Return to Transcripts main page
New Day
Audio Reveals Pilots Confronted Boeing About Safety; Security Concerns Rise After Attacks On Places Of Worship; Radioactive Contamination Found At Ohio School. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired May 15, 2019 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:31:04] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. One 2020 Democratic candidate has hit the reset button while the frontrunner defends himself against a fellow Democrat from Congress.
It's Wednesday, so let's get the midweek grades. Chris Cillizza, "CNN POLITICS" reporter and editor-at-large is here.
Joe Biden leading in the polls by a lot and still leading in your midweek grades. Chris.
CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Yes. I'm going to keep giving him A's John, as long as two things are true.
One, he continues to maintain a significant lead in national polling and remains ahead in Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, which he is. He's up 23 points on average, according to RealClearPolitics, in national polling over Bernie Sanders.
And I'm also going to keep giving him an A every week that we say Joe Biden didn't make a big gaffe that we spent the last week talking about.
So, give him credit. Message, discipline, plus polling as the clear frontrunner, you get an A.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK. What do you give Elizabeth Warren at this point in the week?
CILLIZZA: OK. So, I think Elizabeth Warren deserves almost the same grade. I gave her an A-minus and the reason that I did that is because I think she's actually had a very good run in the last couple of weeks.
I thought her decision to come out and say -- you know what? I'm not going to do a Fox town hall. I don't like that network and I'm not going to support it.
Very smart as it applies to appealing to liberal Democratic primary voters and drawing a line between herself and her main competition for those voters, Bernie Sanders, who as you remember, was the first candidate to come out and do a town hall on Fox. So I think that, plus the fact she is starting to bump up a little bit. She's now in a close to solid third place along with Kamala Harris, behind Biden and Sanders. She had a very rocky beginning but I think she has been quite good for at least the last month.
CAMEROTA: Well, a couple of things. First of all, she didn't just say I don't like that network. She said something to the effect of they're monetizing hate.
BERMAN: Hate for pay.
CILLIZZA: Yes, hate -- that's right.
CAMEROTA: Hate for profit.
BERMAN: Hate for profit.
CAMEROTA: Hate for profit, I think, was her quote. We need to find that --
CILLIZZA: That's the phrase.
CAMEROTA: -- specifically.
But why aren't you giving her an A? I'm so confused about your grades. Are you grading --
CILLIZZA: OK.
CAMEROTA: -- somebody against themselves or against other people?
CILLIZZA: I think against -- I think against other people's weeks is how I would --
CAMEROTA: Got it.
CILLIZZA: -- say, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: On her.
CILLIZZA: And I think the reason why is because she's still -- look, she's still 30 points behind Joe Biden nationally. She's still in single-digits everywhere except New Hampshire. So, I think she is absolutely moving in the right direction but there's room for improvement.
BERMAN: I think --
CAMEROTA: Got it.
CILLIZZA: Is that fair?
CAMEROTA: I think so. I mean, as long as you're not grading them against themselves because she's had a personally good week. So you're saying --
CILLIZZA: No, she's -- I think she's had a good --
CAMEROTA: -- against Joe Biden -- got it.
CILLIZZA: Yes, against the field because eventually you're going to have to -- eventually you're going to have to beat everybody else that's in the race.
CAMEROTA: I see.
CILLIZZA: So I think you have to grade them against each other.
CAMEROTA: Is that how this works? You're right. Usually, that's right.
BERMAN: So I do think if there was one candidate who is racing to the mailbox to get their report card this week it would be the gentleman from El Paso, Beto O'Rourke, resetting his campaign to an extent.
CILLIZZA: Yes.
BERMAN: What grade does he get?
CILLIZZA: Well, OK.
I used to pretend that I didn't know that the report cards came out. Now they do it electronically. But back in the days, they'd give you the actual paper report card, right, and I would occasionally not inform my parents. That would be Beto O'Rourke's week.
I gave him a D. This is the second week in a row he's gotten a D. And the reason is, guys, I just think this whole thing about resets and being -- coming out and saying you're going to reset your campaign.
