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New Day
CNN Series About Adventurous People Around the World; College Education May not be Worth the Debt, Interview with Russell Brand
Aired November 20, 2014 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here we go with the five things you need to know for your new day.
At number one, three students are now recovering after being wounded in a shooting at Florida State University's main library. Campus officers shot and killed the suspected gunman after he fired at them.
President Obama is set to unveil his plan for taking executive action on immigration. He says he's waited long enough for Congress, but Republicans say by acting on his own he risks poisoning relations on The Hill.
The grand jury in Michael Brown's shooting death could decide whether to indict Officer Darren Wilson by tomorrow. Ferguson Police are already bracing for potential violence once that decision is announced.
Already buried, Buffalo, New York, could see up to another three feet of snow today. That's on top of the six feet the region got hit with this week. Seven weather-related deaths have been reported
And mourning Mike Nichols. The legendary director died Wednesday night. He is one of 12 stars to win an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and an Oscar, which he took home for the classic "The Graduate." Mike Nichols was 83 years old.
We do update those five things to know, so be sure to visit newdaycnn.com for the latest.
Alisyn.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK. Thanks so much, Michaela.
CNN.com's original series, "Wish You Were Here" features a look at the daily lives of adventurous people around the world. Today we meet a group of kids in Ethiopia who are shredding the streets. Check it out and go to cnn.com/wishyouwerehere.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Adito Halamkal (ph). This is what it's like to skate in Ethiopia. Skateboarding community in Ethiopia is - is growing, but it's kind of
hard. You don't have anyplace to buy a skateboard. A lot of kids are -- want to joining us, are always asking for boards and everything. But I'm sure it will - it will turn out good.
A lot of people from abroad are like helping us, just sending us a lot of boards. I believe the community is growing and I'm excited for them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Want to see awe-inspiring moments? Check out the new series where you see the world from the insider's point of view. CNN's "Wish You Were Here," presented by Lexus. Feel what it's like to go there. Introducing the first ever Lexus RC Coupe. Once driven, there's no going back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Limits are there to be shattered. Barriers are meant to be broken. Lines are drawn to be crossed. Introducing the first ever 467 horsepower RCF Coupe from Lexus. Once driven, there's no going back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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PEREIRA: Well, tonight CNN is taking a look at higher education. A new film "Ivory Tower." With students in the U.S. facing an astounding $1 trillion of debt, director Andrew Rossi breaks down whether college is worth those sky-rocketing costs. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's going to be a class, one way or another, there's going to be a crisis. It gets to the point where the price of a degree is so high that people just don't want to pay for it anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not what most colleges want to talk about. They want to pretend that education is something that's completely non-financial. It's an end in itself. These are very noble ideals, but they don't make sense when people are taking on $100,000, $200,000 of student debt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: So, are colleges and universities really giving students the skills and the opportunity to land themselves a job or do we need to change our approach? Guess who's here, Andrew Rossi, the director himself.
What an interesting proposition you put up. Is it worth the risk? I think the trillion-dollar is such an unfathomable amount for people to think about.
ANDREW ROSSI, DIRECTOR, "IVORY TOWER": It's true. One t-day (ph) is the moment in 2011 when student loan debt cumulatively in the United States exceeded $1 trillion. So we're now at about $1.2 trillion. I think what we see in the film is that tuition rates have been rising
since 1978 more than 1,000 percent, which is greater than the rising cost in health care and housing and food.And simultaneously, students are taking on more debt. In the last year, graduates had on average $33,000 when they graduated in debt.And all together there's a sort of toxic mix of people going to school and hoping that they'll be able to sort of get the golden ticket.
PEREIRA: Well, and that's the thing because we know that if you have a college education, you're ultimately going to make a higher salary than your counterparts. But if you're staring as a family down the barrel, I've met - anecdotally, I've met a USC grad who came out a proud graduate with $100,000 in debt. You're starting your life out like that. That's a big proposition for a family to consider.
ROSSI: It's a huge proposition. And certainly those numbers, like $100,000, they are on the sort of far end of the spectrum.
PEREIRA: Sure. Fair enough.
