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CNN This Morning
U.S. Braces for Migrants as Border Rule Expires; Suspect in Chokehold Death to Face Manslaughter Charge; Biden's 2nd Meeting with Congressional Leaders on Debit Talks Postponed; Islamic Jihad Takes Credit for Rockets Fired Towards Israel; NBCUniversal's Linda Yaccarino is in Talks to Become Twitter CEO; FDA Eases Blood Donation Guidelines for Gay, Bisexual Men. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired May 12, 2023 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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(MUSIC: "SURE THING" BY MIGUEL)
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OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: Miguel's "Sure Thing" is back on the charts, thanks to the power of TikTok. It happens.
[06:00:12]
Now, it's a big day for people like me.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are our final hope.
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JIMENEZ: Nintendo just released the highly-anticipated new game "Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" a few hours ago. It's estimated that playing the entire game could take well over 100 hours. So I think I'm going to get started right now. I'm literally -- I'm already in the game right now. So I'm going to get started with this.
CNN THIS MORNING, more important, starts now.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. It's Friday. Kaitlan is off. Phil Mattingly is here. Where's your coffee?
PHIL MATTINGLY: It's -- I don't even know if you can show it. It is hidden, and like, covered by things so I literally can't even get to it, which apparently is the only safe way.
HARLOW: I only bought you one -- that's not even the one, control room.
MATTINGLY: No. The spillable one is even under that. It's an impressive effort to ensure that I don't screw up today.
HARLOW: Phil Mattingly, it's been a great week. MATTINGLY: That's --
HARLOW: Let's get through three hours.
MATTINGLY: That's right.
HARLOW: And let's get started with "Five Things to Know" for this Friday, May 12. A new era, an uncertain era, frankly, begins at the U.S. Southern border. Title 42 officially expired at midnight. Officials are now bracing to handle tens of thousands of migrants in the hours and days and weeks ahead.
And prosecutors say, meantime, they're filing manslaughter charges against the man who choked Jordan Neely to death right here on a New York City subway. Sources tell CNN Daniel Penny will turn himself in today.
MATTINGLY: And also this morning, Elon Musk says he's picked a CEO to lead Twitter. Several outfits are reporting that he's in talks with the woman who currently heads up NBCUniversal's ad business.
And this morning on Capitol Hill, Mark Pomerantz is expected to testify before Jim Jordan's House Judiciary Committee. Pomerantz was a former top prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.'s investigation into former President Donald Trump.
HARLOW: Also, Michael Jordan's dream team jacket from the gold medal ceremony now up for auction. Remember, his shoes were up for auction before. Sotheby's estimates it could go for up to $3 million.
CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
Would you bid on it?
MATTINGLY: I mean -- I bid on most Michael Jordan things. But have you seen the -- I guess so vintage '90s jacket. Like the really big, puffy warm-up jackets.
HARLOW: I love it.
MATTINGLY: The shoes, yes.
HARLOW: The shoes went for a few million bucks.
MATTINGLY: Yes. You were going to grab that.
HARLOW: Yes. It's totally in my price range. Totally.
Anyways, we get to serious news this morning. We've been talking all week about the crisis at the border, what was going to come, right, when Title 42 expired. Well, that happened last night.
So we'll see what comes this morning. Border Patrol is bracing for tens of thousands of migrants who have been waiting to cross into the United States. This is what we've been seeing from the West Coast to the Gulf of Mexico. New overnight, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a
warning that the border is not open. But that is not deterring some 60,000 migrants from staging along the border as the clock ran out on Title 42, according to the Border Patrol chief.
And a new wrinkle this morning. A judge is now blocking the Biden administration from quickly releasing migrants without court notices. The feds say that change will lead to dangerous overcrowding at border facilities that are already under immense strain.
The Biden administration has been surging troops, federal agents and government workers toured the Southern border as this clock ticked down. So we begin there with Nick Valencia live on the border in a town named Brownsville, Texas.
Nick, they're really -- them and El Paso feeling the brunt of this. What do you see as, I mean, the sun is almost up there.
