Holder on "Fast & Furious": Never Again
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This should never have happened, and it must never happen again.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): Never again. The attorney general grilled about a botched gun tracking program. What he had to say to the family of a murdered border patrol agent on this AMERICAN MORNING.</s>VELSHI: Welcome back. We're just crossing the half hour now. Your top stories and there are lots of them. He hasn't been charged. He's not a target of the investigation. But Penn State football coach Joe Paterno may not survive the child sex scandal involving one of his former top assistants. Supporters rallied outside of Paterno's house -- look at them -- amid growing calls for his resignation. Paterno's son calls reports of his father's retirement premature.</s>ROMANS: Herman Cain said all of the accusations of sexual harassment against him are false and he's even willing to take a lie detector test if he has to. Cain says the Democratic machine is out to get him and he has a message for anyone who thinks he should abandon his bid for the White House: It ain't going to happen.</s>COSTELLO: Mississippi voters defeating the so-called personhood initiative that would have defined life at the start of conception. If passed, the measure would have outlawed abortion and many forms of birth control in the state.</s>VELSHI: Republicans grilling Attorney General Eric Holder about the botched Fast and Furious gun-running program, demanding who will be held responsible for an operation that may had led to the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. CNN's Brian Todd has more.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): More than 30 Republicans in Congress are calling on him to resign, over a program that allowed hundreds of AK-47s and other illegally bought guns to stream into Mexico. Attorney General Eric Holder now says this about Operation Fast and Furious.</s>ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: This should never have happened.</s>TODD: That doesn't spare Holder from intense grilling by Republicans who are furious over a February letter from Holder's aides at Justice to GOP Senator Chuck Grassley. That letter says, "ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico." In fact, ATF agents were allowing those weapons to be taken into Mexico as part of an operation to trace them.</s>SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R-IA), JUDICIARY RANKING MEMBER: Who will be held accountable for allowing a letter to Congress with a statement that many in the Justice Department knew was false?</s>HOLDER: Well, again, I have to dispute with due respect. The assertion that people in the Justice Department knew it was false.</s>TODD: Holder says he thought that letter was accurate at the time, but now regrets it was sent. But the most pointed exchange came over the murder of Border Patrol Officer Brian Terry. Guns from Operation Fast and Furious were found near the murder scene.</s>SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: Have you apologized to the family of Brian Terry?</s>HOLDER: I have not apologized to them, but I certainly regret what happened.</s>CORNYN: Have you even talked to them?</s>HOLDER: I have not.</s>CORNYN: Would you like to apologize today for this program that went so wrong, that took the life of a United States law enforcement agent?</s>HOLDER: I certainly regret what happened to agent Brian Terry. I can only imagine the pain that his family has had to deal with, in particular, his mother. I am the father of three children myself. We are not programmed to bury our kids.</s>TODD: Holder said it would be a mistake to tie Terry's death directly to Fast and Furious. I caught up with Holder as he left the hearing. (on camera): When are your going to speak to Terry's family and apologize?</s>HOLDER: Thank you very much.</s>TODD: I also caught up with Senator Cornyn who told me that Holder's answers about Brian Terry's family and about the program overall were not acceptable. Cornyn said he's not at the point yet of calling on Holder to resign, but he's heading in that direction. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.</s>COSTELLO: It's kind of like that movie "Castaway," except Tom Hanks wasn't around. Seven missing sailors were discovered in a deserted Pacific island somewhere between Hawaii and Australia. A U.S. Coast Guard air crew dropped boxes of food and supplies attached to parachutes until rescue crews could arrive. The men were on their way to Cayman Island last week and somehow got lost. Everybody is A- OK this morning.</s>ROMANS: No word on whether the professor and Mary Ann was lifted up?</s>COSTELLO: Of course, they made a little face and the soccer ball with some ball.</s>VELSHI: All right. It was short but pretty darn sweet. Listen, first.</s>VELSHI: That was supposed to be a 20-minute fireworks show. But it was over in 50 seconds in Scotland on Saturday. Hundreds of fireworks are going off all at once. Organizers say it was a technical error that caused the entire computer operated show to ignite all at the same time.</s>COSTELLO: There was the big finale.</s>ROMANS: It was awesome but then it was done.</s>VELSHI: Costly for 50 seconds.</s>ROMANS: If you went back to the car to get something out of the trunk, you missed it.</s>VELSHI: It was fun to watch. But for the organizers who are hoping for to it go 20 minutes.</s>ROMANS: Rob Marciano is in the extreme weather center. Good morning, Rob.</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You got to get out there by hand, with the flare, old school. And that kind of mistake wouldn't happen.</s>VELSHI: That's it.</s>MARCIANO: Fifty seconds. All right. Good morning, guys. Hey, listen. Some fireworks happening across the mid-section of the country. Early snowfall for parts of Iowa and Wisconsin. Here's the storm that brought the severe weather not only the day before yesterday with that incredible video that one tornado, we had several reports of tornados across the ArkLaTex region yesterday. Once again, thankfully, no injuries. But heavy snow from parts of Iowa up through Wisconsin, already several inches of snow on the ground. This is an area really that doesn't see significant accumulating snow really until the middle of December. So another unusual snowstorm this time for the Midwest and the western Great Lakes, three to six inches in parts of Iowa, maybe six to nine in parts of northern Wisconsin. Winter storm warnings are posted. Thunderstorms down to the South, and ahead of this system, it continues to be very, very mild. Indian summer-like temperatures especially across the Northeast after snowstorms, 66 degrees in New York City. It's a beautiful day yesterday. It will be again today. Seventy-three degrees expected for a high temperature in Atlanta. This is Alaska. This is a huge, huge storm impacting the west coast of Alaska right now from Nome. Farther points north, winds right now are gusting over 80 miles an hour. And we've got huge storm surge with that, and tropical storm Sean with 50 mile-per-hour winds not going to impact the U.S. This didn't impact the U.S. either. That asteroid came mighty close, about 200,000 miles away last night. And, yes, our high powered telescopes got a good glimpse of it, shooting past the earth at 30,000 miles an hour. We'll be extracting --</s>COSTELLO: It looks like a big potato, doesn't it?</s>MARCIANO: Well, it does. It does, you know. But if you were to make an asteroid, I'm now thinking back of the '80s, Atari, it looked very similar that we used to shoot down.</s>VELSHI: What kind of a camera gets that? How to you take a picture? Thirty thousand miles that far away?</s>MARCIANO: Radar telescopes, so basically receiving radiation, radio waves from that thing.</s>VELSHI: Incredible.</s>MARCIANO: Fancy stuff.</s>VELSHI: Very interesting.</s>COSTELLO: Rob just took a shot of a potato in dark light.</s>MARCIANO: That works too.</s>VELSHI: Put it through PhotoShop. Rob, you wouldn't do that. Thank you, my friend.</s>COSTELLO: Just ahead on</s>AMERICAN MORNING: can legendary coach Joe Paterno survive the sex abuse allegations that's rocking the Penn State campus and his football program? Many of those are asking, should he survive?</s>VELSHI: Plus, putting more cash in your pocket. We'll give you three ways to make your money work four. It's this morning's "How to Speak Money." It's 37 minutes after the hour.