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Samsung Promotion Examined; Sibling Bullying May Be Harmful Also; Edward Snowden Speaks Out Again; Bulger Trial Update

Aired June 17, 2013 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, one person who knows a lot about money certainly has lots of it. It's Jay-Z. And he is proving once again that he knows how to make a dollar with a new deal with Samsung.

That is part of a commercial that aired during last night's NBA Finals promoting Jay-Z's upcoming release, "Magna Carta Holy Grail.

Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange, bobbing her head, grooving along.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I was.

LEMON: You were, weren't you? Were you doing the Dougie? Or what's that thing where you do that? I forget what that's called.

Tell us about Jay-Z's new deal.

KOSIK: OK, so I'm hearing myself. If you guys can take my voice out of my ear for a second.

So Samsung is actually buying 1 million digital copies of this album for a reported $5 a piece and giving them away for free to Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 and Note 2 users only.

So only if you've got these phones or tablet, you're the only one that can get this album for free.

So Samsung is basically guaranteeing this new Jay-Z album goes platinum on day one. And already -- I don't know if you've looked at social media. The reaction, Don? Lots of Jay-Z fans are wishing that they had a Samsung phone right about now.

In fact, one said on Twitter, it's the first time I've wanted to swap my iPhone for a Samsung. Others are even asking their friends with Samsung phones to get the album for them.

So clearly this is exactly the response Samsung is hoping for. You know what it's doing. It's raising that cool factor. And it's also making people think twice about their iPhones, Don.

LEMON: Yeah. I'm one of them, as a matter of fact. You know how I love my Apple products.

KOSIK: You do. I can't imagine you parting with it.

LEMON: I was thinking about the Bernie, if you were doing the Bernie.

But, listen, it was a long commercial. It caught a lot of people off guard, including me as I was watching. I was like, what am I watching here? It was probably expensive. But it sounds like it could pay off.

KOSIK: Well, here's the thing. We don't know exactly who paid for the ad. But we do know that they're not paying Super Bowl rates.

Still, we crunched some numbers, and we figured out that those three minutes could have cost more than $2.5 million. But you know, you think about it. This whole campaign, Don, it's a huge deal, especially when you consider Samsung spending $5 million to buy these albums and give them away.

But putting it in perspective, this is really just a drop in the bucket for Samsung, which has a huge, huge ad budget. Samsung has gone hard at Apple with its advertising over the past couple of years.

Samsung spent almost five times what Apple spent on ads last year. Just to give you a comparison, Apple spent $1 billion. Samsung spent $4.9 billion. So Samsung is really charging hard at Apple and taking Jay-Z along with them, Don.

LEMON: Wow. All right. Get back to work/play. Go put your ear buds in and keep jamming.

KOSIK: Will do.

LEMON: Thank you, Alison Kosik. We appreciate it.

Speaking of spending a lot of money on advertising, they did and it paid off. He came from Krypton, but Kansas claims him, too, Superman.

Well, he just conquered the weekend box office with $125 million in U.S. sales. Now he's headed for the Kansas Hall of Fame. The hall will induct Superman on Friday citing his solid work ethic and the small-town values he learned in Smallville.

He'll join Kansas greats like Dwight Eisenhower, Amelia Earhart and Marshal Matt Dillon.

A woman who falsely accused a high school football star of rape has to pay $2.6 million to the school district.

In 2002 Wanetta Gibson accused Brian Banks, a star football player and classmate. She also sued the Long Beach Unified School District for lax security and received a $750,000 settlement.

Now a judge has ordered her to repay that money, plus interest -- plus interest -- and legal fees. And a million dollars in punitive damages.

Banks was convicted and served more than five years in prison before Gibson admitted she was not raped.

CNN's legal analyst Sunny Hostin is here. That's an amazing case. Before you accuse someone, you better think twice, now.

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's unbelievable. And I think about it because I prosecuted sex crimes and how, usually, I mean, it's very rare that a victim just makes these sort of things up.

And he always said that this was consensual. He was only 16-years- old. She was 15-years-old. A star football player, he had already accepted a position at USC. And it's just remarkable that it turned out this way.

Five years he spent in prison and was registered as a sex offender, Don.

LEMON: And this isn't mistaken identity. This is falsely accused.

So what's the responsibility here of falsely accusing someone?

