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Amtrak Service Resumes, Investigation Deepens; Hillary Clinton Back in Iowa; Did Louis C.K.'s Jokes Go Too Far?; Apple CEO Gives Commencement Address. Aired 10:30-11a ET
Aired May 18, 2015 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:29:45] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: So tell us the problems that Bostian was having on a previous train trip.
MICHAEL DALY, "THE DAILY BEAST": Well, I'm told by someone who swears that's the case and is in a position to know, that when he was -- prior to the deadly run-up, he made a southbound run from New York to Washington in an ACELA train. And I'm told that in the course of that trip, they had something called a cabin signal failure. Who would know what that is -- right?
We talked to an engineer. What a cabin signal failures means is that generally when they are barreling down the East Coast at 100 miles an hour and there are these track signals flashing by, there's hundreds of them, you know, telling you is it safe to proceed? You know, should you slow for a switch? Is there another train ahead? Things like that -- that there's a display in front of you that will -- kind of it's like your backup. If you missed one for a minute or you thought maybe it was that, it's right there in front of you.
If that goes out, it's called a cabin signal failure. You only have what you actually see and if you're distracted for a minute or if you think you missed something or there's no backup. And under railroad rules, if you have a failure like that before you leave the station, you're not even supposed to go. They treated that seriously.
When you do have it, you're supposed to slow way down to like 40 and call a dispatcher and the dispatcher then can give you the go ahead to proceed. But you go at a reduced speed and the engineer that I spoke to who has been through a cabin signal failure says it's just nerve-frazzling because you're going relatively --
COSTELLO: You're depending on yourself -- right. Depending completely on your self not to make a mistake --
Daly: Completely on yourself at 70 miles an hour with 200 people on the train and these things are flashing by. I mean think if you drive in a car.
COSTELLO: You say that Bostian was frazzled by this experience but yet he boarded the next train, the train that derailed.
DALY: Right. I'm told that the experience is frazzling. I can't testify that he was frazzled.
COSTELLO: Got you.
DALY: I'm told that experience is frazzling. And the other thing that happens is that there's this kind of diabolical math that engineer's face is that there's a nerve-racking delay that means that comes out of your break at the other end. So if this nerve-racking thing, this delayed the train by 26 minutes -- and that 26 minutes was not only an extra 26 minutes of having your nerves frazzled but it's 26 less minutes you have before you start heading up.
COSTELLO: So it is possible you say that he could have been fatigued by that horrible experience in the previous trip that he took and then he boarded this train that derailed and maybe exhaustion played a factor in what happened.
DALY: He could be. He says he wasn't fatigued. But I mean -- you can't -- you have to believe that an experience like that is not going to leave you at your peak.
And the other thing is you wonder is why aren't there two of them in the cabin?
COSTELLO: A lot of people wonder.
DALY: I mean, you know, that's really the question to get down to. The question of, you know, the rock hit the window, did that cause him to speed up. Was he exhausted going into it? Was it a bad train going down? You'd want two guys in there. I mean you know, co- pilot I think it's called, right?
COSTELLO: Yes. Well, I think that the worst part of this is that this engineer can't remember what happened.
DALY: If you had two guys, maybe you could. And if you had two guys, maybe it wouldn't have happened.
COSTELLO: Yes, maybe so.
Michael Daly -- thanks so much for stopping by. I appreciate it.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM: get ready, Iowa. Hillary Clinton is back courting voters in her second trip to the state since announcing her presidential bid. Will all that face time pay off? We'll talk about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:36:24] COSTELLO: The Presidential election is more than 500 days away but for Hillary Clinton the time is now to shore up support even as she holds large leads over most potential challengers. Clinton's summertime strategy, it's something not lost on the people at "Saturday Night Live".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How are you? Thank you so much. Thank you. May I have just a moment of your summer? Hello. I'm Hillary Clinton. I'm running for president of these United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not for a long time. Now it's summer vacation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My last vacation was in 1953. I played one round of hopscotch with a friend. I found it tedious. I mean why hop when you can march straight to the White House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Ok. Let's talk about this and more. Former communications director for Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and contributor to "The Blaze" Tara Setmayer is here, and the host of "Huff Post Live" Marc Lamont Hill also joins me. Welcome to both of you.
MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be here.
COSTELLO: I'm still laughing at that -- Marc. I can't help it.
HILL: That was good stuff. That was good stuff.
COSTELLO: It was. It was good stuff. It kind of like describes it most adequately -- right.
Ok. So in 2008, Clinton lost Iowa because voters there said they had trouble like warming up to Hillary Clinton so she's visiting Iowa a lot this time around and again she's talking about her Midwestern upbringing, her middle class sensibilities. So can we critique her strategy? We can critique her strategy -- actually Marc. Is it working?
