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Man Arrested For Attempting To Open Emergency Exit Door Aboard Flight; Southern California Residents Trapped By Walls Of Snow; Rock Tackles Oscars Slap In Live Netflix Special; Grizzlies Head Coach: No Timetable For Ja Morant's Return To Team. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 06, 2023 - 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: This just in, a Massachusetts man has been arrested and charged for allegedly attempting to open an emergency exit door while aboard a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Boston. After trying to open the door, he then allegedly attempted to stab a flight attendant in the neck.

CNN's Tom Foreman is following this for us. Very frightening, Tom. What happened and how is the flight attendant?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a lot of frightening stuff happening with the airlines right now. This happened last night in a flight to Los Angeles to Boston according to federal authorities. What they say happened was they got a warning in the cockpit that one of the doors for the outside had been unlocked essentially and when flight attendants went to look at it, they said the handle had been pulled up about a quarter of the way and the warning mechanism had been somehow turned off there basically.

And they started asking around and saying, you know, we only saw this one guy who was up by the door for awhile. According to this report from the feds, they went and talked to the guy. He started saying, well, do you have cameras? Can you prove it? Something like that. Then in a little bit, he got up from his seat according to this federal paper here -- this is the arrest information here -- and as he approached them he then made some sort of stabbing motion at one of them with a spoon that he was carrying in some fashion and then other people tackled him. All of this happening about 45 minutes before the plane was supposed to land. So, yes, a startling thing if you're a passenger on that plane for sure.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Yes, you mentioned a lot of disturbing flight situations out there that we're covering. Also in Boston there was an incident where two planes clipped each other. What happened there?

FOREMAN: Yes, this was two United planes were both leaving 737s, one was being pushed back from the gate the way they do at those little tugs there and it's right wing hit the tail of the plane next to it. It doesn't look like a huge amount of damage but of course, the planes like this evening a little amount of damage can be very costly. Remember this comes a week after they were investigating another near

miss also at Logan Airport and it's coming in a year when aviation experts say there are a lot of problems like this happening. A lot of airports have taken measures to try to mitigate the risk of an on-air collision. But as the airlines try to ramp up and recover entirely from COVID and get a lot of planes in the air. There are aviation analysts who are looking at it saying, look, we're trying to move too many planes too fast too close to each other and it's going to lead to trouble unless special measures are taken.

BLACKWELL: You're also getting some information about some delays across Florida. Tell us about those.

FOREMAN: Yes, yes, on and on it goes here. Yes, the Federal Aviation Administration has said that there are some issues causing flight delays throughout Florida. The details we don't really know. It's the technical issue that involves weather -- excuse me, that involves radar systems that help track the planes in that area.

[15:35:00]

All they will say is that particularly the air traffic around Miami and Jacksonville being heavily impacted by a radar issue but no more details about that at this time. You combine all that with some turbulence stories that we've had of late. And then we had a plane that over the weekend or tried to fly from Cuba to Florida had bird strikes. Had to turn around and make an emergency landing. Smoke all through the cabin. It has been a wild, wild couple of weeks for the airline industry.

BLACKWELL: Aviation is booked and busy everywhere.

GOLODRYGA: Job security. Keeping you busy.

FOREMAN: I guess so.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Tom.

GOLODRYGA: Well, now to two things rarely used in the same sentence, Southern California and feet of snow. Look at this video. We've been talking about this for a few weeks now. Some people are still trapped in their homes.

BLACKWELL: Back to back winter storms have left people there unable to dig their way out. More than 170 people were rescued over the weekend. CNN's Camilla Bernal joins us now from Crestline, California. I mean, the piles of snow behind you are taller than you are. How are people dealing with it?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, not very well. They are so upset, Victor and Bianna. You know, so many residents that I've been talking to four days now who are so frustrated because this is the kind of snow that they're dealing with. Snow that does not allow them to leave their homes and that is what's causing the biggest frustration. It is more than ten days and people are still stuck. So what authorities say they're doing is that they're cleaning the

main roads first. That is the priority. And I want to show you the camera from above that shows you just how much they cleared the main road. But what authorities are saying is that it's about 80 percent done. They still need to clear the side streets and that's where a lot of people live. That's what blocks off the access.

