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Boeing Temporarily Halting 737 Max; Rick Gates Sentencing; Theron Talks about "Bombshell" and playing Megyn Kelly. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 17, 2019 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Impact, yes?

NATALIE KITROEFF, ECONOMY REPORTER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yes, it's hard to overstate the ripple effects that any Boeing decision of this magnitude will have on the U.S. economy. Remember, this is the largest American manufacturing exporter. There are 600 direct suppliers for the Max. You're going to see an effect go all the way through the supply chain and Boeing is going to try very hard to minimize that, but it remains to be seen the damage that will be done.

BERMAN: And help explain that a little bit more here because Boeing is saying at least at first they're going to redistribute their own workers who are working on the 737 Max so there won't be any immediate job losses at Boeing. But that doesn't really tell the whole story, does it?

KITROEFF: Right. Well, you have, you know, 12,000 workers inside of Boeing that are working directly on the Max. They're saying we're going to keep them on. But at these hundreds of suppliers, you've got big guys and small guys and the little ones are the ones that are going to hurt the most.

You know, Boeing is going to try to keep the big ones healthy because they need to, when they ramp up, have the ability to get their supply chain going again. The smaller ones, the ones that have really invested a lot and may not have any other big customers, there is where you're going to see the pain.

BERMAN: Let me read the statement that Boeing put out on all this. Safely returning the 737 Max to service is our top priority. We know that the process of improving the 737 Max's return to service and of determining appropriate training requirements must be extraordinarily thorough and robust to ensure that our regulators, customers and the flying public have confidence in the 737 Max updates.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Where we are at the moment is that phrase, determining the appropriate training requirements. The FAA is basically saying to Boeing, we need pilots better trained to fly these machines.

And this goes back to a core issue in the aviation industry at the moment. The planes are highly sophisticated, detailed and complex. Can pilots fly them in an emergency? And I don't just mean the world's best pilots. I don't even mean pilots from the world's best airlines. If you think of the range of airlines that buy these aircraft, the ordinary, everyday pilot outside in the rest of the world needs to be able to fly that plane when something goes wrong. And that's where the issue is at the moment.

BERMAN: Do you see that as the main question? And if that is the question, to what extent is Boeing getting to yes on that?

KITROEFF: Well, the FAA has signaled very clearly that this plane is not going to fly, you know, until 2020. Boeing was projecting that it would fly by the end of the year. So already you're seeing a delay. And there have been many delays.

You know, most outside observers think that the Max is going to fly. The question of whether the FAA is going to require simulator training for pilots is still up in the air. And I think, you know, at this point there has been a lot of back and forth between the FAA and Boeing and we are really watching to see how that plays out. And it's a dispute that's gone into 2020 at this point.

BERMAN: Yes, I'm going to have to say, consumers now, when they're online, they're checking what equipment they are going to fly on right now. And Boeing's going to have to get over that. That's a big hurdle. That's not going to go away overnight.

Richard Quest, Natalie Kitroeff, thank you for being with us. Great to meet you. Great to have you on the show.

KITROEFF: Thanks a lot.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg weighing in on the impeachment drama. Her word of warning to senators who say they've already made up their minds. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:38:12]

CAMEROTA: About an hour from now, former Trump deputy campaign manager, and top witness in the Mueller probe, Rick Gates will be sentenced.

CNN's Evan Perez is live outside the courthouse in Washington.

Evan, what do we expect?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, you're right, Rick Gates has been one of the top witnesses, if not the top witness in the Mueller investigation. Now we're expecting today that prosecutors are going to tell a judge that he deserves to get probation, no more, nothing else, for all of his cooperation that he has provided in this investigation.

Let me go through all of the things that he has done. According to Rick Gates' own lawyers, he's provided more than 500 hours of testimony and interviews to the prosecutors at the Justice Department, and he has helped them in cases against Paul Manafort, his former boss, the former chairman of the Trump campaign, and against Roger Stone. And there was also an ongoing investigation that they say that Rick Gates is still providing some cooperation, even after he gets sentenced. They expect that he's going to continue to provide some help in that investigation.

Now, let's go back to February of 2018, which is when Rick Gates first pleaded guilty to two criminal counts. Back then we were still inside the Mueller investigation. It looked really bad for people associated with the president, perhaps even the president himself.

Fast forward to today and the president is about to be impeached on something we had no idea about back in February of 2018. And the Democrats have decided not even to mention the obstruction charges or anything from the Mueller investigation as part of the impeachment proceedings. So a lot has changed in the year and a half or so since Rick Gates that -- since Rick Gates decided to plead guilty.

John. Alisyn.

BERMAN: A lot has changed. In other ways, some things remain very similar.

[08:40:01]

Nevertheless, this is one of the loose ends from the Mueller investigation.

PEREZ: Right.

BERMAN: It will be very interesting to see what is resolved today.

Evan, thank you so much for that.

PEREZ: Sure.

BERMAN: All right, overnight, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaking out about the impeachment process. The 86-year-old says she hopes there will be good people on both sides of the aisle to say let's stop this dysfunction.