HILL: I think it is working. I think there are some people on the right and some media folk who are saying she hasn't taken enough questions and I think Hillary Clinton needs to take some questions at some point. But I think she's trying to redress what happened in 2008. She wants to talk to actual voters. She wants people to see her human side. She wants to be as warm and fuzzy as humanly possible without coming across as fake. It's always a political tactic and calculus here but I think Hillary is doing the best she can given those sort of pressures that have been placed on her.
COSTELLO: It's just kind of odd to me -- Tara. You know, she's secretary of state. That actually should matter to voters. Instead she's saying, you know, I love being a grandma.
TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. Because Hillary Clinton is -- she's her own worst enemy and they know that. She's not her husband. She's not the complement politician, campaigner, retail politics, warm and fuzzy person that makes people go I really enjoy being around her and she makes me feel as though she's listening to me and I can relate.
That's not her strong point. Her strong point is that her last name is Clinton and that she has a husband that people adore.
HILL: Oh --
SETMAYER: Oh come on.
HILL: That's sexist.
SETMAYER: We all know it's true which is why they're so carefully managing her campaign.
HILL: That's absolutely sexist.
SETMAYER: Listen, why do you think she drove to Iowa in a Scooby-Doo van and they tried to make her go to Chipotle to look like a normal person? If you have to take that kind of -- make that kind of effort --
HILL: Look, she may have been hungry.
COSTELLO: All politicians do that though.
SETMAYER: Yes, but --
COSTELLO: Not just Hillary Clinton.
SETMAYER: But for her -- it's so much more of a challenge. And when you are making $25 million between you and your husband in the last year and a half on speeches, which just came out over the weekend, you're trying to say you're a champion of the middle class but yet you fly all over country and the world on private jets. And but I'm a champion of the middle class. That is something that's very difficult to convey to voters one-on-one particularly in a place like Iowa.
COSTELLO: That's true Marc. Nobody is challenging her -- right.
HILL: Well, first, people are challenging her. Bernie Sanders has made a really important point about -- Bernie Sanders has made a really important point this weekend about TPP and Hillary Clinton's need to speak out about it.
[10:40:04] We also expect Martin O'Malley to come out and really make a serious challenge in terms of executive experience. I think there are legitimate things that can be done on the left and the right to challenge Hillary Clinton as should happen on both sides of the aisle. I reject completely the idea that Hillary Clinton has nothing going for her but her last name and her husband. I think that's entirely sexist.
Now let me be clear --
SETMAYER: Is it? What has she accomplished -- Marc?
HILL: At what level?
SETMAYER: As secretary of state, what has she accomplished?
HILL: Opening up Myanmar, resetting Russia. SETMAYER: How did that work out?
HILL: Having some of the most important, I think, sanctions intensified on Iran that we've seen in decades. I think all of those things are things that secretary of state -- that this secretary of state has done that's been effective. Also in the senate she's authored -- co-authored dozens of bills and shown important legislation for no child left behind. The part that's actually good, which is not much, she had a significant part in authoring. She's done significant work around women's protection, around protection of children et cetera.
So to say that the secretary of state and former senator has nothing going for her but her last name to me reeks of sexism and to say that she can't champion the middle class because she's rich --
SETMAYER: I didn't say that.
HILL: Let me finish -- Hillary Clinton's policies toward the middle class are troublesome. I critique Hillary Clinton for that I haven't seen a presidential candidate yet that has chance of winning that also isn't rich. And so to point to Hillary Clinton's $25 million speech and not to intergenerational wealth of the Bushes or the fact that Mitt Romney who has more money than Hillary Clinton also has come out to say he's been trying to champion the middle class before when he was running and after he was running.
SETMAYER: But the difference is though that we don't use class warfare as a political tactic. We actually as Republicans and conservatives believe that if I don't have a problem with Hillary Clinton making money --
HILL: Right.
COSTELLO: Why did you bring it up?
SETMAYER: No, because --
HILL: You're the one who brought it up.
SETMAYER: -- turns around and they demonize just like Marc just did, they demonize wealth on the other side and how horrible the one percent is and --
HILL: I didn't demonize wealth. No, but I didn't do that. You're making things up. You're actually making things up.
SETMAYER: I'm not making things up Marc. You just said that. You feel people like Mitt Romney they can't champion the middle class --
HILL: I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Hold on, I didn't say that.
SETMAYER: I think that the narrative has been that. It's a double standard. HILL: Tara, I didn't say that. What I actually said was that if
we're going to critique Hillary Clinton for it, we would have to do the same for Mitt Romney. My point is no matter how much money you have, you actually can have supportive and effective public policy toward the poor. There have been people who have money and still have good public policy.
