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Huge Ratings When Eddie Murphy Returned To "SNL" After 35 Years; How Trump Keeps His Iron Grip On The GOP; Trump Attacks Windmills In Speech To Young Conservatives; No Christmas Mass At Notre Dame Cathedral For First Time In 200 Years. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired December 23, 2019 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:30:41]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: It only took 35 years, but Eddie Murphy made his return to "Saturday Night Live" with nearly 10 million people tuning in to watch, giving "SNL" its best ratings in nearly three years.
Murphy revived some of his iconic 1980s "SNL" characters and he didn't disappoint.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDDIE MURPHY, COMEDIAN & ACTOR: This is the last episode of 2019, but if you're black, this is the first episode since I left back in 1984.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: Hi, boys and girls. It's your old pal, Mr. Robertson. So much has changed since we last spent time together. My neighborhood has gone through so much. It's gone through something called gentrification.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: Can you say gentrification, boys and girls? It's like a magic trick. White people pay a lot of money and then, poof, all the black people are gone.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: I say your neighbor paid $300 for pole-dancing classes. Oh, Velvet Jones. What a shame. Why spend good money on classes when you can do that for half the price in my basement?
(CROSSTALK)
MURPHY: What the hell is going on here? Get me a chair up here right now. I want to sit down, you bastard.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN: It's Gumby.
MURPHY: They know who the hell it is. I'm Gumby, damn it!
(APPLAUSE)
(CHEERING)
MURPHY: I'm Gumby.
UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN: What are you doing here?
MURPHY: The question is, how the hell are you going to put on a show and not have me in the show until now. I should have been in every damn sketch from the top. I'm the one that made that Eddie Murphy a star.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Again, the season finale was "SNL's" most-watched show in three years.
Chris Farley is a cultural commentator and executive editor at Audible. He's also the author of "Around Harvard Square," which is about the infamous Harvard lampoon where many of the "SNL" writers first started their training.
A lot of people praising Murphy's performance. Reminding us how great he is. Take us back to the '80s. Why did he leave "SNL" to begin with? Take us back.
CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY, CULTURAL COMMENTATOR & AUTHOR: He'd become a superstar. With "48 Hours," "Trading Places," it was time for him to spread his wings and do more than he was doing on the show.
I think one reason why this particular show hit so hard and people were talking about it is because, you know, he's really a comedy rock star. He did what rock stars do when they're on big stadium tours. They play the hits, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Satisfaction."
DEAN: People come for the hits.
FARLEY: And he played Gumby. He played Velvet Jones. He played Buckwheat. He played the characters people know and love and they still hit just as hard as they did 35 years ago.
DEAN: Yes. Clearly, they loved it. Getting 10 million people to watch.
It was also special because, in this show, he was actually, to your point, performing comedy. The last time we saw him, they were doing a 40th anniversary special and he had, like, some words. He talked. But he wasn't doing sketches.
FARLEY: Also he was smart because he made this into an event. He realized that TV has changed and he organized kind of a viral event with that monologue. You know, having Dave Chapelle with him, having Chris Rock with him, having Keenan Thompson all lined up there, these comedy gods.
That's something that got a lot of play on YouTube. Already got over four million views.
He recognizes it's not just about the sketches. It's creating these viral moments people are going to talk about and they're going to share and send out over social media. He did that with this show.
DEAN: I do want to ask you because that moment was indelible when they were all standing on the stage together. You talk about a bunch of rock stars. What do you think that moment gave people? What did people see in that moment?
FARLEY: I think you realize that Eddie Murphy wasn't just a singular talent. He wasn't just a guy who was popular then and still popular now with, you know, his movie "Dolemite Is My Name."
He's a guy that paved a way with a whole generation of other comic stars. All those guys on the stage with him were in their early 50s and 40s. They got their start inspired by people like Eddie Murphy.
DEAN: Eddie Murphy.
FARLEY: And so you realize, my gosh, Eddie Murphy really -- he didn't just clone himself, but he helped pave the way for generations of other comics.
DEAN: Which is so important.
FARLEY: He's incredible.
DEAN: And he also made a joke in his opening monologue about Bill Cosby that's causing some controversy. Let's play it for everybody.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[14:35:00]
MURPHY: If you had told me 30 years ago that I would be this boring stay-at-home, you know, house dad, and Bill Cosby would be in jail --
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: -- even I would have took that bet.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: I'd tell you, who is America's dad now?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Cosby's camp not too happy with that joke.
Here's a response from Cosby's spokesman, Andrew Wyatt: "It is sad Mr. Murphy would take this glorious moment of returning to 'SNL' and make disparaging remarks against Mr. Cosby. One would think that Mr. Murphy was given his freedom to leave the plantation so that he could make his own decisions but he decided to sell himself back to being a Hollywood slave."
