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New Day Sunday

Obama Pokes Fun at Himself; Clippers Win, Advance in NBA Playoffs; Hundreds of Nigerian Girls Kidnapped

Aired May 04, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Christi Paul. So glad to see you on this Sunday.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. It's 8:00 now on the East. This is NEW DAY SUNDAY.

Oh, they hit everybody last night, Joe Biden, the 47 percent, the cattle rancher out in Nevada.

PAUL: Us.

BLACKWELL: Us, yes. Obamacare, punch line, they fast and furious last night at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

PAUL: Yes, President Obama and comedian Joel McHale, man, did they headline the annual roast with some good zingers, put on quite a show for the Washington and Hollywood elite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

JOEL MCHALE, COMEDIAN: The vice president isn't here tonight, not for security reasons. He just thought this event was being held at the Dulles Airport Applebee's. Right now, Joe is elbow deep in jalapeno poppers and talking to a construction cone he thinks is John Boehner.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I'm feeling sorry, believe it or not, for the speaker of the House as well. These days, the House Republicans actually give John Boehner a harder time than they give me -- which means orange really is the new black.

I got a lot of grief on cable news for promoting Obamacare to young people between two firms. That's what young people like to watch. And to be fair, I'm not the first on television between two potted plants.

An American won the Boston march than for the first time in 30 years.

(APPLAUSE)

Which was inspiring, and only fair, since a Kenyan has been president for the last six. Of course, we rolled out Healthcare.gov. That could have gone better.

MCHALE: But thanks to Obamacare or as the president refers to it, me-care, millions of newly insured young Americans can visit a doctor's office and see what a print magazine actually looks like. That's awesome.

OBAMA: Let's face it, FOX, you'll miss me when I'm gone. It will be harder to convince the American people that Hillary was born in Kenya.

MCHALE: Hillary Clinton has a lot going for her as a candidate. She has experience. She's a natural leader, and as our first female president, we could pay her 30 percent less. That's the saving this country could use.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

PAUL: Comedian Joel McHale taking a swipe at, you know, the gender pay gap at last night's White House Correspondents' Dinners. Boy, were they good. Very clever.

BLACKWELL: It was a joke but with a nugget of truth. All the jokes were indeed last night.

We got Pete Dominick here with us. He's a comedian and host of his own political talk show on Sirius XM.

PAUL: Looking a smidge disheveled.

How did you get there last night without me, Pete? I'm going to make you take me next time, although I don't know I want to look like that in a morning.

PETE DOMINICK, COMEDIAN: I'd take you in a heartbeat, Christi and Victor. I may look a little haggard. My -- I'm still in a tux and my hair might be a little bit disheveled but it's so much fun. I met everybody. I met everybody from Casey Affleck to Kareem Abdul- Jabbar, Kirsten Gillibrand, Lindsay Vonn was following me around saying, I want to you meet this guy, I want you to meet that guy. It was very, very fun.

PAUL: What did you think of President Obama's performance?

DOMINICK: He's always so good. You know, ever time I talk about the White House Correspondents' Dinner, I've gone the last 30 years. I've got to bring up the 2011 one when Seth Meyers was hosting when the president performed standup comedy the night before the bin Laden raid.

So to be able to do that, that year, the rest is easy, and the president always does very well. He times it really well, and we got to give credit to the people who write the president's jokes. They're really good writers.

BLACKWELL: And Joel McHale was good. I mean, he definitely stepped up to the plate. What was your favorite moment?

DOMINICK: Joel McHale is great.

Just be clear the standup come comedian, this is not a fun gig. It's not a great gig to prepare for. You're nerve-wracked sitting there for two hours next to the first lady, scratching jokes off, writing more jokes.

The best moment was when he made fun of Chris Christie. I'm not a fan of the fat joke, it's too easy and it's been done. But the way that he did it and twist he put on it, I think we've got a clip of it. Could we role it, guys?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCHALE: Governor, you want bridge jokes or size jokes, because I've got a bunch of both. I can go half-half. I know you like a combo platter.

Now, I get that, I'm sorry for that joke, Governor Christie. I didn't know I was going to tell it but I take full responsibility for it. Whoever wrote it will be fired. But the buck stops here, so I will be a man and own up to it, just as soon as I get to the bottom of how it happened because I wasn't aware it happened until just now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Oh my goodness.

DOMINICK: Beautiful joke, exquisite joke. Victor, I said coming into this, an element of truth, a nugget of truth is what makes the comedy the best.

BLACKWELL: Absolutely.

PAUL: Was anybody squeamish? I don't know why, I have a hard time seeing people get, you know, kind of what do I say --

BLACKWELL: Ribbed?

PAUL: Yes, ribbed. I like a good ribbing but those were, I just wonder was anybody, (AUDIO GAP) a little peeved in any way?

DOMINICK: I think Chris Christie has a great sense of humor about himself and I got to say, you know, wah. I'm in the public eye. Wah, I'm the governor of New Jersey.

I mean, listen, when you choose to put yourself in these jobs you're going to take a chance of being roasted and just to get your name mentioned last night by the president or Joel McHale, no matter who you are, no matter what network you are, it's flattering. It's good publicity. There's no bad publicity.