Justice Ginsburg also believes that if a senator reveals bias, he or she should be disqualified from the trial. Ginsburg made the remarks in New York while receiving the Berggruen Institute Award for Philosophy and Culture. She plans to donate the $1 million prize to organizations to promote opportunities for women, something she has fought for her whole life to push for.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, that's remarkable to give away your $1 million prize. BERMAN: I will note, when she says that if senators express bias they

should be disqualified, there have been senators who have come out and said they will not be impartial jurors.

CAMEROTA: Oh, there have been senators who say they are working hand in glove with the White House as they prepare for this. So I'm not sure they're taking her advice yet.

BERMAN: I'm not sure either.

CAMEROTA: Yes, all right.

Meanwhile, the movie "Bombshell" opens everywhere this Friday. The star and producer, Charlize Theron, is here live to talk about the new film and how she prepared to play Megyn Kelly, as well as her exuberant reaction to some early awards buzz.

BERMAN: All right, but first in this week's "Impact Your World," meet the sisters behind Paper for Water, which turns the art of origami into clean water projects around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHERINE ADAMS, CO-CEO, PAPER FOR WATER: I feel like, as a kid, sometimes adults underestimate us and what we can accomplish.

Hi, my name is Katherine Adams.

ISABELLE ADAMS, CO-CEO, PAPER FOR WATER: My name is Isabelle Adams.

K. ADAMS: And we are the founders of co-CEOs of Paper for Water.

In 2011, Isabelle was eight and I was five, we learned that a child died around the world every 15 seconds from lack of clean water. And we really wanted to do something about it.

So we took something that we loved doing, which was folding origami, and we started taking donations for it.

From then it just kind of snowballed.

Most of the paper that we use is either donated or we get discounts for it. Then we have volunteers who fold it.

I. ADAMS: They go to either our online store or they go to gift fairs where they're exchanged for donations.

K. ADAMS: We have raised over $2 million and helped to fund over 200 water projects in 20 different countries.

I. ADAMS: Living Water International are actually drilling all of our wells overseas or it goes to Dig Deep here in the U.S., mostly on Native American reservations.

K. ADAMS: In 2017, we got to go visit some of our water projects, and it was an incredible experience to meet people firsthand and see what a huge impact the water project has been in their community.

I. ADAMS: Kids have an incredible ability to enact real change in the world if they're just given the chance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:47:10]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I won't call you a feminist, but say there's a spectrum. You are --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roger harassed me ten years ago. I had turned down a law firm partnership for an entry level job here at Fox. Roger would call me up to New York to dangle prospects. I wanted his help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you do anything?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The new movie "Bombshell" tells the story of sexual harassment at Fox News Channel under former chief executive Roger Ailes. The film portrays his iron-fisted rule and repeated harassment until the women turned the tables and brought him down.

Joining us now is Charlize Theron, who produced and starred in the movie as Fox Anchor Megyn Kelly.

Great to have you here.

CHARLIZE THERON, PORTRAYS MEGYN KELLY IN "BOMBSHELL": Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: This is an exciting week as the show -- I know that it opened in New York and L.A. and big markets on Friday. It's already getting tremendous buzz. And then this Friday, nationwide.

Can we just start, before we get to the substance of the film, can we get -- can we just start with the physical transformation of it because, I mean, that's getting a lot of attention, too.

THERON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: So how did you transform? I mean I've read a little bit about the sort of wonder makeup artist that you worked with. How did you transform into looking so much like Megyn Kelly?

THERON: You know, it's just a -- it's a process and you just have to kind of go through a lot of wrongs until you get the right one. I mean we built a lot of pieces that just did nothing. I mean I just -- I got further and further away from Megyn and in some weird way got closer to Glenn Close. It was really bizarre. So --

CAMEROTA: Well, you're talking about prosthetics.

THERON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: You wore prosthetics on your face?

THERON: Yes, build pieces that were glued onto my face, yes.

CAMEROTA: And can you tell us a little bit more about that, what those were?

THERON: I ended up earing two pieces on my eyes that went from my eyelid to my eyebrow because our eyes were just shaped so differently. And I would say those two pieces changed my face the most. We did -- we did a little bit at the bottom of the face as well and --

CAMEROTA: It changed your eye shape. It lowered -- did it lower your eyelid? It weighed it down?

THERON: Yes, I have a very deep eye bed and she has -- she doesn't. So that -- that just really helped change and then, of course, contact lens. She has this like beautiful indigo blue eyes.

CAMEROTA: Your eyes ain't bad.

THERON: Oh, thank you.

CAMEROTA: And what about the voice? How did you get -- I mean you really channeled Megyn Kelly's voice so well. What did you do?

THERON: Well, she has such a distinctive sound about her. So I felt like it was important. I think a lot of this stuff that you just kind of think comes with a human really I find is there because of emotional stuff. And understanding her a little bit more really happened for me in understanding why she sounded the way that she did.

But I worked with this incredible woman, Carla Meyer (ph) in Los Angeles, and we just spent hours and hours kind of just listening to her voice and dissecting it and what it meant and why it sounded like that and why she would speed up the way she does or she'd get really deep.

