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Wisconsin Businessman Aims to Unseat Ryan; London Mayor Rejects Trump's Offer; FaceBook Denies Censoring; North Korea's Secretive Congress; SNL on Trump. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired May 10, 2016 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00] CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: This is not all that unusual. I think what we're seeing here is this -- this love of going storm chasing. That's why we're seeing so many tornados. And we know that storm chasers can get in the way of these things because they can go left to right. They should follow the jet stream, but sometimes they turn. And I'll tell you what, there's so many people out there, sometimes it looks like a tornado chasing traffic jam. So please be careful. A weather radio in a car doesn't make you a storm chaser, so please let the professionals do it.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And you mentioned Lexington. That's my hometown. So I hope everyone is -- stays safe and, like you said, takes the necessary precautions.
Chad Myers, thank you so much.
MYERS: Very good. You're welcome.
Good morning. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Carol Costello. Thank you so much for being here with us on this Tuesday.
Well, Sarah Palin says Paul Ryan's time is limited as House speaker.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: His political career is over, but for a miracle, because he has so disrespected the will of the people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So is this the man to do it?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Speaker, you championed this trade deal. Why don't you come back to Wisconsin and debate me, man-to-man, face-to- face. And if you don't want to debate me, maybe we can arm wrestle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Businessman Paul Nehlen is Speaker Ryan's GOP challenger in Wisconsin and he joins me now on the phone.
Welcome, Paul.
PAUL NEHLEN, PAUL RYAN'S WISCONSIN PRIMARY OPPONENT: Hey, good morning, Pamela.
BROWN: So, Paul, it goes without saying that Ryan is extremely popular in Wisconsin. In 2014 he bested his last challenger 94 percent to 6 percent. His popularity among Wisconsin Republicans has been consistently above 70 percent. You have called this, Paul, a quote "David and Goliath fight." If he is so popular with voters, why do you think you can do better?
NEHLEN: Well, because Paul Ryan sells himself as one thing and he is another. Paul Ryan is not a conservative. Who's Paul Ryan to lecture anyone about uniting around conservatism. He looked at President Obama's top three policy initiatives, comprehensive immigration reform, Trans Pacific Partnership and criminal justice reform. Paul Ryan is the champion enabler of those initiatives. He's uniting with Hillary Clinton and the State Department around TPP and Barack Obama on comprehensive immigration reform and criminal justice reform.
We have a huge drug problem in this country. We have a lot of problems in this country. Paul Ryan drove his wiener mobile to D.C., and he's done nothing for us. Wisconsin's first district is hurting. We're surrounded by sanctuary cities. Our jobs are being shipped overseas. Or, worse, we've got H1B visa holders replacing current Americans in their -- in their current rolls. I even have --
BROWN: So -- so if all of this is true, Paul, why is he so popular in Wisconsin consistently? If he's not a true conservative, why do so many Republicans like him there?
NEHLEN: Well, interesting to note, I'm glad you asked that question. That poll was taken five days before I announced I was running. So Paul Ryan was popular when nobody had a choice. Now they have a choice. Now they've got a conservative choice. And, really, Paul Ryan -- Paul Ryan has betrayed us all. Paul Ryan's growing unpopularity bridges political factions. Whether you're a Democratic or a libertarian or a Republican or a Tea Partier, Paul Ryan has betrayed you. Paul Ryan wants to send your jobs overseas. He is -- he is uniting with Tom Donahue and the U.S. State -- and Hillary Clinton and the U.S. State Department around the Trans Pacific Partnership. This -- this hurts our sovereignty. This sets up a super national group that gives us one vote, gives the U.S. one vote, equal to Vietnam's one vote. Why would we do that?
BROWN: So let me ask you this --
NEHLEN: Why would we deleverage ourselves?
BROWN: Let me ask you this. Ted Cruz won Wisconsin. Donald Trump did not win your state in the primaries, yet a big high profile Trump supporter, Sarah Palin, came out and endorsed you. You support Trump. Are you worried that ties to Trump could hurt your chances?
NEHLEN: Well, I don't think it hurts my chances. Look, I've got a lot of respect for the Cruz voters in my -- in my district. And I've got a lot of respect for the Trump voters in my district. Paul Ryan -- I have a lot of respect for all the voters in my districts, I might add. Paul Ryan doesn't have respect for any of the voters in the district. When he -- when 83 percent of Paul Ryan's campaign financing comes from outside of our district and the vast majority coms from inside the D.C. beltway, and that is what -- that's -- we pay his salary. I pay Paul Ryan's salary as my congressman.
BROWN: But just back to -- to Donald Trump because, you know, he didn't win your state. So it may seem counter intuitive that you would be, you know, throwing your support behind him if he didn't do so well.
NEHLEN: No. No, it's not counter intuitive really if you think about it. People -- people perceive Donald Trump and Ted Cruz as the outsider candidates. That they were not liked. So if you put Donald Trump and Ted Cruz's numbers together, that's a huge slap in Paul Ryan's face. So that's -- that's the people -- and, honestly, I've got Democrats that are coming -- it's an open primary in Wisconsin.
[09:35:12] BROWN: Right.