HOSTIN: And that's the thing. She clearly perjured herself. That's a crime in and of itself. We're talking about five years in prison.

I know and understand that the prosecutor's office is thinking about charging her. And I say absolutely.

LEMON: I was just going to say, should she be prosecuted?

HOSTIN: No question. I think with this over $2 million that she has to pay should be the least of her worries. She should be prosecuted for perjury.

She ruined someone's life. He spent five years in prison. She should spend five years in prison.

LEMON: He says he wasn't angry. Remember? He says, I'm not angry.

HOSTIN: Again, we were talking about that ...

LEMON: Forgiveness.

HOSTIN: .. last hour about forgiveness. I mean, he actually is now living his NFL dream. He was signed with the Atlanta Falcons.

LEMON: He signed an NFL contract with the Atlanta Falcons and is currently in Falcons training camp, 27-year-old rookie now.

HOSTIN: Which is unbelievable that he was able to fulfill his dream.

But, again, I say, when you're talking about someone who perjures themselves in a sex crimes case, in any case, she should be charged.

LEMON: Let me tell you something that I know from my 17 years on Earth -- no, I'm kidding. Karma is a you-know-what. He will soar.

HOSTIN: He will.

LEMON: And she will probably ...

HOSTIN: They're thinking about prosecuting her, so we'll see.

LEMON: Yeah. Thank you.

HOSTIN: Thanks.

LEMON: Appreciate it. Best of luck to him as well.

HOSTIN: Yeah, absolutely.

LEMON: The interim mayor of Montreal, Canada, has held his job only since November when the mayor had to resign over corruption claims.

Well, today Michael Applebaum, who took over as interim mayor vowing to end what he called an "era of sleaze" in city government was arrested. He is accused of taking bribes related to real estate deals.

Coming up, we know that bullying among kids is a big problem, but what about bullying between siblings? A study out today says that brothers and sisters might be causing real psychological harm.

So is it a right of passage or something parents have to stop? Oh, you want to hear my conversation on this. Make sure you stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So this next story has me fired up. It's a new study, and it says this. Parents need to watch out for bullies not only in the classroom, but in the living room. Your child's brother or sister might be causing as much damage to your child's mental health as a school thug.

It is the latest finding in the Journal of Pediatrics which analyzed questionnaires answered by 3,600 kids, 17 and younger.

We're going to turn now to child psychologist, Rachel Scheinfield, and CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

So, Elizabeth, to you first. What does this study say about the effects of sibling bullying? What does it do to a child specifically?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Don, I think the most important thing to look at in this study is how did they define bullying?

So they said bullying can be anything from real physical abuse and threatening your sibling. If you tell mom and dad, I'm beating up on you. You're going to be in even more trouble at one end of the spectrum.

On the other end of the spectrum if a kid just went into another kid's room and took their pen without permission that would be considered bullying. If a kid said, oh, you're such a jerk, that's considered bullying.

So what they found is that kids who were bullied anywhere on that spectrum were more likely to have mental health problems later in life.

LEMON: OK. Rachel, I can hear some parents saying, come on. We are coddling our kids way too much here.

RACHEL SCHEINFIELD, CHILD AND SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST: Yeah, that's absolutely the case. We really want to promote a way for them to resolve conflicts in a healthy manner, but we also want to teach them how to respectfully disagree.

It's a term I use, respectful disagreement, how to problem solve more appropriately without intent to harm or intimidate.

LEMON: OK. So isn't this all part of, though -- it seems like every study that come out about bullying -- and, listen, there are legitimate cases of bullying, but not everything -- you were describing the spectrum, Elizabeth. Not all of that is bullying. That's part of the maturation process.

You're going to need those things to get along in life as an employer, as an adult. If someone says something you don't like, you need to know how to sack them out and you learn that as a child.

COHEN: Don, I would have to agree with you. And I would tell you, and this is an event from the Cohen household just a few nights ago, one of my daughters stole a lip gloss from her sister's room. And her sister said, oh, you're such a jerk. You took my lip gloss.

According to this study, both of my daughters are bullies, and they will both be more likely to suffer mental health distress later on in life because of this lip gloss incident.

Come on.

LEMON: Yeah, that sounds like normal sibling behavior.

COHEN: I know. I know.

LEMON: As I said to Dr. Wendy yesterday, who's a human behavior expert, when I was a kid, if someone hit me or yelled at me, I would go home and my mom or my dad would say, did you yell at them? Did you hit them back?