I never said what you just attached to me. I'm saying the opposite of what you attached to me. I'm not dissing Mitt Romney for being rich. I'm dissing Mitt Romney for having bad policy and I think Hillary Clinton has bad policies.
SETMAYER: Hillary Clinton obviously has difficulty conveying that message for a number of reasons. And she's never run anything. At least Mitt Romney had. But when you have 53 million women who are out of the workforce right now, record numbers of women out of the workforce, the economy is stagnant.
HILL: Are you serious?
SETMAYER: I don't know why Marc is laughing because that's --
HILL: Because -- it's been the biggest Republican canard ever. First of all --
SETMAYER: That's not a lie.
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: Those are real statistics.
HILL: It's not a statistic.
SETMAYER: Marc, you're arguing now with the Bureau of Labor Statistics labor rate about how many people are out of the workforce right now.
HILL: No. What I'm doing is -- no, what I'm doing is as a trained social scientist, I'm explaining to you that the way you're interpreting those statistics is completely wrong.
SETMAYER: Oh, don't insult me, Marc. That's actually sexist of you to sit there and say that. I don't understand. I can't interpret the numbers that come from our government that go out and say there are 53 million women who are out of the workforce. Don't insult me -- Marc.
HILL: All right. Let me respond. Let me respond. First of all, I'm not saying it because you're a woman. I'm saying it because you're wrong. There are many women and men who get this right. You just happen to be wrong. If you were a man --
SETMAYER: So 53 million women -- I'm wrong about that.
HILL: Let me --
COSTELLO: I have to stop this.
HILL: Can I just respond to this really quickly.
SETMAYER: This is what they do though.
HILL: Let me respond.
COSTELLO: Hold on.
HILL: Let me respond.
COSTELLO: You did call him a sexist so we'll let Marc respond.
HILL: To say that there are 53 million women out of work and that there 86 million Americans out of work and the fact there are only 353 million people in America, what actually is happening is that includes people who are 12 years old, who are going to school, people who are 15 years old, I don't know, who don't want a paper route. They include people who are 75 years old who have retired from work. That number aren't people who are trying to get a job and can't. That's why you just said labor participation. It is a slight of hand --
SETMAYER: You acknowledge that the unemployment rate isn't actually 5.4 percent either?
COSTELLO: I have to leave it there. I wish this could continue because I'm enjoying the show frankly. I have to end it here. Thanks to both of you.
HILL: All right.
COSTELLO: Marc Lamont Hill and Tara Setmayer -- thank you so much.
SETMAYER: Thank you.
COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM: social media goes wild after Louis CK's controversial SNL monologue. Did the edgy comedian go too far with jokes about race and child molestation?
[10:44:55] We'll talk about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Is there such a thing as a subject a comedian should never, never, ever joke about? Well, comedian Louis C.K. may be edgy and smart but social media erupted this weekend when he joked about child molestation and his mild racism in his nine-minute monologue on "Saturday Night Live". Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LOUIS C.K., COMEDIAN: I have mild racism. It's benign. It's not aggressive. It's not even negative racism. It's mild racism. I'll give you an example. If I go to a pizza place I've never
been to before and it's run by four black women. I'll go, huh? It's very mild. It's extremely mild racism.
When you consider the risk in being a child molester speaking not of even the damage you're doing but the risk, there's no worse life available to a human than being a caught child molester and yet they still do it which from you can only really surmise that it must be really good from their point of view. Not ours but from their point of view it must be amazing for them to risk so much. How do you think I feel? It's my last show probably.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[10:50:04] COSTELLO: See. I want to introduce my guests first before I go on.
Two comedians join me now: Dean Obeidallah and Chuck Nice. I'm glad you're here. I posted Louis C.K.'s bit on my Facebook page and people responded by saying "I laughed. Does that mean I'm a bad person?"
CHUCK NICE, COMEDIAN: No, it means you're probably smart enough to get the joke because it is indeed a joke. It really was not about pedophilia per se. It was about the sickness and the mindset of somebody who suffers the psychopathy of being a pedophile.
Listen to what he said. If you are hated, the worst of the worst of the worst but yet you are still compelled to do this, the joke, which everyone got upset about was, "it must be great". But that's a joke. If you look at the context --
COSTELLO: He compared it to eating a Mounds bar and how much he enjoyed a Mounds bar.
NICE: Right. Eating a Mounds bar and how much he enjoys Mounds bar.
