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New Day Sunday
O.J. Simpson A Free Man After Nine Years; Crisis In Puerto Rico; Five Hurt In Edmonton Terror Attack. Aired 7-8 am ET
Aired October 01, 2017 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:00:00] CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: -- with a similar name to that of the suspect in the first incident. That driver sped away, led police on a chase and police say, deliberately hit four people in the process.
So, four people and one police officer hospitalized. We don't know how serious the injuries are. The suspect is on custody and we'll continue to let you know what comes of that.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: And we have four breaking news this morning. For the first time in nine years, O.J. Simpson is a free man. He was released just a few hours ago by the Nevada Department of Corrections. They say they told him don't come back then he responded, I don't intend to.
The former NFL superstar signed his paperwork and he was picked up by a friend.
Joining us now with more on that release, where he's headed next, CNN Correspondent Paul Vercammen. Good morning, Paul.
PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Martin and Christi.
And he is apparently according to all friends headed here to Las Vegas to stop, from my right is the probation office and just down the street is the courthouse where he was sentenced in the first place. Where will he live, according to everybody that is close to him, he is going to live in a gated community in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas. And in fact, there's a golf course in that area and they say that Simpson plans to spend his next few days here with friends and family, reconnecting. And then eventually that he will probably golf.
Now, how did he get out of Lovelock? How did this go down tonight? Even prison officials saying that they didn't know until the last minute that they were going to pull it off this way.
Their concern, safety of Simpson, safety of other inmates. They also said they were worried at the paparazzi may try to chase or so. So at 12:08, he walked out of the prison. There was that brief exchange where they said don't come back and he said I don't intend to.
They said that Simpson said that lightheartedly, that he was in upbeat mood. That there was some chitchat about travel and food. And his lawyer also had told just they other day, that after talking to Simpson, he was looking forward to getting a fresh seafood and steak and just basically getting away from that rigmarole of those routine prison meals.
Now, there's going to be some strict rules on Simpson as a parolee. It's going to last for five years. Basically he is not allowed to have any guns, he's got to be very careful with his alcohol consumption. And he also was not be associated with ex-cons.
Here's the conversation I had with Malcolm LaVergne, his lawyer just the other day on Simpson trying to stay straight and narrow while he's free.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
MALCOLM LAVERGNE, O.J. SIMPSON'S LAWYER: He has restrictions, OK? Can't drink alcohol to excess. Can't associated with known felons. Basic conditions like that.
But here's the thing. He's at perfect performance in prison and that's a tough place to be but he's at perfect performance there. I have no doubt he's going to have perfect performance on parole. He'll comply with anything that his Florida parole officer tells him to do. That's it.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
VERCAMMEN: And Simpson had said all along, that he wanted to move to Florida. His paperwork has not been processed yet but LaVergne confident that in the end, Simpson will end up in Florida but start his parole here in Las Vegas.
Martin, Christi?
SAVIDGE: All right, Paul Vercammen, thanks very much for that.
PAUL: Of course we're also following the latest on the crisis in Puerto Rico. This morning, President Trump of course is going to be visiting that devastated island, Tuesday. He says the federal response is going great but at the latest numbers we have from the ground -- remember, 11 days now after the storm but 95 percent of the people there still don't have power.
Think about that after 11 days. Only 50% have access to clean water and communications is still a prime problem there. Only 11% of cellphone towers are operating at this point.
I want to bring in CNN Correspondent Brynn Gingras. She's there in Puerto Rico. How -- I'm wondering how people are folding up and what are they expecting from the president? Do you know, have you talked to anybody when he comes on Tuesday?
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, I think people just want to hear that they're getting help at this point, you know. You read those numbers and it's pretty dismal. And we had traveled to some of these areas that are seeing some response. You know, there are more than 9,000 federal workers, boots on the ground here in Puerto Rico. But there is so much work that really needs to be done.
And remember, we're 10 days now after the storm hit. We went about an hour and a half outside of San Juan yesterday to a city called Utuado. Now, it is a very mountainous area and we saw people as we were driving in, bathing (ph) and trying to drink from the spring water that was coming down the mountain.
And there's a river there that actually runs through this area, this city. It flooded, guys, 20 feet, 20 feet. That's how much. It caused landslides, it actually knocked out this major bridge in this city. And across that bridge, are communities.
Now, 10 days after the storm, we followed a search and rescue team who finally -- you know, they've been working all week to get to these little communities across this flooded river at times.
