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Patient Battling Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis; Liberals Making a Comeback; Interview with Jimmie Walker; American Pharaoh Worth $50 Million After Triple Crown Win; Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired June 09, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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


[10:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The TSA is facing renewed scrutiny this morning from lawmakers.

These are live pictures from Capitol Hill where the Senate Homeland Security Committee is holding a hearing on the agency and its security challenges. It comes after a shocking report showed the screening process for airport workers failed to identify some 73 workers with links to terrorism. That's on top of a separate report that showed Homeland Security officials were able to get banned items through security checks a whopping 95 percent of the time.

We'll keep you posted.

Right now health officials are scrambling to try to track down people who may have had contact with a woman infected with a rare and potentially deadly form of tuberculosis. Officials say the patient now being treated in Maryland traveled from India to the United States back in April.

Here's what's so troubling. This particular strain of TB is a drug- resistant form of the infection.

So let's bring in CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Good morning, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So this woman is now in isolation?

GUPTA: She's in isolation at the National Institutes of Health. So as you pointed out, this has been ongoing for a couple of months now. She did fly into Chicago but then traveled around as well we know to Missouri and Tennessee. It sounds like at some point, you know, went to see the doctor, got this diagnosis, and then was taken by special ground and air transport to the NIH because of the level of concern.

You mentioned it, Carol. This is a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis something known as an extensively drug resistant. There's moderately drug resistant and extensively drug resistant. What that basically means is that the four first line drugs that are typically used to treat tuberculosis will not work in her case, do not seem to work in her case so they're going to need to find other drugs that will possibly be of benefit to her. And that's what's ongoing right now -- Carol.

[10:35:07] COSTELLO: So they're trying to track down everyone she came into contact with which seems impossible.

GUPTA: It's a real -- we know we've seen this before with other types of infectious diseases, even with Ebola most recently, Carol. It's challenging. First of all, the flight, right? 15-hour flight, India to Chicago. We know that airplanes as a general rule aren't great places for infectious diseases to spread because they're well ventilated. TB does spread in crowded places that are not well ventilated, but that flight, that air flight is going to be the first place they start to check within a few rows of where she was sitting.

And then they're going to look in all the other places that she spent time and how much time did she spend with certain people. It takes prolonged contact. While it spreads through the air, not just a quick sort of transmission. You need a lot of contact with the person over many, many hours, many days even. So who were those people? Do they need to be tested? That's what they're doing. That's part of the investigation.

COSTELLO: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, many thanks. I appreciate it.

GUPTA: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a new poll has some great news for, oh, Bernie Sanders? Perhaps Hillary Clinton? But it could also mean big trouble for presidential candidates who say they're conservative. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:50] COSTELLO: Perhaps we should not be so surprised Caitlyn Jenner is such a hit on the cover of "Vanity Fair." Americans, as in registered voters, are increasingly open to gay rights, to legal pot, and even to avowed socialist candidate Bernie Sanders.

According to an analysis of a "Wall Street Journal"/NBC poll of polls, 26 percent of registered voters now say they're liberal. That's up 3 percentage points from just a year ago. At the same time the number of people who call themselves conservative dropped four points to 33 percent.

No wonder Bernie Sanders scored a strong second place finish in Wisconsin in a straw poll there. He got 41 percent of the vote.

So let's talk about the ramifications. With me now SE Cupp, conservative columnist, and Hilary Rosen, Democratic strategist.

Welcome to both of you.

HILARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Thank you.

SE CUP, CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. SE, let me regale you with another stat and then I'll ask you about it. This is another poll analysis by Gallup. It says 31 percent of adults in a May 6th through 10th poll identified themselves as liberal on social issues, the largest share since Gallup started asking the question in 1999, and the first time social liberals matched the share who said they were socially conservative. What do you make of that, SE?

