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Immaculate Concussion: The Truth Behind Havana Syndrome; Dow on Track to Close Below 30K, Nears Bear Market; The Murdochs: Empire of Influence. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired September 23, 2022 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Havana syndrome is one of the most complex health mysteries in recent years. This was first reported in 2016 when U.S. officials in Cuba started experiencing unexplained health problems. Well, since then the mysterious incidents have multiplied. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been investigating the mysteries as part of a CNN special report. So, what have we learned?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, so we knew about these unexplained health incidents. They were mysterious. There was more evidence and speculation they were caused by a directed energy weapon and specifically microwaves. That was sort of out there now for some time.
As we started to investigate this, we met somebody his named is Dr. Paul Andrews, a physician working for the CIA. And he was the first guy that actually started looking into this. First patient came to him and he examined the patient and then he himself decided to go down to Havana to try and learn more about what exactly happened. And what happened to him with he got to Havana was just this remarkable sort of unfolding of events. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (voice over): When Andrews and his two colleagues landed in Havana in April of 2017, the incidents were still classified. Patients were told to not even discuss this with their own families.
DR. PAUL ANDREWS, FORMER SENIOR MEDICAL OFFICER, CIA: We had a van from the embassy pick us up and take us to the hotel. I get into the room and I looked around. I hadn't seen this before, between every set of rooms was a small door and it was a service chase. It was unusual.
GUPTA: Did you think there was somebody in that space.
ANDREWS: I don't know.
GUPTA (voice over): This is that service chase, potentially large enough for a person to stand inside.
ANDREWS: I looked out the window. I was on a high floor and I saw nothing out there that concerned me. There was no other building at a height that would have a direct ability to shine something in my room, say.
I think I went to bed probably around 11:30. I slept in my jeans and a t-shirt in case I had to evacuate quickly. At about 4:56, 4:57, I was awakened with severe pain in my right ear. I had la nausea and a terrible headache and I never suffered from headaches before. The amount of ringing in my ears was just astounding and things were getting worse and worse and worse and I started to hear the noise and I'm really in disbelief.
GUPTA: And you believe that that night, there was some sort of injury or damage to either your inner ear, the nerves around your inner ear or your brain?
ANDREWS: Correct, absolutely.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[15:35:00]
GUPTA (on camera): I had never heard that sort of description before. You just heard what those attacks, those incidents really felt like. From the doctor, Victor, that was examining them and stuff. He goes down there to look into this and he himself become as victim. Still very debilitated. I will tell you Dr. Paul Andrews, that's not his real name. He's a CIA intelligence officer, so he used the pseudonym. We talked to him. We also talked to the doctors that examined those the first patients. Some of them speaking out for the first time to really give us an idea just exactly what happened to the brains of people who had these incidents.
BLACKWELL: So, your documentary is called "IMMACULATE CONCUSSION." These injuries have been described an concussion like. You're a brain doctor. How much do they compare to a concussion?
GUPTA: I think -- what I can say is that there's no box that this neatly fits into what exactly happened here. When we talk about a concussion, there's usually a very clear inciting event, you know, football blow to the head, car accident, something like that. Didn't happen there. People were standing in their kitchen, all of a sudden developed profound headache, nausea, vomiting, debilitating to the point where they can't even walk. Balance difficulties. What causes that suddenly? Sometimes they would move a few feet over and the symptoms would go away. So, it's most like concussion and that's how doctors are approaching it in terms of trying to treat these patients but it doesn't fit neatly into any particular pattern that we know of.
BLACKWELL: It's fascinating. Dr. Sanjay Gupta thank you.
GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And this CNN special report "IMMACULATE CONCUSSION: The Truth Behind Havana Syndrome" airs this Sunday at 8:00 p.m. OK, so stocks a are down sharply. Down more than 600 points right now.
Goldman Sachs warns this sell off may just be getting started so we're live from the New York stock exchange, next.
[15:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLACKWELL: All right, let's talk stocks. Take a look at the big board now. The Dow has been in the red all day and is on track now to close below 30,000.
CNN Matt Egan is at the New York Stock Exchange for us. OK, tell us what's happening there?
MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Alisyn and Victor, we know the stock market is this constant tug-of-war between fear and greed and right now, fear clearly has the upper hand. Fear of high inflation, fear what the Fed is going to have to do to get inflation under control and fear that the economy could end up slipping into a recession. So that's why we've got the Dow down 560 points at 1.9 percent. The good news is the market was down actually a lot more. Earlier it was down about 800 points.
I think the bad news is that the Dow is still flirting with closing in a bear market. If the Dow closes down by 637 points or more, it will join the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in a bear market which is a 20 percent decline from previous highs.
And the mood down here on the New York Stock Exchange is pretty gloomy. You know, one trader told me there's just nowhere to hide right now. Virtually all asset classes are getting slammed. Another one looked at the red on the screen and just shook his head thinking about the wealth destruction that is going on now right now. And even some of optimists are losing faith. Goldman Sachs sharply cut its outlook for the U.S. stock market and one of further losses if a recession does materialize.
Now hopefully this gloom and doom on Wall Street is overdone. I mean, in the real economy, the jobs market remains strong, Americans are still spending money and corporate profits are high. So maybe the Fed can pull this off, get inflation under control without causing a recession. But Alisyn and Victor, there is a growing sense that the window for them to get this right is getting smaller.
CAMEROTA: Oh boy, OK, Matt Egan, thank you for giving us all that context as we watch the big board bounce around, thank you.
For decades, much of the media landscape around the world has been dominated by one name, Murdoch. An inside look at the empire next.
[15:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Over the last several decades media titan Rupert Murdoch has built one of the largest media empires in history.
Now the new CNN original series "THE MURDOCHS: EMPIRE OF INFLUENCE" reveals through exclusive reporting how one family's ambitions are shaping business, media and politics around the globe.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARAH ELLISON, STAFF WRITER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Rupert has always operated from an incredibly privileged perch but that has not prevented him from feeling a sense of outsiderishness and aggrievement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His sense of alienation speaks to every working class Brit. Who knows he'll never be accepted by these people so he invents a new language for them.
ERI DEGGANS, TV CRITIC, NPR: It's articulating the passions of an audience that gets overlooked and giving them a voice in media and oh, by the way, he makes a penny or two off of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you take the offensive in this controversy --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and if it keeps avoiding the sixpence, so much the better.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: Let's bring Radhika Jones. She's the editor-in-chief of "Vanity Fair" and she appears in the new Murdoch series. Great to have you here. So, like in them to "Succession. " If you've ever seen Succession in all of the drama and ugliness, they think that it's very similar to the Murdochs. And so, just give us some perspective on how big and powerful and vast their impact really is.
RADHIKA JONES, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, VANITY FAIR: Whatever you may think, however big or powerful or influential you think, is more than that. I mean that's the sort of the answer it's, you know, News Corp. is an incredibly powerful company worth north of 13 billion. But really, it's more than just on paper, it's the cultural influence. You know, you mentioned "Succession." Like this is a family, a dynasty and a company that has part of the culture that we live in. And so, it's even -- it's beyond the sheer product, the news product that newspapers, that televisions, studios it's kind of in the air which is phenomenal.
[15:50:00]
BLACKWELL: We of course see it in the context of domestic politics, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, The Post as well. But of course, they have reached beyond the U.S. What's the biggest political influence, impact that they've had?
JONES: You know, I would say the kind of relentless and ruthless approach to covering the news is part of that. And that, as you say, that's global. That's not just in the U.S., although we feel it here. That sense of -- you know, you think of the phone hacking scandal that happened in Britain, the idea of that in gathering news in this empire, you're going to push the bounds of propriety, the bounds of ethics even and not apologize really and just continue to push that envelope. And all of it in the service of just relentlessly finding this audience and tapping into a sense of alienation. And in doing so creating a sort of polarized world. Like a world that is part of a bubble.
If you're watching Fox News in the states, you have a very picture of what the world looks like, there's no climate change. It's a world where when Obama wears a tan suit, you know, it's a three day long scandal. It is its own feedback lip and I feel like that comes from the kind of relentlessness of the world few and the agenda of the news gathering operation.