[07:05:05] And we followed them on one of their last missions to one of these communities that had about 40 families there who hadn't seen relief. And I want you to see how they reacted when they finally saw these search and rescue crews arrived.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I saw them come the first time, I saw heaven.
GINGRAS: What do you want to say to your daughter in Texas? You're surviving?
(OFF-MIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I appreciate your help, ma'am.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GINGRAS: And that man is crying because Christi, you pointed out, 11% of cell phone towers restored. I mean, we literally drive on these highways outside of San Juan, and there are just cars lined up for miles with people holding their phones up to their windshields, trying to get some sort of service, some sort of communication with the outside world at this point, because that's how bad it really is.
But we should mentioned those search and rescue crews that we followed around, they are pretty much a hundred percent complete with that first response and trying to save people who are in dire straits. Now as a major humanitarian effort.
Back to you guys.
PAUL: No doubt. A really, really powerful moment there. Brynn Gingras, thank you so much.
SAVIDGE: This morning, we're getting new reaction from the mayor of San Juan. The president accused her of poor leadership. That's after she made several emotional pleas for help, saying that people were dying in her city. And that federal relief was bagged down in red tape.
PAUL: CNN's Anderson Cooper spoke to that mayor, and I want to show with you now a bit of that conversation.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: You woke up this morning to a tweet from the president of the United States. What did you make of what he said?
CARMEN YULIN CRUZ, SAN JUAN MAYOR: I smiled. I smiled. I really have no time for small politics or for comments that really don't add to the situation here.
COOPER: He said that he talked about you, your leadership and he said they -- I don't know if he meant they, the leaders, or they, the people of Puerto Rico, want everything done for them.
YULIN CRUZ: I believe -- you know, it was kind of funny because I got them real later -- late because we don't have internet. It's spotty, at best. But he did say that we wanted things to be done. You know, the truth is staring us in the face.
Just today, I was telling you we had to evacuate yet another hospital because the generator caught on fire. So, this is in another hospital that we won't be able to work or another week. We transported 14 patients to one of our facilities.
The damp in the eastern part of the island is two towns, for the first time that I know of in my lifetime on Puerto Rico, two towns are being completely evacuated. People are still coming and saying the mayor of San Lorenzo, the mayor of Comerio, the mayor of Ponce, the mayor of Loiza (ph) are saying, you know, where is the help? We need it. Please help us.
COOPER: Do you feel that your speaking out has been effective?
YULIN CRUZ: I don't know. But if it has, you know, good.
COOPER: The president also said in a tweet early this morning that you had been nice to him early on, but that Democrats told you have to be nasty toward him.
YULIN CRUZ: You know, I don't know. Maybe he is used to women who have to be told what to do. But, you know, that's not who we are here in San Juan but really --
COOPER: Have Democrats said anything to you --
YULIN CRUZ: No.
COOPER: -- about how you should treat --
YULIN CRUZ: Not at all. Actually, I am not a Democrat. I share values with the Democratic Party in the United States, but I do not participate in the Democratic Party. COOPER: You also --
YULIN CRUZ: So it's interesting. Senator Marco Rubio sent representatives here. So, he's not a Democrat. And I just think he's looking for an excuse for things that are not going well.
COOPER: Brock Long, the FEMA administrator, has said today about you that there is a joint command and that's essential. There's a unified command and that there's a joined field command office and that you should go by there to kind of get clued into what's really going on.
YULIN CRUZ: Well, yesterday, after my press conference, all of a sudden, things started coming in for FEMA and when they get me my phone -- I can show you the text. I got a text saying that more supplies were coming and all I want is more supplies, you know?
COOPER: So, you feel speaking out has actually pushed FEMA to bring more --
YULIN CRUZ: A lot of people, a lot of mayors are scared of speaking out because they think if they speak out, whatever help they haven't been getting will not get to them.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
SAVIDGE: Let's continue the conversation now with the former Puerto Rican Attorney General Jose Fuentes. And CNN Political Commentator Maria Cardona, she is a Democratic strategist who grew up in Puerto Rico.
[07:10:04] Good morning to both of you first.
MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Martin.
SAVIDGE: Jose, let me start with you. It's 11 days now since the hurricane first came ashore, and officials say that 95% of the island is still without electricity. Half the population without running water. How do you think the response is going?