NEHLEN: Democrats are going to -- are going to look at me and say, here's a guy who's willing to go down to the U.S. border and -- and be -- and be literally on the border. I'm literally remote right now calling you from the U.S. border. It's porous. I'm telling you, it's -- it's frightening. And that's how these drugs are getting into the country. That's how all this human trafficking is going on down here. Paul Ryan has funneled every dangerous policy of Obama, $1.8 trillion in omnibus (ph) funds, $1.8 trillion. Think about that for a minute.
BROWN: All right, Paul Nehlen, thank you so much. We appreciate you calling in from the border here.
NEHLEN: Thank you.
BROWN: Well, thanks, but no thanks. London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, rejecting Donald Trump's offer of an exception to his plan to ban Muslims from entering the country. Khan is London's first Muslim mayor and CNN international correspondent Phil Black joins us live from London.
So, Phil, Khan says he plans to visit the U.S. before the next president takes office. Is that right?
PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pamela. He made a remark to a journalist, somewhat lightheartedly, saying that if he wants to visit, because he wants to visit and talk to some mayors in the U.S., that he would have to do that before January just in case Donald Trump does take office because in that event he said he wouldn't be allowed to enter by virtue of his own faith. Donald Trump has then responded, after being asked about this, saying that there would always be exceptions to this law.
What we're hearing from Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, who's just taken office in city hall behind us here, is that that's not really the point. This isn't just about him. It's not just about Sadiq Khan. It's about all his friends, family, people all around the world who share his faith or who come from a similar background.
He's got some pretty tough words for Trump and his policy of excluding Muslims from entering the United States. He describes Trump as having an ignorant view of Islam. One that makes both countries less safe, that is the United States and the United Kingdom, because he says it plays into the hands of extremists by alienating mainstream Muslims. So some tough language there certainly and it appears that even if Donald Trump is elected as president, if he puts that policy into place, Sadiq Khan is not interested in being one of those exceptions to the rule.
Pamela.
BROWN: All right, Phil Black, thank you so much for that.
And still to come on this Tuesday, an historic meeting ends with an unprecedented celebration. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans carrying flags, flowers and fabric torching march on the country's capital.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:41:55] BROWN: Well, should we call this terrific Tuesday for your money so far. A quick check of the big board shows right now the Dow is up 110 points after ending Monday in the red. On the Nasdaq, FaceBook stock also in the green, up slightly right now, wavering just under $120 per share.
And, meantime, stunning claims of social media bias. An anonymous former contractor at FaceBook says he witnessed other employs suppressing news about popular conservative topics from the site's trending section. FaceBook denies it and says it takes allegations like this very seriously.
Let's bring in CNN's senior media correspondent Brian Stelter.
I think it's safe to say this is a story not trending on FaceBook right now.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: That's actually what's so strange about this. It did show up in the FaceBook trending box. Maybe FaceBook knew that if it kept it out of the trending box, it would look bad for the company, right? But this is something that affects everybody because if you use FaceBook like I do, and almost everybody does, you know that box in the upper right hand corner of the screen called "trending stories." Every time you look at the news feed, there it is. It's telling you what the biggest headlines all around the world are.
Now, that box and what goes in that box is what the issue is here. FaceBook says it has these strict guidelines and they have a team of curators that choose what goes in the box and they try to block out stuff that's spammy (ph) or that's hoax or that's inappropriate for the box. They say they don't make decisions based on political ideology. But the tech blog Gizmoto (ph) reported from a couple of former employees, former contractors, that actually they did see conservative stories pushed down or censored while liberal stories and other stories were allowed.
So let me show you what FaceBook says about this. Here is the company's statement. They say, "we take these reports extremely seriously and we found no evidence the anonymous allegations are true. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. And these guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives."
But this is a big story because there's been a narrative for a long time that big tech websites like Twitter and FaceBook and others might be infected by liberal bias. That they might be encouraging or supporting liberal news perspectives and opinions while suppressing conservatives perspectives. So these new claims are just the latest examples in that narrative.
I think what's happening here, Pamela, according to the sources we've spoken with, is that there may be, in some cases, individual employees who did tilt the trending box toward or against what they believed in. There's not an institutional bias at play, but whenever you have humans, whenever you have editors involved, there can even be sometimes unconscious bias.
BROWN: Very interesting. Brian Stelter will be keeping an eye on that story for us. Thanks so much.
STELTER: Thank you.
BROWN: And coming up on this Tuesday, a massive rally and parade on the streets of North Korea. CNN goes there, up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:49:09] BROWN: Well, a man with a knife goes on a stabbing spree in a German train station. One person is dead and three others injured after the attack near Munich. Police arrested a 27-year-old German man in connection with this attack. And they're now questioning witnesses about what happened, including whether the suspected shouted "Allahu Akbar, "God is great," in Arabic. They say a political motive cannot be ruled out at this point.
Well, military-style floats and a brass band, just some of the highly choreographed pomp and circumstance rolled out Tuesday for a massive rally and parade in North Korea's capital. It marks the end of the nation's first worker's party congress in almost four decades. CNN's Will Ripley was among a handful of journalists granted access to that rare political event. He joins us now from Pyongyang.