CUPP: Yes. I think this is really focused on a single issue. I think the movement on gay marriage has done more for social liberals than any other policy or issue in the past 40 years. I mean, even the abortion issue 20 years ago didn't have this kind of impact on moving the country's -- political mood as gay marriage has. And so I think while conservative policies are still obviously, you know, popular and there are more Republicans in state houses than ever before and people somehow still vote for Republicans, I think gay marriage has absolutely been a single issue mind-changer for a lot of especially young people and people in cities in this country.

COSTELLO: It's interesting you say that.

CUPP: Yes.

COSTELLO: Hilary, the most dramatic swing to the far left, women, 18 to 49. Surprised?

ROSEN: I was going to say exactly the same thing that SE said, which is that gay marriage has become sort of this touch stone for what socially liberal means. I do think that a significant portion of the economic issues have affected people's perception of whether they're liberal or conservative or not. So look at things like health care where, you know, 16 million more people have health care today.

Look at issues like regulations on the bank, how the rich have gotten richer whereas the middle class have been more stagnant. I do think that those issues have had an impact on people's willingness to sort of label themselves as being -- for a little more activism in government, that it used to be that the conservative -- you know, dominated was like get government away from us.

You know, liberals are more like, you know, we need some help from government on some of those issues so I --

CUPP: Well, I don't know --

ROSEN: I think that there is that a bit of a shift.

CUPP: I don't know, Hilary.

ROSEN: Particularly with young people and women where they still believe that government can have an impact.

CUPP: No, I don't think so.

COSTELLO: SE? CUPP: If you look at -- if you look at other polling that talks about

how happy people are with the direction of the country, most people are not. Most people want less government, not more. Most people have lost trust in the government and have lost trust in their elected officials.

(CROSSTALK)

ROSEN: But not that population.

CUPP: So I don't know that you can tie economic policy to this kind of polling. I think this really is about social issues and it should be a wake-up call for Republicans. When I talk to Republicans in my party, I don't tell them we must embrace gay marriage tomorrow. But I do say this is an issue of what I call math and manners. Math, majority of the country is now increasingly supportive on this issue.

Manners, there are conservatives like me who support gay marriage and gay conservatives and the party needs to start being more welcoming of our kind of people because we are only going to grow in numbers.

ROSEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: Well, you heard Senator Lindsey Graham the other day, right, Hilary? He was receptive of gay marriage. He said he's a traditional family guy but, you know, he understands -- he understands Caitlyn Jenner's pain, he said, and that was a change in tone.

[10:45:08] ROSEN: Yes. And, you know, the first poll didn't distinguish between social issues and fiscal issues, so let's be clear that I believe there's a merging of the two in large part, but, you know, again we're still talking about 35 percent of the country. We're not talking about a majority yet on either side.

I think that gay marriage as a touchstone issue has brought, you know, conservative families together, brought liberal families together. The fact that any parent can have a gay child, that any child can have a gay parent has really changed that merged view about how people define, you know, their level of tolerance and inclusion.

COSTELLO: Right. Right. So, SE, how do you suppose this will affect the primaries, especially on the Democratic side?

CUPP: Yes, I think there's a real risk in Democrats reading too much into this. If you look back at 2014, in a state like Colorado, pretty firmly liberally entrenched, I think Mark Udall really misread sort of the mood of the country and thought this far-left message, this push to women was going to be enough to solidify his reelection and of course he was usurped by a younger less known conservative.

I think Wendy Davis in Texas thought she could bring her pro-choice mantra to Texas, a state where there's a majority Republican base and a lot of socially Hispanic -- socially conservative Hispanics. So there's I think a risk in Democrats reading too much into this and overselling, but it should be -- I mean, it should be slightly good news especially if you're on the pro-gay marriage side. I think you're going to be on the winning end of that issue when all of this is said and done.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Thanks to both of you, SE Cupp, Hilary Rosen, I appreciate it.

CUPP: Thanks.

COSTELLO: Checking some other top stories right now at 46 minutes past.

