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Fighting Inflation; Interview with Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan Justin Wolfers; Armed Man Tackles Dave Chappelle Onstage; Prison Escape; Officer and Inmate, "Special Relationship"; Baby Formula Recall. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 04, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:30:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: All eyes on the federal reserve today. For the first time in 22 years, it is expected to raise interest rates by half a percentage point. It's part of a series of aggressive moves to cool down the economy amid the worst inflation the U.S. has seen in four decades.

Joining us now is Justin Wolfers. He's a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. Always good to have you on, Justin. So, if the Fed moves interest rates up a half-point, as expected, how are everyday Americans going to feel this?

JUSTIN WOLFERS, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: Well, I think this is now if. It's a deadset certainty that's just about to happen and they're just spell-checking the press release right now. What it means depends really on where you are in your life cycle. If you're someone who's about to buy a house, it's going to mean that mortgage rates are going to go up, that's going to -- that's going to make a lot -- be tougher to put groceries on the table. On the flip side, it will cool the housing market a little bit. So, hopefully, houses will become a little bit more affordable.

And in terms of what it means for people's lives, what the Fed's hoping to do is to cool inflation a little. So, your paycheck will go a little further or that'll mean slowing the economy and that might mean a little bit less bargaining power for workers and fewer prospects of a wage rise any time soon.

CABRERA: We know the goal is to be back inflation, you know, raise the interest rates and as you just pointed out how inflation would then follow and dip, hopefully. But did this move come soon enough or is it too little too late?

WOLFERS: With hindsight, if we need it, we'd have the inflation that we had in late '21 and early '22. I think all of us would have stomped on the brakes a little earlier. There's another way of thinking about this which is going back to the early days of the pandemic. And if you remember the incredible economic feel all of us felt. And I think I said at the time, I'd much rather we make the mistake of overheating the economy, getting people back in jobs, then we'll mop up inflation later. That's a better problem to have than still having millions of people out of work.

CABRERA: But now there's also a risk of triggering a recession, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase said today, Jamie Dimon, that he sees a one in three chance the Fed can engineer a soft landing where inflations brought down under control and economic expansion continues. Do you see the same odds?

WOLFERS: Look, Ana, whenever an economist tells you anything's a one in three chance. What they're really saying is they don't have a clue. Because if does happen, they'll say, I told you so. And if it doesn't happen, they'll say, I told you it was unlikely. The economy is good right now. And the single best way of predicting the future part of the economy's how's it doing right now?

[13:35:00]

And we're going so strongly that the Fed needs to slow it down. So, I don't see a recession any time soon. Although, if the last two years taught us anything, it's that there could be any sort of surprise just around the corner.

CABRERA: But we do have gas prices going up. Diesel hitting, you know, record highs over and over again recently. You have the risk of the recession. So again, when you say everything's going strong, there are those issues. Is there anything else that can be done to bring inflation down faster?

WOLFERS: So, I am hopeful. Actually, we've seen the worst of inflation. Economists often refer to what we call, core inflation, which strips out the effect of fairly volatile things, including gasoline. Look at lot of what's going on and gasoline has got everything to do with Russia invading Ukraine and there's nothing we can do about that. That's a part of the price that people around the world have to pay for Putin's bad actions.

But we do hope that -- I think there's some hope that inflation is going to come down. The question is whether it's going to come down quickly or come down slowly. There's a bunch that the administration could do. Things like reducing tariffs and the like. But really, we've got to see whether the work we did over the past several decades, the Fed wanted to believe that it would consistently be able to deliver low inflation. If it convinced people of that, then that in itself is going to be enough to create the self-fulfilling prophecy. People expect low inflation, it'll create low inflation.

CABRERA: Let's end on the jobs market real fast because we just learned that 4.5 million workers quit their job in March. Is the job market good enough for people who may not be satisfied with what they're currently doing and want to change jobs?

WOLFERS: Look, we're on the cusp now of having the unemployment rate at the lowest rate in half a century. So, the job marking's a lot better. It's not all the way to good. There are still people left out on the fringes. But one of the most important things we can do in the economy is as we drive the labor market further and further and reduce that unemployment rate, we start to bring people back into the labor market who traditionally suffer in a traditional lift on the sidelines. And we're starting to see a little bit of that now. So, when economists talk about a soft landing, it's -- let's try and cement in the gains we've made so far and hopefully avoid a recession or anything that would cause broader problems.

CABRERA: Professor Justin Wolfers, thank you so much.

WOLFERS: My pleasure, Ana.

CABRERA: Attacked on stage. A man with a knife tackling Dave Chappelle. What we're learning about this assault on Chappelle as he performed at the Hollywood Bowl.

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[13:40:00]

CNN has just obtained this video showing the moment a man tackles comedienne Dave Chappelle during his show last night at the Hollywood Bowl. And here you see several people chasing this -- now, 23-year-old suspect we've learned around the stage. Police say the man was armed with a knife. CNN's Stephanie Elam is joining us from Los Angeles.

Stephanie, what more are you learning about all this?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's kind of a bizarre scene there. But what we do know, Ana, is that this 23-year-old man has been arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon. And not only was it a knife, but it was a knife that was -- looked like a replica handgun. So, that of course brings into question how he could even get in with this since you did have to go through metal detectors and you did have to have your bags opened and checked.

But obviously when you see that, and you see that this person was just able to rush up on the stage, is bringing into question a lot of things. This is all a part of Netflix's festival, "Netflix is a Joke". And this -- they're a festival that they were holding at the Hollywood Bowl. So, there were a lot of comedians there. And one of the comedians there, believe it or not, was Chris Rock. And if you take a listen to some of the videos that we've received, you can hear what he says.

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CHRIS ROCK, COMEDIAN: Was that Will Smith?