And, you know, Chris Christie's a good sport whereas Donald Trump a few years ago just stone faced as the president of the United States is making fun of him and that's not good. PAUL: OK, very good point. Comedian Pete Dominick, you look marvelous.

BLACKWELL: Clean yourself up next time for the show.

PAUL: No, if he looks like that, we know he had a good time.

DOMINICK: I didn't go to bed, I didn't go to bed. I stayed up for you guys. Next year I'm bringing you, Christi.

PAUL: We love you, Pete. Perfect, thank you.

BLACKWELL: Thanks, Pete.

DOMINICK: Thanks, guys.

BLACKWELL: So, you know, the other big story people are talking about this morning the L.A. Clippers are getting a new leader, owner Donald Sterling banned from the league for life over the racist audio recordings last weekend. The NBA is trying to force this 80-year-old billionaire to sell the team. Well, the league also announced that it is appointing a new chief executive officer to oversee the Clippers' day-to-day operations.

PAUL: This is coming off as the team knocked off the Golden State Warriors in front of 20,000 screaming fans. Final was 126-121. Even Sterling's wife Shelly who's co-owner of the franchise showed up to game to watch her team advance in the playoffs.

CNN Sports' Joe Carter joining us now.

What a game, Joe.

JOE CARTER, CNN SPORTS: Great game. I mean, I loved how the Clippers fought back in that game, down at halftime by double digits. They came back in the fourth quarter, really pursued a great win for this team, obviously an emotional week.

You know, before this last couple years the L.A. Clippers have been known as the bad news bears of the NBA for years and Billy Crystal, a big celebrity fan of theirs, used to joke with not going to L.A. Lakers games, going to Clippers games instead because it was a big bargain.

But the turnaround for the team happened in 2009 when they drafted Blake Griffin and traded for Chris Paul in 2011 and the franchise is playing its best basketball ever and they just went through the longest nine days of their basketball lives and they really didn't let the Donald Sterling saga become their downfall and at the end of the game, you see the emotion coming from a stoic Doc Rivers.

I believe that really said it all for this team and then, afterwards, Chris Paul, their star point guard, said last night, they really had to put the controversy aside and focus on basketball the task at hand. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS PAUL, L.A. CLIPPERS: It's going to sound crazy but it was all about tonight. Everything else was in the past, couldn't dwell on all that different type stuff and not to diminish how serious everything's been the past week or so, it was all about basketball tonight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: All right. So, it's a quick break for the Clippers because up next, they have a second round series with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Oklahoma City beat Memphis last night in seven games.

Got to like the Clippers here, guys, because winning in sports is a lot about emotion and momentum and it's clear the L.A. Clippers have both and really I like when sports teams have something to prove and I feel like the L.A. Clippers have something to prove right now.

PAUL: Good point.

BLACKWELL: Joe Carter, thank you.

CARTER: Thanks.

PAUL: So, you know, when it comes to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, there are all kinds of theories out there about what happened. Why Malaysian police are pushing back this morning against a new report that just popped up.

BLACKWELL: And maybe you've seen the hashtag on social media and not sure what it is. #wringbackourgirls -- well, it's an effort to bring home more than 200 girls still missing after being kidnapped in Nigeria. You see thousands of people protesting, millions more on social media calling for their release. We'll go live to Nigeria.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: This morning, Malaysian authorities are pushing back against a report that terrorism may have played a part in the disappearance of Flight 370.

PAUL: This is according to "The Daily Mail" which says 11 terrorists with al Qaeda ties were arrested last week near Kuala Lumpur and interrogated about the missing plane.

Now, we want to get to CNN's Will Ripley, who is in Kuala Lumpur right now, because I know, Will, police have something to say about this report in "The Daily Mail", right?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The royal Malaysia police specifically, Christi, are basically saying that this is flat out wrong. They did arrest 11 suspected militants. In fact, they are expecting to arrest even more. But they say this case has nothing to do with the missing plane. Instead, it's part of an ongoing terror investigation, essentially they're trying to prevent attacks here in Malaysia and other countries as well. So, setting the record straight, at least as far as officials are telling us here -- no connection to MH370.

BLACKWELL: Tomorrow, Will, is a big day in deciding what will be the next phase of this search, trilateral meeting, you've got China. You've got Malaysia and Australia meeting.

What do we know about those meetings and any idea of what the next phase will look like?

RIPLEY: This is an important step, Victor, as you've been talking about, as we've been reporting here. We know that the Chinese delegation, the Malaysian delegations are in Sydney, Australia now. They had informal briefings earlier in the day.

And tomorrow morning, first thing Monday morning, local time in Australia they're going to be heading to Canberra where they will sit down with the Australian experts who have these three countries, China, Malaysia and Australia sitting at the table discussing the next phase of the search, which we know will involve private contractors with different types of technology to search the southern Indian Ocean for any sign of the missing plane.

The Bluefin 21 contract is extended to the end of this month, costing the United States about $40,000 a day. This is a search that will be time-consuming. It could take up to a year and, guys, we're told it could cost up to a $60 million. So, these meetings in Australia will be figuring out what technology they're going to use, where they're going to deploy it as they continue searching.

