Movie Screened at the White House
BALDWIN: History and Hollywood converge at the White House. The president hosting a screening of the movie "Red Tails" and he had some very special guests with him. Joe Johns working the political beat. We're getting you to pull a little double duty for us here in Myrtle Beach with "Political Pop" today. First talk to me about this movie.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it sounds like a pretty good movie. Twenty years in the making "Red Tails" is. It is a George Lucas film, Terrance Howard, Cuba Gooding, Jr. apparently attended the screening. A very big deal. It's the story of a Tuskegee airman, the famed air escort of fighter bombers in World War II. Something like 1500 trips and never lost a plane. Let's look at the trailer.</s>TERRANCE HOWARD, ACTOR: Pass the pilots exam. Make it through flight school. Survive basic combat. We've done all of that.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't believe your boys have scored a single aerial kill.</s>HOWARD: It's damn hard to shoot down the enemy 100 miles behind the front lines.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we do, how well we do it, does it matter?</s>JOHNS: Now some of the members, the surviving members of the Tuskegee airmen purportedly were there at the screening and -- so it would have been something that the president would have asked for. I called the White House, they haven't given us a whole lot of details. We're told that was closed press. But there are some details out there and CNN Entertainment, I think, I'm told is all over it -- Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: I'm sure they are. It's an impressive group, the Tuskegee airmen. And then finally, you were tweeting something this morning. I actually retweeted you all these sand sculptors? This is pretty creative. Where is this?</s>JOHNS: Yes, it is. Right. Well, it's sand sculptors -- sculptors, I should say, of all of the presidential candidates who are still in the race and one who is not, in fact. Jon Huntsman is still up there. Now --</s>BALDWIN: What are they going to do?</s>JOHNS: These are all the Republicans where -- well, apparent they're just going to leave it because it's too late. You know, I mean, there's only a few more days before the election. They're not going to take it down because it would sort of mess up the whole scheme of things. If you look at that Jon Huntsman is sort of right in the middle.</s>BALDWIN: I see.</s>JOHNS: What can you do, right?</s>BALDWIN: And they've done this before?</s>JOHNS: Yes. They've done it before. Four years ago, they tell me, they had both the Democrats and the Republicans up there. And it stayed up there for awe while until a TV star on another network came and wrecked the whole thing. But, yes. It's going to be there for a while and I got -- I put it up and I sort of got, you know, captions from different people on what they think they should say. I put it up on Facebook.</s>BALDWIN: Oh, that's so fun. I'll have to see your --</s>JOHNS: You can imagine what people said.</s>BALDWIN: -- what people are saying. I can only imagine. Joe Johns, thank you.</s>JOHNS: Yes.</s>BALDWIN: And, you know, speaking of South Carolina and politics, of course, we've got some new numbers being released for you today in just about eight minutes, about how a certain showdown in the November election might play out. Wolf Blitzer joins me from "THE SITUATION ROOM." I got a little preview of those numbers in an e-mail. It's pretty interesting.</s>WOLF BLITZER, HOST, CNN'S THE SITUATION ROOM: Yes, well, I'm not going to share the numbers until 4:00, that would be in about eight minutes, seven minutes or so from now. Hypothetical matchups, Brooke, between the president and Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, the other candidates. Who's ahead? Who's most electable as far as the Republicans are concerned? Who's not? We've got that. We also have a fascinating interview with two survivors of the ship off the coast of Italy. It's an amazing story. Almost sounds -- obviously, thank god, not as deadly as the Titanic.</s>BALDWIN: Yes.</s>BLITZER: But it's an amazing story. I know you've been all over it. We're going to share with our viewers this remarkable interview we have with two of those survivors as well. We're all over politics, all the other important news. We'll also go to Syria because Nic Robertson has got another exclusive report on what's going on there. So we got a lot coming up. One more thing I should tell you, Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: Yes.</s>BLITZER: You got a sec?</s>BALDWIN: For you, always. Hit me.</s>BLITZER: I was at the BET Honors Saturday night here in Washington at the -- at the Warner Theater. It was a beautiful night. They were honoring Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Spike Lee. But they also honored the Tuskegee airmen. And I met one of those veterans, one of the Tuskegee airmen, Dr. Roscoe Brown, and I got to know him a little bit. Terrance Howard, the actor, is in that movie. We hung out a little bit.</s>BALDWIN: He's amazing.</s>BLITZER: He's amazing. You remember him from the Soul Train Awards a year ago. He was one of the emcees. But this was a remarkable evening. I want to thank Deborah Lee, the chairman and CEO of</s>BET. BALDWIN:  BET.  BLITZER: Yes, Paxton Baker, my good friend there, for inviting me. It was a wonderful, wonderful evening. We had a great time. And those Tuskegee airmen, when that new film "Red Tails" comes out --</s>BALDWIN: "Red Tails."</s>BLITZER: I don't know -- yes, Joe Johns can hear us.</s>BALDWIN: He was just talking about it.</s>BLITZER: I know, he was talking about -- that's why I'm talking about it, too, because it's going to be -- it's going to be a great film and we've got a lot to be thankful for what those Tuskegee airmen did for all of us during World War II. I tweeted at the time this past Saturday night. They are real American heroes.</s>BALDWIN: Isn't Fredricka Whitfield's father one -- Tuskegee airman?</s>BLITZER: Yes. Yes.</s>BALDWIN: Yes. That's what I thought.</s>BLITZER: Yes. Fredricka's father was a Tuskegee airman as well. In fact I was kicking myself. She should have been with me at that Warner Theater Saturday night to see the honoring of these Tuskegee airmen. They're going to air the whole thing on BET, I think, a week or so from now. So it's going to be a good show for a lot of our viewers to watch. All of our viewers to watch. And you know when you hear Stevie Wonder perform, Aretha Franklin was there.</s>BALDWIN: You melt. You melt.</s>BLITZER: Need I say more?</s>BALDWIN: No. You need not. We will end on that. Thank you, Wolf. Thank you, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Next year, Brooke, you'll be there, too.</s>BALDWIN: You and me. Thank you.</s>BLITZER: OK.</s>BLITZER: See you in a couple of minutes with these new poll numbers. Thank you so much. You know there's news today. We're going to leave you with this after the break. News about a member of the royal family, a duchess scared to leave England. We're going to tell you what she's afraid of. Max Foster live from London after this quick break.