CAMEROTA: Yes, I think the news gathering operation is using the term loosely. Because having worked at Fox for many years my impression of Rupert Murdoch was that he was much, much more concerned about ratings than journalism. I don't even know if he was ever concerned about journalism. But of course, they don't tell their viewers that and so they've had a huge impact on journalism.
JONES: Yes, I think that's correct. I mean it is about profitability and influence. And you see that in the role that the Murdoch family plays, Rupert plays and also Fox News in general in terms of being a kingmaker in elections.
We saw it with President Trump where, you know, he's almost auditioning people on Fox News. If he likes what they say, they come and work for him. You know, you start to create this real nexus of power. And for the U.S. in particular, democracy that celebrates freedom of the press, to have a media outlet like that that is fundamentally propaganda in the sense that it becomes a mouth piece for the White House, that's a very dangerous slippery slope.
BLACKWELL: Radhika Jones editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, thank you.
JONES: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for being here.
BLACKWELL: And be sure to tune in to all new CNN original series "THE MURDOCHS: EMPIRE OF INFLUENCE" premiering this Sunday at 9 p.m. with back to back episodes.
CAMEROTA: OK, meanwhile, Donald Trump's attorneys are trying to stop a federal grand jury from learning more about January 6 from his top aides. CNN speaks to one of Trump's former chiefs of staff next.
[15:55:25]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: A rabbi in Texas is making it her mission to boost children's self-esteem, attitude and even school attendance by providing one essential item -- underwear.
This week's CNN hero Rabbi Amy Weiss is impacting the lives of millions of underserved kids across America.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMY WEISS, FOUNDER, UNDIES FOR EVERYONE: Underwear is an overlooked item and it's super expensive. So, the parents who are struggling financially tend to think you can't see the underwear so it'll be OK. There is a crisis for this very essential need that really makes a big difference in their social and academic world.
Weiss: Kids who need underwear, don't want used underwear, right. That's gross, isn't it?
CHILDREN: Yes.
WEISS (voice over): We only give away new underwear.
WEISS: Kids, they want what all of us want, security and dignity.
WEISS (voice over): We want to increase in these kids self-esteem and confidence. That's really what it is all about, helping fill that gap when no one else was doing it. And to keep them in school. When they've got underwear, it's just easier to be a kid.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: Good work. For more on Amy's story, go to CNNheroes.com.
All right, Pepsi has a new twist on s'mores. You know what I'm talking about. There's a catch though. Instead of getting the crunchy, gooey, you got to drink it. And it's not just one can, three separate drinks.
CAMEROTA: Which is a brilliant marketing ploy. Because here are the new flavors -- toasty marshmallow, graham cracker and chocolate -- which of course are the ingredients of s'mores. And you have to buy three of those cans, Victor, to mix it into one drink to make a drinkable s'more. OK, as you know, I'm often grossed out by these food experiments. I'm intrigued.
BLACKWELL: Really?
CAMEROTA: Yes. I think this one actually sounds delicious
BLACKWELL: So, here's the thing, I'd probably pick two of them. I'd go with the graham cracker. I go with the like a -- and melted marshmallow. I'd keep the chocolate soda out.
CAMEROTA: Really.
BLACKWELL: Yes,
CAMEROTA: I find that to be a strange, strange choice.
BLACKWELL: I know it's not a s'more anymore but I mean, you're already asking me to I mix sodas to taste something that doesn't taste like Pepsi.
CAMEROTA: Here it was my plan. I wanted us to be able to taste it today but the only way to get these flavors right now is through a sweepstakes. Because they haven't hit store shelves yet and we just didn't have time for that.
[16:00:00]
But you will be able to taste them on store shelves at some point very soon.
BLACKWELL: I feel like these companies are going so far with like. You know, the Kit-Kat is in 80 different flavors now -- I'm exaggerating.
CAMEROTA: It's a lot better than the fish burger milkshake that we featured a few days ago.
BLACKWELL: I still think cherry, rice milkshake is probably delicious.
CAMEROTA: No, no, Victor, it's not.
BLACKWELL: All right, that I'm making. I bring it when I come back next.
CAMEROTA: "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.
