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At This Hour

White House Hosts Maker Faire; Honduras Wants U.S. to Keep the Children; Patent Office Kills Redskins Trademarks; Woman Selfies Her Stroke; Petition for Beyonce to Comb Her Child's Hair

Aired June 18, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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


MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Do you know how to make something from scratch and I'm not meaning that wonderful strawberry rhubarb pie recipe that you keep threatening to --

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I did not make it. My wife made that. No. I can make almost nothing.

PEREIRA: You mean nothing? Nothing?

BERMAN: Almost nothing.

PEREIRA: A mess even?

BERMAN: I can make a mess. That's it.

PEREIRA: We know that the White House is working to get you to make something. Right now, President Obama hosting the first ever Maker Faire, celebrating innovators.

BERMAN: You are looking right now at live pictures from the White House. The president is calling today the Day of Making. The point is to encourage students and entrepreneurs to make things using cutting-edge tool. The president wants to fuel a renaissance, he says, in American manufacturing. The real problem, obviously, when so many products are made overseas and it goes hand in hand with his push for students to focus on the so-called STEM skills, science, technology, engineering and math, so they're calling it today the Maker's Faire.

I think it's a wonderful concept. I think it could use a better name.

PEREIRA: The Maker's Faire I like.

BERMAN: It sounds like Maker's Mark.

PEREIRA: Which I know you were going to go.

BERMAN: It does. I'm just saying.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Great concept. Needed a new name.

AT THIS HOUR, a crisis at the U.S. border, the Obama administration calls it an urgent humanitarian situation. I think that's an understatement. Thousands of children coming into the country illegally and coming in alone. Many of them escaping violence in Honduras, Guatemala El Salvador. This influx so intense it is overwhelming U.S. Border officials.

PEREIRA: And now one country is essentially saying keep them. The Honduran Foreign Ministry is asking the U.S. to stop sending the children back to Honduras.

CNN.com commentator Ruben Navarrette has written quite a fiery article about this for the "Daily Beast". You don't hold back at all.

Really good to have you with us, Ruben. You're likening the conditions that these kids are being kept in right now, you're liking it to government sponsored child abuse.

RUBEN NAVARRETTE, CNN.COM COMMENTATOR: Right. It's a fact -- thanks for having me. It's a fact that the kids are being treated in some of these government facilities worst than we treat terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay. That many of these kids, in this circumstance, you have 30 to 40 kids to a cell, a holding cell, one or two toilets. They are not being given their medicine, their prescribed medicine. The food is sparse. There's no places to sleep.

They are just being warehoused basically, in military bases and these government detention facilities with no regard for these kids and some of them as young as 5 or 6 year olds. It's just intolerable this is happening on our time in our name by our government.

BERMAN: There are so many issues at play and there are so many different interested parties here, Ruben. Now obviously there is the conditions the kids are being kept in and I think everyone cares. I would like to think everyone cares about children.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Your heart goes out to these children.

NAVARRETTE: Right.

BERMAN: There's also the policy, you know, how will you keep this from happening and now that's exacerbated by this just bizarre statement to me from Honduras, which is essentially saying, you know, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

NAVARRETTE: Right. Well, Honduras, from their point of view, they said, listen, we have a war here, a gang war going on, many kids have already died, been recruited by these violent gangs into criminal activity. Many of the kids who fled were threatened and they're refugees, they're not immigrants by all definitions of refugees. You know, you don't have to be just a Cuban immigrant floating on a raft to Miami to be considered a refugee. These kids are refugees.

And the Honduran government is saying basically for one reason or another, if you send them back, it could mean certain death in some of these cases so by all means keep them. PEREIRA: I'm curious what your assessment is. This is not a new

problem. This has been going on for a while now. We know Rick Perry alerted national authorities to this some two years ago. Why do you think now it's getting this kind of national attention?

NAVARRETTE: Well, it's a good point. You've had -- it's getting national attention because it's about children, it's about the numbers, 47,000 -- that part is new. 47,000 in eight months. More coming all the time, a thousand a day. Ironically Barack Obama has been deporting up to now a thousand illegal immigrants every day, now a thousand more are coming in every day. So you have the magnitude clearly. The fact that they are children.

