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Obama-Merkel Joint Press Conference; CNN Hero Ned Norton Fitness Trains Disabled; White House Correspondents Dinner Is Saturday; Boko Haram Terrorists Kidnapped 276 Girls in Nigeria; Unemployment Rate Drops to 6.3 Percent
Aired May 02, 2014 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
At least a dozen people were killed today in this ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, showing exactly how high, how real these stakes are for President Obama and his visitor to the White House today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The world leaders had just held this news conference in the Rose Garden just about an hour or two ago.
So the Ukrainian forces are trying to push these pro-Russian separatists who have taken over buildings in several Ukrainian towns.
Today Obama and Merkel said that the United States and Germany are united in getting Russia to end the crisis there before the presidential elections in just about three weeks in Ukraine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If, in fact, we see the disruptions and the destabilization continuing, so severely that it impedes elections on May 25th, we will not have a choice but to move forward with additional more severe sanctions.
The goal is not to punish Russia. The goal is to give them an incentive to choose the better course, and that is to resolve these issues diplomatically.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Let's discuss with our "CROSSFIRE" hosts, Van Jones and Newt Gingrich. Gentlemen, wonderful having you back on. "CROSSFIRE" is back.
Newt, I want to begin with you. We just heard the president say the goal isn't to punish Russia, it's to have the incentive to change. But how far does Russia get to go into Ukraine before something really happens here? Before, you know, motivates Putin to pull back.
NEWT GINGRICH, CNN HOST, "CROSSFIRE": I don't think there's any serious sanction that is going to affect Vladimir Putin. The Chinese aren't going to participate. The Indians aren't going to participate. The Japanese aren't going to participate.
The fact is, he has lots of markets around the world. He is fully prepared to ride this out.
And I think it's troubling that he is doing a better job of arming the pro-Russian militia than the U.S. is of helping the Ukrainians.
BALDWIN: So even --
GINGRICH: You know, this total imbalance of force, and I don't see any evidence that talking about the next layer of sanctions has any serious meaning.
BALDWIN: Even with possible sectoral sanctions with this May 25th election?
GINGRICH: You have to recognize. He gets a vote, too. If we have a sectoral sanction, and Angela Merkel commented on this, there are countries in the European Union that get 100 percent of their natural gas from Russia.
What happens if he starts putting sanctions on the people who are sanctioning him? We get all of our major rockets to launch satellites from the Russians.
There's a very complex situation here, and I think what we're doing is lots of words and almost no serious impact.
BALDWIN: OK.
VAN JONES, CNN HOST, "CROSSFIRE": That may well be true, but I also think we may have to be clear. It's not like we could go and arm Ukraine in a way that would be meaningful either.
What kind of weapons could we give Ukraine against Putin? Nuclear weapons? We're dealing with a situation where --
BALDWIN: No.
JONES: -- the military options aren't great. The economic options are not great. So we have to use the diplomatic options.
That's what we're doing. That's what the president's doing.
I keep hearing Republicans saying we should be doing more to arm people. What kind of arms do you give little Ukraine that's going to do anything with Putin?
BALDWIN: Van, I'd like to actually -- let me just turn the page from Ukraine, because there was something that wasn't mentioned today.
Obama was of course asked about Ukraine multiple times. He made mention of the boxed execution in Oklahoma, asked about the NSA.
But the elephant in the room, Van Jones, I'm shocked he wasn't asked about Benghazi. It was the biggest political story of the week with the e-mails that showed the Obama administration developing this p.r. push in the days after the attack. Wasn't asked.
JONES: Well, because it's really been asked and answered. For people who want to whip this thing up.
Listen, under George w. Bush, we didn't have four Americans that died in embassies, there were 88 people, 11 died, nobody turned it into this big controversy.
Look, the administration voluntarily released some stuff later on, realized they left stuff out. I don't think that's big news.
The big news is what's going on right now in Ukraine. I'm glad the president's focused on that.
BALDWIN: Realized they left stuff out?
JONES: Yeah. That's what. Listen, they -- there's obviously no news here. It turns out the talking points that Rhodes wrote were the same talking points the CIA had pushed over, the same ones that Susan Rice read.
What is the news here? Literally, this is one of these things where they are grasping at straws to keep the story alive try to hurt Hillary Clinton or whatever.
But you can see the global media doesn't care.
BALDWIN: Let me ask about Hillary Clinton, because we saw the general testifying yesterday, getting emotional saying, you know, it could have been prevented had the State Department really sort of tipped them off.
