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L.A. City Council Member Resigns As President Over Racist Remarks; Kanye West's Twitter Account Locked For Anti-Semitic Tweet; Fort Myers Beach Residents Get First Look At Property Damage; New Study Questions Effectiveness Of Colonoscopies; Forecast: U.S. Will Soon Start Losing 175K Jobs A Month. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 10, 2022 - 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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[14:31:27]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: A Los Angeles City Council member resigned as its president after growing outrage for her racist remarks towards black people and indigenous Latinos. This was in a secret audio recording leaked online.

Council President Nury Martinez was also heard disparaging a white councilman's young black son, even suggesting physical harm.

CNN's national correspondent, Camila Bernal, is with us now.

So what's the update?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Victor. She's resigned from this very powerful position, the president of the City Council. But it is important to point out that she is still a member of the City Council. At least, at this point, she is.

I want to get straight to the statement that she released just about an hour or so ago where she says, "I take responsibility for what I said and there are no excuses for those comments. I am so sorry."

Then she goes on to say in the statement that, "In the end, it's not my apologies that matter most. It will be the actions I take from this day forward. I hope you will give me the opportunity to make amends."

"Therefore, effective immediately, I am resigning as the president of the Los Angeles City Council."

I want to start from the beginning. This was a leaked audio on Reddit. "The L.A. Times" obtained the audio. CNN has not verified that audio.

At first, they are talking redistricting. It's not just her. It's a number of prominent Latino leaders in Los Angeles. And they begin to talk about another council member, Mike Bonan. He is a white man who has a black son.

She begins to talk about an incident when they were at a parade together with the child and she alleges this child was misbehaving, trying to jump off the rails. She was afraid that the parade float would tip over.

And then she makes these comments. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NURY MARTINEZ, (D), LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL MEMBER (voice-over): There's this white guy with a little black kid who is misbehaving. A little white kid I'm like this kid needs a beatdown. Let me take him around the corner and I'll bring him back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: She also goes on to say that he handled his child like an accessory and described him in Spanish as a monkey.

Of course, she apologized for all of these comments but, for the parents, these apologies are not enough. They not only called for her to resign as the president but they want her to resign as a member of the City Council, her and the other members who are heard in this recording.

I want to get to the statement from the parents' of the child because that's important, as well.

Here is what they're saying. They're saying:

"We're appalled, angry and absolutely disgusted that Nury Martinez attacked our son with horrific racist slurs and talked about her desire to physically harm him. It is vile and utterly disgraceful."

They did go on to talk about in this statement about an effort to weaken the black political power here in Los Angeles.

And of course, this is coming weeks before an election where L.A. voters will design their next mayor and also a number of City Council seats here. People here, of course, are very upset.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Understandably. It's such a diverse city

Camila Bernal, thank you.

Mara S. Campo is the host of the "Run Tell This" podcast.

[14:34:59]

Some people say this is a diverse city, Los Angeles. Are you surprised someone would say this this?

MARA S. CAMPO, PODCAST HOST, "RUN TELL THIS": Victor, you raise an excellent point because this speaks to the narrative a lot of people believe of these alliances between marginalized communities and communities of color, which is true sometimes but, in some cases, proves to be a false narrative.

Which is what we're seeing here where some politicians view these alliances not as alliances but a zero-sum game, an us-versus-them. And it speaks to the broader context of this call, which the reporter just mentioned there, which is that a lot of people say this call was really about diluting black political power.

So while the racist comments about this boy are going to make people upset, as they should, any political figure speaking this way about a child, in particular, is completely abhorrent.

It also points to the larger issue, the larger context of the call, which as I noted, is about diluting political power among black voters.

BLACKWELL: Again, Nury Martinez resigned as council president. She's not resigned from the L.A. City Council. Do you think she and other council members her were involved in some way, part of the conversations, do you think they can survive politically?

CAMPO: I don't know if they can but I don't think they should.

We talk how political discord evolved in this time but, in the context of today's political climate, what we heard was awful.