JOSE FUENTES, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL, PUERTO RICO: I think the response is going very well. You have to understand what happened here. We get hit by a first storm not catastrophic but pretty bad, and then two days later we get hit by a really big storm with unprecedented impact. Never seen before, no water, no electricity and no communications.
We couldn't talk to the people down there. They can't talk amongst themselves. And then for 48 hours, it drenches the island so nobody expected that this was going to be as bad as it was. In a hundred years, we haven't seen anything like this.
So it took a while to get up and running most of the people that the government of Puerto Rico and FEMA had down there suffered the storm so they couldn't get out. They couldn't start working. And it took a little bit to get the effort going through no fault of anyone. So, we have to understand that an island in the middle of the ocean, people can't get out like they did in Florida and Houston, drive somewhere else. We can't take trucks in with all the equipment we need with the cell towers to put them on. Everything has to be the ship, which is five days at best from Florida --
SAVIDGE: We got over a lot of this, Jose, so my question is then, what do you think of the president's response to the mayor's plea for help?
FUENTES: Well, the president has done great and every mayor I spoken --
SAVIDGE: The president -- even saying the tweets that he criticizes the mayor of San Juan is great?
FUENTES: Well, this may of San Juan is a political hack.
CARDONA: Oh my God.
FUENTES: Who was (INAUDIBLE) the president --
CARDONA: Wow.
FUENTES: -- she was saying the praises -- singing the praises of the president until her political advisor Luis Guttierez --
CARODNA: Wow.
FUENTES: -- from Chicago got there, broader the T-shirts and said, hey you want to run for governor --
SAVIDGE: Jose, I'm going to interrupt you just for a second because I can't hear you. And if I can't hear you that I can't go back and forth with questions. So until I get this fix, Maria, I let you try and get a response while I'll try and get hearing you fix. Go ahead.
CARDONA: Well, clearly, clearly, my colleague Jose has drunk the Kool-Aid because he spewing out ridiculous Republican talking points who are apologizing for the dismal response that this president has done towards Puerto Rico. This was not something that was unexpected. I'm sorry.
We knew Hurricane Maria was coming. Yes, it was on the heels of Irma and Harvey but we knew that if Puerto Rico had a direct hit, which it did, it was going to be cataclysmic.
This was something that could have been much better planned for. The president took seven days to repeal the Jones Act, which could have gone -- given vessels, foreign vessels the opportunity to take supplies much earlier on to Puerto Rico that it did.
He did that for Florida. He did that for Texas. Why did he ignore Puerto Rico? You know why? Because he was focused on insulting African-American athletes for six days on Twitter versus focused on the devastation and the life-threatening situation of 3.5 million Americans.
SAVIDGE: OK, Maria, let me just -- let me just stop you there because --
CARDONA: So this president, instead of insulting the mayor, he should actually take cues from her on what leadership really is.
SAVIDGE: I want to push forward on, not what is happened, but what needs to be done. And to do that, this conversation is to focus more on what the president should be doing next.
CARDONA: Sure.
SAVIDGE: And Jose, what should he do next?
FUENTES: Well, the president going down to Puerto Rico on Tuesday is very important because it brings attention to the situation and he'll be able to see firsthand what's going on, not only in Puerto Rico but in the U.S. Virgin Islands. So that is very important.
One of the things that we need to do quickly is restore communication because getting the help that people need to them without communication just makes it so much harder. The mayor or San Juan, for example, should be doing what she needs to do. She needs to start cleaning the streets so that trucks and things can get around. That is her job.
She should be doing that, that the people --
SAVIDGE: I believed she is probably doing that.
FUENTES: No, she is not.
SAVIDGE: How do you know?
CARDONA: Yes --
FUENTES: Listen, if you --
CARDONA: -- she is.
FUENTES: Because I'm talking to the people on the ground. If you look at the press conference that she gave, I don't have things to take the people, people are dying. She's surrounded by food and water. Why she isn't out there delivering that stuff.
CARDONA: Oh my goodness.
FUENTES: Its' really incredible the lack of leadership that she has shown and she just trying to position things to run for governor.
SAVIDGE: Jose, you believe --
CARDONA: Jose, Jose --
SAVIDGE: Wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. So Jose, do you believe the president (INAUDIBLE) justified in the criticisms he made at the mayor?
FUENTES: I think he was and --
SAVIDGE: Absolutely justified.
FUENTES: Absolutely, and she started it. She was the one.
CARDONA: Wow.
FUENTES: She was singing his praises.
CARDONA: Oh my goodness.