First of all, last time I checked, it's May of 2019. Why is he resetting a campaign that began like two months ago? I think he's really struggling and I just -- I don't see a way out.
I do think -- and I'm promoting us here, but I do think the town hall next week for Beto O'Rourke -- if you're going to do a reset and you're going to say it's going to be different, this is a good place to do it.
CAMEROTA: I totally agree with you that it will be the most significant. But do you think that the helped himself by going on "THE VIEW" yesterday?
CILLIZZA: I think talking about process, which is I'm pressing reset, I shouldn't have done the "Vanity Fair" thing -- talking about things that isn't policy for voters, talking about things that isn't about their lives is almost always a loser.
[07:35:04] BERMAN: I will say --
CILLIZZA: So wherever he did it, I think it's not good.
BERMAN: I did cover two campaigns where there were very, very public resets, which was George W. Bush in 2000 and John McCain in 2008.
CILLIZZA: Yes.
BERMAN: And it worked for both of them --
CILLIZZA: It did.
BERMAN: -- but it was way later in the process.
CILLIZZA: Way later when people knew about them.
BERMAN: Quickly, Howard Schultz -- Howard Schultz?
CILLIZZA: OK, I can do this quick. I give him an incomplete grade because where the heck is he? He -- remember, it was January or February. It was like Howard Schultz -- whether you liked him or hate him, he was everywhere.
Now, he had back surgery relatively recently.
BERMAN: Yes.
CILLIZZA: He's canceled a bunch of events. His people say it's not that he's not going to run. But like, dude, you've got to go out and meet people if you want to run for president.
CAMEROTA: All right. On that note, professor Cillizza, thank you very much for the midweek grades.
CILLIZZA: Signing off.
CAMEROTA: All right, got it.
BERMAN: I feel like you were grading Chris's grades.
CAMEROTA: I feel that way. I feel like he needs some checks and balances on his grades.
BERMAN: You're like the dean.
CAMEROTA: Yes, I am the dean. I'm glad we agree on that.
All right, now to this. We're hearing from a third student who helped disarm two gunmen at the school near Columbine, Colorado last Tuesday. Joshua Jones says his instincts immediately kicked in as he and two other students rushed the shooter. The 18-year-old was shot in the calf and the thigh during the attack.
Joshua said it took all three of them to stop the carnage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSHUA JONES, STUDENT, STEM SCHOOL HIGHLANDS RANCH: I'm also glad that we did it. With just me or just Brendan or just Kendrick it would have been much worse for everybody else in that room. But there was not really a specific moment where we all recognized that each other was getting up and we were going to help each other with this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh, what incredible students.
Tonight, the community will celebrate the life of Kendrick Castillo, who was killed trying to stop the attack.
BERMAN: Airline pilots confronting Boeing about concerns with its 737 MAX jets before a second major deadly crash. You will hear some of that confrontation, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:41:09] CAMEROTA: New audio obtained by "CBS NEWS" reveals several American Airlines pilots confronted Boeing about the safety features on the 737 MAX. That's the airplane, of course, involved in those two recent deadly crashes.
CNN's Tom Foreman is live in Washington with more. What are they saying, Tom?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This meeting took place after the fall crash -- the one -- the Lion Air crash off Indonesia. And these pilots from American Airlines -- from the union -- were meeting with officials from Boeing.
And they were saying look, there's a problem here. If you have a system on this plane -- an automatic system on this plane, which can make the nose start turning down in an uncontrollable way -- which is basically the complaint about the first crash and the second one -- pilots need to know about it and they need to know how to fix it.
Listen to what they said in this meeting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PILOT: We flat-out deserve to know what is on our airplanes.
BOEING OFFICIAL: I don't disagree.
PILOT: These guys didn't even know the damn system was on the airplane nor did anybody else.
BOEING OFFICIAL: I don't know that understanding this system would have changed the outcome of this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOREMAN: Now, this happened months before the second crash -- the Ethiopian Air crash.
And if you listen further to this video -- this audio obtained by "CBS NEWS," you hear the Boeing representative say oh well, we think that even if this happens, it's a one in a million flight hour's event. We think it's so rare that this really isn't the issue and pilots already know how to handle similar events or would be able to follow procedures to deal with this.