This is a country, don't forget, our country, a great and compassionate country, we pass laws to protect kids from fatty foods and sugary drinks. You know, and car seats in the back and let's -- you know, they're afraid of peanut butter. We take care of kids in this country. And so the very fact that these kids are being treated this way has gotten the attention of so much media. Clearly it's been driving the story.

But to your point, it's always been the case that you've had poverty and gang violence in Central America, the spark, my understanding is, and this has not been reported widely enough. The spark the began this was a very creative effort by the drug and human trafficking cartels in these countries to generate all of this business, 47,000 kids paying $8,000 a head to come to the United States because they were told in the home countries if they got there -- got here, they could stay, so it's really been a froth perpetuated on these people. And guess who made a lot of money, the cartels.

BERMAN: Well, that's depressing. That someone is making money off of this awful crisis.

Ruben, obviously this has already become such a political issue. Hillary Clinton asked about this last night in the CNN town hall. Let's listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: But we have to send a clear message. Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn't mean the child gets to stay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, you know, she flat-out says it. They have to go back. What do you think of that?

NAVARRETTE: Yes. It's not a good answer. It's not -- it's a dumb answer because it's too simple. You have 47,000 kids. Some of them should go back and some should stay. How do you decide who goes and who stays? And if in fact they are refugees, and they come here, and the legal definition of refugees, the fact that a Yale educated lawyer like Mrs. Clinton has to be reminded, you know, that in fact somebody has to have a hearing to see who should be allowed to stay or not, this was a ridiculously simple answer to a very complicated question.

It tells me that Hillary Clinton is going to find the immigration issue to be very challenging if she runs for president.

PEREIRA: Ruben Navarrette, we'd love to have you back. Maybe we can talk about maybe some potential solutions because to me there is no easy fix as you said. This is not an easy scenario to work out.

NAVARRETTE: Right.

PEREIRA: A lot of these kids are being dumped into the foster care system that is already struggling to keep up with the number of kids that we have here in the States. It is what we would call a hot mess. So we'll keep an eye on this one.

Thank you, Ruben.

BERMAN: Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR, the Redskins icon, the Redskins name, the Redskins in general. The U.S. Patent Office now said they will lose their trademark. So does this mean the end of this franchise as we know it? That's when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Some news breaking today and a big blow to the Washington Redskins. The U.S. Patent Office has cancelled the football team's trademarks. It says the name Redskins is offensive to Native Americans.

BERMAN: Now this all sounds technical. The board says it lacks the authority to prevent the team from continuing to use the trademarks. This all comes after Native Americans launched an anti-Redskins campaign or anti-name Redskins campaign.

Joining us to really unpack this is sports and entertainment attorney Domenic Romano.

As I said, Domenic, you know, this all sounds so technical. I'm not an attorney. Thank goodness you are. It seems to me if a team loses, you know, exclusivity over its trademark, it loses potentially a lot of money which means that it's very unlikely the team would let this stick.

DOMENIC ROMANO, SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT ATTORNEY: Right. Well, the thing to know about trademarks and trademark protection at law is there are different ways to protect your trademark. This federal registration which is what the Patent and Trademark Office canceled that's a national registration which gives you the most protection as a trademark holder.

But there are also common laws rights which are established through case law and state registration systems. So just because they've lost the federal mark doesn't mean they continue to hold rights at the state, they don't continue to hold rights at state and common law level.

PEREIRA: But we got a few states in this country that could really seem messy to me. I'm just again speaking like a non-lawyer.

ROMANO: Right.

PEREIRA: How -- that leaves a lot of doors open for vulnerability, you know?

ROMANO: And they may follow the lead of the Federal Trademark Office. The Patent and Trademark Office.

PEREIRA: Is this going to then put enough pressure on the team, on the NFL, to listen to the groundswell of support they're getting to change this name?

ROMANO: Great question. It puts financial pressure because it limits the power to enforce that trademark. Without federal registration there are certain rights that they won't have and so it would be more difficult to police and enforce those trademarks, so as an economic calculation, this might be one step closer to finally changing that name.