FUENTES: And if you talk --
[07:15:05] SAVIDGE: Jose, you do realize that people's lives are on the line and that this is the mayor pleading for help and you're saying that the president is justified slamming her down.
FUENTES: Yes. San Juan is the center of all the recovery for the island. She is getting everything she needed. She requested a special center for San Juan, she got it from FEMA. FEMA gave her more access to goods than anyone else because she was there, she was the closest one that was there.
She was praising the president for a week and then Luis Gutierrez (INAUDIBLE) Puerto Rico (INAUDIBLE) of the T-shirts and says you want to run for governor, you need start criticizing the president.
SAVIDGE: Because a week had gone by and they were still in desperate situation. But, all right, Maria, please, let's have a cutter blade.
CARDONA: Thank you, thank you. I'm sorry, Jose, you are just completely in the wrong here. And you also need to be more respectful of the people in Puerto Rico who are dying and just pleading for help.
FUENTES: Listen, my family --
CARDONA: Hang on a second. Have you seen -- and so is mine.
FUENTES: You're totally wrong. You're totally wrong.
CARDONA: Have you seen the pictures of the mayor of San Juan waiting waist deep in black floodwater trying to take residents out of their home so that they don't drown. Until I see the president of the United States getting his butt down to Puerto Rico, and is willing to spend one night in the shelter where the mayor is sleeping because she lost her home along with 700 other Americans citizens, then he needs to shut the F up, he needs to take his little hands off Twitter, he needs to read what it means to be president manual. He can even read the For Dummies version. He needs to look at the definition of leadership and focus on what he needs to do as president of the United States instead of being a celebrity joke of a TV reality president which is only the things he has done for the past nine months.
SAVIDGE: All right Maria, you expressed that with deep passion. Jose, I will let you --
FUENTES: The president has given the governor of Puerto Rico and the Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez everything they have asked for immediately. They requested that the copay for FEMA be waived immediately. He granted it.
On president for six months --
SAVIDGE: That doesn't put the water back in your home.
FUENTES: Yes it does because the government of Puerto Rico has a liquidity problem. They can't pay the 25% copay that they need to pay FEMA.
SAVIDGE: Why are fighting about --
FUENTES: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Second --
SAVIDGE: You got the money when right now people are just trying to survive? Why is it an issue of dollars and cents?
FUENTES: Because it --
SAVIDGE: Why is it when a hand is offered we're gauging if it's a Republican or Democrat hand?
FUENTES: Well, we shouldn't. I agree a hundred percent with you. We should take politics out of this completely, but it was the mayor San Juan who brought it in --
CARDONA: So then go tell your president to do that. The mayor of San Juan never mentioned Trump, she never mentioned President Trump, ever.
FUENTES: Listen, you talk to the governor, the resident commissioner and 77 other mayors on the island, they're all very happy with the response the way it's going.
CARDONA: And number one --
FUETNES: She is an outlier, she is alone.
CARDONA: They will also say. They will also say --
FUENTES: Let's just leave politics out this.
CARDONA: --more needs to be done.
SAVIDGE: Jose, do you really believer if I talk to all the other mayors that they would all say things are just great.
FUENTES: No, things are not great. Whoever told you things are great is wrong.
CARDONA: You're saying things are great. You just said things were going great.
FUENTES: They are OK with the way the recovery is going. We have now reached a 100% of the island. Things are flowing everywhere.
It's taken time but it's an island. It's not easy. It's not anybody's fault. People are working --
CARDONA: It's the president's fault.
FUENTES: -- as hard as they can.
CARDONA: Yes.
SAVIDGE: All right, let me stop because we can bring some other voices into this. And to do that, we actually went to the streets in Puerto Rico and we spoke to Puerto Ricans about how they feel things are going. So, here is the voice of the people.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's ridiculous. We don't -- we need a help and denied help. He denied us help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Trump is wrong in criticizing the mayor. I mean, the mayor is reacting to a very chaotic situation in Puerto Rico. Unless you're here, you don't really know what's going on. If he's not here, he shouldn't be criticizing the community efforts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you know, Trump has way of saying things, sometimes he's right. But the way he says it hurts people, you know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm very happy that he is coming and seeing what we're going through.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
SAVIDGE: Jose, so I'll bring up one last thing, and to your point, which was when you began that this was such a catastrophic storm that sometimes even the great United States in the span of a week is not able to make things absolutely right. But in this case, it was the president of the United States that made statements that were absolutely wrong here. And that's what we're really getting at.
