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Comedian Gives First Interview Since Crash; Supreme Court Rules on Facebook Posting and Abercrombie Case; Can Lindsey Graham Still Influence 2016?; Mortgage Rates Rising. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired June 01, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:29:50] TRACY MORGAN, COMEDIAN: The case is settled. But the pain is always going to be there for Jimmy Mac. You know, he was a close friend of mine, comrade in comedy. He was a loving man. He was a warm man. He was a good man. It's hurting me to see that he's gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I want to bring in "Entertainment Tonight" host and CNN contributor, Nischelle Turner. I'm just happy to see that he seems to be doing so well --

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Wow. Yes.

COSTELLO: -- because his injuries were so horrific.

TURNER: Yes, you know, one of the things that Matt Lauer was saying at first is, gosh, you're a sight for sore eyes. I thought the same thing. When we see him, we see him doing a live interview, we see him sitting down and talking to Matt because a lot of us didn't know if he would ever get back to this place.

I know some of his comedian friends and fellow folks in the industry when I would talk to them and ask them about him, they would simply say, you know, he's just taking it day by day.

Nobody really knew where Tracy Morgan would be. So we're about a year removed from this and we do see him. You know, he does have a way to go. You can tell that. I did feel like, you know, there was Tracy there, you know, that Tracy we love. I wanted a "hey chief" or something like that from him. But it was just really good to see him there and giving an interview this morning.

COSTELLO: And you saw how emotional he got when he mentioned his friend James McNair who was killed in the crash. He also thanked Walmart for stepping up and settling with McNair's family. What do you make of that?

TURNER: Well, I think that may have been part of the settlement, you know. I mean I do think that Walmart stepped up and did the right thing and did the thing that pretty they 0had to do and that was monetarily, you know, provide for these families. There's really no way to ever bring anyone back but you do have to do that. But you know, that could have been part of the settlement, you

know, for them to publicly say Walmart did the right thing, I mean because we've heard his attorney say it. We've heard Tracy say it over and over again since the settlement. So I did think that was very interesting -- Carol.

I also thought that one of the things that stood out to me was the fact that he said he went on YouTube and watched the crash and watched the funeral and I just thought, wow, he's literally trolling the Internet to see what happened because he didn't remember and he said he watched it over and over again. So that struck me.

I mean I think maybe accident victims have to do those sorts of things but that struck me to hear him say he watched it over and over again.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Nischelle Turner -- many thanks. I appreciate it.

TURNER: Absolutely -- Carol. Good to see you.

COSTELLO: Good to see you, too.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, he may be a long shot to become the next president of the United States but Lindsey Graham could still have a big impact on the 2016 race.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:37:12] COSTELLO: All right. Time to impart the breaking news, this out of the U.S. Supreme Court -- it's been busy today. There is some movement on a case that does not involve same-sex marriage but it does involve freedom of speech and Facebook and what exactly you can say on Facebook and, you know, not have that comment be termed a threat against a loved one, let's say.

Let's go to the U.S. Supreme Court and Pamela Brown, she has more on this. Good morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. This is significant because this is the first time the Supreme Court is ruling on social media and free speech and today it ruled that a Pennsylvania man wins, essentially his conviction overturned. He was convicted after saying several threatening seemingly violent messages on his Facebook page.

In one post he said targeting his estranged wife "One way to love you, a thousand ways to kill you". He also talked about dumping her body in a creek. He was convicted based under federal statute, the standard of how a reasonable person would perceive the threat.

Today the high court said that that's not enough. You cannot convict a person. That's not sufficient to convict a person based on how a reasonable person would perceive the threat and in this case, these Facebook messages. What the high court did today is send it back to the lower court and have them decide whether recklessness is enough or whether it should matter how the person making the violent statements, making the threats intended them to be perceived.

This is the narrowest possible win for Anthony Elonis (ph), he is the Pennsylvania man who was convicted. The high court is basically telling the lower court that it must revisit his case and decide what should happen from here. But a loss for the government and again it's a big deal because on one side of this you have domestic violence victims who were concerned that this is only going to cause more problems for them. That this basically gives a license for people to post violent messages online. And on the other hand on this debate you have parents who were concerned that their teenagers were going to be prosecuted for their posts on social media.

So again it's the first time the high court is taking up this issue of free speech and social media and it found that it's not enough to rule or to convict someone based on how a reasonable person would perceive a threat -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Pamela Brown, reporting live from the U.S. Supreme Court this morning.

In another high-profile decision, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Muslim woman who sued Abercrombie & Fitch after she says she was denied a job for wearing a head scarf. Joining me now to talk about that, Jonathan Turley, a law professor and Constitutional scholar at George Washington University.

Good morning -- Jonathan. What did the U.S. Supreme Court rule?

JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Well, this is a very important decision as is the Elonis decision in terms of a decision that can impact many people in the country. This one deals with what accommodation a business has to give to people's religious beliefs.

[10:39:59] You have an individual here who applied to Abercrombie who wears a head scarf out of her religious beliefs but did not, according to the company make clear that she would be required to wear the head scarf as part of her interview process. Abercrombie argued that they have to have knowledge of these religious conditions and that it didn't meet the standard in terms of Title 7 to be free of religious discrimination.

The court came down rather heavily, 8-1, saying you are imposing too high a standard. And that you are required to accommodate religious practices in that even though Abercrombie argued that it was applying a neutral policy to all of its employees, the court said that's not good enough. It's not enough to say that you're applying a neutral policy that impacts one religion or a couple of religions differently.

Now, how is this going to affect most people? It's going to have a big impact. It's telling businesses that they will need to accommodate even businesses like Abercrombie that argue they have a so-called Abercrombie look that they wanted their employees to assume this image of the Abercrombie customer. That's going to be more and more difficult to maintain in light of this decision. And then also as was stated earlier, this Elonis decision in

terms of the Facebook is enormously important to people because it deals with what can constitute a criminal threat and I cannot overstate how important that decision is. It was a narrow ruling by the court. But if the court had accepted the government's view, it would have led to a far greater criminalization of comments on the Internet.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Jonathan Turley, thanks so much -- Jonathan Turley, thanks so much your insight. I appreciate it.

I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:46:12] COSTELLO: Over his 23-year career in politics, Lindsey Graham has never lost a race. Today he's putting that record on the line as he unveils his 2016 presidential bid. These are live pictures from Central, South Carolina, Graham's hometown and the site of today's announcement.

That's where we find CNN chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash. Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning -- Carol. This is very much an announcement with a small town hometown feel. We just heard "The Star-Spangled Banner" from the band -- the high school where he went here in Central, South Carolina.

I'm going to toss it back to you as they do the pledge and you can ask me a question and hopefully they'll be done just out of respect when you're finished with the question.

COSTELLO: I understand. We'll step away. Thanks, Dana, very much. We'll get back to you.

All right. Let's step back.

So you say Senator Graham cannot win. So how much should we care? First of all, he most likely doesn't think he's a loser. Secondly, just because `Mr. Graham is not a front runner at the moment doesn't mean he doesn't have clout. As "The Wall Street Journal" says, "Graham could be a king maker."

With me now, Ron Christie, former special assistant to President George W. Bush and Tara Setmayer former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill and contributor to "The Blaze". Welcome to both of you.

RON CHRISTIE, FORMER SPECIAL ASST. TO GEORGE W. BUSH: Good morning.

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hi -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So Tara, Lindsey Graham is polling at 1 percent in the Quinnipiac

poll out just last week and 56 percent of all voters say they haven't heard enough about Graham to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion yet you say Graham can be a king maker. Tell me how?

SETMAYER: I think that his influence because he's the senior sitting senator in South Carolina, his impact on the race could be significant given that South Carolina is number four in the voting states. So we all know that a lot of the candidates, they go down to South Carolina because of it being the first primary in the south and he has the advantage of a 20-plus-year career in South Carolina.

He has his access to the major donors, the political consultants, the ground game. So this throws a little bit of a wrench into things for candidates like Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush who they kind of would pull from the same pool of individuals.

Now Lindsey Graham is in a position where he can monopolize all those. And he's also a hawk. He's running as a hawk -- that's really his biggest draw. I mean there's not exactly a groundswell of people who are coming out saying my goodness Lindsey Graham you must run for president. He's doing this because he's basically an extension of the failed policies of John McCain a lot of people would think. And he's running as a hawk.

COSTELLO: That's right.

SETMAYER: There are a lot of other people in this race running as a hawk, too.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I will say it will be interesting, Ron, because you know, there are many other candidates running as hawks. But Lindsey Graham knows how to turn a phrase, doesn't he, Ron?

CHRISTIE: He does. He's very good and very adept Carol at the one-line zinger if you will. And he has really honed his career not only just being in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives but a lot of people forget that he was a judge advocate general, a lawyer in the United States Air Force. So he knows how to argue on his feet. He's very, very quick. He's very smart.

And I think one of the things I would add to what Tara said a few moments ago is that being a sitting senator in South Carolina, a lot of the establishment folks who have been previously leading in polls -- your Scott Walkers, your Jeb Bushes -- you know what, if Lindsey Graham gets into this which he's doing right now, he can be the king maker. He could be the person that could derail a Jeb Bush. He could derail a Scott Walker or a Chris Christie and make it a lot more difficult for their path to the nomination.

