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New Day Sunday

President Trump Says U.S. Backs Japan 100 Percent; South Korea Holds Emergency Meeting; Experts Skeptical About North Korea Nuke Capability Claims; Protests Grow As Hundreds Arrested In Twelve States; Winter Storm Warning Issued For Northeast; 52 Emergency Calls From Heroin Overdose; Alec Baldwin And Melissa McCarthy Returns To "Saturday Night Live". Aired 6-7a ET

Aired February 12, 2017 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:00] CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know where to go with that. So let's tell you there's an awful lot of news to tell you about this morning.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Next hour starts right now.

PAUL: All right, 6:00 on a Sunday morning. Rise and shine. We are so happy to have you. I am Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I am Victor Blackwell. Good morning to you. And we begin with the provocation from Pyongyang, North Korea test firing another ballistic missile, and adding a new foreign policy wrinkle to the early days of the Trump administration.

PAUL: Here's what we know this hour. South Korean officials say North Korea fired an intermediate range missile earlier this morning. Sources say it was launched from a province in the northwestern part of the country and the missile traveled about 300 miles before it crashed into the Sea of Japan.

BLACKWELL: And the timing of this launch likely not a coincidence. This happened just as President Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Florida. Last night, the two leaders were briefed on the situation and then they delivered a joint statement. Here's a portion of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHINZO ABE, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (through translator): North Korea's most recent missile launch is absolutely intolerable. North Korea must fully comply with the U.N. Security Council resolutions.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent, thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Our team of correspondents and expert analysts are standing by to break this all down for us. Matt Rivers is live in Seoul, South Korea, Ryan Browne, our Pentagon reporter, and Victor Gao is the director of the China National Association of International Studies. Thank you all for being with us.

I want to begin with Matt Rivers tracking developments from Seoul. What are you hearing this morning, Matt?

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are hearing that this is the kind of test that the North Koreans have conducted before. This is an intermediate missile as you mentioned there that has a range of upwards of 4,000 kilometers, and while that it is far enough to hit the mainland of the United States, that would far enough to hit military installations that the United States has on the island of Guam.

The big question here, of course, would this test be an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range upwards of 5,500 kilometers. Something that could potentially reach the United States that does not appear to be the case according to South Korean and U.S. defense officials.

And that was something that Kim Jong-un has said was a top priority of the regime. He said it in a New Year's Day address on January 1st that he wanted to create this kind of missile in order to be able to deliver a nuclear payload at some point down the line.

Now he may not have that capability yet, but most experts will tell you that he is getting to that point, and it does appear to be a matter of when rather than if he develops the technology, and that certainly is something that he has said in the past that he really wants to do.

One other thing of note here, though, this type of missile differs slightly from what we saw in being tested last year in the sense that this engine on this intermediate range rocket does appear to be upgraded from a previous version. That's according to South Korean officials.

They are not sure yet, but this engine would allow the rocket to be launched that much faster than previous versions. Again, that's not confirmed. South Korean officials say they are still trying to work out the details, working with their American counterparts.

But as you said, this is just the latest provocation from the North Koreans and something the Trump administration is going to now have to deal with very quickly.

BLACKWELL: So Ryan, quickly, to you at the Pentagon correspondent, is there an expectation of how close North Korea is to developing or testing this intercontinental ballistic missile? Are we talking a matter of months? Could it be in 2017, maybe next year?

RYAN BROWNE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, what the Pentagon believes is that Pyongyang is working very aggressively to try and develop an ICVM now. This test in particular, as mentioned, we've seen it before, the intermediate range missile. It is capable of reaching U.S. troops in their facilities in Guam, Japan, and South Korea, there are thousands of troops there.

But you're seeing from the Pentagon side, they are really ramping up missile defense in the region. In fact, earlier this month, there was a joint missile defense test with Japan off the coast of Hawaii, where they shut down a medium range missile as part of a test successfully.

So it's definitely something the Pentagon is working on. They are keeping an eye on whether or not they can get the missile capable of reaching the continent of United States.