You're hearing from a political leader referring to a black child with an overt racial slur and then saying she wanted to take him around the corner and beat him.

And then the others on the call, not saying anything to challenge that. And at some point, your silence makes you complicit.

If you're on a call and someone is speaking that way about a child, about a black child, and you say nothing, then you have proven that you don't deserve to hold elected office.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's turn to Kanye and this tweet that has now been taken down.

He's been -- his Instagram account, his Twitter has been restricted, where he says he's going to go Def Con Three on Jewish people and talks about a Jewish agenda.

When you saw this from Kanye, what did you think?

CAMPO: Victor, what is interesting with Kanye is he's gotten a pass of repeating over and over and over again. You know, there was a slavery denied where he completely invalidated the suffering of millions of Africans by saying that slavery was a chose.

There's the way he stalked his ex-wife and released videos fanaticizing about murdering her new boyfriend.

He continues to get these passes because people say, oh, he's mentally ill. Some say, oh, he's a genius, this is part of his genius. But at some point, enough has to be enough.

So when I saw this tweet, I had to ask myself, is this finally enough? Is this finally the point where the public at large, where the social media platforms say a suspension, just shutting down his account temporarily is not enough.

Let's be clear, what he is doing is very dangerous. If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that words and rhetoric can translate into action and they can be incredibly dangerous.

And when we talk about anti-Semitism, in particular, history has shown us how incredibly dangerous this is. So it's time to say enough is enough.

And in this case with Kanye, he's proven that there's no line that he is not willing to cross.

Let's be clear. A lot of things can be true at the same time. He may be suffering from mental illness. He may be a genius. He can be a self-hating anti-black musical artist. It is time to turn that microphone off.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it's interesting you bring up the genius past that he gets because he'll release a new shoe, he'll release a new album and the demographics, the demos who fill the stadiums and line up for the shoes are vehemently opposed to his political views and views about slavery being a choice.

We'll see if this is different. Up to this point, it has not been.

Mara S. Campo, thank you. Good to have you.

CAMPO: Thank you, Victor.

[14:39:15]

BLACKWELL: All right, officials in Lee County, Florida, say the death toll is rising. We're live from Fort Myers with the latest on the devastation, next.

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BLACKWELL: Parts of Florida ravaged by Hurricane Ian are ready to get students back into class. In Sarasota County, some students are returning day as part of a phased reopening.

Meantime, in Fort Myers Beach, families returned to their homes and businesses Sunday for the first time to see the damage.

CNN's Nadia Romero is in Fort Myers with more now on the recovery effort.

What are the people seeing when they get back to Fort Myers Beach?

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, it's absolute devastation here and destruction. That's what they're coming back to. Maybe they're going back to their home, their condo or business.

Behind me is what used to be a strip of absolute fun on the beach. You would have had a dance club, a dance floor, a club, a restaurant, a bar, a sub shop, a souvenir shop. But everything you see now is completely wide open. Mangled metal,

hanging wires and uprooted infrastructure, pipes and everything else because the storm surge came from here and went in and ripped everything out back towards the sea.

[14:45:08]

And we spoke with business owners that are having a really hard time because they weren't able to even be eligible for flood insurance right here.

And we spoke to some homeowners that say they're really learning more about their policies right now, as well.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOM DELFORGE, FORT MYERS RESIDENT: I opened my house and it was the mud. It's -- I'm on my second round of cleaning mud.

The insurance adjustor was here. It turns out, unbeknown to me, that I thought hurricane insurance covered surge because that's part of the hurricane. It does not.

My previous insurance company dropped Florida period. So I mean, that was -- I was left in the limbo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMERO: And that's really what a lot of people are learning is that storm surge is considered flooding and you would need flood insurance for that so other homeowners insurance doesn't qualify. So many people are having to get help by FEMA or state agency.

For small business owners, they're in a bind because FEMA doesn't help small business owners. They make their way to the Small Business Administration. But they're offering loans.

People with restaurants here tell me they already had small business loans. They already had COVID relief loans they were trying to pay back.