But that's really the crux of the argument here. And as the head of the FAA and NTSB go before Congress today to answer questions about all of this in a hearing, there's no question this is going to be brought up.
Who's right? Was it the equipment, was it Boeing's fault, was it the pilot's fault being unable to deal with it, and what did the government do about it?
BERMAN: All right, Tom Foreman for us in Washington. Tom, thank you very much. We'll watch that very closely.
Places of worship are supposed to be safe spaces, but in the United States that's really no longer the case. Security concerns are now part of the new reality.
CNN's Sara Sidner explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NOYA DAHAN, INJURED IN CHABAD OF POWAY SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING, POWAY, CALIFORNIA: The synagogue is always a safe place to be. We're not supposed to be worried about anything.
It's bruised up.
SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): But, Noya Dahan will always worry now. She was a victim in a deadly attack at her California synagogue.
Her father, who witnessed the attack, wanted to send this message to the president.
ISRAEL DAHAN, CONGREGANT, CHABAD OF POWAY, POWAY, CALIFORNIA: I know Donald Trump is supporting Israel, but there is more problem in the U.S. than anywhere in the world. And instead of looking for a problem outside of the country, it's better to look inside the country.
SIDNER (voice-over): Over the past seven years, deadly attacks by mass shooters on places of worship have been a reoccurring nightmare in the U.S.
In 2012, six people are gunned down at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. That same year, a prayer leader is killed at a church in College Park, Georgia.
In 2015, nine worshipers are slaughtered at a predominantly black church in Charleston. In 2017, 26 killed in Sutherland Springs, Texas. And in Antioch, Tennessee, another person is gunned down at church.
In 2108, 11 are murdered in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Six months later, one person is killed at a synagogue in Poway, California. Police say four of the attacks were perpetrated by men with white supremacist or neo-Nazi ideals, targeting their victims because of their skin color or religion.
This pattern of deadly extremism is forcing religious leaders like Poway's Rabbi Goldstein to confront their new reality.
RABBI YISROEL GOLDSTEIN, CHABAD OF POWAY: After the Pittsburgh event, the Poway Sheriff's Department hosted an active shooting workshop, which we attended.
[07:45:00] SIDNER (voice-over): In his synagogue, everyone but one congregant survived the shooting. He was injured. But he said if it wasn't for the shooter's gun jamming, a congregant who charged him, and an armed off-duty border patrol agent who fired at the suspect, it could have been a blood bath.
GOLDSTEIN: If we would have had an armed security guard at the door there's a very good chance the shooter would have been neutralized. Why didn't we? The answer is simple.
SIDNER (on camera): You couldn't afford security.
GOLDSTEIN: There's no budget for it.
SIDNER (voice-over): After that shooting, California's governor pledged $15 million in grants to help religious and community-based nonprofits to strengthen security.
After the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, Pennsylvania's governor is working with the Legislature to increase funding for security from more than $3.6 million in grants the state secured from DHS since 2014 for Jewish groups.
In 2019, the federal government set aside $60 million in security grants for nonprofit organizations, but they must be able to demonstrate they're at high risk of a terror attack.
CARLY PILDIS, AUTHOR, TABLET MAGAZINE: I cried so hard that day. I cried so hard.
SIDNER (voice-over): Carly Pildis writes for "Tablet Magazine," which concentrates on Jewish news and culture.
PILDIS: You know, I feel a sense of loss for what it used to be like for Jews here.
SIDNER (voice-over): As hate crimes rise, the sense of safety is being stripped away.
PILDIS: Anti-Semitism is a real threat. It is a threat to you, even if you're not Jewish. Anti-Semitism has a history of breaking democracies.
SIDNER (voice-over): Pildis and experts who track anti-Semitism say we probably have not reached the pinnacle of the hatred yet. Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: What an important series she is doing --
BERMAN: Yes.
CAMEROTA: -- all this week.
BERMAN: Sara's doing that all this week and we're really grateful for that because it's such an important look on something that, as she points out, is pervasive.