And if I said no, they'd say go back down the street and yell at them and hit them back. And you know what? That was good for me because, otherwise, I would have grown up being a wimp.

Rachel?

SCHEINFIELD: Well, here I think the difference is, is that we don't want to create the separation of power. We don't want to create the dynamic of a bully versus a victim mentality.

That starts to create some issue with power and control. And then one is always playing the I'm the victim, I'm being victimized and woe is me type mentality.

We really want to encourage both siblings to learn how to interact more appropriately, again, more respectfully.

And we also want to encourage them to resolve what they need to on their own, but also in an appropriately healthy way.

LEMON: But how do you do that appropriately? Because as a child you learn from inappropriate behavior. If you do something inappropriately, your parent tells you, that's the inappropriate way. That's part of learning.

You just don't go, that's inappropriate. You can't do it. You have to do it over and over and over as a child to figure out what's right and what's wrong.

Am I wrong here?

SCHEINFIELD: You are -- no, you're absolutely correct. I think the issue is that we really want to make sure that the parents are modeling what's appropriate behavior, modeling positive interactions any time that they're watching the children interact in a positive manner in a way that is resolving things.

You know, there's the typical sibling rivalry which we anticipate, but we really want to be all over the instances when they're interacting positively. And we also want to provide a positive role model from the parents' side of things so that children can emulate what they see in terms of how the parents handle it.

LEMON: OK, that's all great. Do you have a child?

SCHEINFIELD: Do I? No, I do not.

LEMON: OK. So -- and I don't either.

So I'm going to ask, Elizabeth Cohen, who's our senior medical correspondent, because that lip balm thing is probably going to happen 10 more times ...

COHEN: At least.

LEMON: ... before they leave your house, right?

COHEN: I have four daughters, OK?

LEMON: So what is that in laymen's terms? What does that mean for parents? You can't keep coddling your kids like that and calling -- you have to let them be kids.

COHEN: You know, I let the lip gloss thing go. I know that my girls will work it out. They will steal each other's lip gloss from now until eternity, I'm sure. I have four daughters, so there's more lip gloss stealing in our future.

I step in when I feel like things are getting out of hand. I step in if I hear -- if I really feel that they're really not being nice to one another. I'll say, come on, girls. You're sisters. Be nice to one another. And then I try to let them work it out. I think we need to call for common sense parenting here. Step in when you feel that your intervention is necessary. But sometimes you should just let them work out their own conflicts.

LEMON: Slow clap.

SHEINFIELD: I would agree with that. I would agree with that.

LEMON: Slow clap. Thank you very much.

Stop coddling kids. Not everything is bullying. Again, there are legitimate cases of bullying, but that's not always what it is.

Thank you very much, Rachel Scheinfield, and thank you very much, Elizabeth Cohen.

COHEN: Thanks.

SCHEINFIELD: Thank you so much.

LEMON: Up next, new video of a passenger being escorted out of a United flight after he said he poisoned others onboard.

We have an update from authorities, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back. We're going to update you now on a situation at Newark Airport in New Jersey. Unruly passenger removed from United Flight 116 and taken to a hospital for evaluation. That's him in the blue jacket being escorted off that plane by two men in uniform.

According to officials, the man had become disruptive during the flight from Hong Kong, claiming passengers had been poisoned, or at least a passenger, maybe himself, but claiming passengers had been poisoned.

The crew was able to keep the situation under control and the flight proceeded without incident.

No evidence the passengers were poisoned as the man claimed, and the CDC cleared the plane to continue to the gate.

We continue to get new information on this. We have people out at Newark airport, working that story for us. We'll bring you the new information as soon as we get it.

We reported at the top of the hour the man who confessed to leaking secrets about how the government tracks your information and phone calls, still in hiding. But he just held an online chat.

So let's go live now to Washington and our chief Washington correspondent, the anchor of "THE LEAD," Mr. Jake Tapper.

Jake, before we get to you, I want to talk about how surreal this is. I want you to take a look at this poll. The majority of Americans aren't fans of Edward Snowden and what he's done. Perhaps more striking is a number of Americans who do approve of it.

What's your take on this? 44 percent approve.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I think there is a big effort by many individuals in the civil liberty community, both on the right and left, to talk about what Snowden is bringing to light in terms of the surveillance that a lot of Americans did not know was going on.