Apple unveiling its new OSX and IOS upgrades for the iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch. CEO Tim Cook calls the new software limitless. The tech giant also debuting its new subscription music service called Apple Music to compete with Spotify and Pandora. It will cost 10 bucks a month and launches June 30th in more than 100 countries.

South Korea grappling with an epidemic of MERS. Officials say there are 95 reported cases and seven deaths. Among the new cases, a teenager. Hong Kong recommending against unnecessary travel to South Korea.

Can King James pull off another miracle win? The Cleveland Cavaliers and its superstar James go for a win in game three of the NBA Finals tonight. The Cavs beat the Golden State Warriors in game two and are playing without two of their three best players who are injured, but with the king anything is possible. Tip-off tonight 9:00 Eastern.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the one and only Jimmy "JJ" Walker joins me next to talk '70s TV.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:52:12] COSTELLO: Remember the '70s? I do. The age of bell bottoms, shaggy hair, and disco. Whether you were alive or -- whether you were alive back then or not, you should check out CNN's new original series "THE SEVENTIES," looking at the influential decade of change in America. On Thursday, episode one looks at changes in the content and the characters America watched on television, shows like "Good Times." One of the first shows to star working class African- American family.

It also introduced the world to comedian Jimmy "JJ" Walker who rose to stardom with his catch phrase -- I'm not even going to try it. I'll let him do it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMIE "JJ" WALKER, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: She has a figure that makes the number eight look like the number one, and a smile that lights up the night and it all belongs to kid dy-no-mite.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Every time he would say that I would laugh. Jimmy Walker joins me now from Las Vegas. Welcome.

WALKER: Hi, how are you?

COSTELLO: I'm great. Do you ever get tired of talking of your catch phrase?

WALKER: Well, no. People -- you know, it's good that somebody likes something that you've done because it's enough things that people don't like about you, so if there's something that people like, I'm all for it.

COSTELLO: OK. Can you say it for me because I would really enjoy that.

WALKER: Oh, now, stop that, Carol.

COSTELLO: Come on.

WALKER: I'm expecting you a big-time journalist, an Emmy nominated person like yourself being the baddest lady in news, I know that you're better than that.

COSTELLO: I'm just a girl from northeast Ohio, so I love your catch phrase.

WALKER: Stop it. Stop that, young lady.

COSTELLO: OK. So I'm going to convince you at the end of this interview to do it.

OK. So I'll go to another question. What is the biggest impact you think that "Good Times" had on the country?

WALKER: I think that it showed the race situation, that people do work hard, that -- you know, and still that it doesn't always work out but you can still have a great family and you saw that like in a Baltimore thing with that young lady when she was chasing her son down when he was riding. That is a "Good Times" episode right there where that young lady was chasing her son down when he was out riding. And that's the kind of thing you will find.

Now, what you'll see nowadays is because the community did riot or protest our show, you will never see a working class family on TV again, not a black family, on ethnic family. Every black family now has to be upper middle class to middle class. You'll never see a poor black family again on TV, and we were the last ones, and then after that they came back with the antithesis of us which was "The Cosby Show" and now they have another takeoff of kind of "The Cosby Show" with "Blackish" but you're never going to see a poor black family again on TV because the community didn't like it.

[10:55:05] COSTELLO: Interesting. You also say that your act was considered too black when you started out. Explain that.

WALKER: Sometimes you can get a little dark. I mean, that can happen. I think we've gone back to it because stuff that they're doing now, the Cat Williams, the Michael Epps, the Samores, I was doing that kind of stuff back probably in the '60s, and the country was a little more homogenized then. They were more together in those days, so they said we don't want to see that. We want a little more integration.

Nowadays in comedy, especially in sitcoms, in standup, we are very segregated. We have black comedy. We have white comedy which should be the Jeff Fox worthy and those kind of guys. We have gay comedy, we have Spanish comedy, and I think that that's where we are now, very, very segregated. That's why when you're doing stories on places like Baltimore and Ferguson, a lot of white people are really stunned because they can't believe there's a problem, but they're not involved in the homogenization of the country.