It's remarkable, you see this -- these images, Will, of this congress and this is in a country where they can't even keep the electricity on for their people throughout the day.
[09:50:07] WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, the amount of money that's spent on putting together just tonight's fireworks show alone, which lasted about 20 minutes or so, nonstop fireworks that were booming throughout the city, and then, you know, not to mention the fact also that about half the city's population participated in two parades that happened today. There was the torch light parade this evening with the teenagers and students who were out holding up torches, doing these synchronized moves that they've been practicing for months. Half the city's population, by the way, that's more than a million people participating in these two events. The other parade was this morning and again it was the adults who were -- who were waving flags and waving fake flowers, trying to get the attention of Kim Jong-un, their supreme leader, who just got that brand new title of chairman of the workers party in Korea.
There was also, by the way, a float with missiles on it talking about North Korea's nuclear program. Basically the citizens, even though it's a citizen parade, they're celebrating the fact that their leader wants to push forward. In fact, this weekend, the congress passed a measure to increase the number of nuclear weapons and improve the quality of nuclear weapons because they even talked about annihilating the United States. They believe it's their only defense to stay a sovereign state. And even though those weapons come at the cost of economic sanctions and hardship, there is the power shortages, there's food difficulties within this country, people on the street say they support those policies. But, again, what else would they say when they're talking about their leader who has absolute power in this country. Power that got even greater over the weekend when Kim Jong-un was given a brand new title that's never -- never had this title before, chairman of the workers party of Korea.
We were invited inside the venue where this congress is being held with a handful of other international journalists after we'd been complaining for days about lack of access, having to basically watch the state media to get any sort of information about the congress. So we and a handful of other international news outlets, we were put on a bus. We weren't told where we were going. We had a 90-minute security check. And we didn't know exactly what we would be seeing until literally walking into this building where the congress was being held. The leader, Kim Jong-un, walked out, 5,000 party members started applauding. They unanimously voted to give him this new title because votes here in North Korea are always unanimous.
BROWN: Yes.
RIPLEY: And it's hard to believe that somebody who already has absolute power could even become more powerful. That's why some people are calling this more of a coronation than an election because what it does is solidify Kim Jong-un's ability to pretty much dictate whatever he wants this country to do and he has made that very clear, nuclear weapons a major priority, Pam.
BROWN: All right, Will Ripley, thank you so much for bringing us the latest there from Pyongyang.
And still ahead, an old nemesis is back to take on Donald Trump, and these two have quite a history long before Trump became a presidential candidate. The return of the church lady, up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:57:04] BROWN: Well, a beloved "Saturday Night Live" character is back with a few choice words for Donald Trump. And this isn't the first time the church lady has taken on The Donald. Jeanne Moos has more on their rocky past.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Give her an amen. On and off for about three decades.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello again. I'm the church lady. Welcome to church chat.
MOOS: Church lady has been on of "SNL's" special characters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, isn't that special.
MOOS: And now Dana Carvey is back, especially eager to cast judgment on you know who.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The tangerine tornado, Donald J. Trump.
MOOS: Church lady first tangled with Trump 26 years ago back when he divorced his first wife to marry Marla Maples.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we certainly are flexible, aren't we?
MOOS: And when Trump showed up, he gave church lady more trouble than the real Donald gave the pope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can buy and sell you and your little freak show dog and pony act, whatever this is.
MOOS: The church lady has held up that famous headline.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A little s-e-x.
MOOS: And sent Phil Hartman (ph) packing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Scoot, sinners. Scoot, scoot, sinners.
MOOS: Never imagining she was scooting the future Republican candidate for president. Twenty-six years later, Darrell Hammond (ph) was playing Trump spouting scripture.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Love thy neighbor as thyself and like a good neighbor State Farm is there.
MOOS: Carvey once told Oprah where the church lady came from.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were Lutherans. I grew up Lutheran. We call ourselves catholic light.
MOOS (on camera): Carvey said his family would show up at church after missing a couple of Sundays.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These church ladies would sort of give this little judgmental, as if they were saying, well, well, well, apparently some of us come to church when it's convenient.
MOOS (voice-over): He's done everyone from Jim and Tammy Fay Baker to the real Justin Bieber.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want a taste of that sweet Bieber.
MOOS: To O.J.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, O.J. sinner.
MOOS: The church lady has aged gratefully while The Donald's character has grown blonder and beefier.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, church lady.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, isn't that special.
MOOS: CNN --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, isn't that extra special.
MOOS: New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Well, the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.
Happening now in the NEWSROOM, voters in two states head to the polls as Donald Trump gets ready to head to Washington. Can he smooth things over with party leaders?
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton dodging the GOP frontrunner's attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm running my campaign. I'm not running against him. He's doing a fine job of doing that himself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And she still has one battle to win before turning her focus to Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not going to get into plan "b." Plan "a" is winning California, it's winning West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, and the remaining states.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Plus, large, violent tornadoes ripping through Oklahoma and the plains. Now another threat moves in today. Let's talk in the CNN NEWSROOM.
[10:00:11] Good morning to you. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Carol Costello on this Tuesday.