It's not whether FEMA has done enough. It's not whether their -- they have the aid flowing where it needs to go. It's the voice of the president that stepped in here at a time when the people wanted to hear him comfort, to hear him offer hope instead of --
[07:20:12] CARDONA: He doesn't have the capability to do that.
FUENTES: The president -- if you look at his tweets, the president had been spoke -- speaking very positively. He had been praising the governor of Puerto Rico who's a Democrat, the resident commissioner who's a Republican and everything was going very well.
The president was absolutely helping --
CARDONA: Everything was not doing very well. FUENTES: -- everything again and he is still is until the mayor of San Juan stepped in and politicized the issue, and she should be ashamed of herself.
CARDONA: I think the people who should be ashamed or the people who are apologizing for this incompetent president. When Haiti had an earthquake, two days, two days after the earthquake, they had 25,000 troops on the ground. He had already, the president had already given a general to be the point person for that disaster.
So why is it that 3.5 million American citizens can't expect their president to understand that they are part of this country. Clearly, as he said the other day, he just realized that Puerto Rico is an island surrounded by water, big water. We need more from this president. We need --
SAVIDGE: Let me just interrupt --
FUENTES: You're so wrong. You're so wrong. Because the president had businesses in Puerto Rico --
SAVIDGE: Look, I'm going to stop you, Jose because one, we're out of time, and two, I realize for both of you, you have families on the island and this is not just political, it is personal and we are very sorry --
CARDONA: It is very personal.
SAVIDGE: -- for what the people of Puerto Rico are going --
FUENTES: Thank you for your words.
SAVIDGE: -- through and your families as will.
FUENTES: Thank you very much.
CARDONA: And this president, he needs to understand that in a much better way than he has up now.
SAVIDGE: Thank you both.
CARDONA: Thank you, Martin.
SAVIDGE: We'll take a short break. We'll be back after this.
FUENTES: Thank you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:25:52] SAVIDGE: Breaking news out of Edmonton, Canada. The police were calling two incidents that injured five people acts of terrorism.
PAUL: Yes, let's talk to -- from Edmonton actually reporter, Catherine Griwkosky. She's with the Edmonton Journal. Catherine, thank you for being with us. Help us understand what happened here. CATHERINE GRIWKOWSKY, EDMONTON JOURNAL JOURNALIST: Thanks so much for having me. So around 8:15 p.m., uniformed EPS officer was working traffic control duties at a football game when out of nowhere a white Chev Malibu plowed through the barricades striking the officer sending him 15 feet through the air. The suspect then got out of the vehicle and stabbed the officer multiple times, took off on foot, and was later pulled over at a traffic stop, and that led to a chase down the busy downtown street, involving a U-Haul. Four pedestrians were struck downtown and police immobilize the vehicle and the suspect is now on custody.
PAUL: How -- I understand that there was an ISIS flag involved in this. Can you tell us about that?
GRIWKOWSKY: Yes. So, at the initial scene involving the Malibu, police say that an ISIS flag was found in the car.
PAUL: OK. But they didn't -- but this suspect you said is in custody?
GRIWKOWSKY: The suspect is currently in custody.
PAUL: Are they looking for anyone else?
GRIWKOWSKY: At this moment, it's believed that he acted alone, but police are encouraging people here to be vigilant and give any tips they may have if they see anything suspicious.
SAVIDGE: Real quick, Catherine, Martin Savidge here. How is the officer?
GRIWKOWSKY: The officer is recovering in hospital. He was taken hospital conscience.
SAVIDGE: And others who were mowed down?
GRIWKOWSKY: At that point, their condition is not known.
SAVIDGE: OK, all right. Thank you.
PAUL: OK. Well, Catherine Griwkowsky, thank you for bringing us the latest there from Edmonton. We appreciate the update and we'll obviously continued to tell our viewers when more details become available and so we can find out some more about how does people are doing. Thank you.
The other breaking news we were following this morning, O.J. Simpson he's out, he's a freeman on parole. And here are the first images as he was released early this morning in Nevada around midnight. Where will he go next? We're talking to a long time friend of his.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:32:45] PAUL: Well, President Trump is preparing to visit the devastated island of Puerto Rico, that's happening on Tuesday. He's facing some growing backlash now though for attacking the mayor of San Juan on Twitter.