BERMAN: You know, and obviously there will be the publicity, there'll be the PR factor now which they'll have to deal, they've already been dealing with. They'll have to deal with it even more. We haven't heard directly yet from the Redskins or the NFL. I would imagine they will appeal. So I imagine this would not be a done deal for some time. But let's say it is a done deal, to get back to this complicated legal mess between national and state, it will cost them money and there's no business that wants to forfeit money.

ROMANO: Exactly. I think this is a blow. It's an economic blow if it stands. They did appeal before because it was a technicality in the previous decision. It's not clear whether they can beat this back this time.

PEREIRA: Wasn't the technicality something about the plaintiffs being too old? Help me understand that.

ROMANO: Yes. It was something that the plaintiffs corrected. But suffice to say that this decision now is going to be much more difficult to appeal and not only that, I mean, look at the reasoning behind this. They said that the name has a likelihood to bring a certain sector of the population. It's to disrepute, to disparage.

PEREIRA: Sure.

ROMANO: To -- so in other words, the finding, I think, sends a message to the NFL and the team owner who said explicitly in a newspaper interview a year ago that he will not change the name of the team. And he said you could print that in capital letters. This is additional pressure.

BERMAN: Do you think the players will ever stand up and say something?

ROMANO: One would hope that at certain point the players would. PEREIRA: Well, they're also talking about the difference between -- I

know the NFL and the NBA are very different. You have a new commissioner in the NBA, he made a very quick statement. We had you here talking about Donald Sterling, very quick and decisive, and heavy -- not heavy handed but perfectly tuned reaction to the Donald Sterling case.

ROMANO: Very strong stand.

PEREIRA: Very strong stand. Yet here I don't feel Roger Goodell is at all weak as a commissioner, but why hasn't he made more of a statement here? I was asking even you because I know you're a big NFL fan, too.

BERMAN: Yes. He sort of dodged the question. He was asked directly by our reporter once. Would you call a Native American a Redskin to his or her face?

PEREIRA: Which you would have.

ROMANO: You know, the argument to keep the name is tradition. That's basically the only argument. 1933. But so what, so many things have occurred that are offensive.

PEREIRA: We have evolved past then, did we not?

ROMANO: Exactly. Why should tradition be a reason to keep something up that according to the court decision offends 30 percent, at least 30 percent of the Native American population?

BERMAN: So yes or no, possibly beginning of the end today, you think?

ROMANO: Absolutely the beginning of the end.

PEREIRA: We should point out that we've actually reached out to the NFL and to the Redskins. CNN is waiting to hear back from you so we are trying to hear what they have to say about the matter.

Domenic, always great to have you. Excellent tie by the way.

ROMANO: Thank you. Great to be here. Thank you.

BERMAN: Thanks so much. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Ahead for us AT THIS HOUR a woman records a selfie while she's having a stroke. So you don't hear that every day. Why did she do this? Because doctors didn't believe her the first time.

PEREIRA: We should let you know, she's OK. She's under a doctor's care. We'll talk more about that coming up.

Also Beyonce's little daughter, Blue Ivy, isn't she cute? She's only 2 years old. How is it that this child's hair is already the topic of controversy? My, my, my. We'll look into it. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: So imagine this, you think you're having a stroke, but no one believes you. That's what happened to one woman.

PEREIRA: Yes, the 49-year-old Canadian woman, she's from outside Toronto, she felt the left side of her body go numb. She says her face tingled and then froze. However, tests showed nothing was wrong. And her doctor said she should just really learn to manage her stress better.

Imagine. Well then it happened again while she was in her car, pulled out her phone and recorded it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACEY YEPES, STROKE PATIENT: It was like -- and sensation is happening again. Just smile they said. Smile. It's all tingling on the left side. On the left side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Bless her heart. This is such a terrifying moment. I can't even imagine how she's feeling.

Elizabeth Cohen joins us, our senior medical correspondent.