But in the meantime, given the presence of U.S. troops in Guam, South Korea, and Japan, they are really trying to kind of move forward these missile defense capabilities to ensure that their forces there are protected.

PAUL: Victor, I wanted to ask you about the high altitude defense system and there's a debate about putting that on the South Korean Peninsula to fight missiles like these or to deflect them. What is China's stance on that and how does that all come into play there?

VICTOR GAO, DIRECTOR, CHINA NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: I will say the action of the DPRK government this time is a violation of the United Nations Security Council's resolutions and should be condemned by all the countries involved including China.

[06:05:13]And China has been enforcing the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against DPRK, and this time I think the Chinese government will most likely will come up with a strong denunciation and condemnation of this latest launch vehicle testing by DPRK.

And don't forget the whole territory of Japan is within the range of this type of missile and it's also creating a threat to Republic of Korea as well as the U.S. troops based in this part of the world.

China wants to have greater peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, and China has been urging DPRK to discontinue any testing of nuclear weapons themselves as well as the launch vehicle.

And if the DPRK continue such testing of the launch vehicle then it will most likely come into possession with the ICBM's, which will hit a much larger range and this will further create disability in this part of the world and beyond.

Therefore, I think China and the United States, Japan, Russia and ROK should be united in condemning this latest provocation by DPRK.

BLACKWELL: Ryan, let's talk about the potential response from the U.N., from the U.S. possibly, maybe more sanctions. There have been multiple sanctions levied on North Korea over the years, and it has not worked really as a deterrent. What's the degree of confidence that will be the next move for a Trump administration or maybe they'll take another route? BROWNE: Well, as you know, during the election campaign, Donald Trump talked quite a bit about trying to get Beijing to kind of help impose even tougher sanctions. Now this is being -- United States has been working with China since back in 2003 when the six-party talks began to try and curve North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

Now that has not had a lot of success. You know, they've ramped up sanctions in recent years from everything from small arms to the selling of a pricey statue that North Korea sells to African countries.

That being said, there are still a lot of areas that China could potentially work to place tougher sanctions on coal deliveries, for instance, as a major source of revenue for the regime.

But I think from the U.S. side, you are going to see in addition to getting China to put on some additional sanctions, you will continue to see missile defense deployments, ships with the (inaudible) defense system like the one that they just tested with Japan.

As well as the FAD system with Secretary of Defense Mattis just recently on his first trip abroad went to South Korea and they discussed it. They are hoping to get that system up and running by 2017.

As mentioned that is kind of considered a problem in Beijing and in Moscow. They are not too happy with that system being there, but it's definitely something they are looking to push ahead before the end of the year.

BLACKWELL: All right, Matt Rivers, Ryan Browne, and Victor Gao, thank you all. We'll continue the conversation throughout the morning.

PAUL: We will give you some more context here. North Korea has performed a series of nuclear test over the past year, last January, in fact. It claimed to detonate the country's first hydrogen bomb during an underground nuclear test in January 2016. The country also test fired multiple ballistic missiles. The most successful launch in June where it fired into the Sea of Japan.

BLACKWELL: Then in August, North Korea had its most successful test firing of a missile launch from a submarine, and then in September, North Korea conducted its second nuclear test of the year, which was its most powerful nuclear test to date.

Now another round of nasty winter weather is on the way. We are tracking some of the biggest issues that will be in the way for a lot of people. What you can expect?

PAUL: Also massive nationwide protest blasting the recent wave of arrests by immigration officials across this nation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:10:00] (VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: You see this is one of the massive protests against a nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants. These protesters angry denouncing the sudden arrests in a rally, this one is outside the White House.

PAUL: Take a look at the protest in Austin overnight, demonstrators held signs blasting President Trump's plans for a border wall, waving the Mexican flag in the air. The protests filled onto roadways tying up traffic in the Austin area for hours.

Now authorities have arrested undocumented immigrants in 12 states from coast-to-coast, the latest being more than 200 arrests in the Midwest and 37 immigrants detained in California have been deported to Mexico now.