SAVIDGE: Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz responded to the president's criticisms in an interview with CNN last night saying that she is too busy focusing on saving lives to focus on the president's tweets. CNN'S Jeremy Diamond now joins us live from the White House with more on this growing controversy. Jeremy.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. Well, the president yesterday took to Twitter a total of 18 times to talk about the unfolding crisis in Puerto Rico, but many of the presidents tweets yesterday focus on criticizing many of the leaders in Puerto Rico his administration is working with to try and stem the devastation there.
The president taking to Twitter to criticize San Juan's mayor on Twitter saying that she is essentially criticizing him because the Democrats have told her to do so. The San Juan's mayor has been vocal in saying that she needs more help from the Federal government to be able to stem the crisis there saying that people are dying.
The president also appearing to criticize more broadly the people of Puerto Rico, or at least their leaders saying that they should be trying to do things more themselves that's despite the fact that his own administration officials have said that the capacities of many of these municipal local governments have been essentially eradicated due to the storm because of the lack of a communications and, of course, also the devastation that many of these government employees themselves are facing up.
This comes -- the president's criticism comes despite the fact that his own government has made certain changes. He has deployed a three- star general to the area to actually try to improve the operations there. His government also changing the model communicating more with the state government than with the local officials, but the president will get a chance now to visit some of the devastation firsthand as he heads to the island on Tuesday. That's where we expect the president to actually meet with some of these local officials and perhaps get a better perspective on what is going on down there. Back to you.
SAVIDGE: Right. Seeing things firsthand and meeting people face-to- face. Good to have a change of tone. We'll see. Jeremy Diamond, thank you.
PAUL: Former director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub with us now as well as CNN politics reporter Tom LoBianco. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us.
[07:35:02] Walter, to you firs this morning and I want to let our viewers know what you had twitted earlier. You said this lovely day -- you twitted, "This lovely day for misusing public office to promote your gulf club @realDonaldTrump as Mayor Cruz wait in filthy floodwater to save Americans misusing public office." That's a hefty accusation. Legitimate ethics concern here?
WALTER SHAUB, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS: This has been a pattern in this entire year. It has started with him not investing his financial interest, and then he lived up to the concerns that people had about him, not investing it by spending almost every weekend using our tax dollars to fly off to these luxury resorts of his. Every one of those trips is an advertisement. In fact, there was at one point a brochure that advertised it. If you rented his New Jersey golf course, he might pop in on your event and in fact, he has done that on several occasions.
So I view every one of these trips to his golf course as an advertisement and the stark contrast of the mayor of San Juan waiting in this water and we have seen images of that and him sitting at a golf course after couple rounds of golf, sipping his latest Arnold Porter and tweeting out insults to the victims of this hurricane. This is a moment in history were not to forget.
PAUL: Tom, he mentioned Puerto Rico, obviously, and that is the focus for so many people right now. The president is going there on Tuesday. We have been talking about this, this morning. Is there any indication how he will be received once he gets there and what he will be able to do based on what we have seen in the last 24?
TOM LOBIANCO, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yes. Well, just one thing, real quick. So, I'm actually with the Associated Press now and --
PAUL: Thank you for the correction. I appreciate that and I apologize.
LOBIANCO: Of course. So to strip, you know, it's fascinating to watch this because this is the second time he's had a problem with disaster response. We recall in Harvey where he was out there talking about what great crowds he had when there wasn't anyone there. He had not done the hand-to-hand, the one-on-one, and the individual response. So you have to hope for his case here that he actually does some of that when he does hit the ground.
You know, he has already taken some shots at the mayor, potentially, at the people of Puerto Rico, depending upon how you read those tweets. You know, he could be having to do a little cleanup when he goes down there on Tuesday.
PAUL: Yes, and we'll see about that. I do want to pivot here real quickly to what has been in the news as well in the last couple of days that the President's Cabinet used the private planes here. Multiple investigations we know that are going on right now into this. Walter, you've been vocal on this as well with Twitter saying who takes a long taxpayer-funded luxury trip in his first half-year leading 330,000 person V.A. that's trying to improve its service to vets.
Yes, there is an optic issue here. The president acknowledged that himself on Friday. But when you look further, is there anything ethically that can be done? Is there an ethics issue here and how did they fix it?
SHAUB: Well, the first thing that has to be done is to recognize that this is both a problem and a symptom of a bigger a problem. Tom just mentioned the hurricane Harvey response in the president during his press conference on that was wearing a hat that he was hawking online for people to buy. And that tone from the top has trickled down to the Cabinet, and now his Cabinet officials are spending our money the way he is spending our money every weekend going to his clubs and they're flying an extravagant cost.
