Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Trump Resigns from Screen Actors Union; Economy Adds 49,000 Jobs in January; Countdown to the Super Bowl; NFL Managed the Pandemic. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 05, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: I like keeping a low profile.

We'll do. You're the best son money can buy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, dad.

TRUMP: Without Derek Zoolander (ph), male modeling wouldn't be what it is today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's the former union member and the former president who is now telling Hollywood's largest labor union, you can't dump me because I'm dumping you first.

Here's what he wrote to the Screen Actor's Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, quote, I write you today regarding the so-called disciplinary committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares! Well, I'm not familiar with your work, I'm very proud of my work on movies such as "Home Alone 2," "Zoolander," and "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" and television shows including "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air," "Saturday Night Live," and, of course, one of the most successful shows in television history, "The Apprentice," to name just a few!

Joining us now is the president of the union, Gabrielle Carteris.

Thank you so much for being with us, Madam President.

He went on and on in that letter at great length quitting the union to which you responded with just two words. What were those two words?

GABRIELLE CARTERIS, PRESIDENT, SAG-AFTRA: Thank you.

BERMAN: Brevity sometimes truly is the soul of wit.

Listen, you had begun the process or your union had begun the process of removing him. And I want people to know why, because this is not some abstraction here. So why had this process begun?

CARTERIS: Well, I think everybody saw that January 6th was the reason that I actually put the charges forward. It's -- look, since former President Trump had been in office, that whole period of time before the 6th, he had had -- made statements throughout about our members, about people who were journalists, broadcasters. Some are our members, some aren't. But he would make comments that were actually ways to delegitimize them and was putting them at risk.

And so we had put out statements with our broadcast reporters, having them say, you know, we believe in a free and unencumbered press. We support them. Freedom of speech. But what happened on the 6th was something where it went from just making statements to actually inciting violence. And so I actually put charges together, spoke to our national executive director, David White. I asked him to present those charges to our national board. And they supported the charges going towards our disciplinary committee to evaluate and to review. And we were about to go in actually today to speak on it and I got the letter yesterday from the former president.

BERMAN: Yes, I'm not sure people know, that broadcast journalists, a lot of television correspondents, news correspondents are members of AFTRA. So you have union members who have been targeted. I mean written on the walls of the Capitol were murder the media. So this is not, as I said, some abstraction.

CARTERIS: And it's SAG-AFTRA. Our broadcast journalists are very important to us and to the -- and to the country and to the world. They inform and educate. And, you know, I think Walter Cronkite said it best, and it's when freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, but it is democracy. And I think on the 6th what we saw was the real threat to democracy in our country.

And as the president of a union that is there to protect members, to make sure they are safe, particularly when they go to work, and this was appalling. I mean even as a citizen watching what took place live, the violence that was taking place, the idea that people were getting revved up and sent to, yes, not only put, you know, signs up, murder the press, but you saw, you know, our -- some -- the journalists were being attacked. They had -- they took the equipment, created a noose show (ph) hanging. Our members, when they're going to work, or anybody who goes to work should feel safe. That shouldn't be the thing that they're frightened of.

BERMAN: What happens -- so what happens now to the self-proclaimed movie star? You know, we just read his letter there. What happens to him in terms of his future acting career now that you've stripped him of membership, or he has -- he has quit.

CARTERIS: We -- we can't -- everybody has a right to work. What we have done is we've actually, by his resigning, that means -- and it's very important that that happened because it's actually an honor to be a member of our union. And so by his stepping away, he will not be able to work a union job, or at least with our producers, you know, people who are signed to our contracts. And I think that that's really important. We want people to know that they're -- in order to be a member of this

union, there are responsibilities. We really -- we believe in democracy. We believe in respecting our fellow Americans. We want to make sure that truth is always told. And if you're going to do something, it's -- that's really harmful, then you have no place in our union.

BERMAN: You've been in the business a long time. I am curious, we played that montage of his film clips coming into the piece, what's your assessment of the former president as a performer?