Lindsey Graham also for being a hawk as we've heard on foreign policy, the 2016 election, Carol, I think is going to hinge a lot on foreign policy. He's been to Iraq. He's been to Afghanistan. He's been to the region. He knows foreign policy. And I think that gives him a strength that a lot of the other candidates may not possess.

[10:50:07] COSTELLO: Interesting. Ok, I want to take our viewers back to Central South Carolina because the prayer is now over and back to Dana Bash.

You know, it's interesting, Dana, he's been around a long time, Lindsey Graham. Yet, we don't know much about him personally.

BASH: That's right. He doesn't talk a lot about his past. And you know, look, a lot of politicians have humble roots and Lindsey Graham is one of them. You see behind me the stage set up.

The building there was a building that inside of which was a bar and a restaurant, a pool hall that his parents owned. His father did the bar. His mother worked on the grill. He and his sister and his parents lived for a long time in just one room. I was just walking through there. It's a very small room in the back of this restaurant.

That again is kind of a typical up from your boot straps kind of story. What's unfortunately not typical and tragic is that his parents died within 15 months of one another when Lindsey Graham was in college. His sister was just 13 years old. He had to really be a father figure to his sister. He actually eventually he adopted her in order for her to get military benefits.

Hard for him to talk about it. He is going to talk about it here and, in fact, his sister is going to introduce him. In doing so, one thing that he's going to say as it relates to policy is that unlike a lot of Republicans who perhaps don't understand the idea of government assistance, he's going to say he does because he was on it and he understands the necessity of keeping it solvent when especially you are talking about Medicare, about social security and also Medicaid. And that the idea of being able to reach across the aisle in order to make that happen.

That's a lot of what you'll hear in addition to what we were just talking about which of course is what he's known for being a hawk on the national stage and how much that very much differs from Rand Paul.

COSTELLO: Yes. And I was just going to toss that to Tara because you know August 16th is fast approaching. That's the date of the first debate. And only the top ten Republican candidates will get to be on that main stage. Lindsey Graham has a lot of ground to make up in a short period of time. Do you think he can do it?

SETMAYER: He does. And he has -- like I said, he has a lot of competition. He's polling less than 1 percent. That's not going to -- we're at number nine now of official candidates, there will be more candidates announcing between now and August that are polling better than he is and haven't even announced yet.

The rules here with that first debate you're going to see an intense effort for Lindsey Graham to get on as many news programs as possible. He already does that to get his name ID up. It's going to be a horse race. That's the challenge that the party has when you have this many candidates. He also is not ingratiated to conservative. He's considered a

traitor because of his position on immigration reform. He also, like I said he and John McCain, another person not popular with conservatives, who are important in these early primary states. Conservatives can make or break a candidate early on.

So there's going to be competition there for those votes and I don't see how Lindsey Graham breaks 5 percent between now and August. I really don't.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Although Ron, I will say, you know, Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul on the same stage would be really interesting and spicy.

CHRISTIE: It would be the fireworks display I think that a lot of viewers who aren't necessarily tuned into politics right now would really see and draw contrast from. If you look at Senator Graham, he thinks that we should have kept 10,000 troops in Iraq and, of course, Rand Paul says that we should be a lot more retrospect and we should not have those troops there.

They are almost a yin and a yang. I think they both need each other. I think they can both fund raise off of each other's presence in the race. So it will be very interesting to see eventually maybe this fall if we get the two of them on stage what fireworks might erupt.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: All right. Thanks for your insight. I have to leave it there. I have to leave it there.

Ron Christie, Dana Bash, Tara Setmayer -- many thanks.

[10:54:09] Still to come in the NEWSROOM, if you're shopping for a home, you may want to act fast before you miss the boat. There are signs mortgage rates are on the rise.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: If you're in the market for a new home, act now before you miss out. Mortgage rates are slowly but surely rising. CNN Money chief business correspondent Christine Romans -- really?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN MONEY CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they are moving up. They are still, you know, look -- they're still lower than they were last year. They are still below 4 percent. The most recent read is about 3.87 percent for a 30-year fixed -- Carol, a 3.11 for a 15-year.

Look, rents are rising. Mortgage rates are going to start to rise. When the Fed starts raising interest rates, they're going to keep rising even more. So this is the time to lock it in if you want to lock it in. If you want to lock in low mortgage rates and home prices that are still about 20 percent to 30 percent below the peak in a lot of cities. The combination pretty potent there for people who want to get in.

Look, rents are going to rise in a lot of the big cities over the next year. For the renter, this may be the time to take a good look at it. If you have money in the bank and a solid job --

COSTELLO: And a solid job. You know, I always listen to your advice because I refinanced a long time ago because you were hounding me and I appreciate that.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Christine Romans -- many thanks.

Thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

[11:00:00] "AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts now -- sorry Kate.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Hello everyone -- I'm John Berman.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Hello everyone -- I'm Kate Bolduan.