And so my question, and, Newt, let me throw this at you. You know, if Hillary Clinton does run in 2016, how does she answer those questions about what her State Department did or did not do?
GINGRICH: She has a real challenge, because last month, for example, more tweets about Benghazi than there were about Hillary Clinton. This isn't going to go away. It's really about honesty and about accountability and about transparency.
But I do want to say a word in praise of the White House press corps. This was the wrong place to raise that issue.
BALDWIN: OK.
GINGRICH: You had the German chancellor there. It's a big deal. I think they stayed focused on Ukraine correctly.
BALDWIN: OK. Let me end with this, something that the three of us were talking about at commercial break. I do want to talk about basketball with you two.
And, Newt, I know you are the ideas guy, and I know you have an idea when it comes to the ownership of the L.A. Clippers. Spill it, sir. GNGRICH: Well, I own a share of Green Bay stock. Green Bay is the only community-owned sports team, professional sports team, in the big three.
I think the people of Los Angeles should be given a chance to bid against the billionaires, and let the people of California have the right to buy in common stock just exactly like Green Bay.
It would be very healthy for America to move professional sports back to a community-based system instead of a billionaire-based system.
And, frankly, it's the taxpayers who provide all these sports arenas anyway, so why shouldn't the taxpayers actually have a chance to own the team?
BALDWIN: Van, care to weigh?
JONES: Bravo. I hate to agree with you, Newt, on anything, but as I live in Los Angeles, my family and I, we're in California --
BALDWIN: Yeah.
JONES: -- this is the best idea I've heard out of this whole mess.
I hope that everybody in L.A. takes him up on this. I think it's a brilliant, brilliant idea. I'm for it.
BALDWIN: All right, gentlemen, thank you.
And I should tell everyone that Mr. Gingrich here will be talking about this on Facebook in just a couple of minutes. So check that out.
Also tonight, "CROSSFIRE," don't miss it, 6:30 Eastern here on CNN.
Gentlemen, thank you.
JONES: Thank you.
GINGRICH: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Coming up next, we're back on it, hundreds of schoolgirls disappear, kidnapped by armed terrorists.
Why isn't the world paying attention? We're changing that. Stay with me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Ned Norton made a career of training Olympic athletes and professional body builders.
But when a young man with a spinal cord injury came into his gym, he found his true calling.
Here is this week's CNN Hero.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NED NORTON, CNN HERO: When I'm running, I feel limitless. Being in motion makes me feel free. When you're really pushing yourself, that's when you really feel alive.
But there are millions of people around the world that are facing severe physical limitations. They can't be independent. They can't live their lives.
I spent years training Olympic athletes, football players, body builders. One day a young guy, newly spinal-cord injured, came to the gym, asking for help.
At first, I didn't know what to do. But just worked together, he made tremendous progress.
Take a breath, reach out, reach out. Bring it back.
Before I knew it, my phone rang off the hook, people asking for help. So I opened a gym designed to fit their needs.
Ready to go to work?
For the past 25 years, I've provided strength and conditioning training for people with disabilities.
Push, stretch up, nice job.
People come to me when they're at their lowest.
Up, up, up, up. Hold it, rack it.
You come to the gym and all of a sudden you have a natural support network.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In 1971, I broke my back, and I've been in a wheelchair ever since.
NORTON: That's it, Tom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks to Ned, I keep my upper body strength at a maximum. I've been able to live a full life.
NORTON: I never worry about what they can't do. I worry about what they can do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can do it, Ned.
NORTON: Yes, you can. Good job.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did up to 10.
NORTON: I'm building them up, building them stronger, so they can go out and live life like they're supposed to.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: Thank you, Ned.
And each week we honor a new CNN Hero. If you know someone who deserves recognition, tell us about them. Just hop online and go to CNNHeroes.com.
Coming up, it is the chance for comedians to make fun of the president and top politicians to their faces.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SETH MYERS, COMEDIAN: These are my birth certificate jokes, so thank you for the timing on that, Mr. President, now unusable.
We were working on these jokes for months. One of my guys said, are you worried we're a little heavy on birth certificate jokes. What if he releases it before the dinner?
And I was like, why would he do that? He's not going to wait three years and then release it before the dinner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Notice that camera cut to Donald Trump?
Well, this guy, Joel McHale, is hosting the White House Correspondents Dinner this upcoming weekend, and our own Jake Tapper sat down with him for a preview.
We'll talk to Jake about his interview, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: So this is the chance when politicians get to rub elbows with celebrities, celebrities get a little taste of the Washington scene.