[08:35:03]

CARTERIS: You know, I forgot he had done those shows. I had forgotten.

BERMAN: Wow. That -- and that probably stings more than anything right now.

Gabrielle Carteris, we appreciate you being with us. Thank you very much for the work you do.

CARTERIS: Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thanks.

BERMAN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news.

The January jobs report was just released.

And CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now with the numbers.

What do they look like, Christine?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, a job gain of 49,000 in January after a big loss that was even revised lower in December, and an unemployment rate that fell to 6.3 percent. On paper, that's the lowest unemployment rate of this crisis. But when you dig beneath these numbers, we've seen month after month of people leaving the labor force.

You look at some of the other indicators in this report. 6.3 percent is because so many people just aren't working. There are millions who are reporting that they can't go to work because their business is closed or business is down so much that there -- that there aren't hours for them to have here.

And 2.7 million of these jobs are considered temporary layoffs when you look at the labor market right now, and even more of them are considered permanent layoffs. About 3.5 million people report to the government that they think they've been permanently laid off at this time. When you look at where the job losses are, no surprise, in bars and restaurants, in the retail trade. These are -- this is the part of the k-shaped recovery we've been talking about, these jobs that are just disappearing and don't seem to be coming back. But we are seeing job gains in professional and business services, in schools, in mining.

[08:40:00]

So some parts of the economy are showing signs of life. Some parts of the job market are recovering. And others are just hopelessly here falling behind because the virus has kept the U.S. economy so out of sorts.

Overall, because of downward revisions in November and December, it was worse in November and December than the government originally thought. You have 9.9 million jobs that are still --have been lost since this pandemic began. And 9.9 million, Alisyn, is still the deficit we have here.

CAMEROTA: Christine, thank you very much for explaining all of that to us.

OK, so no matter who wins this Sunday, the real victory is being able to hold a Super Bowl during a pandemic.

BERMAN: With Tom Brady.

CAMEROTA: Right.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to tell us what worked for the NFL, what we can learn from it and how John Berman can break the Tom Brady spell.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:45:38]

BERMAN: Getting ever closer to Super Bowl IV and the must-see matchup between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes.

Coy Wire at the stadium in Tampa with the "Bleacher Report."

So great to see you there, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Good to see you, John. Wish you were here with me. What a -- perhaps the most exciting quarterback matchup in Super Bowl history, 43-year-old Tom Brady versus 25-year- old Patrick Mahomes, who appears to have all the physical abilities to make him one of the greatest ever. Ridiculous athletic talent, but also a lot of the intangibles that has made Tom Brady the greatest of all time.

Brady, he -- his family, it is 12 days before the game, not even staying at the house so that he can have supreme focus heading into this. Even though he's been to nine Super Bowls before, he's taking his preparation to another level. He says that he wants to be celebrating with his family, with those loved ones again on the field after a win.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM BRADY, TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS QUARTERBACK: That's the best part about winning is having the people that have helped you get there and supported you there with you to enjoy it. So some of the best memories I've had in my life were being with my kids right after the Super Bowl and celebrating with them. So I hope we have that experience on Sunday. It's going to be a really tough game.

PATRICK MAHOMES, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS QUARTERBACK: I'm focused on this game right now, trying to win this second Super Bowl and be able to hold that Lombardi Trophy and have that second ring. But if I'm at the end of my career and I have a lot of Super Bowl rings in my hand, I'll be happy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: All right. You can join me, our Andy Scholes, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, maybe even John Berman we'll get to -- with us to talk about the big game. It's kickoff in Tampa Bay, a CNN "Bleacher Report" special. It's tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Alisyn, John, back to you.

BERMAN: Coy, thank you very much. Can't wait to see that.

CAMEROTA: Maybe we'll send a live truck to your house to watch -- maybe that's just a personal experience that we don't want to watch, what you do during --

BERMAN: It's possible -- it's possible my role has already been -- just watch.

CAMEROTA: Oh.