And for those outside the government, I can tell you, this is extremely countercultural to the norms in the executive branch.
And so the first thing that has to happen is the president needs to set a stronger tone that this is not right. Well, he can get rid of Secretary Price as a, you know, to deal with the bad press that he has been getting, but the truth is he still flying. He is there this weekend spending our money on his expensive trip to the golf course and those trips are expensive for us. And now we're finding out that four other Cabinet officials are accused of doing the same type of thing that Price did. And I think before it is done, we're going to find this as a wider spread problem, and because it is only a symptom of the bigger ethical problems, I think that this is a canary in the coal mine where we're going to find that a lot bigger departures from the ethical norms and executive branch have occurred. This is just perhaps the most visible one.
PAUL: You talked about the ethical norms the fact that this is a president. He doesn't do things as other presidents have done, Tom?
[07:40:02] That's exactly a good chunk of the reason is to why he was elected. People wanted to see him do things differently.
LOBIANCO: Yes, you know, it's fascinating. I was actually talking with a couple of Trump supporters, Trump voters earlier this week. I bumped into from Florida and they're visiting here in D.C. And, you know, one of the things solace about his response to Puerto Rico and then also about what happened with the falloff in Price, one of the things that struck me with instead is that what they like about him is he talks like a construction worker.
And, you know, that's just, you know, it hits in a very base-level, it hits in a very like guttural level, you know, core level. They don't, you know, for his for his folks, they do not see them as politician and they like that.
PAUL: OK. Walter Shaub, Tom LoBianco, I'm sorry we run out of time. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here.
LOBIANCO: Thanks.
SHAUB: Thanks.
SAVIDGE: O.J. Simpson, he is now out on parole, released from prison early this morning in Nevada. Coming up, a longtime friend joins us to talk about where Simpson will go next.
PAUL: First on this week, staying well, features an ancient Chinese sport called Dragon boat racing and a toppling thousands of African get the heart rates up and their stress level down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make sure your stroke is nice and straight, and even coming back.
ANDREA ELISCU, FOUNDER, ORLANDO DRAGON BOAT CLUB: Dragon boating is about 2,800 years old and started in China. A Dragon boat is 41 foot long. Everybody has to be synchronized with the panel. You do what the person in front of you and the person across from you does. And if you can do that, the boat goes straight and it goes very fast.
WILLIS WEAVER, RETIRED ORLANDO POLICE OFFICER: There's the cardio, there's the constant motion. And your constant is like the short burst of energy. I recently retired as an Orlando police officer after 23 years and no matter what I dealt with on the street when I came out here, I don't believe it. The water smells good. It feels good when splashes up on you, like so it's kind of like a Zen moment.
MELISSA ROMERO, SALES & CUSTOMER SERVICE AGENT: For me, it's about getting my heart rate up, getting some exercise in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charge. Lengthen your stroke.
ROMERO: I feel like being out in the open rather than being in a gym. I have a lot of core strength now. When I first started, I couldn't paddle for more than a minute at a time and now I can probably do an hour continuance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. Let's take the lead.
ROMERO: The worries of the day, it's kind of melt away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: Well, it's official. O.J. Simpson is a freeman. He was released on parole few hours ago after serving nine years for armed robbery and kidnapping. Here are our first pictures.
SAVIDGE: And joining us now to talk about where he might go next and what he's going to do, Dr. Henry Johnson. He's been a friend of O.J. Simpson for 20 years. He is also author of "Double-Crossed for Blood: O.J. Simpson's Constitutional Disaster".
Thank you very much for joining us this morning.
[07:45:09] HENRY S. JOHNSON, O.J. SIMPSON'S FRIEND: Thank you for having me and I want -- I'd like to congratulate CNN for allowing us to be here today this to provide a platform. Thank you very much.
SAVIDGE: Its part of our job. Thanks. So let me ask you this. You visited O.J. Simpson a dozen times while he was in prison. We're told that, you know, now he's going to live at least for the time being in Las Vegas in a suburb but that he wants to eventually go to Florida because it's been (Inaudible). Is that his plan?
JOHNSON: Well, yes, you know, it takes time for the interstate compact to come through in order for Florida to accept the custody of his parole. So, because he doesn't want to wait any longer and he was delighted to go to Las Vegas as well.