"Remember, Mr. Murphy, that Mr. Cosby became legendary because he used comedy to humanize all races religions and genders. But your attacking Mr. Cosby helped you embarked on just becoming click bait"
I don't have a ton of time left, but what do you think of that? Cosby serving a prison sentence right now.
FARLEY: So much to get into there. Obviously, when you're serving a prison sentence, you don't have that platform to attack somebody like Eddie Murphy.
DEAN: Right.
FARLEY. I know it's point of Eddie Murphy's point, but he was attacking him back in the day for his language. And now look at his actions. And this has been going on for decades.
Eddie Murphy has talked about it on stage. He's talked about it with Richard Pryor. They both sort of said that Cosby was sort of out of line to attack them for their language.
And many years later, I think Eddie Murphy feels victorious because here he is still going, still respected. And Cosby is where he is.
DEAN: All right. Well, Chris Farley, thanks so much for being here.
FARLEY: Thank you.
DEAN: It's great to have you.
Trump's takeover of the Republican Party has so many lawmakers terrified of a tweet. How does the president keep his iron grip on the GOP?
And also, heartbreak in Paris. For the first time in 200 years, no Christmas Mass at Notre Dame.
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[14:41:32]
DEAN: Fear and loyalty, that's how President Trump is maintaining his near total grip on the Republican Party. This, according to the "New York Times."
The paper writing, in part, "Mr. Trump enters 2020 burdened with ignominy of being the first sitting president to seek re-election after being impeachment. But he does so wearing a political coast of armor built on total loyalty from GOP activists and representatives in Congress." If he does not enjoy the broad admiration Republicans afforded Ronald
Reagan, he is more feared by his party's lawmakers than any other occupant of the Oval Office since at least Lyndon Johnson."
That loyalty to Trump in full view when Senator Roy Blunt was asked by Dana Bash about the president's infamous July phone call with Ukraine's leader.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The president asking a foreign country, the leader of a foreign country to investigate a man who is a political rival of his. Is that appropriate?
SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO) Well, at the same time, you had the attorney general asking leaders of other countries to help them look into the 2016 elections.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: Which is the -- which is to benefit the United States. This is a specific ask specifically about his political opponent. So do you feel that that's appropriate?
BLUNT: Well, the president and the secretary of state and the retired lieutenant general, who's a foreign policy adviser, all feel like that call was within the bounds of normal.
BASH: What do you think? What does Roy Blunt think?
BLUNT: You know, I think I've never been very happy with any of the Ukraine decisions since the Russians invaded Crimea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: I want to bring in CNN Political Commentators, Tara Setmayer and Alice Stewart.
Hi to both of you. Thanks for being with us.
(CROSSTALK)
DEAN: Alice, you heard Senator Blunt there not directly answering whether Trump's call was appropriate or not. And in 2016, we saw Republicans, some of them come out against then-Candidate Trump. Even people like Lindsey Graham criticizing him. But that criticism has, for all intents and purposes, faded away on Capitol Hill and the Republican Party seems like the party of Trump.
Alice, do you think it's fear or loyalty that's done this or maybe both things?
ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't see it as much fear and loyalty as facing reality. And the reality is that Trump's base is strong and solid and not going anywhere. He's maintained 80 percent, 90 percent approval from his base and it really has not wavered.
Roy Blunt took a while to get to that answer. He said many times he didn't feel as though this was worthy of impeachment. I agree with him.
Some of the things that were said on that call were inappropriate, but it did not rise to the level of impeachment.
And I talked to many members of the -- Republican members of Congress. And when they look at what they heard in the House, they see this as not a case of where a crime was proven without a shadow of a doubt. They see no underlying crime. And that's the reason why they are standing in support with the president.
And that's why, if and when it finally does get to the Senate, I see that being acquitted in short order.
DEAN: But it also benefits them. They get to stay in power if they support the president. I mean, we've seen examples of people who have spoken out against him and faced repercussions for that both at the ballot box and his Twitter account.
STEWART: Well, it's genuine. Certainly, if they support the president, they certainly will benefit from having him go to their districts and fundraise for him and rally supporters and rally constituents.
[14:45:05]
But the reality is this is genuine in their support for him. It's not a matter of them being afraid. It is, for many of them, with regard to impeachment, it's genuine because they've been back in their districts and the people are telling them they're fed up with hearing about impeachment.
They'd like for Congress and the president to get busy with the issues they were elected for, health care, education, and certainly the economy which so far has been strong.
DEAN: And, Tara, I want to ask you, President Trump spent much of his first couple years in office struggling to get his policies enacted. And since then, some of the more establishment Republicans we've seen in the administration have gone. People like James Mattis, John Bolton, Dan Coats, General John Kelly, all gone now.
TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The list is long.
DEAN: The list is long.
Have their departures enabled Trump to become the standard bear for the GOP? Because it is true we have seen a lot of the establishment Republicans fade away and Trump and the people who have stood closest to him have become the standard.