And you mentioned 170 plus rescues over the weekend. Well, what we're learning is they're using these types of heavy equipment. This is a snow cat as we were told and these are only used for those rescues. People that need to be taken from their homes to a shelter or off the mountain and there are many of these. There are a lot of emergencies, people who are desperately in need of food and in need of medicine. I've talked to a lot of angry residents and one of them Johnny Cisneros spoke about feeling like he's a prison. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNNY CISNEROS, CRESTLINE RESIDENT: I'm feeling frustrated and I feel like I'm in prison. I have to get out to make a living. I have a small business down the mountain and I'm not allowed to come back. I can leave but I'm stranded down below. It's scary, it's frustrating and it's frightening and it's mostly just gets my anxiety going up more so than I cannot control it obviously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: And behind me is that supermarket where the roof collapsed because of so much snow. There is no other place to go get food. That's why they are giving out donations over in this area but the problem is a lot of people can't make it to the donation site. So even if they want to come and get food, they're just unable to do so. And again, that's where the frustration and anger is coming from. Residents who are speaking to me in tears -- Victor, Bianna.

GOLODRYGA: I sense their frustration. This has been going on for days. Camilla Bernal thank you.

BLACKWELL: Nearly a year after that infamous Oscar slap, Chris Rock is finally talking about it. That's next.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GOLODRYGA: Chris Rock's historic live Netflix comedy special touched on everything from abortion to politics to even the royal family rift.

BLACKWELL: Unsurprisingly the topic that so many have been waiting for him to tackle was that Oscar slap and he did it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS ROCK, COMEDIAN: You all know what happened to me, getting smacked by "Suge" Smith. It still hurts. Words hurt. That's what they say. Got to watch what you say because

words hurt. You know, anybody that says words hurt has never been punched in the face.

Will Smith practices selective outrage. Practices selective outrage. Because everybody knows what the (BLEEP) happened. Everybody that really knows -- knows I had nothing to do with (BLEEP) I didn't have any entanglements. She hurt him way more than he hurt me and who's he hit? Me. (BLEEP) he know he can beat --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Adrian Gibbs is a culture and entertainment contributor for "Forbes Magazine." Adrian, good to have you on. Is it a coincidence he went to Jada's hometown -- mine too by the way -- of Baltimore to do this special?

ADRIAN GIBBS, FORBES CONTRIBUTOR AND CHICAGO JOURNALIST: You know what? This is a topic of conversation amongst many communities. Lots of people said oh, oh, what is he doing there and why? You know, I would love to ask Chris why. You know, one could say he wants to get as connected as possible to the community that built him up. That is very possible. But it's certainly super interesting to note. You know, Chris Rock doesn't do anything accidentally and he's, you know, very intelligent, super clever.

[15:45:00]

I would not be surprised if we hear more about that later.

GOLODRYGA: Well, he said that you would never see him play the victim role here. He wasn't going to go give Oprah or even Gayle King an interview crying about what took place. And said he waited a year to address it and he waited until the end of his show. How do you think he did in terms of handling it and finally, talking about it?

GIBBS: You know, I think that he got his licks back. You know, there the black community specializes in playing the dozens. OK. And if you play the dozens with Chris Rock, he's probably going to win. He is the king of doing this. He's the king of making you think about things you always do and then making you think twice about it. I think that he did a good job because he got the conversation going.

This was almost a year to the week, last year when the slap was heard across the world and -- and seen across the world -- and we talked about it for quite sometime. But then we stopped talking about it and then Chris went on tour. And we wondered what will he say about it? Is he going to talk about it? We all wondered. And so, this was a really -- this was a big crescendo.

I likened watching the show and his little -- he dropped -- every now and then he made little drops at the beginning of the show every couple minutes, I don't want another mad rapper, I don't want to make another rapper mad. He kept saying that. I said oh, here we go. This is like a church sermon. He keeps bringing it back. And to me, it felt like being on the rolls coaster and being at the very, very, very top and looking over and thinking OK, how bad is it really going to be? And so, he gave us a taste, a taste, a taste, as we ascended, ascended, ascended and then boom went down.