BERMAN: Just --

CAMEROTA: That's a tease.

All right, whatever happens in Sunday's Super Bowl, the NFL has reason to celebrate, completing a full season in the midst of a pandemic. Something no other sport has been able to do.

So how did the NFL do it? And what can we learn from it?

Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is a sport defined by close contact. An environment ripe for transmission.

GUPTA (on camera): There's other people who say, it's absolutely ludicrous to even try this. What do you say to them?

DR. ALLEN SILLS, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, NFL: I feel like it's the right thing to do to try to learn to live with this virus. I really do.

GUPTA (voice over): Dr. Allen Sills is the chief medical officer for the NFL. He was brought in as a neurosurgeon who thought he'd be dealing with concussions. And then the pandemic changed everything.

I initially met up with him at the beginning of the season.

SILLS: We just have to recognize we're dealing with an unpredictable pandemic. And so we'll have to adjust along the way.

GUPTA: On September 10th, the Kansas City Chiefs kicked off against the Houston Texans in the first game of the season. At the time, there were more than 6 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States.

GUPTA (on camera): Now, right before the Super Bowl, how did things go?

SILLS: I think that what we've tried to do at every step is to make the best and the safest decisions we can and we've tried to evolve and learn along the way.

GUPTA (voice over): While cases around the country exploded, now at more than 26 million confirmed, the NFL was relatively untouched, with a positivity rate of 0.08 percent.

So what worked for the NFL? And what can we all learn from it?

SILLS: We had an outbreak in Tennessee, and we went in -- when we went in and really dug into that, and tried to understand, how did transmission occur despite our protocols, that's when we began to realize it wasn't just six feet and 15 minutes.

GUPTA: Put simply, Dr. Sills said it wasn't the playing or the practices that were the largest concern, but these three things, eating, greeting and meeting.

SILLS: Meeting inside. Even if you're more than six feet apart, if you're in a poorly ventilated room for a long period of time, if someone's positive, there can be transmission inside those rooms. Eating together, very high risk activity. You know, most people don't have a mask on when they're eating. And then the greeting part is just the social interactions outside the facilities. You know, when you interact in the community, if someone's a positive and you go and get a haircut or you have a massage at your house.

GUPTA: How did the NFL know?

[08:50:00]

They tested daily and they contact traced ad tracked the movements of more than 11,000 players and staff, even alerting them if they were too close to one another.

SILLS: If we move closer together than six feet, you'll start to see it blinking red.

GUPTA: Now, keep in mind, the CDC defines close contact like this, being within six feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period. But the league's data found transmission was occurring with less time and more distance.

These are considerations for anyone anywhere to assess their risk. Ventilation. Are you indoors or outdoors? Are you in a car with the windows up or are you in a large open stadium? The more air circulation, the better.

Masks. What kind of masks are being used? And do they fit correctly?

And, finally, time and distance. The longer and closer you are around someone, the increased risk for transmission.

SILLS: If you're failing in two or more of those categories, that's what we considered a high risk close contact. But I think the biggest thing we learned, universal masking works. It's the most effective strategy that we have.

GUPTA (on camera): How hard would it be to replicate what you were able to do at the NFL?

SILLS: It wasn't the fact that we tested every single day. It wasn't the fact that everyone wore a fancy proximity tracking device everywhere they went. What prevented transmission was mask usage, avoiding in-person meetings, staying in the open air environments, not eating together, prompt symptom reporting, isolation of anybody that's exposed.

GUPTA (voice over): The same basic rules we have known since the beginning of this pandemic with more evidence than ever that they actually work.

GUPTA: (on camera): So who you rooting for?

SILLS: We love all our children.

GUPTA: What's the deal with Tom Brady? I mean just as a sports medicine guy, I mean, that -- really, Super Bowl again?

SILLS: I think his career has been amazing and outstanding, and he's an inspiration to all of us. And, you know, the closer he gets in age to me, I have thoughts maybe I've still got a run at it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (on-camera): Had to get the Tom Brady question in there as a Michigan guy, but mostly for you, John Berman. It is pretty incredible, 43 years old in another Super Bowl.