ROSSI: And the wage premium that you mentioned is very real. It's $1 million more if you graduate with a B.A. versus just having a high school diploma. However, there are many who don't even graduate. They don't even complete in four or six years. In public universities that number is about --
PEREIRA: And still have the debt looming, right?
ROSSI: That's right, 44 percent, and they still have the debt.
PEREIRA: But you, in the film, explore, because a good documentarian does, see a problem, try to find a solution. In it you start to look at some of the possible solutions. There are some universities around the country that are looking at other options. Tell us about at least one of those.
ROSSI: Sure. Well, certainly in California, we see Governor Jerry Brown being really concerned about the rising costs and looking to technology. The massive open, online courses, which in 2012 were heralded as the solution.
PEREIRA: They were the -- right, the promise.
ROSSI: Exactly. And technology is still a really importantpart of the future. We see that playing out in the flipped classroom where students are able to watch a lecture at home and then go into the classroom and have face-to-face interaction. I think one of the problems was an experiment that was done at San Jose State University. That's one that we feature in the film,where students didn't have any kind of faculty guiding them and were taking remedial courses online. And those had really very troubling pass rates.
PEREIRA: Interesting. You also point out Coopers Union, which traditionally had offered tuition-free education for something like 150 years.And as a sign of the time, they're now charging tuition.
ROSSI: That's right. Unfortunately, Cooper Union really is the ultimate expression of this problem.
PEREIRA: Yes.
ROSSI: That school took out $175 million loan to build a new engineering building and this is a school that has 1,000 students and is supposed to be free.
PEREIRA: Yes.
ROSSI: So they really should not have gone into that debt. And as a result, after 150 years of being free, they're now charging
PEREIRA: Well, and then, there you go, students are -- schools may be playing keeping up with the Joneses, trying to track more students, getting themselves into financial challenges, paying for some of those perks.
Look, this is a great conversation that's being had around dinner tables. "Ivory Tower" premieres tonight at 9:00 right here on CNN. Be sure to tune in if you have college-aged students or students headed there in the future.
Andrew, thank you so much. Great work. We appreciate it.
ROSSI: Thank you, Michaela.
PEREIRA: Chris. Alisyn, where are you? I can't see you.
CAMEROTA: I'm going to take it. Well, I'm in the green room and there's about to be some trouble, Michaela, because Russell Brand is here. I don't know what more to say about this except stay tuned for -- you see what I mean? This is the kind of stuff he does. He's going to come out on NEW DAY next. Prepare yourself.
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RUSSELL BRAND, ACTOR, COMEDIAN: I only know this stuff because someone took the time to tell me. Just because I know, and you don't know, it doesn't mean I'm better than you. It just means I'm different from you, in a way that's better.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOCLIP)
CAMEROTA: That was actor and comedian Russell Brand in his new standup special "Messiah Complex" which premieres on Epix Friday, November 28th. Russell is known for films like "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Get Him to the Greek" and for being an all-around social commentator, provocateur, and ladies man. Here he is now taking on the role of children's author. Get out of here.
BRAND: Yes.
CAMEROTA: When people think Russell Brand, they don't think children's author.
BRAND: No, I don't know what people think in their private minds. Why are we upsetting Chris?
CUOMO: I don't know why I was put over here. I thought nobody put baby in the corner. They won't let me anywhere near the man. May I come closer, sir?
BRAND: Yes.
CUOMO: I promise, I won't do any of the things to you that have been done before we came on camera.
(LAUGHTER)
BRAND: 2014.
CUOMO: I actually have a kid reading the book, Russell. I'm not kidding.
BRAND: The one person who should be near to us.
CUOMO: Thanks, thanks for letting me back in.
BRAND: Thank you, and we can all be here together.
PEREIRA: We can be here together. You have a stack of books on your lap, there.
BRAND: I wrote that one, that's by me about how to, how we could reorganize society, speaking to some of the finest minds alive.
PEREIRA: We need it.
CUOMO: See the word love going backwards within revolution?
BRAND: That's right.
PEREIRA: Revolution.