PAUL: You know, you cannot help thinking about these families. I mean, we are 58 days in with nothing. What are we hearing from them at this point?

RIPLEY: Well, a lot of the families I think reality is really starting to set in, that even though we don't have a single piece of this plane, some of them are starting to say good-bye. We saw a memorial service in Australia today for a couple who was on board the flight and we know that a lot of the other families in China are now arriving back home after some of them traveling several hundred miles by train or by car. They're getting back home and now, they're having to sit back in their communities and wait for information.

And they're not going to have the 24/7 support network they had before. There's a hotline that they can call to get updates. They're sending text messages and e-mails, the airline is. But this is a new phase for them, guys, and so many unanswered questions.

PAUL: I could just feel for them.

Hey, Will Ripley, we appreciate the clarification this morning, thank you.

BLACKWELL: Now, there are more than 200 other families who have many questions and few answers, the families are in Nigeria as hundreds of Nigerian school girls were ripped from their classrooms, possibly taken as child brides.

PAUL: Here is the thing -- the government is facing some really harsh criticism over its apparent lack of any action in this case. We'll be taking you live to Nigeria for a report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: African lives matter. African lives matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: What you're hearing and seeing there are just some of the thousands around the world rallying in support of more than 200 school girls who have been kidnapped in Nigeria. It's widely believed that the anti-western group Boca Haram is responsible. Although the group, we have to clarify, has not yet taken any responsibility for it.

BLACKWELL: True. In the meantime, though, Secretary of State John Kerry, he is saying that the abductions, this crime is unconscionable and he says he's pressuring Nigeria's government to act and act quickly.

CNN's Isha Sesay is covering the story from Lagos, Nigeria.

Isha, is the president answering any of the questions, any of the criticism about the country's lack of action?

ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Christi. Hi there, Victor.

That's what is truly baffling in all of this, that some 276 girls as we're told that number which fluctuated in the days since they were abducted, 276 girls were abducted and we have not had any significant statement from the president of Niger. There has been no on camera statement and to the best of our knowledge no visit on the part of the president to the area where these abductions happened and no significant paper statement put out. There has been, for all intents and purpose, radio silence.

The people on the ground in Nigeria are outraged. They are outraged that they could be in the midst of this tragedy that has struck at the collective heart of this country and their president has been largely silent.

You know, a lot of people have said to me, you know, President Obama of the United States, you know, something like Boston happens and he's immediately on screen. He's making his way to the area of the tragedy. He is there with his people visibly suffering with them.

That has not been the case here in Nigeria and we have had little or no details about the operations or what effort is under way to secure the release of these girls -- Victor, Christi. PAUL: We're just feeling for those families.

Isha Sesay from Lagos, Nigeria, thank you so much.

BLACKWELL: Unimaginable.

Hey, after a weekend of the deadly clashes in eastern Ukraine the country may be one step closer to civil war. This morning, Russia is blaming the government in Kiev for targeting the pro-Russian separatists.

PAUL: Let's bring in "STATE OF THE UNION" host Candy Crowley in Washington.

So, Candy, I bet a lot of people are watching this wondering -- is this playing into Putin's hand? I mean, does escalating violence give him the excuse he needs to invade Ukraine?

CANDY CROWLEY, STATE OF THE UNIO HOST: It certainly is the thought of a growing number of analysts and also some within the U.S. government that the fact that the violence has increased and the fact that you're hearing those in the Russian government saying gosh, we're getting an awful lot of calls for help from inside eastern Ukraine, that this is the excuse, this increased violence that Putin feels that he needs to go in there, not that he needs an excuse in Crimea. Nonetheless, there's also the thought that he really doesn't want to go this far.

So you can find both viewpoints in Washington right now. Number one, that he would prefer to just foment unrest inside Ukraine without sending Russian troops over and those who think that he's fomenting it simply so he can move Russian troops in.

BLACKWELL: All right. Candy, thank you very much. I understand you have U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Jeffrey Pyatt, on show today. You can catch that interview on "STATE OF THE UNION" at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Candy, thanks.

PAUL: OK. So as we switch gears here, comedian Joel McHale did he take jabs at President Obama last night.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it indeed. But as it turns out, no one was safe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCHALE: Between Rob Ford, Justin Bieber and Ted Cruz, you just want to tell Canada, hey, hey, relax, we already have a Florida.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: The zingers kept coming and we've got more for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PAUL: We've got one last laugh for you from last night's White House Correspondents Dinner.

BLACKWELL: Comedian Joel McHale taking aim at President Obama.

(BEGI VIDEO CLIP)

MCHALE: Good evening, Mr. President. Or as Paul Ryan refers to you, yet another inner city minority relying on the federal government to feed and house your family. It's good to see that White House press secretary and boy detective Jay Carney is here. It's a big night for Jay. I haven't seen him this nervous since the president told him, "Look, just go out there and tell them the Web site's broken. They'll understand."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: We are so glad that you spent some time with us this morning, made some great memories today.

BLACKWELL: Always a pleasure to be with you.

"INSIDE POLITICS WITH JOHN KING" stars right now.