BERMAN: I'm willing to share. I'm absolutely willing to share. CAMEROTA: Are you? Because it doesn't seem like you're willing to

share Tom Brady.

BERMAN: Oh, yes, I'm willing to share. I'm willing to share.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, how worried are you that there will be a spike after the Super Bowl because everybody will want to get together and celebrate?

GUPTA: Yes, I mean I think it's probably those parties, you know, that people have as opposed to the Super Bowl itself. I mean you're going to have 25,000 fans. Incidentally, 7,500 of those 25,000 are going to be health care workers who have been vaccinated and are going to be there. They're still going to be wearing masks.

I'll point out, they're going to be passing out these KN-95 masks to everyone that's attending the Super Bowl, which I think is really interesting. I mean they've made the decision that these are the best masks for people to wear. Sometimes it can be tough to figure out what are the best masks. The FDA has all kinds of information on their website about this, and they can tell you how to spot counterfeits and all that. We're going to put that information up.

But I think this -- you know, it struck me that there was no team -- one team to another team transmission throughout the entire, you know, the entire season. A less than 1 percent positivity rate, again, in this sport that is defined by close proximity. So I'm not as worried about the game itself as all the celebrations around the game.

BERMAN: Right, just a few people will actually be playing in the game. It's the other hundred million of us who will be watching.

And listening to Dr. Fauci and others this week, I was struck, they felt they had to come out and say, don't have Super Bowl parties, which I know they have to, but this time around, I feel like there was almost a frustration. Like, come on, guys. You know, Christmas is one thing, Thanksgiving is one thing. If they're warning us not to get together for those things, which is understandable. I mean Super Bowl parties is watching television. It's watching a game on TV. You can live without a party. You know, you can have nachos with your bubble. It works.

CAMEROTA: In fact it's better.

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Because the fewer people you have, more nachos for you. That's the silver lining.

GUPTA: And you can actually watch the game. You can actually watch the game, exactly.

BERMAN: No, but, I mean, I'll let you deliver the message so people -- in case they're wondering about getting together with friends this weekend, now is the time for you, Sanjay, to admonish all of them. GUPTA: Yes, look, you know, even the NFL itself sort of learned that

the eating, meeting, greeting, it wasn't all the fancy tests and close proximity sensors. It was these three things. We sort of have guessed this since the beginning of the pandemic, but now the NFL has been able to show this.

If you are going to be inside and you're eating, that means your masks are off. You're getting together with lots of people. That means lots of virus is circulating. Those are the -- those are the super spreader events. I mean we've seen this over and over again.

So, I mean, I think people hopefully have that message by now. You can enjoy yourself in so many different ways. But if you are taking your masks off inside in a poorly ventilated situation, that is likely to account for some viral spread.

[08:55:09]

BERMAN: All right, final score, Sanjay.

GUPTA: And, you know, there's such simple ways to avoid it.

BERMAN: Final score in the game, Sanjay?

GUPTA: What's that?

BERMAN: Final score?

GUPTA: I'm going to give it to Tampa Bay. I got a -- I got a -- I got a (INAUDIBLE) I want to say Tampa Bay by three points. It's going to be a close game. It's -- you know, it's hard to argue with the athletic abilities of Patrick Mahomes, but -- but Tom Brady, 43 years old. I think it would make all of us older guys feel well if he wins.

CAMEROTA: I see somebody who shares the Tom Brady love.

BERMAN: It's -- it's the neurosurgeon. He knows what he's talking about.

We'll go with Sanjay.

GUPTA: What?

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, thank you. Have a good weekend.

GUPTA: You got it. All right, you got it. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: And all of you have a good weekend as well. We know what John Berman will be doing. We can't wait to hear about it on Monday.

BERMAN: Yes, meanwhile, brand-new jobs report just in with big signs about where the economy is heading. Our coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:00]