And he got his licks back. He got his licks back. Some people are going to say I'm offended. It was inappropriate. He called Jada out of her name. He said some things that were unnecessary and comedy certainly does do that. It will offend you. What I wrote about was I basically said prepare to be offended because he hits every possible arena of offense. I was offended watching some of it, you know. And so, it was -- I think ultimately he did what he set out to do. He got his licks back. He told people his side of the story and at the same time, it's a huge hit for Netflix.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Yes.

GIBBS: How many people tuned in live?

BLACKWELL: It was a technical feed. It was first for Netflix doing this live global event. Is it too soon to say this is a cultural moment though after watching it?

GIBBS: I don't think it's too soon to say. I think it is a cultural moment. I think we are still all grappling with what it meant. And I think it is still a cultural moment because listen, we love these brothers. We love Chris Rock. We love Will Smith. And if you don't love them in total, there were parts of their history that you completely loved. Fantastic movie moments. Fantastic music moments. Just fantastic moments.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

GIBBS: We're still talking about this and we're still grappling with it because it hurt. And it's pretty incredible when you think about the gravity of what happened on that Oscar's stage. And I think it's going to come back. I'm very curious to see what happens at this year's Oscars if we discusses it some more or if it's all done.

BLACKWELL: You know, it's interesting -- and we've got to wrap here need -- but I'm going to wrap with how you wrapped your piece. It said, you're mostly left thinking that the Oscar slap really, really hurt in more ways than one.

Adrian Gibbs, thank you so much for spending some time with us.

GOLODRYGA: Thanks Adrian.

GIBBS: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, the head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies says there is no timeline for star point guard Ja Morant to return to the team. Will explain why, up next.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) GOLODRYGA: Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant says that he is taking time away from the team after he posted a video of himself on Instagram in which he appears to be holding a gun.

BLACKWELL: Here is CNN sports anchor Coy Wire.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Victor and Bianna. Ja Morant is arguably the most exciting young star in the league, leading the second best team in the West. He plays above the rim. His persona is landed him huge sponsorship deals but now the NBA is investigating what happened after the Grizzlies loss in Denver Friday night and Memphis's coach says Morant in a, quote, ongoing healing process, unquote.

Morant appeared to have waved a gun during an Instagram life video at 5:19 in the morning Eastern time after their loss. And Morant has now deactivated both his Instagram and Twitter accounts and apologized Saturday afternoon.

He said he's taking responsibility for his actions and that he's taking time away to, quote, get help and work on learning better methods of dealing with stress, unquote.

Now before Sunday's loss to the Clippers, Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins made it clear that is the priority.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAYLOR JENKINS, MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES HEAD COACH: He's made some difficult decisions and poor choices in the past that he has to account for. And that's why, you know, you see in a statement it speaks for itself. He understands he's got to get help to get into a better place not only for himself but also for his team. You know, we love him. You know, we want is best for him. We support him.

This is a difficult process but, you know, we're got a great group to get through this. And we are taking it one day at a time. I think this is going to be an ongoing healing process. So I can't comment in terms of what the exact timetable is going to be. Because it is not a time table situation.

[15:55:03]

WIRE: Elsewhere, Texas Tech has suspended men's basketball coach Mark Adams after he eluded to, quote, slave serving their masters, during a session with a member of the team. The school says it was inappropriate, unacceptable and racially insensitive.

Adams responded telling Jeff Goodman at the stadium, quote, I was quoting the scripture. I said that in the bible that Jesus talks about how we all have bosses and we all are servants, unquote. And Adams went on to say, quote, it was a private conversation about coaching and when you have a job and being coachable. One of my coaches said it bothered the player, I explained to them, I didn't apologize, unquote.

Now the school, Victor and Bianna, says that Adams did address the team and apologized. This is the 66-year-old's second season coaching the Red Raiders. Texas Tech is scheduled to play West Virginia in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament on Wednesday. No duration of Adam's suspension has been announced.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Coy. "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts after a short break.

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