BLACKWELL: Officials say most of the people they locked up had already been convicted of felonies including violent charges like child sex crimes, weapons, or assault charges. Now this is the largest scale enforcement of this action during the president's term.

Joining me now to discuss what this all means, Tom LoBianco, CNN politics reporter, Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor for Spectrum News, and Joey Jackson, CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney. Good morning, Gentlemen.

So Errol, let me start with you. I first want to play the president in that now well-known speech from Phoenix where he talked about immigration. Let's go to the Anderson Cooper interview where he talks about it first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: My first day in office I am going to notify law enforcement authorities that all of the bad dudes -- and we have a lot of them -- that are here illegally, that are the heads of gang gangs and drug cartels and all sorts of people, and there are probably millions of them, but certainly hundreds of thousands, big numbers, and they are out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So Errol, the question is, is what we are seeing the president just keeping a campaign promise?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, not only that, I mean, really, Victor, in just three weeks they did not organize all of these raids. This was pursuant to existing policy under the Obama administration, so-called bad dudes were at the top of the list for deportation.

So they went ahead and moved forward with the kinds of people that were always deportable for whom deportation orders had already been issued or people who had been convicted of violent felonies, drug selling and so forth.

[06:15:04]There was a sort of slight change in implementation that probably rounded up percentage wise less than 10 percent more than who would have already been subject to arrest and deportation.

So to a certain extent, I think the administration is getting a bad rap. It's not as invented this idea. Remember back in 2012, the Obama administration deported over 400,000 people in a single year.

BLACKWELL: Joey, let me come to you because this is what we heard from David Merin (ph) with the Los Angeles office of ICE. He said that this operation was in the planning stages before the current administration issued its executive order. We do these operations two or three times a year. This is on par with past operations, but I understand from our conversations about this earlier that you believe this is very different?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I do and just to be clear and to be fair, of course, the executive has an obligation to enforce the law and I think what you are seeing under the Trump administration is that enforcement and bad dudes are not only bad as to this president but they were bad as to the last president.

And so to Errol's point, it is a continuation of existing policy to some extent, but hold on. The fact is you had Mr. Kelly in testifying before Congress indicate that morale was down among ICE agents because, quote/unquote, "their hands were tied."

And he also said that it would otherwise skyrocket -- I am paraphrasing, but certainly morale would be a lot better because what you are going to see is that lifted under Trump.

And so I think it's clear that there's nothing wrong. In fact, it's favorable to this country with regard to border security and national security, and with regard to protecting the public interests to get rid of the bad dudes, the felons.

I think what you are seeing here, though, are raids that are over inclusive. I think what you are seeing is people who are being caught up in these issues unlike before where it was the administration's policy to protect border security and national interests, and you are seeing people who have minor offenses or no offenses at all who are being brought up in the sweeps.

So to that extent, the raids, of course, are a continuation, but the scope and the nature and the aggressiveness is far different under this administration, to be clear.

BLACKWELL: So let me add these numbers. These are the numbers we've received preliminarily from the Los Angeles ICE Office, 160 total arrests thus far, 150 of them had criminal histories. Five had deportation orders already, and then another five on top of that.

Tom, let me come to you because I wonder from your perspective if this puts the administration in a difficult position. How can the president claim he is keeping his campaign promise, if that's the claim that he is going to ramp up on undocumented immigrants in the country, but also say this is nothing to see here, keep walking, and this is what the previous administration did?

TOM LOBIANCO, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: It's interesting what Errol was saying earlier, and this goes into the politics and the perception of this, and the perception, of course, is reality in politics, at least. When you look at this with the protests going on, and then you look at the Alec Baldwin sketch that we saw earlier about 15 minutes or so ago.

Where he starts singing bad boys, bad boys, and you put that altogether and you understand the protests. It might not matter this is consistent with what Obama was already doing, because you have Trump's own words out there.

These massive protests out there, and everything is kind of whipped into a frenzy, and that's kind of the veneer of what is happening right now. You know, it's funny, I was sitting at the train station in Philadelphia back in the Republican retreat, and a couple hundred protesters out there.