I have to tell you it's so frightening to imagine that she doesn't feel that she's being heard and she's probably afraid and she's concerned because something is not right. Talk about being empowered, taking a video selfie.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It was so smart of her. And she is such an empowered patient. I don't even really know her and I'm proud of her. But I did actually speak to Stacey earlier today. And so these were transient attacks, meaning that they happened and then they went away, they happened and then they went away. And she actually left that first ER, Michaela, where they told her, you know, kind of patted her on the head and said manage your stress better. She had another one in the parking lot.

PEREIRA: My goodness.

COHEN: And she didn't go back in because she's like they're not listening to me. So she got smart and she whipped out her phone and recorded it.

PEREIRA: I know. It's upsetting, isn't it?

BERMAN: Crazy thing. That's crazy.

PEREIRA: It really is.

BERMAN: So, Elizabeth, you know, what do you look for? Where do you go beyond being just, you know, concerned that something is not right to thinking you might have a stroke? COHEN: Right. And that's what's so disturbing about this is that

when she went to the ER and described her symptoms, it seems like it was so obviously this -- one of these mini strokes. And so this is what you want to look for. They've actually come up with an acronym called FACE. And so the first thing is face. If you're smiling, and she made reference to that, and one side is drooping, get yourself to a hospital or call 911.

And then the A for FACE is about your arm. If your arm is drooping to one side or sort of drifting downward rather, that's another time that you should be looking for. Speech, if your speech is slurred or strange, and then time, time is of the essence if any one of these things is happening to you. Because you know what, they can really help you. I mean, what they have in ERs these days, it's amazing what they can do to help you.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: If you don't get there in time, it's not going to work. I'm sorry, Michaela.

PEREIRA: A friend of mine's father is an exact example of that. And I'm pleased to be able to say that. Look, this is a real concern if you can tell us quickly. We live in the age of the Internet. We're all Googling symptoms we find and we got to WebMD or what have you online and then self-diagnose. That worries doctors. But at the same time on the other side, how do we get our docs to hear us in a situation like this? That's such a real issue.

COHEN: You know, I think you're right, a lot of doctors pooh-pooh the Internet. But I'll tell you one thing my family did. Our youngest daughter, she was snoring. And we talked to the pediatrician and he said is it loud, is it soft, is she gasping for breath, and my husband and I said, you know what, a video is going to be worth at least a thousand words. And we videotaped while she was sleeping. And we showed it to him.

And he's like, this is great, now I can see it. I don't have to rely on your description. So that's a good use of technology and of being an empowered patient. Use technology to help your doctor help you.

PEREIRA: Yes. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks for that. That was the thing. That was really something to see. Frightening. But we're also glad to report that she's under the care of doctors and they're getting her the help she needs.

COHEN: Yes. She's doing great. She's doing great.

PEREIRA: That's good to know. Right on, Elizabeth. Thanks so much.

Another break here ahead. We're going to talk about Beyonce's daughter's hair. Why are we talking about it? Well, there's some controversy. There's a firestorm of outrage about how that child's hair is styled. We'll talk about this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PEREIRA: When a little one like a kid, 2, they're always adorable. Right?

BERMAN: Absolutely not.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: The most important -- you're a father of 2. They're 7 now. But what's most important obviously is that they're happy and healthy. Right? But a petition on change.org says Beyonce and Jay-Z's daughter little Blue Ivy is not looking quite so cute because her hair isn't done.

BERMAN: And of course, this petition, they're blaming the parents, asking them to comb her hair. The petition has now received more than 5,000 signatures. It is also received, I would say, much more outrage.

Here is Whoopi Goldberg's take on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": Do you know Blue Ivy's hair? Have you combed Blue Ivy's --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she is a hair care person.

GOLDBERG: It doesn't matter. She doesn't know her hair texture unless she's felt it. She doesn't know what Blue Ivy's hair is. My daughter had the worst hair, the worst. You come at her with a brush, you know.

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: You know what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some kids have sensitivities. You know, don't touch my head.

GOLDBERG: Unless you want or brush a mile in their shoes, you might want to back the hell off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: You heard Whoopi right there. Let's bring in Yesha Callahan, she's staff writer and editor for "The Root." And you wrote quite an article about this.