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ELAM: So, all of this happening as Chappelle was finishing up his set. He was calling all the comediennes back on stage just to, sort of, have that moment together before going onto the musical act that would come on after him. That part still happened. That music at the end of the night still happened. But of all the places where Chris Rock ended up being twice in this one year, it's noteworthy. But obviously, questions about security keep coming up because people wonder how safe are artists if they are on stage and if anyone can access them. Ana.

CABRERA: Stephanie Elam, thank you for your reporting.

And now to the bizarre case of an Alabama corrections officer accused of helping a murder-suspect escape. A short time ago, Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton explained how deputy Vicky White and inmate Casey White had a special relationship.

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SHERIFF RICK SINGLETON, LAUDERDALE COUNTY, ALABAMA: We've first received information from inmates over the weekend that there was a relationship. And by special, they were saying he was getting special treatment. He was getting privileges.

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Getting extra food on his tray that Vicky White was saying that he got that other inmates weren't getting, is what they say.

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CABRERA: New surveillance footage shows the moment the pair left the jail. And we know now that patrol car was abandoned in a parking lot minutes later. CNN National Correspondent Ryan Young is in Florence, Alabama, in that parking lot. And Ryan, you spoke to someone who saw the officer and inmate in the car together. What did you learn?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well you know, she was well known in this community. So, when someone saw her drive by, especially with the suspect in the backseat, even waved at her a couple of times -- location. Just to give you an idea of where we are, look, this is a shopping plaza like any other across this country, just behind us over there in the last parking spot is where the get- away car apparently was parked.

But we talked to a city council member who said he was filming a video and he saw Vicky White coming in his direction. He thought, maybe she was going to ask him to move out of the street, they waved at each other twice. And they had some sort of exchange as she drove by. But he never thought anything of it until he talked to his wife a little later on and figured out what was going on. Take a listen to the city councilman talk about that strange encounter.

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BILL GRIFFIN, FLORENCE, ALABAMA CITY COUNCIL: Most criminals in his capacity are just great conmen, that's how you make a living. And I think he conned her. And she sold her soul to the devil. I just hope she is safe and I just -- I'm sorry that she traded 25 years of protecting for probably 25 years of serving.

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YOUNG: Ana, as you can imagine, this is the talk of this entire area. Everyone's thinking about this man, six-foot-seven, over 280 pounds, the idea that he could still be on the run. That this was planned out. That their car was waiting here just three -- been asking questions, how could this happen? But at the same time, the marshal service is out there working all these leads and tips to try to catch these two people. But that big question is when they started finding out the facts like she sold her house in the days before. That she was going to retire as of Friday.

The sheriff told me today that these two probably met back in 2020 and maintained some sort of relationship during this entire time. And then when he got transferred back in, maybe this plan started to unfold. So, they're still trying to work out all the details on this. But this obviously is such a big conversation. Not only across the country. But especially here in this town. Ana.

CABRERA: A giant manhunt is now underway, five days on the run. And Ryan, we're now hearing from the ex-girlfriend of Casey White. What can you tell us about what we are learning from her?

YOUNG: Well, when you think about this, everyone's been making kind of jokes about part of this and the manhunt, right? But when you listen to this former victim. The fact that she was an ex-girlfriend of Casey and he terrorized her. Almost killed her. In effect, he was -- she actually testified in court about the terror she felt. Her family moved away from the State to start a new life. Especially after he was convicted for the crimes that he committed against her.

So, you can understand as everyone just sort of makes fun about this story, it's really heartbreaking for her that he's still on the run again. And she actually offers a bit of advice to Vicky. She says you got to get away and got to get away as quickly as possible. Ana.

CABRERA: All right. Ryan Young. Thank you.

Up next, what parents need to know about a massive baby formula recall. Stay right there.

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A baby formula recall has some parents scrambling. Similac is one of the most popular baby formulas but it's been pulled from the shelves after four babies were hospitalized and two died. The FDA is still trying to determine what went wrong. CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now.

Elizabeth, what are you learning about this recall and what can parents do?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Anna, what we're learning is that parents are feeling really frustrated and unable to find the formulas that they want because of the recall and because of supply chain shortages. So, what we're hearing from parents is, look, some of our children -- may be your babies were like this when they were little, Ana, they like one formula, and other ones make their little bellies hurt. So, let's take a listen from Joy Greene. She's a mom in Ohio. Her baby is five-month-old Weston.

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JOY GREENE, MOM LOOKING FOR BABY FORMULA: It's been scary to like walk down the aisles and see empty shelves and, honestly, not be able to find the exact formula that we need. We have been trying different off brands, store brands, things like that, and some of them he's tolerating OK. And some of them he's not. But really, it's just been overwhelming and scary.

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COHEN: So, this recall has been of lots of certain Similac formulas. They're made by Abbott Nutrition. Let's take a look at what Abbott says they're doing to alleviate the situation. They says that they're -- they say they're increasing production at other manufacturing sites besides the one in Michigan where there has been this investigation. They're air shipping a formula from a manufacturing site in Ireland and they're releasing some specialty formulas. Formulas for children with very specific metabolic disorders on a case-by-case basis.

And, Ana, as far as what parents can do, on Similac's website, they have a finder where you put in your zip code. You put in exactly what brand you're looking for because Similac has many brands and it will tell you where you can find it, you know, near you.

CABRERA: It's stressful enough being a first-time parent --

COHEN: Right.

CABRERA: -- for a lot of these families and not being able to know exactly what to do when it comes to just nourishing your child is extra stressful. Elizabeth, thank you for that reporting. Important information obviously.

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That does it for me today. Thank you so much for joining us. I'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place. Until then you can always join me on Twitter @AnaCabrera. The news continues with Victor Blackwell after the break. Have a great afternoon.

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