Return to Transcripts main page
New Day
Louisiana Island Disappearing; Town Hall with Howard Schultz; Kelly Launches Senate Campaign; Klobuchar Addresses Mistreatment; CDC Blames Vaping for Spike. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired February 12, 2019 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:33:11] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A coastal Louisiana community knows climate change is real. Rising water and erosion have wiped out 98 percent of the town. The federal government is now spending millions to move families north before homes just vanish.
CNN's Bill Weir explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bye!
BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When these kids are old enough to start families, their hometown will be under water.
CHANTEL COMARDELLE, TRIBAL EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES: This is my grandma's house.
WEIR: Their great, great, great-grandparents settled here during the Trail of Tears. And for a first hundred years they farmed this land.
WEIR (on camera): You just raised that exact house above, right?
CHRIS BRUNET, TRIBAL COUNCIL MEMBER, ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES: Right. Right.
WEIR: Yes.
WEIR (voice over): But in the last 30 years, they had to raise their homes a few feet to stay dry. And then a few feet more. Until before and after satellite pictures proved what they already knew, 98 percent of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, has disappeared.
COMARDELLE: I always talk about water is our life and our death. Once we weren't able to farm anymore, the waters, the shrimp, the oysters, the crabs that sustained our people, now was killing us. It's killing us.
WEIR: Every hour of every day, a piece of Louisiana about the size of a football field slips into the sea. Every hour, every day.
It started when America tamed, locked and diked the mighty Mississippi, choking off the natural flow of mud that built this land. But these days, as it sinks, polar ice melts, seas rise, big storms just keep coming.
TJORBORN "TOR" TORNQVIST, GEOLOGIST, TULANE UNIVERSITY: There has been a lot of change in just the last say five years.
WEIR: And those who study the drowning of Louisiana say it is happening faster than anyone ever predicted.
TORNQVIST: What's maybe five years ago what was the worst case scenario is now what we might call a fairly likely scenario.
[08:35:09] WEIR (on camera): That's terrifying.
TORNQVIST: It is terrifying. And it basically means that climate change is here in full force.
WEIR (voice over): So Isle de Jean Charles won a first of its kind federal grant, $48 million to move them about 40 miles north. The state recently closed on 500 acres of old sugar cane fields.
PAT FORBES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: We're going to have baseball fields, fishing ponds, wetlands, homes along the back.
WEIR: But before they can even break ground --
COMARDELLE: We like just had a tribal meeting today.
WEIR: They are getting a harsh lesson in just how hard it is to convince Americans to uproot and retreat.
COMARDELLE: Anybody else is probably not moving.
WEIR (on camera): Really?
COMARDELLE: So -- yes.
WEIR (voice over): Half of the 40 families who live here say they will never leave, while others still aren't convinced it's the right move.
BRUNET: This so-called climate change thing --
WEIR (on camera): You put it in quotes.
BRUNET: Yes.
WEIR: So called.
BRUNET: That's right.
WEIR: But Isle de Jean Charles is just a tiny sample of how expensive and difficult the future will be. According to one estimate from the United Nations, between 50 and 200 million people will be displaced by climate change by the year 2050. And most of those are the planet's most vulnerable, fishermen and farmers who live on the edge. WEIR (voice over): And if it is this hard moving a village, imagine
moving Miami and New Orleans.
WEIR (on camera): Do you have children?
TORNQVIST: I have an eight-year-old daughter.
WEIR: Do you think she will ever be able to, say, take out a 30-year mortgage in New Orleans?
TORNQVIST: I don't know. I don't know. That's -- that's -- this -- I wouldn't bet my money on it, let's put it that way.
WEIR (voice over): But, he says it is not too late to stop burning the carbon that is cranking up the global thermostat. Not too late to stop worst case pain. But that will depend more on human nature than mother nature.
And as people argue, the seas rise, every hour of every day.
WEIR: Bill Weir, CNN, Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: Our thanks to Bill Weir for that sobering look.
Meanwhile, we have breaking campaign news. We're not talking about presidential race. A name you may know well running for John McCain's Senate seat. So we'll tell you who that is, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:40:19] BERMAN: A special CNN town hall tonight with former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, moderated by Poppy Harlow. Shultz is considering an independent run in 2020.
Vanessa Yurkevich is live in Houston at the site of tonight's town hall.
And, Vanessa, you know, Howard Schultz has elicited a lot of emotion, a lot of electricity from people now looking at his possible run.
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. Hi, John.
And apparently Texas is the place to be this week. We had Beto O'Rourke and we had the president last night in El Paso. And, tonight, we're here in Houston as Howard Schultz sits down with Poppy Harlow for a 60-minute live town hall.
This is the first time that we're going to see Howard Schultz interacting with voters. And as you mentioned, he's had a little bit of a rocky rollout with his potential campaign. This is someone who hasn't officially announced but said if he does run he's going to be running as an independent. That's faced -- he's faced backlash from voters -- excuse me, from Democrats because of that, saying that basically if he steps into the race, he's going to be taking votes away from a potential Democratic nominee, thus ensuring the likely re- election of President Trump.