BRAND: There's no point in having a, thank you very much. There's no point in having a revolution if it's based on anger, or fear, or hatred. This is by a man called Robert Lanter (ph). He postulates that there's nothing in science that shows how consciousness could emerge from matter, so consciousness could have preceded matter, a divine consciousness perhaps.
PEREIRA: My mind was just officially blown.
CUOMO: Wow, yes, you're just staring at his chest.
BRAND: This fellow, here you find Noah Harari says that we live simultaneously with different homo species for thousands and thousands of years, and the civilization that we live in now is just the blinking of an eye. Civilizations could easily be reorganized. And this one is a children's book that I wrote, mostly about farts. (LAUGHTER)
BRAND: But also about sublime consciousness and how sublime consciousness can be accessed by children and everyone.
CAMEROTA: And it's a take on the Pied Piper?
BRAND: Yes, because the Pied Piper and folktales have mystical and secret information. In fact, Chris and I were talking and your daughter's enjoying the book because she feels like it's inculcating her with important information that she wouldn't have accessed.
CUOMO: Yes, it's almost like it's, there's like a code in there. It's allegory for a kid, but he defines different words and she feels she's getting adult ideas in there of a good kind. Provocative ones.
CAMEROTA: Yes, I bet they are. But, seriously, why did you want to write a children's book?
BRAND: That Pied Piper is a disruptive force. When the rats come into Hamelin, what does that mean in allegorical terms? It means I suppose the dirty and the disruption entered into their world. What was the piper? A force for, yes, for order and for reason, but the pipe, typically when a character plays a musical instrument, whether it's Orpheus in Greek mythology or Krishna in Hindu religion, typically it's a connection to a divine, invisible thing. Behind all material information, there is a sublime, divine realm. We know this from quantum physics, that all of the stuff that we can see emerges from a world that's harder for us to know with our material senses. The piper demonstrates this.
CUOMO: Who would have guessed that Russell Brand's draw on the show would have his discussion of the existential and metaphysics?
PEREIRA: Not Me.
CUOMO: When these two were talking about you like a piece of cheese before you came on here.
PEREIRA: No, never dirty. Never bad cheese.
BRAND: Stinking, wretched, old cheese.
CUOMO: No, no, sir.
PEREIRA: Can we just talk about that? You have all of this in the book, this is not an exaggeration of what you talk about, but then it is dashed with liberal doses of potty humor.
BRAND: Yes.
PEREIRA: And you're the only person I've ever been able to see get away with that.
BRAND: Because I think puerility and scatology can be like jealous, detonates new territories for the mind. You tell a silly fart joke, people are sort of shocked, and then you can say something important and interesting. Just before we came on air, you used the phrase, it doesn't matter what happens between three consenting adults.
PEREIRA: I didn't say that.
BRAND: It's not breakfast news anymore. Three consenting adults.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: That's why I got stuck on the end of the couch.
CAMEROTA: That's right. We didn't say four, we just said three.
CUOMO: I know, whatever was said didn't (inaudible).
BRAND: You're a family man.
CUOMO: I am.
CAMEROTA: You know, speaking of which, Russell, we wanted to ask you about a story that was in the news this week that we all covered.
BRAND: Let me help you.
CAMEROTA: Okay, good. So, there's this guy who fancies himself a pickup artist, okay.
BRAND: Oh, yes.
CAMEROTA: His name is Julien Blanc.
BRAND: Yes.
CAMEROTA: And he charges hundreds of dollars, and he trains thousands and thousands of men around the globe to basically trick women into going home with them.
PEREIRA: Oh.
CAMEROTA: You are a bona fide pickup artist.
BRAND: Well, now, even that phrase -- -
PEREIRA: You're a charmer. You're a charmer.
BRAND: One second, now. Let me address this, because I think what's implied in that whole language is that women are somehow a commodity. Now, I think when I was younger I had - - Young men really want women and they don't know how to get them, you know, and I think they're very vulnerable to ideas, like, oh, you can pick up women with techniques and ideas. But the truth is that you have to be loving, and open, and vulnerable, and tender, and caring to people.
When I was younger, I would have probably been found ideas like pickup artistry attractive, but when you get a little more sophisticated you realize that there is no way of tricking anybody into doing things that they don't want to do. That can't be anything but negative for both parties involved.
