What Pelosi Knew About Waterboarding
ANNOUNCER: Live in the CNN NEWSROOM, Heidi Collins.</s>COLLINS: The trading day about to begin on Wall Street and, once again, economic headlines, along with more dismal news from the auto industry, are expected to dominate the discussion. Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange now with more on what investigators will be watching right as the bell is almost ringing. Hi there, Susan.</s>SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Heidi. Good morning. Welcome to the final trading day of the week. It looks like stocks appear set for a fairly steady start this morning following the Dow's 46-point gain yesterday and there are a lot of headlines to sort through. Starting with inflation. At the consumer level, unchanged in April, coming in line with analysts' forecast. Consumer prices are now down over the past year by the largest amount in half a century. One day after Chrysler unveiled its plan to shudder nearly 800 of its dealerships, words that General Motors will eventually slash more than 40 percent of its own dealer network. GM expected to announce that it will close between 1,100 and 2,600 of its American showrooms. Combined with Chrysler's cuts yesterday the closings could affect about 90,000 employees. On the jobs front, Nike laying off more than 1,700 employees globally in order to cut costs. Five hundred of the cuts will come from Nike's world headquarters in Oregon. JC Penney shares are in. Focus after the retailer clock in with lower first quarter profits. One of many retailers facing steep sales declines when unemployment is rising. And no surprise. You've seen the three major averages. A little bit of pressure there. The Dow Industrials down just nine points at the open. The NASDAQ is down about a fifth of a percent. Heidi, it's going to be tough to make it ten weeks in a row for the NASDAQ. We're going to have to have a really big rally today. Well, for the three major averages. It sure was nice. I'll leave it at that! We're going to need some major points on the up side.</s>COLLINS: Yes. No question. All right, Susan, we're watching closely.</s>LISOVICZ: See you later.</s>COLLINS: Thank you. As you know now, big cuts are coming at General Motors. The struggling automaker could start announcing the elimination of more than 2,000 dealerships as early as today. I believe we're getting some news on this right now, in fact. It follows yesterday's news from Chrysler that they are closing 789 of them. Now, those dealers were devastated as you might imagine by the news. Among them, the oldest and only new car dealership in Lakeview, Michigan.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They just said you're done, and you just do what you can do and wish for the best, I guess.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because they're at the end of town, people drive through town to get to them. And that's a lot of traffic that passes by other businesses.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I get a chance to think about it, it probably will be like a death.</s>COLLINS: In fact, as I imagined, we can go ahead and share this with you now. Some breaking news here at CNN. According to our Money Team, we've been able to confirm that GM has, indeed, notified 1,100 dealers already today that they are terminating their contracts. That will happen in October of 2010. Now, this is the first step towards reducing those dealerships nationwide and the target number for that will be 3,600. The reduction just to let you know, does not include Saturn, Saab and Hummer dealers. There has been, of course, some talk of that. GM is going to be holding a conference call a little bit later on today. That's going to happen at about noon. And, at that point, we could learn more, obviously, on this. But we don't expect them to release the full list of dealerships that will be closing. Once again, CNNMoney.com. Our Money Team here has been able to confirm that GM has indeed already notified 1,100 dealers today that they are terminating their contracts in October 2010. We, of course, will stay on top of that story throughout the day right here on CNN. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hits back on allegations she hasn't been candid on waterboarding. Pelosi claims she was misled by the CIA. But some Republicans are not buying her story. CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash takes a look at what Pelosi new and when.</s>DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Under fire over whether she's been upfront about knowing harsh tactics like waterboarding were being used, the House Speaker tried to turn the tables accusing the CIA of lying to her.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: We are not using waterboarding. That's the only mention that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were. So, yes, I am saying that they are misleading -- that the CIA was misleading the Congress.</s>BASH: Pelosi was referring to a September, 2002 meeting, her only one with CIA officials. But the speaker also admitted for the first time that five months later in February, 2003, one of her aides attended a briefing and was told interrogators were using harsh tactics. The aides informed Pelosi.</s>PELOSI: He said that the committee chair and ranking member and appropriate staff had been briefed that these techniques were now being used.</s>BASH: Jane Harman, then top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee wrote a letter objecting. Why didn't Pelosi?</s>PELOSI: No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job.</s>BASH: This fiery Pelosi press conference was about damage control, but she started to walk away before addressing her apparent contradiction.</s>PELOSI: You may ask one last question.