[08:50:13]

CAMEROTA: And was -- you had to lower your voice a few registers?

THERON: I did, yes. Yes.

CAMEROTA: And did it hurt your voice?

THERON: It did, yes. I -- I kind of strained my vocal cords and I was told that I couldn't speak for like three weeks in order to hope to heal it and not -- in time before we started shooting the film.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. And how much Fox News videos, how many Fox News videos did you end up having to watch to study all of this?

THERON: You know, I would always check out a little bit of Fox every once in a while. I think it's a good thing to kind of see how the other guy thinks. Once I got the movie, I wasn't so much as I was watching Fox as I -- I really went through a lot of her "Kelly File" show stuff just because I knew we were going to have some of that in the film and I wasn't familiar with that show. So I spent more time kind of like watching that and trying to get in her head when she was doing that show.

CAMEROTA: I mean you have, I think, been pretty candid about some ambivalence that you felt playing the part. And so how did you reconcile all that?

THERON: I think that, as an actor, you can't take anything on until you can make peace with yourself that you can get to a place where you can put your own personal, you know, preconceived ideas on the sideline because I think we are -- this is an empathetic thing we have to do as actors. We have to be able to try and understand. Doesn't mean I'm sympathetic. But I want to try and understand, as best as I can, why somebody is behaving the way that they are.

You know, Megyn and I just have very different political views. We just -- I think we're different people and maybe have different points of view on a lot of things. I know we do because she has said things that have definitely upset me as a mother or just as a woman. But I don't think that I need to like her in order to believe that she deserves to be safe when she goes to work. I think that's what's so great about the subject matter. We don't -- it's -- you know, we don't get to cherry pick this for people. I want all women to be safe. And so that was really ultimately what this story was about.

CAMEROTA: And so, as we mentioned, you're also the producer of this movie. And you read the script. You brought the director on. Why was this an important story that you wanted to tell?

THERON: You know, at the time that it came to me, it was months before the Harvey Weinstein story broke in "The New York Times," and it was before Me Too. It was before Time's Up. And it just felt like -- in a weird way it felt like a story that was take -- that took place in its own silo, which I think it did because there was none of those support systems around.

Yet, at the same time, there were these rumblings. I could hear conversation in my workplace of people talking about these stories that were coming out with Harvey and it just felt to me like there was this real cultural shift. And this conversation was on the tip of everybody's tongue. And it felt like -- how great to be able to make a movie that feels that timely to the conversation that's actually happening right now.

CAMEROTA: I mean it couldn't be more timely. It just couldn't.

THERON: Yes. CAMEROTA: You bet on the right horse with that one. I mean look at what's happened.

THERON: I didn't -- yes, I mean, I don't think any of us could have -- yes, I mean I think we knew some of it but, like, I mean, just, for instance, the NDA conversation that's happening right now in arbitration. I mean none of that stuff was talked about when we were making this film.

CAMEROTA: And so, I mean, since Roger Ailes had his fall from Fox News, obviously there's been so many others.

THERON: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I mean countless. Between Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Harvey Weinstein, as you bring up, Bill O'Reilly, et cetera. In making this, have you gotten any clarity on why man were able to do this with impunity for so long?

THERON: Yes, I mean, I feel like there really -- I just know for myself in my own industry from doing this for 25 years, I'd heard numerous stories during my career of, you know, inappropriate behavior coming from men in very powerful positions. And it would be a story that kind of breaks and three months later it would be gone and nobody was talking about it anymore and that person would be back in that same position of power and there would be --

CAMEROTA: And you had your own experience, am I right?

THERON: Yes. Yes.

CAMEROTA: With a director?

THERON: Yes. Yes. And he's -- he's still making big movies.

CAMEROTA: And have you ever wanted to say his name?

THERON: I will. I did. For years I was very honest about who it was but journalists decided to protect him. And I won't -- you know, I just refuse to have him take away from the power of this movie right now because of the news story, but I have no -- I have no desire to protect him. And so, you know, when the right time comes, I will definitely say it and hopefully journalists will write it this time.

[08:55:00]

CAMEROTA: Understood.

Very quickly, I just want to end on this note. When you found out that you were nominated, I think this is for the Golden Globes, you -- you were not dressed for the occasion, I feel. And so there was a moment where you find out, and you are -- I think we have it. There -- you're on your -- you're on your bed in a robe.

THERON: Yes. It was very early. But note to self, I will wear underwear next time. That was so embarrassing. CAMEROTA: Well, there -- I'm glad that you were so excited and I'm

glad that the movie is getting so much recognition. It's a fantastic movie. And I think that it has continued a really important conversation.

THERON: Thank you so much. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you for being here, Charlize.

THERON: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Great to talk to you.

THERON: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: I also loved "Mad Max." I'm just saying.

THERON: Oh, yeah.

BERMAN: The -- yeah.

All right, we're just 24 hours away now from a history making vote on impeachment. CNN "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:09]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Tuesday --