And I was talking with an old Republican source, and he mentioned his read on the whole thing was that to him this was a lot like the '60s, and this was like when you would have spontaneous protests almost anything that was going on over LBJ and Nixon, so this plays right into that.

BLACKWELL: There have been protests every weekend now of the Trump administration. Quickly to you, Errol, the president tweeted about Japan and tweeted about the decision from the Ninth Circuit, and tweeted about many things over the last week or so but not this necessarily. What do you glean from that absence there?

LOUIS: It didn't arrive on his desk. Here, again, this is policy for the United States and it has been for a number of years. This is not something that necessarily comes out of the oval office. Joey is right in the sense that people who are sort of collaterally involved in these things are getting caught up in them like not before.

But if you were a Salvadorian gang member with a deportation order, there is no way you were going to sort of just stay by and it was always kind of a myth that these people were kind just left to roam in the streets of America.

[06:20:01]We've had a deportation force in effect for quite a while now. So I take this as the president not really sort of ramping this up, and not really driving this, necessarily, although I suspect we will hear from him in the near future.

BLACKWELL: All right, Errol Louis, Joey Jackson, Tom LoBianco, thank you.

PAUL: What a mess. I know it probably feels like that in the northeast, at least eight states, and you are getting ready for another round of winter weather.

BLACKWELL: We've got the forecast in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: If you are waking up in the northeast, it could be a tough 24 hours for you. If you thought that last storm was bad, apparently it's about to get a lot worse.

BLACKWELL: More than 40 million people under winter weather alerts, and areas already dealing with a foot of snow on the ground like these places, expected to get at least another foot. CNN meteorologist, Allison Chinchar in the Severe Weather Center. Allison, where are we going to see the worst of it?

ALLISON CHINCAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think that's the main point of this whole thing, it's the same people that just got hit on Thursday of last week. We are talking the northeast. The heavier snow is going to be a little more focused off to the north, so we're not really talking Washington, D.C. and New York really being the target point like it was last week.

Now we are talking more Boston up to Portland, but all of this region under a winter storm warnings, winter weather advisory or even a blizzard watch in some spots were already starting to see the snow come down cities like Buffalo even around eastern Long Island starting to see that change over into snow.

As we go through the day, however, it's really going to ramp back up and then we will start to see cities like Manchester into Boston and Portland, Maine, picking up heavy snow.

[06:25:05]We have two low pressure systems here. They are going to come together and form one, and it's going to bomb out. It's a meteorological terms called bomb genesis, basically in layman's terms what that means is the storm is going to rapidly intensify and as it does it's really going to allow for intense snowfall amounts and strong winds.

Look at some of these forecast mounts here. We are talking a lot of areas in excess of a foot of snow. One of those regions, by the way, we are talking about Boston. In Boston, we picked up about 30 inches of snow, and for the whole year we average 43. If we pick up an additional 8 to 12, and I went on the low end here.

This is the low end of what Boston could expect, we would exceed what we normally pick up for the entire year by the start of the workweek, and it's only mid-February, guys.

You have to keep in mind, winter is not done, and we may already in a city like Boston have all the snow we would normally see for the entire year, and that and we are talking about hurricane-force winds along the cape.

PAUL: Oh, my gosh. Allison Chinchar, thank you for the heads up. Everybody buckle down and take good cares of yourselves, there.

BLACKWELL: Indeed. Still ahead, we're going to push forward on the breaking news, North Korea test firing its first missile during the Trump administration. What is next for U.S. relations with North Korea?

PAUL: Also we think about this, 52 overdose calls in just 32 hours. The latest state dealing with the heroin epidemic as it spreads across the country.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:11]

PAUL: 6:30 is the time on this Sunday morning. So grateful for your company, as always. I am Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I am Victor Blackwell. Good morning to you.

This is the latest of many ballistic missile tests from North Korea in recent years but it's the first on President Donald Trump's watch. Now, U.S. and Japanese officials believe the launch was deliberately timed to the Japanese leader's state visit to the U.S.