It's so interesting, Yesha. I got so upset reading this. Because this is a 2-year-old child. Why do people think that they can talk about somebody's child for goodness sake?

YESHA CALLAHAN, STAFF WRITER/EDITOR, THE ROOT: Yes. It kind of put me off a bit. There should be certain things that are, you know, off limits. And I think talking about someone's child is one of them. Especially if it's something, you know, that you have no control over. You can't control what Beyonce does to her daughter's hair. And she's 2.

BERMAN: You know, I'm of the mind you can probably find 5,000 idiots to sign a petition on anything. And I think this is symbolic of the fact, you know, this probably explains why our economic recovery is not stronger because these people aren't using the time with something productive like rearranging their stock drawers or deleting e-mails.

CALLAHAN: Exactly.

BERMAN: It does, however, highlight what I do think is a very interesting discussion. And you write about this, Ayesha. About the discussion about African-American, just the African-American women and their hair. And it's an issue, I got to say, a lot of white people like me, we don't think about this a lot.

PEREIRA: You don't think about this at all?

BERMAN: We don't think about it a lot, but it's very interesting. And it's -- you know, it's a deep discussion.

CALLAHAN: I mean, it's hair politics of course. And I would say also hair politics and respectability politics. You know, women, they take pride in their hair. But, you know, if you're an adult and you want to take pride in your hair, that's fine, but she's 2. I mean, a 2- year-old has nothing to do with how their hair is styled. And who's to say that Beyonce didn't do her daughter's hair that day. And she happened to be playing in it or she was napping or you know maybe she didn't feel like doing her child's hair.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: The other aspect of it, Ayesha, that I find that is an interesting notion is that somehow people are putting adult beauty standards on a child. And that -- look, the same people that would be complaining about this or at least another equal amount of people would be complaining if that child's hair, if she had a weave or if she had pressed her hair.

CALLAHAN: Exactly.

PEREIRA: Or if they had given her a faux hawk for goodness sakes.

CALLAHAN: Exactly. If she had a relaxer, they'd be complaining about that. They'd be complaining that, you know, relaxers are bad. If she had a bunch of beads in her hair, they'll be complaining, oh, beads can make your hair fall out. So, you know, she -- basically if she does her hair, she's going to get complaints. If she doesn't do her child's hair, you know, people will have something to say also.

BERMAN: Again, I think this is ridiculous and offensive to say the least. At what point do Beyonce and Jay-Z, you know, need to take -- there's a lot of Instagram pictures of Blue Ivy.

PEREIRA: Never showing her face.

BERMAN: Not even showing her face but a lot of pictures on Blue Ivy. You know, it is -- could they do more to keep her out of the spotlight?

CALLAHAN: You know, they don't show Blue Ivy often. You know -- you know, every once in a while you see her. Like I saw a picture of her yesterday and she had a little bun in her hair. Her hair was done. I mean, according to their standards that was done. But you know they have tried to shield her from the media. But, you know, people are ruthless. I mean, there's paparazzi everywhere.

PEREIRA: Ayesha, look, I'll tell you, I've had my own share of hair woes.

CALLAHAN: I just got mine done yesterday.

PEREIRA: OK. Girl, we can sit here and talk about the show, AT THIS HOUR, after the show.

Ayesha, thanks so much for joining us. I'm sure this is something we'll hear about a little bit more.

CALLAHAN: Thank you for having me.

PEREIRA: We women and our hair.

Thanks so much for joining us AT THIS HOUR. We're not done yet. You can join us after this hour. Cocktails will not be served sadly, John. Log on to your computers because we're about to give you a bit of Facebook exclusive with Mr. Ian Ziering.

BERMAN: Yes. Seriously, folks, Ian Ziering. You know him from "Beverly Hills 90210." You loved him in "Sharknado." And you may have seen a few peeks of him -

PEREIRA: What?

BERMAN: As the guest host of Chip and Dales. Right now you're going to see it on FaceBook. While you're on our FaceBook page, like it too.

PEREIRA: "LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.