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We've seen a slight uptick in those sleeping on the streets. But not the chaos that we were expecting. You know, Title 42, Poppy, in effect for three years. But as of 11:59 p.m. Thursday, it's officially over. And with it, ushering in new concerns of overcrowding at the border and what that could mean for cities like Brownsville.
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ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Our borders are not open. People who cross our border unlawfully and without a legal basis to remain will be promptly processed and removed.
VALENCIA (voice-over): Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas issuing this stern warning to those who cross into the United States unlawfully, as Title 42 comes to an end.
MAYORKAS: We prepared for this moment for almost two years, and our plan will deliver results.
VALENCIA (voice-over): The U.S. is now back to using the decades-old Title 8. And while that policy allows for migrants to claim asylum, those apprehended under Title 8 for crossing unlawfully could face a more, quote, "severe deportation process," a ban on reentry for at least five years and can face criminal prosecution if they attempt to cross again.
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MAYORKAS: We have surged 24,000 Border Patrol agents and officers, thousands of troops, contractors, and over 1,000 asylum officers and judges to see this through.
VALENCIA (voice-over): Hundreds of miles away from the border, cities have been struggling to house and feed migrants.
In Chicago, one building owner says he took in 70 migrants this week. BYRON SIGCHO-LOPEZ, CHICAGO CITY COUNCIL: Children are already waiting for over a week for a location for a shelter. It was just inhumane what we were witnessing.
VALENCIA (voice-over): And in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order suspending parts of the city's right to shelter law, citing the expected influx of migrants.
MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK CITY: This is a difficult decision for me. Our desire is to manage a humanitarian crisis.
MAYOR OSCAR LEESER (D), EL PASO: There is no end game.
VALENCIA (voice-over): Back in Texas, the El Paso mayor calling out an apparent lack of a long-term solution to the border problem.
LEESER: We all know that the immigration process is broken. And it needs to be fixed. I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel.
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VALENCIA (voice-over): Migrant facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border are strained. Here in Brownsville, the nonprofit Team Brownsville has been overcrowded for the last two weeks. What remains to be seen is whether or not they'll be able to handle the chaos that President Biden says will come -- Poppy.
HARLOW: That's a question. We'll see what actually happens there. Nik, thank you so much for your reporting on the border.
Next hour, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will join CNN THIS MORNING, live in the 7 a.m. Eastern hour.
MATTINGLY: Now, here in New York, hours from now, we're expecting a Marine veteran to turn himself in, in the killing of a homeless man on the subway.
The Manhattan district attorney's office say they expect to arrest 25 [SIC] -- 24-year-old Daniel Penny and charge him with manslaughter.
Now, it's been two weeks since Penny held Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold. It was 15 minutes. Now, witnesses say Neely was acting erratically on the Manhattan subway.
They describe Penny approaching him from behind, putting him in that chokehold and pinning him to the ground until he was unconscious.
CNN's Omar Jimenez is here. And Omar, what you are learning as we all watch this play out?
JIMENEZ: Well, he's expected to turn himself in a little bit later this morning. Also, his attorneys have really argued that he was doing this for the safety of not just him but for the people on the subway, as well.
So what the witnesses there said leading up to this will be critically important here. And the bottom line, it's been very controversy not just here but across the country as many feel, no matter what happened beforehand, this shouldn't have resulted in death.
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JIMENEZ (voice-over): It's a killing that's divided a city. Now Daniel Penny, the 24-year-old U.S. Marine veteran seen here, set to be prosecuted for holding Jordan Neely in a chokehold that killed him aboard a New York subway train earlier this month.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Manslaughter here means recklessness or indifference to human life. So much here is going to turn on the specifics, the interaction that led up to it. It's a tricky case.
VALENCIA (voice-over): Penny's attorneys releasing a statement, saying he "risked his own life and safety for the good of his fellow passengers," adding, "we are confident that, once all the facts and circumstances surrounding this tragic incident are brought to bear, Mr. Penny will be fully absolved of any wrongdoing."