South Korean officials say North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile earlier today. And the sources say it was launched from a province in the northwestern part of the country. Now the missile traveled about 300 miles before it crashed into the Sea of Japan.

BLACKWELL: And last night Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Trump each issued statements of condemnation of a test. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHINZO ABE, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER (through translator): North Korea's most recent missile launch is absolutely intolerable. North Korea must fully comply with the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: So the question for a lot of people, is this a direct message to President Trump, what is happening in North Korea? Here's what Jim Walsh, a senior international researcher associate at MIT told CNN a bit ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM WALSH, SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, M.I.T: Part of this is sort of set piece theater, you know, we're going to have the Japanese prime minister and the South Korea temporary president and President Trump all come out and say, this is unacceptable and this is terrible and, you know, we will pursue tougher measures and there will probably be a U.N. resolution at some point.

But if we -- if we sort of step back from all of that, which is, you know, set theater, as I say, what strikes me about it is, the North Korean's test -- they test a missile, it's not a test of an ICBM, intercontinental ballistic missile, like they threatened to do, this strikes me and based on what I know about friends having conversations with North Koreans, as pushing a little bit but not too much and sort of waiting to see what President Trump will do. So, I think, we have a little bit of tactical play here by the North Koreans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Let's welcome back and continuing the conversation with CNN political reporter Tom LoBianco and CNN political commentator and Spectrum News anchor, Errol Louis.

Errol, let me start with you. I want to talk about this statement just 14 seconds from President Trump last night there in Florida. And let's put up the tweet, that Donald Trump before he ran for office tweeted back in April of 2013 critical to President Obama when he said, "Where is the president? It is time for him to come on T.V. and show strength against the repeated threats from North Korea and others."

And again, here's what the president said as president now about North Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: If you cut the thank you, that could have been a tweet. What do you make of the length and the depth or lack of there of the statement from the president?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I don't want to read too much into so few words, Victor, but what I took away from it was him saying, we stand behind Japan, that's in keeping with some of what President Trump has said about the regional partners, South Korea and Japan in particular, meaning to sort of take the lead when it comes to these things, that the United States was not going to be a big regional player and handle all of the relationships.

He even went so far to suggests that perhaps nuclear weapons could be something that Japan could deploy on its own as a former (INAUDIBLE) against North Korea or any other threat. So what I took from this is him sort of saying the U.S. will be the big brother in the background with all of its devastating potential, but that he was not going to jump out front, so we didn't hear from him, even a hint of sort of the broader kind of regional descriptions and doctrines that you would hear from President Obama.

BLACKWELL: All right. So you mentioned the suggestion that Japan could add its own nuclear weapons. We have that from the CNN town hall back in March of 2016. Let's watch for a reminder. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Wouldn't you rather, in a certain sense, have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons? And they do have them. They absolutely have them. They can't --they have no carrier system yet, but they will very soon.

Wouldn't you rather have Japan perhaps they are over there, they are very close, they're very fearful of North Korea, and we are supposed to protect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:35:07]

BLACKWELL: Now, the president, Tom, has appeared to back off of that talk. He had to back away from it, claiming that he never said it late in the campaign and after his election.

TOM LOBIANCO, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Right. Yes. You know, what is fascinating about that is kind of building on what Errol was saying there is that, you know, look at what he was saying back then, and you know, look at the overall policy, which tends to be more -- I don't want to say isolationist, per se, but you know pulling back from the world stage at least from what we see and heard so far.

You know, what this had me thinking about earlier was looking back to last week the problems that we saw with National Security adviser, Mike Flynn, towards the end of the week where this huge questions about whether he is back channeling with Russia before Trump even took office and whether he was being honest with the Trump administration about that.

You know, if you look at stuff like this you remember the Clinton 3:00 a.m. phone call ad from 2008 where they talk about this key -- hints to the key decisions that have to be made on the fly. You know, you need your team in place for stuff like this. This is the kind of things where you will have a wildcard like North Korea testing you -- testing to see where you are. So you know, there's -- it's still kind of rocky.

