Trump Say He's Serious; Dry, Hot Weather Fuels Texas Fires; Two Controllers Fired For Sleeping
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with T.J. Holmes. T.J., hello!</s>T.J. T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, all right. That's a heck of an introduction there, you should do all my intros from here on out.</s>MALVEAUX: I will do your intros. Very good to see you.</s>HOLMES: Good to see you, dear lady. Thank you so much. And hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes, sitting in for Ali Velshi today. Thank you for being here. We are talking about presidential election. You know, the next election is still more than a year and a half away but look at it this way, the first presidential primaries in the Iowa caucuses, well that's actually less than a year away. That's why so many eyes are on so many of the potential contenders. We know the Democratic side who is the contender, President Obama. But on the other side, the Republican side, a lot of people wondering what's going to shake out there and one name keeps coming up. What is that name, folks? Yes, Trump. He is, of course, a world famous real estate mogul, he's a reality TV star, but you know that part, but we also know him because he has teased us in previous years. He's teased us with his presidential aspirations, toyed with a run back in 1988, did the same thing in 2000. This time though he says he is, quote, "very serious." Being famous not necessarily hurting him at this point. Check this out, brand-new poll from the few research centers shows voters, in general, especially Republicans, have heard more lately about Donald Trump than about all other possible candidates combined. Well, our phone rang today, folks, here at CNN. We looked at the caller I.D. and it said Donald Trump. He called in to "American morning" this morning, kind of a surprise here. He didn't necessarily want to talk about poll numbers but he did want to talk -- he wants to talk about his bottom line. Listen to this.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Forbes says $2.7 billion, I can tell you that's a very low number, it's much more than that. And if I decide to run, which I very well may surprise people, but if I decide to run, I will give a net worth statement essentially we have to -- as you know, we have to fill out very detailed forms for the federal government. I think people will be extremely impressed. Not only is it much higher than that, but I'm extremely liquid and I have very, very little debt.</s>HOLMES: Well, his credit score must be off the charts. I want to bring in now about this possible trump campaign, Gloria Borger, always good to see you. She's a CNN senior political analyst. Hello there. And Lloyd Grove, editor at large at "Newsweek" and "The Daily Beast." Gloria, I'm going to start with you, because Donald Trump is the subject of one of your latest columns at CNN.com. And you asked the question does he have something to say or does he have something to sell, which is it?</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Sell, and I think it's largely about selling himself actually. Whether it's for TV ratings or whether -- who knows -- he's - -who knows whether it's books, television, whatever and I think the problem here is that in talking to serious Republican strategists who are actually trying to win a presidential campaign against Barack Obama, they're worried because they're worried that Donald Trump's talk about birthers and sending detectives to Hawaii to figure out just where Barack Obama was born, et cetera, et cetera, is taking the Republican conversation out of the mainstream. Seventy-four percent of independent voters -- and those are the voters you have to get if you want to win a presidential election -- they believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States so it's clearly a conversation they're not really interested in having.</s>HOLMES: OK, Lloyd, let me bring you in here. Take the polls out of it for a second. You know trump has come on top in some polls that have been taken in some states. But given how much exposure he's gotten, the interviews he's doing and just, quite frankly, the big microphone he has, would you call him the front-runner right now, whether he decides to get in or not, he hasn't said, but would you call him somewhere in the front-runners for the Republican nomination right now?</s>LLOYD GROVE, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, NEWSWEEK AND THE DAILY BEAST: No, I would not. I would call him the buzz master. But I don't think he's a front-runner, I think he just has a gift for getting publicity. And I have to say that his temperament is also quite interesting. He's not your father's president. We're used to presidents sort of being diplomatic and kind of above the fray. But I was just thinking, what if Donald Trump were in charge during the Cuban missile crisis and sending letters to Khrushchev. You and I -- well, all of us might be broadcasting from a post apocalyptic wasteland right now.