We have un-homogenized ourselves, we have un-integrated ourselves, and that reflects in comedy. As we look at all the specials that are being done, there's Latino night, there's black night, there's gay comedy night. And you look at the Show Times, HBOs, that's what they have. So that has made us more segregated than anything.

COSTELLO: That's fascinating. I never thought of it that way but I think you're absolutely right. On the other hand --

WALKER: Well, if you look at -- go ahead.

COSTELLO: No, go ahead.

WALKER: No. If you look at the shows and you look at a Cat Williams who is a very fine comedian, but the majority of white people in your studio have no idea who Cat Williams is. A Jim Gaffigan, Jim Gaffigan, a majority of black people, they don't know who Jim Gaffigan is because they don't follow that.

When I was coming up, we had Allen King. Everybody knew who Allen King was. We had Flip Wilson. Everyone knew who Flip Wilson was. It was that kind of deal. Everything was done where you had to appeal to everybody. I was involved in that. That is no longer the case.

COSTELLO: And that's a sad thing. OK. So our time is nearly up. So will do you it for me? Will do you the dy-no-mite thing for me?

WALKER: Well, it goes -- dy-no-mite thing you can get in my wonderful book, "Dy-No-Mite: Good Times, Bad Times, Hard Times," available at all your local book stores. Pick it up right now. I would love to come back and talk to you guys more. I know you have big stories coming up, so thank you very much for having me on. I want to come back. I'm here and I'm available.

COSTELLO: All right. And you are dy-no-mite. Thank you, Jimmie Walker.

WALKER: Thank you, Carol. Love your show.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Thank you so much.

Don't miss Thursday's premiere of the CNN Original Series "THE SEVENTIES." We'll take a look back at the '70s TV. Thursday night 9:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

American Pharaoh's Triple Crown titles means big bucks for his owners. "Forbes" estimates the horse could be worth $50 million. But this isn't all about racing. He makes run in other ways, too. Yes, that way.

Jeanne Moos has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): American Pharaoh is definitely a ladies' man. When it comes to human ladies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unbelievably amazing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, baby. I cried, I was so excited.

MOOS: Hey, maybe the horse isn't the one who needs a cold bath but mares are what will excite the Triple Crown winner.

ELLIOTT WALDEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, WINSTAR FARMS: He is a really cool dude.

MOOS: Destined to become a stud, breeding four times a day and making $75,000 to $100,000 each time, his owner told ABC News.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So when you retire all you do is eat, play, and have sex. Still bad?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No. It could be worse.

DAN HARRIS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Sounds exhausting.

MOOS: Maybe to you, Dan, but the president of WinStar Farms says it comes natural to stallions. They enjoy it.

WALDEN: Every now and then you might have a horse say, hey, you know what, I'm kind of tired of this but very rarely.

MOOS (on camera): I have a headache.

(Voice-over): American Pharaoh's dad, Pioneer of the Nile, lives at WinStar Farm and his stud fee may double thanks to his offspring's Triple Crown success from $60,000 to perhaps $120,000 per session.

Some horses take just a minute or two, but Pioneer of the Nile takes his time. Twenty minutes to breed a mare.

WALDEN: He doesn't come in and want to get the job done right away. And courts his mares. Lick them on their flank, nicker at them a little bit.

MOOS: Even a Triple Crown winner shouldn't expect privacy. Around four handlers stand by during breeding, wearing helmets.

WALDEN: You can get bopped in the head.

MOOS (on camera): Do they actually wear flak jackets?

WALDEN: They do.

MOOS (voice-over): And don't expect them to put on any Barry White music.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Oh, Jeanne.

I'm Carol Costello. Thank you for joining me. "AT THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND BOLDUAN" starts now.

(END)