That was kind of an easy call for the Trump administration. I mean, you know, again, not an awful lot there, but there were key hints as Errol pointed out. But, you know, there's going to be other things that come up and you need to have a team in place that you trust.

BLACKWELL: Errol, do you deduce that this, the Trump administration sees this or the president sees this as a test of his leadership, his administration, when his statement goes only as far to say I stand behind Japan?

LOUIS: Well, sure. I mean, look, he -- there was a kind of a menacing quality to the -- both the terseness (ph) of it and frankly the look on his face, and the tone of his voice. So I'm not sure it's going to have the intended effect. I don't get the notion that the military and a leadership of the North Korean dictatorship is going to be overly impressed by that, but that's how it came across to me.

I suspect also though that we're going to have to get into a broader discussion now that we have for this administration a sitting secretary of state about where China plays into all of this. There was also a lot of talk on the campaign trail about the United States putting pressure on China to bring North Korea sort of under control, that's a complicated dance that you have to do, because we've got a bunch of other kind of military and security and economic conversations going on with China at the same time.

So this is -- this is not something where simple bravesmanship is going to get the job done. And, you know, one more limit on what President Trump can do. I think it has got to be a little frustrating for him, because what sounded simple on the campaign trail, not so simple now that you're sitting in the Oval Office.

BLACKWELL: Yes, just weeks ago then president-elect it was just the beginning of January he tweeted several times about trying to get China to put some pressure on North Korea.

Tom, as we wrap this up, any indication that this administration wants to return to those six-party talks potentially to try to get North Korea back to the table, or are they going to, as the president has hinted before the election and since, try to outsource this exclusively to China?

LOBIANCO: I think, you know, like Errol was saying it's almost like they don't have a choice here, they kind of have to, to a degree.

You know, again we're not entirely sure right now what is going to happen. You know, what's (ph) funny (ph), you know, look at how executive handle things when they are a candidate versus when they become an executive. It reminds me when I used to cover Governor O'Malley in Maryland back, you know, 10 years ago. He came into office he ran on a promise to cut utility rates. That was a big deal to help him get into office. When he got in the office he found out that he couldn't stop these rate hikes from going into place.

You know, again, that's a small example but this is kind of typical of what you see when you move from politician/candidate into actually being the guy in office, the guy tossing the grenades versus the guy catching the grenades.

BLACKWELL: All right. Tom LoBianco, Errol Louise, we've got to wrap it there. Thank you both.

LOUIS: Thank you.

LOBIANCO: Thanks.

PAUL: Fifty-two emergency calls for overdoses in 32 hours. Louisville, Kentucky, the latest city that is dealing with this growing heroin epidemic.

BLACKWELL: Yes. An emergency services spokesman says, the majority of the 52 calls were for heroin overdoses, but there were also calls for alcohol, prescription medications, other controlled substances but 52 this weeks' number more than doubles the 25 overdose calls from the same period last week. No deaths reporter but one person died in a car crash where the driver was using heroin.

PAUL: And that's the thing. One minute a driver can be going 40 miles per hour, the next they're unconscious. And police say, part of the growing heroin epidemic is now the danger of what they have dubbed drug driving.

[06:40:04]

BLACKWELL: Yes. Here is Natalie (ph) Martinez from CNN affiliate WAVE. We want to warn you that parts of this story are disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATALIA MARTINEZ, WAVE REPORTER: On the road driving errands, or going to work, not giving much thought to other drivers.

MAJOR CHRIS LOKITS, LOUISEVILLE METRO EMERGENCY SERVICES: You never know what the people around you are doing.

MARTINEZ: It's called drugged driving, a frightening problem that's growing. Drivers getting high on heroin and then getting behind the wheel.

MITCHELL BURMEISTER, EMS SPOKESMAN: An overdose can happen at any time and at any location.

MARTINEZ: Thursday on Westport Road and Hurstbourne a driver crashes into another car while on overdosing. Police find the passenger already dead from drugs. This scenario not uncommon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are you hammering like that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Your kid is in the car.