It is the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. It is tomorrow and CNN's live coverage starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern there on the red carpet.
Last year, you had Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian, Paula Abdul, even one of the stars from "Duck Dynasty" in attendance.
But the highlight, of course, the lighthearted jabs at the president himself and his response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WANDA SYKES, COMEDIAN: They never caught you smoking, but they somehow always catch you with your shirt off.
I know you're into this transparency thing, but I don't need to see your nipples.
Is there a beach at Camp David? What the hell?
You know, there was never a nipple portrait of Lincoln. I'm sorry.
OBAMA: The Jonas brothers are here. They're out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans.
But. boys, don't get any ideas. I have two words for you, predator drones.
MYERS: Congress, there are a lot of things you want us to be impressed by that we are not impressed by. We are not impressed you sat next to each other at the State of the Union.
You know what the rest of Americans call an evening spent politely sitting next to a person with wildly different political views? Thanksgiving.
OBAMA: Of course, the White House Correspondents Dinner known as the prom of Washington, D.C., a term coined by political reporters who clearly never had a chance to go to an actual prom.
CONAN O'BRIEN, COMEDIAN: Who doesn't love C-SPAN? Seriously, C-SPAN, it's an entire channel shot with the backup camera on a Ford Explorer.
Congratulations to C-SPAN for winning the bid to broadcast this event. They narrowly beat out HGTV2, QVC South America and the Hilton Hotel "How To Check Out" Channel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: I love going, Jake Tapper. We call it the nerd prom. It's happening tomorrow.
I know you got to sit down with Joel McHale, this year's funny guy. How was he?
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": He's good. He's good. We're going to run the whole piece, coming up later.
But, you know, I've interviewed a few of the entertainers before the event, and to a person, they all are a little bit nervous, because as Joel McHale said that all the other entertainers, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brien, had told him, it is one of the weirdest events in history.
Joel McHale, of course, not particularly known for being a political comedian, as opposed to, say, Seth Myers. So I asked him how he prepared. Take a listen.
BALDWIN: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: You're probably known, at least among a certain audience, for making fun of Kim Kardashian more than John Boehner.
JOEL MCHALE, COMEDIAN: Ah, yeah.
TAPPER: So how does one prepare for the White House Correspondents' Dinner? Do you just watch C-SPAN?
MCHALE: No, I just won't do any political jokes at all. I'll just stick strictly to Kardashian, strictly to things on E! A lot of "Bad Girls," a lot of "single mom" stuff from MTV. And I think people will get it.
TAPPER: You think the crowd watches those reality --
MCHALE: Definitely. I think they love "The Real Housewives of Atlanta." I think everyone can relate. It's universal, don't you think?
TAPPER: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: I was waiting to see how you were going to respond to that.
TAPPER: So he of course was joking. He has a lot of political jokes.
BALDWIN: Yes.
TAPPER: A lot of jokes at the expense of the media. I'm just hazarding a guess, Brooke, that CNN will take a couple of licks, as well.
BALDWIN: You think?
TAPPER: I think that's possible, but of course, it's all in good fun.
BALDWIN: So fun. Have so much fun. I will not be attending nerd prom this year, but enjoy it, Mr. Tapper.
And we will look for that --
TAPPER: Wait a second. You were my date. You're not coming?
BALDWIN: I will be on a beach in Mexico instead of nerd prom.
TAPPER: We have -- OK, we'll talk about this afterwards.
BALDWIN: Awkward.
TAPPER: We'll talk about this after.
BALDWIN: Bye, Tapper. We'll see you at the top of the hour. Let's move on.
Two-hundred-seventy-six girls are abducted from a school in Nigeria, taken from their beds in the middle of the night, forced at gunpoint to get on a truck. Some of these girls have managed to escape. Two- hundred-twenty-three are still believed to be missing.
CNN's Erin Burnett has been following this story, so incredibly closely. We talked, Erin, about a week ago and I say props to you and your show for really being on this from day one. But you have talked to sources in the country, you've been to Nigeria a couple of times. What are they telling you about these girls' whereabouts?
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST, "OUTFRONT": What is interesting, Brooke, this has been a transformational moment for Nigeria.
They've had this insurgency with Boco Haram, the militant Islamist group in the north of the country. Really, the country's kind of split in a sense between a Muslim-dominated north and a Christian-dominated south.
And they have sort of -- I guess the best way to describe it would have been they viewed it with disgust, but they viewed it rather apathetically.