Some of these programs have been reported on in the past, but certainly not the extent to which they're going on, certainly the Internet surveillance, and then, also, not since President Obama was elected. So there's probably a feeling of gratitude he brought them to light.

On the other hand, it's still clear majority of Americans who do disapprove of what he did. And I suspect as the government continues to build their case against Snowden, both in the legal court and, also, the court of public opinion, the negatives will go up even more.

LEMON: Hey, let's talk about this. It's apropos that we have you hear. It's great we have you here because we just got some new video in from the G8 in Ireland, President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin. There they are.

They're meeting and one would assume they are going to talk about Syria. Obviously they're disagreeing to disagree on Syria and arming the rebels, what do you think about that, Jake?

TAPPER: Well, I think it's also one of the reasons why President Obama's been reluctant to get involved is because this is not a united world front against Bashar al- Assad, the dictator of Syria.

There's a split just within just the United Nations security council and now we have what some might see as a proxy war, the U.S. versus Russia, in a way, because the Russians are backing Assad and the U.S. is now agreeing to provide some sort of military support, although we're not exactly clear what kind to some of the rebels.

It's a complicated situation. I'm just reminded, looking at this picture, of the last time was covering one of these summits and it was President Obama meeting with Medvedev who was the president of Russia at the time and Medvedev thought he was off-camera and he said -- and Obama was telling him that he had information, that he would be able to be more flexible after the election and Medvedev said he would to transmit the information directly to Vladimir.

There we have President Obama, able to transmit the information directly to Vladimir.

LEMON: Yeah, and that played a big role -- big role -- in the presidential election, back in 2012, just last year.

Thank you very much. We'll see you at the top of the hour. No doubt this will be part of Jake Tapper's coverage on "The Lead."

Up next, we'll go live to Boston where the trial of reputed mob boss Whitey Bulger is under way. On the stand today, a man they call "The Executioner," his testimony explosive.

You don't want to miss this. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Reputed mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger, back in the courtroom, and today, his alleged former hit man taking the stand.

Bulger allegedly ran an Irish Boston gang linked to brutal murders and extorting drug dealers, bookies and loan sharks to pay rent or tribute to the gang.

Jack Nicholson played a character loosely based on Bulger in the 2006 movie, "The Departed."

Convicted assassin John Martorano confessed to killing 20 people, but served a relatively short sentence in exchange for his testimony.

Deb Feyerick is live in Boston. She's been in the courtroom and she's been watching these two men in the courtroom today.

That must be very interesting to watch.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No question. This was the first time that the men actually came face to face in nearly two decades, and they barely looked at each other.

And these were two men who were so close that Martorano testified that they were, quote, "best friends, partners in crime." Martorano even named his youngest son, James, after Bulger.

On the stand, Martorano was very cold and calculated, emotionless, talking about all the murders he'd committed, opening fire with machine gun, killing people at close range.

In one case, he just shot a guy through the heart. In another, he had to go wash the blood off his clothes because there was just so much blood anywhere.

The only time, Don, that he even showed some emotion was when he was describing Whitey Bulger's betrayal, when he learned that he was an FBI informant and that's when Martorano said, "It broke my heart," the only time he showed any emotion.

But the two men not making any eye contact whatsoever. We saw a couple of furtive glances here and again, but Whitey Bulger, he stared straight ahead. He did not want to look at this man who really feels that Whitey Bulger betrayed everything that these criminals once stood for.

Don?

LEMON: Deb Feyerick will be following this trial in Boston. Deb, thank you very.

Up next, an 11-year-old boy in California going through cancer treatment and nervous about going back to school, but it's what his classmates did for him that's truly inspiring, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: This one is going to make you smile, finally today.

This story out of California, a boy battling cancer, after the little guy went through treatment and started radiation therapy, his hair started to fall out. He was nervous about returning to school with no hair.

So, to the rescue, his classmates decided to do something about it. Fifteen boys in his class got their heads shaved in solidarity. This is the boy's mom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fifteen boys went into that barber shop. Fifteen men walked out. And every time I think about it, it brings tears to my eyes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Yeah, well, Travis says that his friends going bald has made it a lot easier for him.

I'm Don Lemon. Thanks for watching. That's it for me.

"THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.