CAMEROTA: So, what is your secret?
BRAND: My secret is that I know that within you, there is a limitless, divine beauty and within me as well, and if I connected that way --
PEREIRA: Whoa!
CUOMO: Boy, oh boy, oh boy.
BRAND: And you as well. And, Chris, for God's sake.
CUOMO: Give it, mwah! He's good for everybody.
BRAND: Everybody is beautiful.
CUOMO: I couldn't help myself.
BRAND: There's no secrets in that. Everybody is beautiful.
CUOMO: He smells like love.
(LAUGHTER)
CUOMO: And flowers.
BRAND: Love and flowers.
CUOMO: I want to throw him over my shoulder and run somewhere exotic.
CAMEROTA: Even Chris is susceptible, he is not immune to this. What's happening herE?
PEREIRA: Change the topic quickly. Change the topic quickly. "Messiah Complex."
BRAND: Oh, yes.
PEREIRA: I have to tell you, this whole - - When you look at me with those brown eyes it's really hard to focus.
CUOMO: Oh, this is near sickening.
PEREIRA: 'Messiah Complex" premiering soon.
BRAND: Yes.
PEREIRA: Tell us about this, because this is an incredible proposition. You're smarts come to it again.
BRAND: Well, what it was was I realized that with standup comedy it's not restricted to any topic. I could talk about whatever I wanted, so I chose to talk about Gandhi, and Malcolm X, and Jesus Christ, and Che Guevara. All great, historical figures, and in the case of the three more contemporaneous ones, men that were willing to die for what they believed in, but also flawed and human. And I used it to demonstrate that though we think of Gandhi as being the person that was responsible for the Indian revolution and kicking the British out of India, or Che Guevara as a significant leader in the Cuban revolution, or Malcolm X in the civil rights movement in your country, really they are all figures that represented people. They were sort of visible symbols, or logos, in a way for a much wider movement.
CUOMO: Particular affinity to Che, which is why you used the image of him, you know, with you superimposed over it?
BRAND: I admire Che Guevara very deeply, but I know a lot of people think there is a degree of brutality to Che Guevara, but it was I suppose a very brutal time. I think what I'm interested in is people that are willing to sacrifice themselves to represent ordinary people when we live in a culture where individualism and materialism is promoted to the degree where communities are lost, and our connections, spirituality is lost. So, I find those figures very attractive, and appealing, and the message very inspiring
CUOMO: Are you okay to move on? Are you alright?
CAMEROTA: Yes, I'm ready to move on. Very quickly, what do you think is going on here in our country with immigration? You know, we're having a big battle about it tonight.
BRAND: Well, I must say, I'm not an expert on the subject, but in my country immigration is always a topic that is used to make working people and people without enough resources focus their energy and negativity on other working people who don't have resources, when there are people at the top of our hierarchical structures that have a lot and a lot of money and resources. So, I don't think the poor people of the world should be hating on one another, but coming together and focusing their energy on the people that have the power and have the resources. You can't change power dynamics by condemning people that have nothing, whether those people are from Mexico, or the Middle East, or from Britain.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CUOMO: Are you tortured by the paradox that there is so much wisdom that's coming out of you, and yet they are looking at you as if - -
PEREIRA: We like his mind, too, Chris.
CUOMO: And by mind - -
BRAND: No, I prefer the cuddly bit.
CUOMO: There it is.
CAMEROTA: Yes, we'll get back to that in a moment. But first, "Messiah Complex" premieres on Epix Friday, November 28th at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Pacific time. Be sure to check out the new book, Russell Brand's "Trickster Tales: The Pied Piper of Hamelin." There you go.
BRAND: That was a good sentence.
PEREIRA: Think she did a good job? What did I do well?
BRAND: I think you're both magnificent women, and you, Chris, are a fine, fine figure. This is a wonderful representation of America right here.
(LAUGHTER)
BRAND: This is one of my favorite news shows. I've learned a lot. Thank you, all of you.
CUOMO: I'll take it.
CAMEROTA: Carol Costello and "NEWSROOM" next, after break.
CUOMO: Wonder what's going to happen.
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