This has been, OK, this is what happens. You've got an insurgency in the north.
All the sudden, the story of the girls has changed the country. I was talking to someone today in Nigeria who said, look, usually people in the north, they mind their business; people in the south mind their business. When you're going to do business or when you're going to meet, you meet in Abuja, in the capital, in the center of the country.
Just two days ago, of course, there was a bomb. Seventy-five people were killed. There hasn't been attack that brazen in the capital area in more than two years.
So the one person I was talking to said, all of a sudden, I was scared. This changed it for me. This brought it home.
And they are -- really a couple of people I spoke to said, look, what we need right now is Nigeria needs help. The government has proven itself to be, so far at least, not able, whether incompetent or unwilling to find theses girls and to bring them home, to take this insurgency on.
And all the sudden, you have this mass goodwill in the country with people saying we want help, we want people to do something about it.
One senator actually said, Brooke -- this is amazing -- how about the international community providing the same resources and time they did in locating the plane to locating these girls?
BALDWIN: I had a conversation with someone in the last hour on precisely that, and you can hear the frustration in her voice and the passion, and why not?
So let me ask you that, why not? We know that two years ago the U.S. gave some $20 million in security assistance to Nigeria, but what is the U.S. doing to help find these girls?
BURNETT: At this point, nothing, Brooke, and there's a couple of reasons for that. One, Boko Haram has been a security threat that the U.S. has identified. They've seen as a regional threat, even though it has al-Qaeda sympathies and increasing, perhaps, ties to al Qaeda.
They have seen it as a regional, Nigeria-type of threat, so not something that directly threats the United States. That's part of why they have not put money into trying to defeat this insurgency before.
But right now, today, I've talked to sources in the Pentagon. They say, look, at this point, we're not offering any assistance because the Nigerians haven't asked for any.
The State Department says, well, we're talking. Our ambassador said this is unacceptable, but the Nigerians haven't asked for any assistance. So at this point, there isn't any assistance.
But when you think about it with Coney and the Lord's Resistance Army and how it's been a decade of trying to find Joseph Coney, even with U.S. assistance, and still he has not been found, it shows you how difficult this can be.
And in some cases they do say sort of the operating model in terms of recruiting young boys who don't have education and don't have opportunities, that there are some similarities between some of those young boys who are joining Boko Haram and those who joined the LRA.
So it's a lot harder, perhaps, than it seems, but in terms of just getting these girls and getting them right now, it would seem at this point perhaps something can be done.
In the past hour, Brooke, 7,000 tweets have come out with the #BringBackOurGirls, 525,000 in the past seven days. You know these numbers. This is what it has taken to get the international community to focus on the atrocities of the group.
BALDWIN: Let's change the conversation.
BURNETT: It's horrible.
BALDWIN: Let's change the conversation. Erin Burnett, we will be watching you tonight, 7:00, "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT." You're staying on this story. We'll stay on this story. Thank you so much.
BURNETT: Thanks, Brooke.
BALDWIN: Coming up, 6.3 percent, that's the new unemployment rate announced today. That's actually the lowest we've seen since September of '08.
So how are the markets doing? Skyrocketing, presumably. Not exactly. We'll explain that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Are you looking for a job? Because I'm happy to tell you here, hiring is happening.
The latest jobs report released just this morning shows 288,000 jobs were added last month, so that translates to an unemployment rate that is down now to 6.3 percent.
Folks, that's the lowest level we have seen now in more than five years. But -- there is a bit of a but -- not all good news.
Our business correspondent Alison Kosik is live at the New York Stock Exchange and walk me through the numbers.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: So the headlines that you mentioned, they are great in this April jobs report as the economy continues to thaw out from the polar vortex, U.S. employers adding 288,000 jobs, the jobless rate tumbling to 6.3 percent.
Here's the thing with that. The unemployment rate falling was for the wrong reasons. Fewer people were out looking for jobs last month, and almost 1 million people completely dropped out of the labor force because they got discouraged about looking for a job.
Here's the other harsh reality in this report. What workers are being paid, those wages, are stagnating. Average hourly wages from March to April, Brooke, they did not budge.
And if the economy is going to grow and grow strongly, workers need to make more money to buy stuff, more business services, more houses, more cars. And that's why you're seeing the markets react the way they are.
Brooke?
BALDWIN: Down 45 points, end of the trading day, end of the week.
Alison Kosik, thank you so much.
And thank you for being with me. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Have a wonderful weekend.
"THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts now.
