Vote on Boehner Debt Plan Today; 398,000 First Time Jobless Claims; Constitutional Powers versus Default; L'Oreal Pulls Julia Roberts Ad
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And it's just before 10:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 7:00 a.m. out West. I'm Kyra Phillips. Thanks for joining us. A pivotal day in the debt show down, a vote in the House and a huge test of just how divided the Republican Party really is. Al Qaeda's new leader releases his first taped message since succeeding Osama bin Laden. Ayman al-Zawahiri rips Syria's president and praises the protest trying to oust him. And that swirling mass in the gulf of Mexico is tropical storm Don. It could hit the Texas coast as early as tomorrow night. Well, today could be a make or break day in the dead crisis. I know. You've heard that before but here's the deal today. Lawmakers are not mincing words as we have less than five days to raise the debt ceiling or risk defaulting on government bills. Today the House is due to vote on Speaker John Boehner's plan and as his own party holds the majority of the vote, he's really getting frustrated with the divisions that threaten its passage. So in a closed-door meeting Boehner actually told the feuding Republican, quote, "Get your ass in line." And then there was veteran Senator John McCain, he blasted fellow Republicans quoting an article that disparaged, quote, "Tea Party hobbits". All right, let's get the latest on where things are headed. I think maybe we can tell where thing are headed. Joe Johns in our Washington Bureau. Joe, any idea when this vote will take place today?</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, expecting the vote between 5:00 and 6:00 Eastern Time. Of course, that could slip. This will be a real big moment for House Speaker John Boehner testing among other things his ability to get that somewhat unruly Republican majority in the House to go along with him. When he first said there would be a vote a couple days ago, it looked briefly like he was just going to have an open revolt on his hands. It actually got so bad that a staffer for one conservative house member was caught openly sending e-mails to a group off the Hill asking for help in opposing the bill, almost unheard of. And now although the outlook is much more optimistic for the Boehner bill though, there are still some conservatives who say they don't like the approach and they won't vote for it, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: All right and this is the first that we're actually hearing of a time between 5 and 6. Did you just get word, Joe?</s>JOHNS: Yes, sort of across the trend and again, you have to caution because things like this could be very fluid, but 5:15, 6:15, Eastern Time, something like that. The other thing, you know, I mean, can it pass? When a congressional leader on the House side schedules a vote, at least know or they're supposed to know which way it's going to go and I've been asking vote counters on the Hill whether this is going to be smooth sailing or a nail biter. The message I've gotten back on the Republican side is that the speaker is expecting, quote/unquote, "strong support from the Republican conference," but on the Democratic side, we know that many, many Democrats will not sign on. In fact there's some suggestion that the opposition will be close to unanimous.</s>PHILLIPS: All right, Joe. Keep working it for us. Thanks. Encouraging news on the job front. First time unemployment claims dropped below 400,000 for the first time in more than three months. Alison Kosik at the New York Stock Exchange. Good news.</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kyra, rare, right? It's an encouraging report. Can you believe it? Yes, new jobless claims dropping more than expected coming in at 398,000 last week. Sure, that's below that 400,000 level where really need to be because it's generally seen as signifying job growth. Want a comparison? Claims topped 600,000 when we were in the thick of the recession, so yes, we're making some progress here, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: If these job numbers, you know are positive then why isn't there a bigger reaction on Wall Street? I mean, we saw a little bit of a reaction.</s>KOSIK: We did. Stocks are going the other way right now. They're going back towards the negative column, but the reality is that the debt ceiling deal is cause for a lot of anxiety here on Wall Street. Also that jobs headline, it really doesn't tell the whole story. Almost eight million Americans get unemployment benefits and this count the emergency and long term benefits. That's the reality here. Also, we really need to stay below that 400,000 level for the long term. This is just one report. It's positive, but not enough. Now Friday, we're also going to see how the broader economy is doing. We're going to get second quarter GDP that will show economic growth. And I'll be honest with you, expectations not so great right now. We're expecting to hear what most of us already know, the recovery is growing very slowly, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: OK, Alison, thanks. So leave it to Washington to find a loophole, right? Some Democrats say if time runs out, the president could save the government from default by tapping into his constitutional powers. But it's the White House, yes, the White House, that's actually knocking down that idea.</s>JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There is no way around this. There is no escape. You know, having an esoteric constitutional argument won't resolve the fact that our borrowing authority is due to expire on August 2nd. And Congress has the legal authority and only Congress has the legal authority to extend that borrowing authority.</s>PHILLIPS: Now Carney says the real problem is that House Republicans with wasting time on the Boehner plan because even if it should somehow pass the Senate, the president will not sign off on it. At the bottom of the hour, we're going to hear from the freshmen Republicans who are challenging their own party and demanding bigger cuts. We'll check in on the 10:30 a.m. news conference. Cosmetic giant L'Oreal has been forced to pull an ad campaign featuring Julia Roberts and supermodel Christy Turlington. CNN's Zain Verjee found this out of London. What's the problem? Are they just too beautiful, Zain?</s>ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They have been overly air brushed is what the authorities are saying and that their images are totally misleading. Fancy that, Kyra, air brushing. We've never done right?</s>PHILLIPS: Full disclosure here, Zain. We should say, yes, that is what we do in this business, OK, and thank goodness for it. That's all I have to say.</s>VERJEE: Well, I wake up looking like this, Kyra, but look, these are the pictures here. Look at Julia Roberts here on the left-hand side, air brushed and lovely. On the right hand side is without air brushing. Now, in this ad, she's in for a product called "Miracle Foundation." Christy Turlington also for anti-aging cream and basically what they're saying here is that these images are not representative of the results the product would actually achieve. So they're saying you're overly perfecting images of women in the media and it's misleading. So if consumers buy this product, you would not be going to look like Julia Roberts, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, I think that we realize that, you know? Makeup does help a little bit, but it does not change what, you know, Mother Nature has given you or what God has blessed you with.</s>VERJEE: That's right. You know, L'Oreal is sayings, you know what, actually the pictures of Julia Roberts are in their words inspirational. And with Christy Turlington, they say that it accurately represents what kind of results you would get, that would be achievable if you use those products. But, you know, there is the problem of Mother Nature as we get older, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: Yes. Things start to shift in directions we never really expected. Come on, these women make up or not, Zain, they're beautiful.</s>VERJEE: They are.</s>PHILLIPS: Zain, thanks. Coming up, religion in the presidential race. Some interesting and maybe contradictory findings in the new poll. We're going to talk to the CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. Plus new compelling video taken moments after the deadly Norway explosion. We're going to hear from the man who shot is right after the break.