CAMEROTA: And you have to keep talking about it to raise the awareness that it is happening.
All right. Meanwhile, there are safety questions at one small town school where radioactive contamination was just detected. We'll take you there, next.
BERMAN: That's crazy.
But first, a young woman fearlessly pushing back against Lou Gehrig's disease with style. Here is today's "Turning Points."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAUREN "LOLO" SPENCER, DISABILITY LIFESTYLE INFLUENCER: I'm Lauren "Lolo" Spencer and I'm a disability lifestyle influencer. I'm on Instagram and also have my YouTube channel called "Sitting Pretty."
It's your girl, Lolo.
I like to focus specifically on things for people with disabilities. I give dating advice, life advice.
At 14, my body started to have these weird changes. We started going doctor-to-doctor -- ultimately, to be diagnosed with ALS Lou Gehrig's disease.
It was scary. I just made the decision that I was going to live my life to the fullest. I've been living now with ALS 18 years.
When I started my YouTube channel there weren't many YouTubers out there that were talking about disability lifestyle. There really wasn't anyone really giving the real deal advice. I had noticed that anytime disability was talked about, there was this air of like sympathy, sadness. I was like, I ain't sad about my life.
I got a great opportunity to model for Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive. With me, modeling is so important to represent that people with disabilities can be just as fly and fashionable as anyone else.
You can live your life as full and fearless as you want it to be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:52:55] BERMAN: So this story really is stunning. An Ohio middle school remains closed today after enriched uranium was detected inside the building. The school is just a few miles from a Department of Energy plant that was built to support the U.S. nuclear program during the Cold War.
Ryan Young is live in Piketon, Ohio with much more on this. Ryan, what's going on here?
RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, as you can imagine, there's a lot of questions here, especially from those folks who have kids who attend this school. And, in fact, there's an emergency meeting tonight.
When you look at this, though, you think just a few weeks away from school closing, now these parents are worried about what could have been found inside the school and will it affect their children.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TODD BURKITT, SUPERINTENDENT, SCIOTO VALLEY LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, PIKETON, OHIO: There's just not a playbook in how we deal with this and we're kind of writing the script as we go.
YOUNG (voice-over): Scioto Valley Local School District superintendent reacting to a shocking discovery -- enriched uranium found inside an Ohio middle school building, along with neptunium 237, detected by an air monitor just outside.
The school board president alerted parents in a letter Monday and announced immediate closure of the school.
BRANDON WOOLRIDGE, PRESIDENT, BOARD OF EDUCATION, SCIOTO VALLEY LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICT: That's the reason why we stopped and shut the school building down until we can get an independent study done and find results of what's going on.
YOUNG (voice-over): Zahn's Corner Middle School is located in the Village of Piketon, home to about 2,100 people about 65 miles south of Columbus.
The school itself, mere miles away from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant where the U.S. Department of Energy says enriched uranium and neptunium have been identified as contaminants of concern.
From 1954 to 2001, the plant produced enriched uranium. Now it is part of an ongoing cleanup project, one that community leaders are skeptical about.
JENNIFER CHANDLER, COUNCIL MEMBER, VILLAGE OF PIKETON, OHIO: I am not confident in DOE's plan to move forward without figuring out are there activities currently contaminating the community. YOUNG (voice-over): The school board and county health department believe the DOE must take appropriate actions to ensure radiological contaminants are not being released from the site.
[07:55:04] ELIZABETH LAMERSON, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST, PIKETON RESIDENT: Every house that I sampled contained enriched uranium above background.
YOUNG (voice-over): Elizabeth Lamerson is an environmental scientist living near the nuclear plant cleanup site. She and a team gathered samples that found enriched uranium inside the school, raising alarms in the community.
Once council member saying in just the past years, five students in the district have been diagnosed with cancer -- three of them have died.
CHANDLER: I would have to think that anyone would think it would be OK to continue with activities that would -- that would continue to expose members of the community to carcinogens.
YOUNG (voice-over): The school board now working with the county health department to "develop a path forward that will ensure our students, staff, and community are safe."