Tonight will be a big opportunity for him to sort of retell the narrative of his campaign, to come out on a lot of his policies, what he can be -- what voters can be expecting from him. And it will also be an opportunity for him to introduce himself to more Americans. A CNN poll that came out last week reports that about half of Americans don't even know who he is.
And he'll also be able to talk to voters one on one in a very conversational way. As you know, he has a lot of experience in the boardroom. But this is a different format where people are going to be looking, John, to see whether or not he can connect with voters and answer those questions that they need to know.
BERMAN: All right, Vanessa Yurkevich for us in Houston, the site of that town hall tonight. Thanks so much, Vanessa.
That's at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. Poppy Harlow talks to former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, only on CNN.
CAMEROTA: All right, we have some breaking campaign news. Retired astronaut Mark Kelly just announced that he is running for John McCain's Senate seat in Arizona. Mark Kelly, of course, rose to the national spotlight after his wife, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, was shot in a mass shooting eight years ago.
Joining us now to talk about this, as well as the entire Democratic field, we have Joshua Green, national correspondent for "Bloomberg Businessweek," and Jonathan Martin, national political correspondent for "The New York Times."
Great to have you guys with us.
I'm going to invite John Berman to join me.
BERMAN: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: It's that much fun of a segment that John Berman wants in, you guys.
BERMAN: I'll just lean in there.
CAMEROTA: OK.
All right, Mark Kelly has just put out a campaign ad about what his motivations are for wanting to serve in the Senate. So let's watch that moment of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK KELLY: You nearly lost your life serving your country.
GABBY GIFFORDS, FORMER CONGRESSWOMAN: Yes.
KELLY: But what do you do when bad things happen?
GIFFORDS: Move ahead. Move ahead.
KELLY: You've got to move ahead.
GIFFORDS: Yes.
KELLY: You've got to move ahead and try to make a difference in the world.
You ready?
GIFFORDS: Let's go.
KELLY: We're going to go a hundred miles?
GIFFORDS: A hundred miles, no.
KELLY: How far you want to go?
GIFFORDS: Five miles.
KELLY: You know, I learned a lot from being an astronaut. I learned a lot from being a pilot in the Navy. I learned a lot about solving problems from being an engineer. But what I learned from my wife is how you use policy to improve people's lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Hard to argue with that opening statement, Josh. What are your thoughts on this?
JOSHUA GREEN, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK": Well, I think this gives Democrats a marquee candidate in what is going to be one of the marquee Senate races in 2020. If Democrats are going to have a realistic path back to a majority in the Senate, they've got to win Republican held seats, like Arizona. So I think this is exciting news for Democrats. It shows that they're going to be able to mount a serious challenge to Martha McSally, who was appointed to fill out the remainder of John McCain's term. And I think we're going to be spending a lot of time covering the Arizona Senate race between now and 2020.
BERMAN: I think that's right. And I think we'll also perhaps have an impact on the presidential race there. As you note, Arizona will be perhaps a key swing state.
JONATHAN MARTIN, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": Yes.
BERMAN: It's always been Democrats' dream to make it a swing state in a general election.
And, Jonathan Martin, we know Mark Kelly has been outspoken and Gabby Giffords, too, outspoken on the issue of gun ownership and gun control.
MARTIN: Yes. Yes. BERMAN: I do have to believe that will become front and center as an issue in that state. And I do wonder what a state-wide race in Arizona, where gun control is a major factor, how that will play.
MARTIN: Right. Yes, it's going to be a great test of gun politics in Arizona. A state that historically has a sort of libertarian-leaning political vibe to it. The home of Barry Goldwater, of course. And so I think, you know, Kelly will obviously not back down on that issue and it will be fascinating to see how aggressively McSally prosecutes that (ph).
[08:45:18] I would just add, though, it's not a sure thing that Kelly will be the nominee of the Democratic Party.
BERMAN: Right.
MARTIN: Look, I think that if you ask Chuck Schumer today, he would live the idea of Kelly being the nominee. But there is a congressman named Ruben Gallego from the Phoenix area, a Marine, Hispanic, been in the House now for a couple of terms who would really like to run for that Senate seat too. So you could have a real primary on the Democratic side.
And, John, you're right, it's not perhaps -- I think that Arizona is going to be a crucial battleground state. I think Democrats are not going to make the mistake that Hillary made in 2016 and wait to go out there. I think that they're going to be out there early on in '20.
CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Josh, did you have a point about the competition?
GREEN: Yes, no, I agree with Jon. And if you look at what just happened in the fall election, Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat winning a Senate seat there, I mean I think that shows that Arizona is competitive for Democrats, not just in the presidential level now but on the Senate level. And if you look at where the rising Democratic coalition lives, it's sunbelt states like Arizona. So, again, I think it's going to be a real focus both at the Senate and the presidential level going into 2020.