MARTINEZ: Cases in Cincinnati, North Carolina, Indianapolis, Texas of people overdosing while on the road.

SGT. MICHAEL HUDEPOHL, CINCINNATI POLICE: They get in their car, they use it, they O.D., they crash and then we get involved.

MARTINEZ: This video from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, captures a 7-month- old baby thrown from the car. The driver, high on heroin. Mothers Against Drunk Driving reports 4,000 drivers are killed every year with drugs in their system.

LOKITS: Someone could be out there on the road right now under the influence of a drug that could cause them to become unconscious without, you know, a whole lot of warning to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right. Our thanks to Natalie (ph) Martinez for that report. PAUL: Heroin use is such a growing problem affecting more and more states. We are hearing from the CDC about this in the past decade, heroin use more than doubled from those between the ages of 18 to 25. And 90 percent of heroin users also used at least one other drug, and 45 percent of them were addicted to prescription opioid painkillers.

BLACKWELL: From the year 2000 to 2015, more than half a million people died from drug overdoses. Every day 91 Americans die from an opioid overdose. That added up to 12,989 heroin deaths in 2015. And the CDC says it's affecting more and more states from Florida to Maine, even Washington State, each of them dealing with a rise in overdose deaths.

All right. Coming up, in the next hour, we're going to speak with someone who is fighting on the frontlines of this epidemic. An emergency room doctor in Kentucky. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:45:46]

PAUL: Well, Sunday morning means "Saturday Night Live."

BLACKWELL: Yes, indeed, it does.

PAUL: Not holding anything back when it comes to taking on President Trump.

BLACKWELL: Alec Baldwin returned to host SNL for a record 17th time, and of course he reprised his impersonation of Donald Trump, but Melissa McCarthy was back to reprise her role as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

Here with all the highlights, CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," Brian Stelter.

Brian, we were hoping after that performance last week that we would see Melissa McCarthy back this week and she did not disappoint.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, back for a second week in a row. Some people would call these highlights. I don't know if Donald Trump would call them highlights. He might say there were lowlights, but here is Sean Spicer of course back, Melissa McCarthy back as Sean Spicer, here's probably the best part of that (INAUDIBLE) open.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELISSA MCCARTHY AS SEAN SPICER: Next question! Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, earlier this week you said there was a terrorists attack in Atlanta?

MCCARTHY: Yes, I said that wrong when I said it, and then you wrote it, which makes you wrong, because when I say something wrong, you guys should know what it is I am meaning, wrong or right, you are wrong, and that's why you are here. Obviously I meant Orlanta.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Orlando?

MCCARTHY: All right, any other questions?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, just mentally, though, are you OK?

MCCARTHY: Are you kidding me? Are (ph) you (ph) (INAUDIBLE). You better run! You better run all of you! You better run. You don't have a chance. Wait -- wait -- you (ph) did (ph) that (ph) -- wait until I turn around. And live from New York, it's Saturday Night Live!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

STELTER: That's how the show opened last night. I don't know how they will try to top that in a future week, but guys, you know, the reason why this matters in a political sense is because Donald Trump did not enjoy the Spicer impression last week.

According to our own Jim Acosta, Trump was not amused by McCarthy playing Spicer. There are other reports saying that the president may have been offended that the show cast a woman to play his male secretary. So the show had fun with that invoking that Nordstrom's controversy. Take a look at what they did earlier in the sketch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCARTHY: There is light terrorism this week when Nordstrom's decided to stop selling Ivanka Trump's line of clothing and accessories, OK, and that's Nordstrom's lost, because these are high quality products.

In fact I am wearing one of her bangles right now, and it's beautiful, it's shimmery, it's elegant, and it's $39.99. It is unbelievably affordable. OK? And don't even get me started on her shoes, because these babies are a real head-turner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

STELTER: All right. Close to real life, obviously exaggerated there but we remember Kellyanne Conway promoting Ivanka's line earlier in the week seemed to get her into some hot water, so SNL poking fun at that last night.

PAUL: Brian, did you -- did you hear Joe Piscopo on Michael Smerconish say, you know, if they just came out and laughed at this it would -- it would serve them, (INAUDIBLE)?