</s>HOLMES: I want to put something up here and I ask you another question about his favorable and unfavorables. Another CBS poll, "New York times" poll says the top five presidential -- potential Republican candidates, Trump has the lowest favorable rating and the highest unfavorable rating. That doesn't bode well. Gloria, let me bring you back in on the point you talked about the birthers, that's what it seems like everyone wants to talk to him about. But has he taken on this issue so much in taking the lead of this issue, if he comes out and says, you know what? My investigation wrapped up, I believe President Obama was born in this country. Do you think that would help squash some of this birther movement?</s>BORGER: Yes, I think it would. And I think what we're seeing right now is that Republicans themselves, particularly ones who were serious about running for the presidency against Barack Obama, don't want to have this as an issue anymore because they understand that they're only speaking to a slice of their own base, so they would be thrilled if Donald Trump having sent his troops out there to figure out where Barack Obama was born finally said, OK, enough of this. Because there are serious Republicans out there who have important things to say about how to solve the deficit problem, how to get jobs back in this country, how to fix the economy, and they'd like to be talking about that rather than birthers. Not enough of them have been saying this is nonsense but I think a lot of them would like to get rid of it.</s>HOLMES: Lloyd, last thing to you here. Do you see anything in his behavior -- given some of the appearances he's made, the interviews and more so the appearances, I'm talking about Florida at a tea party rally, he has New Hampshire on the schedule again I do believe, do you see him behaving as a possible presidential contender or you didn't take him seriously, doesn't sound like either one of you all do, but what have you seen him do that goes, OK, make he's acting like a potential candidate?</s>GROVE: There's very little that the way he's behaving where I see he's acting like a potential candidate. I mean he's winging it. He's having a great time but he doesn't even know why Roe v. Wade was decided, he doesn't -- never even heard of a group called the Club for Growth which is a major Republican group that's attacking him now. He's outside the box in a big way.</s>HOLMES: All right, Lloyd, Gloria, we shall see if, like some would say, he's making just a fool out of a lot of folks in the media. We're taking the bait. Or let's see if he actually throws his hat --</s>BORGER: We are.</s>HOLMES: Oh.</s>BORGER: And I think you've got to take anyone who says they're thinking about running seriously.</s>HOLMES: Got to take them seriously.</s>BORGER: You do.</s>HOLMES: All right then. Lloyd, Gloria, good to see you guys. Thanks so much. We shall see down the road. Well, to our viewers, we're going to move on to some other stories making headlines. Sad news out of Texas right now. A second firefighter has died. There where massive wildfires are spreading across that state. His name is Elias Jaquez, he died 11 days after getting trapped in a fire and suffering serious burns. Another firefighter died on Friday. After some rain, some cooler temperatures, still hot, dry and windy conditions are back today, that is intensifying the fires. Especially true in west Texas where some of the biggest fires are burning right now. The forest service says crews have responded to four new fires across more than 1,000 acres since yesterday. Since January, the wildfires have scorched more than 1.4 million acres and damaged some 5,000 homes and businesses. Well, the federal aviation administration has fired two air traffic controllers for sleeping on the job. You've heard a lot about this over the past few weeks. One of these air traffic controllers worked in Knoxville, the other was in Miami. The two were cut following a wave of controllers getting caught sleeping on duty on those midnight shifts. After those sleeping incidents came to light, the FAA added more controllers to overnight shifts and changed a number of rules such as requiring controllers to be off a minimum of nine hours between shifts even though that's just up from the previous rule which said they had to be off eight hours. We turn to Canada now where police have arrested a man suspected of killing a Chinese exchange student who was attacked in her Toronto apartment as a friend in China watched on a Webcam. Police have now charged 29-year-old Brian Dixon with first degree murder. He made a brief court appearance this morning. Investigators say 23-year-old Qian Liu was chatting with a friend in China through a Webcam when a man knocked on the door asking to use the phone. The friend saw them struggle before the attacker turned off that Webcam. Police later found her partially nude body in the apartment. Investigators have not said how they tied Dixon to the student's death. Also, the mother who drowned along with three of her children after driving her minivan into the Hudson River is being laid to rest today. The funeral Lashanda Armstrong just started a few minutes ago in Spring Valley, New York. She's being buried separately from her three children. Armstrong's 11-month-old daughter, her 2-year-old and 5-year-old sons will be buried not with their mother, they'll be buried on Monday. Her baby girl would have turned one yesterday. Her oldest son, 10 years old, managed to escape from that van and survive. Well, that iPhone of yours, it may be able to know every single move you've made since last June. New this hour, you are hearing from one of the men who stumbled across the secret tracking device.