CAMEROTA: OK, let's move on to the Democratic field running for president. Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota, was on TV last night. So she again had to address these complaints, I guess, from unnamed staffers who thought that she was too tough on them. So listen to her response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know I can be too tough sometimes. And I can push too hard. That's obvious. But a lot of it is because I have high expectations for myself, I have high expectations for the people that work with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: J-Mart (ph), what are you looking at with her run? MARTIN: I think that at some point she's going to have to address this
issue in a -- in a more full way than what she has done so far. I think the fact that there were two separate stories that dropped before she even, you know, announced her campaign, you know, shows just how serious of a challenge this is going to be. So I'm just not sure that the sort of dismissive response of, yes, I was at times too tough, but that's because I have high standards, I'm just not sure that that's going to be enough if these kind of stories keep getting reported out there.
BERMAN: Is being a bad boss or how you treat your congressional staff, though, do voters care about that, Josh?
GREEN: You know, I think it potentially could be. I thought the interview with Maddow, frankly, was a bit of a softball interview. The issue aired in those story and the issue that all reporters in Washington who cover Congress have heard from multiple former employees of Klobuchar's is not that she's a tough boss, but that she's an abusive boss. You know, throwing things in the office, screaming at people, that sort of thing.
I think she needs to address that. You know, MSNBC last night turned out not to be the venue for a real grilling on some of these stories, but it's hard for me to see how she gets through a Democratic primary without frontally addressing these things.
And one of the thing I heard in some of her answers last night is that she did seem to be sort of acknowledging a little bit, well, sometime I am too tough. And if I am too tough, I only do it because -- you know, that signals to me that she knows she has a problem and she's trying to figure out a way to address it.
CAMEROTA: Interesting. All right. Josh Green, J-Mart, thank you both very much.
All right, here's what to watch today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ON SCREEN TEXT: 11:00 a.m. ET, funeral for former Rep. John Dingell in MI.
12:00 p.m. ET, talks resume over Denver teacher strike.
10:00 p.m. ET, CNN town hall: fmr. Starbucks CEO Schultz.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: A new report finds tobacco use among teenagers is up. What the CDC says is single handedly driving the spike. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:53:25] BERMAN: A new report shows the decline in tobacco use among teens over recent years has now been completely wiped out because of e-cigarettes and vaping.
CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Gupta joins us now with more.
What's going on here, Sanjay?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's kind of amazing, right? You think about all the progress we made with regard to youth smoking. These increases in e-cigarettes specifically now erasing all that progress.
Let me show you some of the numbers quickly here in terms of what we're talking about. Among high school students specifically, any type of tobacco product, 27 percent, 28 percent of people, really high school students, saying that they've used one of these tobacco product within the last 30 days.
But let me show you something else that's important as well, and that is how frequently are they actually using it. E-cigarette users are using them more often. More than 20 days, 20 percent did that in 2017. And now 28 percent in 2018.
So, John, this entire erased progress in youth tobacco use is being fueled by e-cigarettes. Not only are more kids using them, you have close to 5 million youth now using these, they're using them more often as well. You know, more than 20 days out of the month.
BERMAN: One particular maker of e-cigarettes, Juul. Why is that important here?
GUPTA: You know, this -- this is a company that maybe people are still just hearing about. It's not even been around more than four years. But they control 75 percent of the vaping market. So they are by far the biggest player. It's like of like when you say I'm going to Google something, it means you're going to searching for something on the Internet. When people say they're Juuling, it means vaping. It's become that ubiquitous and that sort of synonymous with vaping itself.
[08:55:09] Also, as you know, you know, part of the strategy for Juul seems to be selling flavors, which probably appeals to younger people more so than older people. Also to have these devices that were essentially concealed. They looked like USB drives. You know, so people -- parents often just didn't even know what they were necessarily dealing with.
And then just as far as the amount of nicotine. We talked about this last week, John, you remember. There was this nicotine arms race that sort of developed because Juul started using 5 percent nicotine pods. Before that, the market had largely been 1 percent to 2 percent. Juul came out and did 5 percent nicotine pods and all of a sudden all of the other makers were trying to increase the amount of nicotine as well.
So one of those pods is worth more -- has more nicotine than a pack of cigarettes.
BERMAN: Wow. GUPTA: So this is -- these are kids who may have never smoked before. They have no tolerance. They're doing a pod and all of a sudden they're getting an entire pack of cigarettes in one pod, John.
BERMAN: I've got to say, every week it seems like there's a major, new development in this major public health story. Sanjay, we're so glad that you're on it.
GUPTA: Yes. Thank you.
BERMAN: All right, thanks, Sanjay.
CAMEROTA: I mean they were marketed to seem benign and to seem like candy, you know, flavored -- harmless flavors and now it turns out -- I mean that is a shocking amount of nicotine that they were getting.
BERMAN: He was talking to us just last week about this issue and then had the CDC report come out this week and say that all the gains in teen smoking, all the reductions have been wiped out, it's astounding.
CAMEROTA: All right, back to our developing story, will the president support and sign this bipartisan deal that was hatched together last night to keep the government open? NEWSROOM continues after this quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
