Gore to Meet with Obama and Biden; Stopping Cyber-Attacks in the Obama Administration; Political Left Betrayed by Obama?
CHETRY: Welcome back to the "Most Politics in the Morning." They helped elect him to the White House by pouring millions into his campaign. But now a growing number of liberals are angry with President-elect Obama saying he's leaving them out in the cold especially on some significant cabinet appointments as well as policy priorities. Tim Carpenter is national director of the Progressive Democrats of America. Thanks for being with us this morning, Tim.</s>TIM CARPENTER, NATIONAL DIRECTOR, PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF AMERICA: Good morning. Thank you (ph) for the opportunity.</s>CHETRY: Well, you know, former -- today, former Vice President Al Gore is going to be meeting with Obama to talk energy, also climate issues. But Democratic officials say Obama is not looking at Gore right now for a cabinet level post or perhaps any position in the administration, and that Gore isn't interested in it. Is that something that liberals and progressives would like to see, Gore with an active role in this administration?</s>CARPENTER: Well, sure. I think he'd be a wonderful appointment for secretary of energy. But I think those days are behind Al Gore now. I think he's now an international ombudsperson to really work on these issues and it's certainly rising above a cabinet position. Our hope that the closing days, weeks here with Barack's final appointments, we see some real progressive -- authentic progressive voices that will be appointed to the cabinet. We know that Al Gore won't be one of those, but there's many possible candidates whether it be the secretary of interior. We would hope maybe that the Barack Obama transition team would look at Raul Grijalva, Congress member out of Tucson, who knows the issues of the earth and environment, worked very hard in Congress, attending (ph) the occupation, a single pair advocate. He's somebody we would like to see nominated or secretary of agriculture, maybe Jim Hightower. There are certainly plenty of good candidates out there.</s>CHETRY: You know, it's interesting, this net groups and groups like that raised so much money for Barack Obama. Is there a feeling that he sort of owes them in a way to at least represent some of their positions and issues that they hold dear?</s>CARPENTER: Well, I think some of our friends on the blogs are a little over the top, may we say. I think it's important to maybe keep our powder dry a little bit. We're definitely a</s>CHETRY: Chris Bowers from Openleft.com wrote, "Why isn't there a single member of Obama's cabinet who will be advising him from the left?" And in a message to liberal critics, Obama's deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, wrote, "This is not the time for the left wing of our party to draw conclusions about the cabinet and White House appointments that President-elect Obama is making. After all, he was elected to be the president of all people not just those on the left." Does that feel like you're being hung out to dry a little bit?</s>CARPENTER: No. I don't think we're about to dry thinking those two extremes you just painted. We're kind of in the middle right now. I think Chris is doing a good job through Open Left to keep him honest. We're trying to do the same thing. But at this point in time, we're not done appointing the cabinet yet. Let's give Barack Obama the benefit of doubt and hope whether it'd be secretary of energy or secretary of interior, secretary of agriculture, that he will get us one authentic progressive voice. And Chris is doing a good job to keep that heat on. But by no means it's a time to throw Barack Obama under the bus. He hasn't even assumed the presidency yet.</s>CHETRY: Right.</s>CARPENTER: We had no real illusions that he was going make a number of appointments early on in regards to progressive, but we're not done yet. And we keep coming back to kind of a teaching moment we refer to. When FDR was first elected, we need to remember when he met with the progressive community and they asked him to move in a certain direction, he challenged the progressive community to go out. That he agreed with them but that he challenged us to go out and really bring those issues to the forefront and I think Barack is doing the same thing.</s>CHETRY: And what do you define as the difference between progressive or liberal?