MATT BREWSTER, HEALTH COMMISSIONER, PIKE COUNTY GENERAL HEALTH DISTRICT: School's going to be starting before we know it. And in addition to the school, there's a lot of just concern with people who live near the school. The school's here but there's also an entire community that is also very concerned.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
YOUNG: Now, the left-hand corner of your screen near that fog line -- that is where the plant is. And you can see the school at the bottom.
Now, the U.S. Department of Energy is telling CNN that routine air samples in the area of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant revealed only trace amounts of two radiological isotopes, but imagine telling that a parent.
And not only do -- we're talking about the school, there are kids who live near here. In fact, yesterday guys, we were watching kids playing nearby.
A lot of people have questions about how this is going to affect their health overall, especially when you hear about those child deaths.
CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Those cancer cases really do also raise questions about what's happening there.
Ryan, thank you very much.
OK, investigating the people who were investigating Trump's ties to Russia. What started with a Trump retweet two years ago has somehow grown into three Justice Department investigations. John Avlon is here to explain how this all happened. Hi, John.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, guys.
So, it is on. The call to investigate the investigators has gone from an occasional Trump twitter twitch, pumped up by Fox News, to what is now three reviews under the Justice Department, all designed to turn the tables on Democrats and muddy the waters heading into a general election.
Now, this is unprecedented. But remember, it's also a core Trump trick. Come up with a catch phrase to accuse his opponents of what he has been credibly accused of. In this case, investigate the investigators.
And while the president says that he hasn't asked his attorney general to look into this, he's been beating the drum for a long time.
Trump started floating the idea that, quote, "Collusion is among the Democrats" in a 2017 tweet. And you might not be shocked to find that it was a retweet of a guest hit from "FOX & FRIENDS." Since then, there have been nearly 50 tweets where Trump tried to flip the script and suggest that only collusion was with the Democrats.
And this rift continued even after the Mueller report was released and Trump falsely claimed it exonerated him.
Here's one from just last month. Quote, "Mueller and the A.G. have already ruled no collusion, no obstruction. These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, dirty cops, and others." And then there's that rallying cry -- "Investigate the investigators."
Now, we've been heading here for years. The profitable "New York Times" even called out the tactic in 2017 with this headline -- "Trump Aides Seeking Leverage, Investigate Mueller's Investigators."
The prospect's been pushed by Fox News. Its anchors and guest used the phrase 63 times over the Trump term with chyrons like this, reinforcing the president's message.
The toxic talking point's been pushed by Sean Hannity, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Sanders, Lindsey Graham, and Dave Bossie, just to name a very few.
Remember how Trump used to call the Mueller investigation a witch hunt? Well, he now seems intent to embark on a witch hunt of his own.
And if you still think this might be about the pursuit of justice rather than pure politics -- well, the Trump reelection team is here to clear up any confusion with e-blasts capitalizing on the idea and the campaign's communications director saying that, quote, "The tables are turning" and "that the investigators will be investigated. It's something the campaign will continue to point to."
But one Trump appointee who hasn't been singing from the same hymnal is FBI Chris Wray, who rejected out of hand the idea that law enforcement had been spying on anyone.
And here's former FBI lawyer James Baker on C-SPAN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES BAKER, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL, FBI: There was a point in time relatively recently where I just became sick of all the B.S. that is said about the origins of the investigation, and I just got fed up with it.
The case was about Russia. We've written about this. It was about Russia -- period, full stop.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AVLON: So remember this. Beyond all the noise and spin, the core concern the Russians were trying to influence our election in favor of Donald Trump has been proven without a shadow of a doubt.
The only person resisting those findings is the president himself, and so he's trying to sow the seeds of doubt by any means necessary. What's different and dangerous is that he's using the Justice Department to do it, all to fuel the 2020 campaign rallies where "lock her up" may be replaced with "lock them up."
This is banana republic-level stuff and it's up to all of us not to fall for it.
And that's your reality check.
BERMAN: All right, John. John Avlon, thank you very much for that.
All right --
CAMEROTA: NEW DAY --
BERMAN: Yes. Is Roe versus Wade in jeopardy?
CAMEROTA: It sounds like it.
BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.
END