And took out second mortgages on their own homes to fund these businesses on the beach to live that dream out and have generational wealth, something to pass on to their children.

And now, Victor, they have nothing.

BLACKWELL: Remarkable there.

Nadia Romero, with the plight of so many families and businesses - business owners there in Fort Myers Beach. Thank you for the reporting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLACKWELL: There's a new study that's raising question over the efficacy of colonoscopies and how much it reduces the risk of colon cancer death. We'll have more on what that means for you ahead.

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[14:51:05]

BLACKWELL: A new study just out about colonoscopies, published by the "New England Journal of Medicine," looked at thousands of people who had the procedure and thousands who did not and the findings are surprising.

Let's bring in CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, what did they find?

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The study found that colonoscopies work, Victor. But they found they weren't quite as effective as studies have found in the United States. We'll talk in a minute about why that might be true.

Let's first look at the results of the study.

What they found when they looked at 12,000 people in three European countries, Poland, Norway and Sweden, they got colonoscopies. It reduced their cancer risk by 30 percent, and it reduced the risk of dying from colon cancer by 50 percent.

Now U.S. studies show an even more dramatic benefit of colonoscopies.

So why would it be more dramatic in the United States? One reason, according to a gastroenterologist that I talked to, they said in Europe -- and I know this sounds weird to American ears -- they don't sedate people for colonoscopies. They don't give them sedation. A very small percentage get sedation.

So people are kind of in pain and they squirm around and they grimace and it might make doctors not be quite as thorough and as aggressive as American doctors working on patients that are sedated.

Another interesting finding of this European study, in Europe, it's not standard to get a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer. So they were invited people to get screened.

What they found was only 42 percent of the 28,000 people they invited to get screened for colon cancer, only 42 percent of them said yes.

So certainly, there's more work to be done there to explain the benefit of colon cancer screening to folks in those European countries -- Victor?

BLACKWELL: Had no idea that colonoscopies happen without sedation, but I understand how that could reduce the effectiveness there.

COHEN: Yes. BLACKWELL: For people with a history of colon cancer in their family -- my grandfather died of colon cancer when I was a young child -- what should we do, should those families do?

COHEN: I'm sorry to hear that. So folks like you do need to pay special attention.

In the United States, the standard recommendation is start getting colon cancer screening at age 45. If you have a family history, talk to your doctor about getting screened even younger than 45.

BLACKWELL: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.

[14:53:32]

With territorial losses mounting, Russia launches deadly missile attacks on several cities across Ukraine. We're live in Kyiv with the fallout, next.

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[14:58:24]

BLACKWELL: A bleak jobs report today -- forecast, I should say. Bank of America is warning the U.S. economy could start losing jobs each month beginning early next year, 175,000 of them.

CNN's Alison Kosik is with us now to explain.

Not the only warning, though, about the economy today.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's not. I'll get to the one you just mentioned, Victor, in just a second one.

The other worry that turned the market like that was during an interview with Jamie Dimon. He's JPMorgan's CEO. It aired on CNBC.

And like a light switch, stocks went from flat to tanking more than 200 points. They recovered as you can see,.

But what Dimon said aloud is what many have already been thinking, that it's likely the United States will enter a recession. This coming up from the biggest bank in the U.S.

And he put a time frame on when he thinks this will happen. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: Currently, right now, the U.S. economy is still doing well.

But you can't talk about the economy without talking about the stuff in the future. And this is serious stuff.

These are very, very serious things, which is likely to push the U.S. and the world -- I mean Europe is already in a recession. And likely to put the U.S. in some kind of recession six to nine months from now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: So we're not there yet. In part, because the labor market is so strong. We learned that, on Friday, that, in September, 263,000 jobs were added to the economy.

[14:59:50]

But as you mentioned, Victor, another big bank is warning today that the labor market, yes, that too will start to crack.

Bank of America warning in a note that the Federal Reserve's aggressive moves of hiking interest rates to fight inflation, that will cause the U.S. economy to begin losing tens of thousands of jobs a month beginning early next year, to the tune of 175,000 job losses a month.