</s>CARPENTER: Well, it's, you know, we don't probably have enough time on the show. It's the nuance. But progressive tends to be those of us that are working for real change. Working at the root cause to bring about real change, change that will affect this country in a meaningful way. Change that we're talking about is redirecting military spending to meet human needs, to really cut the military budget in this economic crisis to put it to work to make sure that the 47 million Americans this morning that are waking up without health insurance have real health insurance. When we say progressive, we want to work to let people know that government is our friend and that government can work for us. We want to see a bailout that benefits Main Street not just Wall Street. So when we say progressive, we're working at the grassroots level to make sure that our government's accountable and working for all of us. Not just the special interests and not just those inside the beltway.</s>CHETRY: I got you. Well, you're taking a wait and see attitude. Some others, as you said, are keeping up the pressure a little bit more. Tim Carpenter, the national director of the Progressive Democrats of America, thanks for joining us this morning.</s>CARPENTER: Thanks so much for the opportunity.</s>ROBERTS: Coming up now at 30 minutes after the hour and here are this morning's top stories. Hundreds of buildings torched, dozens of people hurt after three days of nationwide riots in Greece. Protesters hit the streets after police shot and killed a teenager there. Schools are closed today for his funeral. The sit-in continues this morning in Chicago after factory workers took over their former place of business. Yesterday's talks broke down without a deal. They're going to try again today. Two hundred laid off workers have taken turns occupying the factory since last week when it abruptly shot down and fired them. They say Bank of America, which took bailout money, cut off the factory's financing and left them without severance packages. Senator Hillary Clinton made her first trip to the State Department since being tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be his secretary of state. Clinton met with the Obama transition team and also had dinner with the current secretary of state Condoleeza Rice. And who better to get details on the meeting than our own state department correspondent Zain Verjee.</s>ZAIN VERJEE, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: I wasn't invited.</s>ROBERTS: Yes but I know you work your sources inside the building. And you know exactly what went on. So what happened?</s>VERJEE: Well, Hillary Clinton is really just diving into the transition, as we know. She had dinner with Secretary Rice, one on one. They met at Rice's apartment in Washington, D.C. and, you know, John, Rice makes a mean fried chicken but on the menu last night America's crises and how to handle them. No one knows yet exactly what was discussed but probably the importance of having the trust of the president, Senator Clinton, John, was also at the State Department the first time too. Meeting her transition team and getting fully briefed. John.</s>ROBERTS: It would be nice to know too if Secretary of State played piano for the incoming secretary. She's very good at that, is she not?</s>VERJEE: She is. She's an amazing professionally trained piano player. She loves playing Brahms. And you know , what Secretary Rice has done is to really want to make this a smooth transition.</s>ROBERTS: Yes. I mean other than giving her piano lessons what else is the state department doing to help out Senator Clinton?</s>VERJEE: Well, they want to make it as painless as possible so that when Senator Clinton takes over she doesn't miss a single beat. The state department has given her team office space, support staff to help with any questions they may have so they can find answers and deliver them, things like transition papers. They got a briefing book. They've also instructed ambassadors around the world to write a status report of their countries so that she's completely up to speed along with her team. I mean, one of the major priorities is really going to have to fill out some of those key positions at the state department and people I talked over at state say there's a bit of nervousness John in the corridors. People are worried about who she may bring. And so, you know, it remains to be seen. And many say that she really got to work hard too at building the trust of the professional foreign service officers.</s>ROBERTS: We'll see. You ever tried that fried chicken, Zain?</s>VERJEE: No but I love fried chicken.</s>ROBERTS: Still have a little more than a month to try?</s>VERJEE: I don't know maybe after a month, I'll get to try some of that fried chicken.</s>ROBERTS: Zain Verjee for us this morning. Zain, thanks so much.</s>VERJEE: You're welcome.</s>KIRAN CHETRY, CNN, ANCHOR: It's not easy to get right but when you do it's delicious. Well when it comes to formal affairs it doesn't get any bigger than this. In 42 days when Barack Obama takes office, political junkies won't be the only ones watching. Of course, the entire fashion world is going to be looking to see what the first family is going to be wearing at the inauguration and our Lola Ogunnaike has been getting a preview of both what Barack Obama, the president-elect will be wearing and of course, his wife the incoming first lady. So let's start with Barack Obama. Isn't a tux just a tux? No offense to the guys out there.