</s>BASH: If she was told in February 2003 that waterboarding was being used, why didn't she admit that in a press conference on the subject last month? (on camera): The idea that we got from you was that you were never told that waterboarding was being used. But now we know that later in February, you were told. It wasn't in that briefing, but you were told. So...</s>PELOSI: No. By the time we were told, we are finding out that it's been used before. You know, in other words, that was beyond the point.</s>BASH: Why didn't you tell us?</s>PELOSI: I told you what my briefing was. My briefing was...</s>BASH: That you had been told just not at that particular briefing.</s>PELOSI: No.</s>BASH: You were very adamant that you didn't know waterboarding was used.</s>PELOSI: No, that is right. The point is that I wasn't briefed. I was told, informed that someone else had been briefed about it.</s>BASH: A CIA spokesman stood by their records that do indicate Nancy Pelosi was specifically briefed that harsh interrogation techniques were used. As for Republicans, they hammered the speaker for what they say are her changing stories, the fact that she does now admit she did know that these techniques were used back in 2003 and for accusing the CIA of lying. Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.</s>COLLINS: A rural Missouri community is still recovering from tornadoes that touched down this week. And so is one of our iReporters. Michael Ambrosia chases storms for a hobby, but even he admits he got too close to a tornado near Novinger, Missouri, on Wednesday.</s>MICHAEL AMBROSIA, CNN IREPORTER: Wow. It's coming across the road right here in front of me. Actually, this is too close. I feel the wind. Oh, my gosh! I've never been this close before! This is a fat one, too. This is wide! OK, see that wind right that? That's about 50 yards from me. This tornado is -- wow. OK, I got close. That's as close as I've ever been. We got to get out of here. (via telephone): I was part watching in my car and there is -- there's a lot of devastation. There were tree limbs everywhere, pieces of roof and houses torn. After going back there and seeing that, I just realize how fortunate I am. Later on, I did make a big mistake by following somebody else, and the tornado did actually pass over us. And I was just praying to God that we would both be all right. I had such an adrenaline rush. It really keeps you alert and keeps you going. But that was the first time that I was actually really scared. I knew I had made a mistake</s>COLLINS: Wow. Bringing in Rob Marciano now. Because, I mean, I don't want to state the obvious, but he does this for a hobby.</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes.</s>COLLINS: You got to really, really be careful. These are nothing to mess around with.</s>MARCIANO: No. And there's a lot of guys out there like that.</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>MARCIANO: I mean, they're basically adrenaline junkies or weather junkies, too. So it's a fascinating thing, and you want to get up close and personal. If you don't know the structure of these storms and where you should be and position when that thing is happening, you can get caught off-guard. And the problem, Heidi, with that, plus Missouri storms, too, they weren't that visible. You could see it pretty good on that tape.</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>MARCIANO: But a lot of them and the more deadly ones were rain- wrapped, meaning you couldn't -- they were obscured by rain. So that can make it difficult as well.</s>COLLINS: Exactly, yes. I know you were watching, and you were with the Vortex team.</s>MARCIANO: Who will be out again today. Vortex2 continues its mission to try to figure out why tornadoes do what they do. Why some stay on the ground longer than others, why some are stronger than others. It's definitely a fascinating thing. And every expert that I talk to on the Vortex mission will tell you they know less than they know. Does that make sense? They don't know as much as they think they know. Ten years ago, they thought they would know more now. They still don't know a whole lot. So they are trying to figure things out.</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>MARCIANO: Andres, Blanca, Carlos, Dolores, Enrique -- your favorite singer - Felicia, Guillermo, Hilda, Jimena -- I think I'm saying that right. And then this one kind of sticks out right here -- Kevin.</s>COLLINS: Kevin. Well, Linda, too.</s>MARCIANO: So all those, all those Spanish names, and then Kevin, Linda, Marty, Vivian.</s>COLLINS: All right. Ola!</s>MARCIANO: Ola, everybody.</s>COLLINS: Hey, that's a Scandinavian name. Very good.</s>MARCIANO: The Atlantic hurricane season, of course, starts on June 1st. And it will give you that list...</s>COLLINS: It's my birthday.</s>MARCIANO: June 1st is your birthday?</s>COLLINS: It's not really what I want to be happening on my birthday, but anyway. Yes.</s>MARCIANO: Well, we, here, in the weather center typically celebrate it so come on...</s>COLLINS: Excellent. Excellent.</s>MARCIANO: ...we'll share the party for you.</s>COLLINS: I will look forward to that.</s>MARCIANO: Sounds good.</s>COLLINS: All right. They are screaming at both of us. Let's wrap this up, Rob. We'll talk to you later on. Thank you.</s>MARCIANO: OK. See you.</s>COLLINS: Listen up, college kids. Mom and dads, too. Stay out of debt. You can actually do it. Personal finance editor Gerri Willis will be here to show you how. And also later...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a hard thing to do for you. It's hard to talk about it because everything has changed, right?</s>UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. So you don't have that same happiness in your house anymore?</s>UNIDENTIFIED BOY: No.</s>COLLINS: Shattered families. Victims of gun violence. Our Abbie Boudreau has one boy story of how he lost his brother and how his family is trying to go on.