declined. That has caused hurt feelings among that group who say not only has he not delivered on his promise of immigration reform, but they think symbolically it would have been important for the president to show up. The White House says, listen, the president can't go everywhere. It's a scheduling problem. But his efforts on behalf of all the Americans can't be measured in a number of the meetings that he goes to. Nonetheless, symbolism in politics does mean a lot. Latinos, a very, very important voting group. The president did find time to go to Pennsylvania where the Republican Party greeted him with some acid words, including that the president -- according to the Republican Party chairman in Pennsylvania -- the president was coming to talk about jobs and the economy, but the only job he's interested in is his own. That is the president's. And finally, just a little something from our Sunday show, Brooke, we'll be interviewing Jim DeMint. I don't know -- he's a Tea Party favorite. He riled some of his Republican colleagues in the Senate when he backed candidates that were not necessarily traditional Republican candidates in the last election. But he is going after President Obama today and President Obama's announcement that he would -- or the White House announcement the president would release about 30 million gallons of oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve. And Jim DeMint saving some of his choice words saying, "The president is trying to be the wizard behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. He's trying to control our economy from Washington and that's not how it works." So, a rough day for the president I think.</s>BALDWIN: Getting it from all sides, he has been lately, I guess.</s>CROWLEY: Rhetorically.</s>BALDWIN: Yes. Candy Crowley, thank you so much for standing by and hopping in for me. We'll check you out at 9:00 a.m., Sunday morning "STATE OF THE UNION." Now back as promised, we've been working on it. Hala Gorani live in Damascus, inside Syria. And, Hala, what I was asking you was if you can just tell me what you've seen since you've been in country. And what do you know about these reported deadly clashes? What happened?</s>HALA GORANI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Hopefully, you can hear me now. Well, Brooke, when over the last few weeks, I've told you consistently that it's impossible for CNN to verify the authenticity of this online video independently. And the reason for that, we're not granted access to these areas where uprisings are taking place. Well, that in essence hasn't changed. We are in Damascus. It's a fantastic opportunity to see what's going on here firsthand. But we're not able, because we're followed by government minders, to go to these areas where these demonstrations are erupting and where there is violence, according to activists and based on the evidence we see online and on these amateur YouTube videos. What we are able to see, however, is the heart of the Syrian capital. We were taken today to the old city, the Umayyad mosque, the famous Umayyad mosque. There we saw a small but vocal pro-Assad, pro- Bashir al-Assad demonstrators. And you had among these demonstrators a common thread, that those who are responsible for the unrest and crisis in Syria are the foreigners. They're foreign agents. They're even cable news channels in some cases. In fact, there was some -- one chant I found amusing, "If you don't clap with us right now, your mother is Qatari." Now, let me explain that one. Qatar, of course, is where al Jazeera is based. This is a way for them to blame the satellite news channel for giving a negative image of the country. So, it's a fascinating opportunity as I said to see this one side of the story we haven't been able to see so far, and an ability firsthand to see that in the capital, at least. It's still -- every day life still ticks on as normal, though it's a bit quieter because there are no tourists.</s>BALDWIN: Let's talk about the condemnation today by the European counsel. You know, do you think that will make any difference in the Syrian government's approach to these protesters you've been seeing?</s>GORANI: You know, yes, every little bit of pressure is going to have an impact. The question is, will it be a big enough impact to sort of force thing to budge? And the answer, at this stage, appears to be no. However, the much longer term possibility is that because this economy is suffering, and it is suffering, there are no tourists, foreign direct investment is going down, estimates for growth every year have been lowered -- because all this is happening, those middle and merchant classes that right now are still supporting the regime or are not joining the opposition, might change sides. And so, it's internally that things might change in this country, rather than from external pressure. So, I don't think this is something that will be resolved in a matter of weeks, unlike Egypt, for instance.</s>BALDWIN: Sure.</s>GORANI: This is a much longer term process. Things are changing. Things -- very significant things are going on, but the timeline appears to be much longer.</s>BALDWIN: Well, I'm just glad you're able to bear witness to some of those changes. We were just sitting here in Atlanta on the sofa over here predicting you might get in country the end of the summer. Here we go, in CNN style, we're in now. Hala Gorani in Damascus -- thank you. Back home, the feds say these two men wanted to use grenades and machine guns to kill Americans in one major city. CNN now has their YouTube videos. And what you will see, it is disturb disturbing. Plus, one of the suspects has a profile on a dating Web site. Find out just who he was looking for, next.