</s>LOLA OGUNNAIKE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: You know, a tux is just a tux. But this is a special tux because it's an American-made tux. It's from a company called Hart Schaffner Marx. That's been around for well over 100 years and it's based right out of Chicago. So he's going with a home town team and it's also very union friendly. It's one of the first companies to have a relationship with a union that dates back to 1911.</s>CHETRY: So these are the things, these are the considerations that have to be made, right? It has to be a politically correct tux.</s>OGUNNAIKE: Fashion is political, especially this season. And if you think that's an accident it's not. He's been wearing their suits since the summer time to all of his major events. So he's probably likely to go with these guys.</s>CHETRY: Going with the bow tie and not the straight tie?</s>OGUNNAIKE: Bow tie and he's going with the one button on the suit. Very simple. Very classic. If they indeed do dress him the suit will cost probably a little less than $1,000 which is also reasonable considering it's the biggest day of his life and he could have blown thousands. But he decided to do something that is really moderate.</s>CHETRY: I got you. All right. Michelle Obama? She, of course, has the harder decision to make, if you will, because there's designers all over the place who want to dress the first lady. So what are her options?</s>OGUNNAIKE: They are clamoring to work with her. And since it looks like Barack is going - I'm sorry Obama, excuse, I don't know him that well. Obama is going with a Chicago based brand. She may go with a Chicago base brand too. One of her favorite designers is a this woman named Maria Pinto. She dressed her in the purple dress with the shift, the evening that he secured the nomination. She also dressed her in the green dress that she wore the night of her Democratic National Convention speech. So she's been a favorite so far. But again designers are clamoring to work with her. "Women's Wear Daily" invited a number of designers to submit sketches for dresses.</s>CHETRY: Let's check a few of them out.</s>OGUNNAIKE: I think they are gorgeous. Isaac Mizrahi submitted his sketch. Michael Kors. Oscar de la Renta, Betsey Johnson and they really took time and it's clear that this is something they are taking very seriously. With the red one, that's the Monique Lhuillier which is gorgeous. This purple one is an Isaac Mizrahi number. And so, it's clear - this woman is probably going be one of the most viewed woman in the world. The Betsey Johnson one is a little aggressive. I don't think she'll go with the red, white and blue dress. I think she might stay away from that.</s>ROBERTS: That red one with the draping -</s>CHETRY: Yes. Gorgeous.</s>ROBERTS: I mean I know nothing about fashion. I just know that that looks nice.</s>OGUNNAIKE: What do you think? You like the Monique Lhuillier in the red?</s>CHETRY: Yes.</s>ROBERTS: I thought that was really pretty.</s>OGUNNAIKE: I like the Michael Kors one with the tight belt and the little shoulder moment. I think that could be cute as well. So we'll see.</s>ROBERTS: It just shows how easy it is for guys though. As you said, you can wear the same suit that he's worn all year. You know the single button thing with a tie or bow tie. Look at me. I'm wearing a tie today. Can you believe it?</s>CHETRY: No, no but you can get really -</s>OGUNNAIKE: Tie or no tie.</s>CHETRY: He has these gorgeous cufflinks on. Monogrammed.</s>ROBERTS: I think these came from a viewer.</s>CHETRY: Did they open?</s>ROBERTS: I needed some cuff links today.</s>CHETRY: And there's a picture of me in there. So cute.</s>OGUNNAIKE: That's great. A little and call it a day.</s>ROBERTS: This showed up on my desk with no note or anything. I think they came from a viewer. So thanks very much. I needed cufflinks today.</s>CHETRY: They're gorgeous.</s>OGUNNAIKE: The small touches, the subtle touches for a man. And you are a fashion icon yourself, John Roberts.</s>CHETRY: He is.</s>OGUNNAIKE: So why don't you call Obama.</s>ROBERTS: Thanks, Lola. On to more important things. Barack Obama says he can create jobs and fix America's infrastructure all at the same time. So exactly what is that going to take? Our Chris Lawrence has got the answer in today's "Memo to the President." And Bayer in search of the next pandemic. Dr. Sanjay Gupta went deep into the African jungle for the latest installment for our "Planet in Peril" series. He is here with a preview. 37 minutes after the hour now.