STELTER: I think that's true. I did hear -- I heard them say -- we have seen other people, including past press secretaries saying, go ahead, have fun with this. Of course, that's easier said than done. I don't know how I would feel if I were impersonated by Melissa McCarthy on SNL. And by the way that appeals to (INAUDIBLE) the president as well. You know, you mentioned Alec Baldwin was the host of SNL this weekend. Baldwin of course reprised his Trump character but in a different way. This time it was a peoples' court sketch. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CECILY STRONG AS PEOPLE'S COURT JUDGE: President Trump, look, I read the ban, OK. It seemed rush, even to me, and I decide three court cases in an hour, OK? I see no evidence that it will help, so I'm sorry to day --

ALEC BALDWIN AS DONALD TRUMP: I want to settle.

STRONG: Excuse me?

[06:50:00]

BALDWIN: I'd like to settle -- settle out of court.

STRONG: Mr. President, I'm sorry.

BALDWIN: They always settle, Pocahontas, and so will you.

STRONG: No. Sir, no, I won't. And let me just say you're doing too much. OK? I want one day without a CNN alert that scares the hell out of me.

I just want to relax and watch the Grammys. All right? No one has ever said that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

STELTER: All right. Grammys, by the way, tonight, we will see if any of those Hollywood celebrities have any comments about the president. For now it's SNL really going for broke this season against them.

BLACKWELL: It's fair to expect they will have some comments.

Brian Stelter, thank you so much.

STELTER: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: And be sure and catch Brian on "RELIABLE SOURCES" today at 11:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Kevin Durant makes his long-awaited return to Oklahoma City, but this time he's on the other team, a member of the Gold State Warriors.

PAUL: Andy Scholes has more on this morning's bleacher report. Good morning. ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Good morning, guys.

You know, fans in Oklahoma City had this date circled on their calendar ever since Durant bolted the Thunder to go to the Warriors this summer. Many fans bringing out signs, wearing shirts to voice their displeasure with their former superstar. Now Thunder fans now call Durant, cupcake, because when he left for Golden State Russell Westbrook (INAUDIBLE) Instagram a picture of a bunch of cupcakes and in basketball terms, cupcake means you are soft.

[06:55:02]

So along with plenty of boos, fans were chanting cupcake at Durant throughout this game. Now Durant and Westbrook they do not speak anymore but they did have an exchange in the third quarter right here. Westbrook telling Durant, I'm coming. I'm coming. As a time-out was called. Things also get a little heated later in the quarter, Durant fouled by Andre Roberson. They exchanged some words.

Now, Westbrook, he scored 47 points in this one, but Durant would get the last laugh as the Warriors won easily 130-114. After the game Draymond Green and Steph Curry both wore cupcake shirts during their postgame interviews to troll the fans there in Oklahoma City.

All right. Shaquille O'Neal returned to Baton Rouge last night. The LSU's on the 1991 SEC Championship squad. You've got to check this out. (INAUDIBLE) sports colleague grabbing a ball even a three. Look at Shaq knocking it down.

And in case you were wondering, Shaq attempted zero three-pointers while playing college basketball at LSU. But, hey, one for one now. All right.

And finally, this is pretty awesome. This is a Lainy Fredrickson, special needs student on Norman High School Girls Basketball team in Oklahoma. She gets called into the game and make a basket to end it. And check out the place going absolutely nuts, even the players of the other team joining in on the celebration. Her reaction, just priceless. She runs over and gives the cheerleaders some hugs. Guys, this video is going viral. Millions of people checking it out online.

PAUL: As it should.

SCHOLES: As it should. You're right. So cool to see that kind of thing going on.

PAUL: I love it.

BLACKWELL: All right.

PAUL: Thank you, Andy.

BLACKWELL: Thank you so much.

SCHOLES: All right. Hi (ph), everyone (ph).

PAUL: And thank you so much for starting your morning with us.

BLACKWELL: We've got more coming up in the next hour of your NEW DAY. A quick break first. We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)