PAUL: OK. Well, he's even told about the Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's letter in which she says, our state should not become a country club with this convicted criminals. She's telling the Florida Department of Corrections requesting that they don't allow him to come live in Florida.
JOHNSON: Well, you know, quite frankly, I couldn't answer that because I'm not that up to date. I am up to date as regarding what men O.J. talked about the last time I saw him about four weeks ago.
PAUL: So he doesn't -- so you don't know if he knows about the letter?
JOHNSON: Well, what I can tell you is when I spoke with O.J. he show that he was very interested in going back to Florida. But the last thing that O.J. mentioned to me was he inquired about my research into the telephone records of the grounds that would potentially completely exonerated him and change the story come entirely. And that's for --
PAUL: Exonerate him in what?
JOHNSON: Exonerate him from the standpoint that Nicole and her mother spoke by phone at midnight as O.J. signed autographs on the redeye flight. His phone records were hidden and concealed from the juries, both juries. What they saw were fraudulent fake telephone records. This is what we're talking about.
PAUL: So he is still is feeling the -- he still understanding that people blame him still for --
JOHNSON: We --
PAUL: -- Nicole Brown Simpson's death?
JOHNSON: We understand that he's on -- gone through double jeopardy trial in Santa Monica. But in Santa Monica, O.J. was defrauded. He was defrauded by Fred Goldman and Dan Petrocelli when they submitted those phony telephone records.
That's what we keep saying and I hope you don't see --
SAVIDGE: All right. (INAUDIBLE) just interrupted there because --
JOHNSON: Go ahead.
SAVIDGE: -- I want to speak to not what you may be doing in the future. But let's talk about O.J. Simpson right now. His frame of mind, as he was ready to be released. What was it like?
JOHNSON: O.J. has the -- he has the temperance of Gandhi. OK. He shows the integrity of Mandela and he has the forgiveness of Martin Luther King. That's his frame of mind. PAUL: What exactly does that mean for him moving forward? What do you think he will do once he gets to a place wherever that might be where he's going to settle down? What are his goals?
JOHNSON: All I can tell you is that he gave me my marching orders to continue to pursue those phone records that we know will completely exonerate them. They continued to camouflage the records --
SAVIDGE: All right. Again, thank you, sir. You joined up of what we were asking. So Dr. Johnson, we appreciate you joining us this morning to talk about O.J.
JOHNSON: I appreciate you having me.
SAVIDGE: Great performance.
PAUL: Thank you.
SAVIDGE: Thank you.
JOHNSON: Yes.
SAVIDGE: Ahead an ISIS flag found in the sense of what police in Canada announcing this morning could be a terror attack. Stay with us for more on that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:53:18] SAVIDGE: We want to keep you updated on the breaking news that's coming this morning out at Edmonton, Canada. Police are calling two incidents that injured five people acts of terrorism.
PAUL: Edmonton's police chief says an officer directing traffic was hit by a car traveling at high speeds. The driver then jumped out of his car and started to stab the officer multiple times before he ran away. The suspects then and police confirmed an ISIS flag was found in the front sit of that car.
Later police pull over a drive of U-Haul. This man have a similar name as the suspect in the first incident that driver sped away leading police on a chase and hitting four people in the process. Police arrested that driver after the truck flip and authorities are investigating both incidents as related acts of terror there.
Already switching gears here obviously, Anthony Bourdain says "Parts Unknown" is more than a food show.
SAVIDGE: And on the next episode he dives deep in the Singapore's political system culture and of course food.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, HOST, PARTS UNKNOWN: It's a food show, right? Well, not really. It was like a concept in a lot of ways. If you look at the mix of people at the cities and religions all of this in relevant living in close quarters here, it's a wildly, extraordinary success story.
A place where everything works this well and the system so seemingly different than the one we are taught to venerate, that's generally confusing.
One of the things that was always striking to me is how awesome the food is and how enthusiastic and knowledgeable people are about food here.
If you're looking for pound for pound, most food, best food, most diverse selection of food, maybe anywhere on the planet, we'll most definitely talking about Singapore.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
[07:55:16] PAUL: You catch Anthony Bourdain in Singapore this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. as in today 9:00 p.m. eastern on CNN's Parts Unknown. Thank you so much for sharing your morning with us. We hope you make great memories today.
SAVIDGE: Inside Politics with John King. He's going to start right after this short break. Have a great day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