DEAN OBEIDALLAH, POLITICAL COMEDIAN: But that's the comedy in it. And let's be honest in today's day and age, as comedians if you say anything about anything, you're going to outrage so many and they go on Twitter and the media and I do too when I write for "The Daily Beast", you find tweets look how outraged they are. What do you want comics to be? Just like Carrot Top who digs props out. and at some point Carrot Top will take a prop out that offends people.
NICE: Exactly.
COSTELLO: Yes. Sometimes it comes back to bite you and it seems insensitive after the fact. Listen to something Conan O'Brien said about Bruce Jenner and his slow transformation to becoming a woman. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, TALK SHOW HOST: Bruce Jenner is in talks to compete on "Dancing with the Stars". Producer said they'll assign Bruce Jenner a dance partner as soon as he assigns himself a gender.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Ok. So that may have been funny at the time but after Bruce Jenner's interview with Diane Sawyer, it's not so funny anymore.
NICE: Well, I mean listen -- you have to consider context. You also have to consider how good a joke is. That kind of isn't really that great of a joke. That was like very simple and elementary. You know what I mean like we'll assign you a partner once you assign a gender. It's a little -- what Louis C.K. did was a lot smarter.
OBEIDALLAH: True.
NICE: A lot more nuanced.
COSTELLO: Especially his jokes about race. I totally got that.
OBEIDALLAH: I think so often --
NICE: You're a racist.
COSTELLO: Exactly, I'm a mild racist.
NICE: See, that's called a joke.
OBEIDALLAH: Twitter just lit up. But Carol to me -- and I will say my own thing. I have Dean's doctoring which I'm just announcing now here for comedians.
If you are intentionally demonizing that's one thing. You deserve any pushback you get. If you're being playful -- and we know the difference, we are adults.
NICE: Everybody knows the difference. Everyone who's in with this faux outrage that explodes on Twitter on social media over things that are intentionally being funny. Louis was having fun with it. He was not endorsing molesting children.
NICE: No, he wasn't.
COSTELLO: Do you think he'll use that joke again?
OBEIDALLAH: Louis will.
NICE: Yes, he will. You know why? Because here is what people don't realize. We don't get up on National TV and do a joke for the first time. You're in the clubs for weeks doing that joke working it, massaging it. Then there was dress rehearsal and then there was another dress rehearsal right before that live broadcast. He did those jokes all those times. They worked. They worked. Otherwise they wouldn't have gone on the show.
OBEIDALLAH: True. And SNL -- I worked at SNL for eight years. When comics came on, when they were great comics -- they got to right their own monologue. That was Louis's standup. It's great, it's smart, it's. I'm glad it's pushing the envelope and challenging people. That's what we need to accomplish.
COSTELLO: I love Louis C.K. so much. It's hard for me to --
NICE: That's the other thing -- when you're a fan, you're more accepting. You love Louis C.K., that means you love pedophile.
OBEIDALLAH: Back to you.
COSTELLO: I'll admit to being a mild racist -- Chuck Nice, Dean Obeidallah Thanks so much. I appreciate it.
I'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:57:39] COSTELLO: Changing the world is probably not top of mind for recent grads now worrying about paying the bills but Apple CEO Tim Cook issuing that challenge to the class of 2015 at George Washington University saying don't just find a job, follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs and work to solve the world's problems.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM COOK, APPLE CEO: Graduates -- your values matter. They are your north star. And work takes on new meaning when you feel you're pointed in the right direction. Otherwise it's just a job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Otherwise it's just a job. Let's bring in Christine Romans. It was a pretty powerful commencement speech. And he probably connected -- right.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: He really did because millennials we know, they will take a lower pay job if they feel it gives them value. They don't want to work the drudgery. They kind of look at us, Carol, they look at Baby Boomers and Generation X, and they're like that's all there is? They don't want to do that.
It's so interesting because Tim Cook runs the world's most valuable company and he's quoting really an icon, Steve Jobs, who changed the way we live and do our jobs and he said that when he first met Steve Jobs he thought work was slow drudgery, that if you want to change the world you did it in your off hours. You went to work to work.
But he said that Steve Jobs convinced him that Apple changes the world and you want to work for a company that does that. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOK: You don't have to choose between doing good and doing well. It's a false choice today more than ever. Your challenge is to find work that pays the rent, puts food on the table, and lets you do what is right and good and just. The sidelines are not where you want to live your life. The world needs you in the arena. There are problems that need to be solved, injustices that need to be ended.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Carol, he got a big round of applause when he talked about the iPhone or the phone in your pocket. And he said look, everyone is a citizen journalist. People can take a picture of anything and that alone has changed the world -- big round of applause for that.
COSTELLO: And that's absolutely true.
Christine Romans -- many thanks to you.
Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.
"AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts now.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Nine dead, 170 arrested and now police tell CNN -