SETMAYER: I think that those people tried to keep the ship on course. They tried their best, but obviously Trump is unmanageable. And, you know, if you want to call them establishment Republicans or
sane Republicans because they recognize that a lot of what Trump was trying to do was either unconstitutional or illegal. They protected him from himself for a long time.
And once they -- all the adults in the room left, you saw the wheels start to come off even faster and thus here we are with an impeached president.
You know, I think Alice is incorrect when she says most Republicans don't fear Trump, that they actually agree with him. No. The majority of those Republicans fear the backlash of Trump's base and don't want to lose power.
Many of my Republican friends and colleagues and former staffers and current staffers, I ask them, how do your members feel outside the core group of sycophants on the Hill. And members were like, they don't want anything to do with this, even though they know what Trump has done is completely unethical and it is impeachable.
But they don't want anything to do with this anymore because they don't want to hear Trump tweeting at them. We see how he behaves on Twitter and what he says in the insane rallies. They're trying to hold on because they can be in office longer than Trump can.
DEAN: Right.
SETMAYER: That's a craven political decision.
Look at the two dozen Democrats that were voted in in Trump districts in 2018 that had the courage to stand up and say the Constitution comes first. And if that costs me my election, fine. But I'm voting to impeach because it's the right thing to do.
DEAN: All right. So that -- you both have those critical arguments that are part of the impeachment debate.
Before we go, though, I want to turn now to President Trump's speech over the weekend to get your thoughts on this. Turning Point USA, he ranted against windmills while talking to this conservative forum.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I never understood -- and I know windmills very much. I've studied it better than anybody. It's very expensive. They're made in China and Germany mostly. Very few made here. Almost none.
But they're manufactured -- tremendous -- if you're into this, tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere.
You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything.
You talk about the carbon footprint. Fumes are spewing into the air. Spewing. Whether it's in China, Germany, going into the air. It's their air, our air, everything. Right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: So, guys, people listened to that and then, what? Quickly, I want to get to both of you.
Alice, is this just him kind of being obsessed with windmills? Was he trying to make a point? What was that?
STEWART: Yes, it was both of those. But the reality is if he's talking about energy, which he was, I think he should have focused on what they have done, which has been successful.
Focusing on oil and gas exploration, increasing drills, reducing federal government regulations. Those are aspects of energy that have been positive that would be more beneficial. Leave that out of it.
(CROSSTALK)
SETMAYER: Here's the difference, quickly. It doesn't affect him personally. He has a personal grievance because of what happened in Scotland at his golf course. He was worried those windmills would ruin the view. He caused problems there because of that.
He's got personal animus. Everything's about him. It's a weird narcissism thing.
There's all this misinformation about wind. First, most windmill components are made in the United States. They're in the U.S. They employee 141,000 people. It's on the wind/energy page of the Energy Department that overseas.
DEAN: Yes.
SETMAYER: So he does all these things and spews this nonsense because he's got a personal animus that's not based on fact.
[14:50:05]
DEAN: Yes, I think everyone can agree it was off message, let's say.
SETMAYER: One of many.
DEAN: All right. Tara Setmayer and Alice Stewart, thanks to both of you.
STEWART: Happy holidays to you.
SETMAYER: Thank you.
DEAN: You, too.
The bells will not be ringing on Christmas Day at Notre Dame Cathedral for the first time in over 200 years. There will be no services there.
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DEAN: For the first time in more than 200 years, there will be no Christmas service at Paris' famed Notre Dame Cathedral. That's because of, earlier this year, the devastating fire that destroyed the historic Parisian landmark and toppled its iconic medieval spire.
CNN's Melissa Bell is in Paris.
Melissa, is there a plan B for church services?
MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Jessica. This is an important match for Catholics in Paris, that an alternative had to be found. That match was found at a neighboring church. No doubt with prayers and thoughts given toward those recent efforts.
It's been eight months since that devastating fire, since tourists alike looked on aghast as this cathedral went up in flames. With 850 years of history that seemed to go up in smoke before they're very helpless eyes.
Those reconstruction efforts are about to begin. I'd like you to see the pictures we filmed today, to give you an idea of how much longer this is going to take.
What we've seen over the last eight months is efforts to secure the building. So fragile after the results of that devastating fire, which, bear in mind, raged for more than nine hours.
That securing is nearly done. The massive crane has been put in place. A new scaffolding is going to be put on the outside. They expect the work should be done at the end of the year. It should be some time more before any further Christmas masses are held in the building.
The chaplain said today it stood for 850 years, we need to make sure it stands for another 850, and that will take as long as it takes -- Jessica?
[14:55:07]
DEAN: In the meantime, thankfully, there's a plan B for this year.
Melissa Bell, in Paris for us, thanks very much.
There's both skepticism and support today after Saudi Arabia's sentencing in the case of a murdered journalist. We'll have new reaction from his family, his paper, and the White House.
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