The charge comes after the Manhattan district attorney's office spent the weekend and much of this week reviewing witness accounts and video of the incident. The medical examiner ruled Neely's death a homicide, determining the cause was compression of the neck, a chokehold.
Witnesses on the subway said Neely was acting erratically beforehand.
JUAN ALBERTO VAZQUEZ, WITNESS: He started yelling violence, language. I don't care if I die. I don't care if we're going to jail. I don't have any food.
JIMENEZ: Juan Alberto Vazquez recorded the interaction and told CNN last week that despite any aggressive or frightening behavior, Neely hadn't attacked anyone.
Neely's family says the 30-year-old street performer had suffered for years with mental illness and homelessness. While sources tell CNN he had been arrested more than 40 times, including for three assaults. That was unlikely anyone on the train knew any of that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Justice for!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan Neely!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan Neely!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan Neely!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Justice for!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan Neely!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan Neely!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan Neely! JIMENEZ (voice-over): Neely's death has ignited days of protests.
ADAMS: This has been a week of strong emotions in our city.
JIMENEZ (voice-over): While also refocusing attention on struggles with homelessness and mental illness across New York City and across the country.
ADAMS: One thing we can say for sure: Jordan Neely did not deserve to die. And all of us must work together to do more for our brothers and sisters struggling with serious mental illness.
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JIMENEZ: And outside the specifics of this case, it's opened up a lot of questions about mental illness, about homelessness, mainly how did Jordan's life get him to the point where ended up in this circumstance in the first place? So, lots of questions around that.
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His family attorneys say they're going to have a press conference later this morning to respond to the arrest of Daniel Penny. But it's obviously an arrest they, along with many others, have been calling for, for a while now.
MATTINGLY: Omar Jimenez, great reporting on a very important story. Thanks.
HARLOW: The White House announcing today's scheduled meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders has been postponed. It's hard to tell if that means the talks has stalled or if both sides need more time to prepare for negotiations.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says there just hasn't been enough progress made to have that meeting yet. A source familiar with the meeting tells CNN that White House officials and aides to both McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries believe the postponement allows more time for staff level talks to do that important work.
And that would ensure that the next meeting between the leaders would be, quote, "more productive."
Either way, the government has just a few weeks left until the United States could default, run out of money to pay its bills.
Lauren Fox joins us on Capitol Hill this morning.
Lauren, I was just talking to Phil about this, and I said, you know, what -- like is it -- what does that mean? Is that a good thing? It sounds like net-net this could be a positive. If they're doing work, trying to get to a better place.
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's always a positive, right? If you feel like you aren't in a place where putting the principles in a room together is going to be productive and you make the decision. We might just need a little more time.
I think that's exactly, according to conversations I've been having with staff, where they are right now. They have been having conversations about what the parameters, what the framework of any of the potential negotiations should look like.
They just have not settled yet on a clear path forward. And that's why they need more time. You know, a lot of aids that I have been talking to say it was probably always a heavy lift to have two big meetings with congressional leaders and the president at the White House within one week.
That's not to say they aren't going to get together next week. They feel like they can continue to make some progress. They met yesterday, staffers did, for more than two hours on Capitol Hill. They are trying to hammer out specifically what they are negotiating.
And I know that sounds like it's premature, but it is so important to nail down the parameters of the negotiation.
A couple of things that the White House and Democrats want to take off the table is any conversation about repealing parts of the Inflation Reduction Act. That, of course, a signature piece of legislation the president signed last fall.
Meanwhile, the White House is signaling a lot more openness to discussing a potential budget caps deal. That is, of course, setting top line numbers and how much the country is going to spend over the next couple of years and how it relates to raising the debt ceiling.
So those two areas obviously ripe for negotiations, Poppy. But there's just a lot more work to do.
HARLOW: Let's hope they get it done. Lauren Fox, thank you.
MATTINGLY: Well, Elon Musk asked his Twitter followers if he should step back as the platform's CEO. They said yes. A majority of them did. Musk now says he's found a new chief executive. We have the details next.
HARLOW: And it's a she.
And the Boston Celtics narrowly escaping elimination, thanks to an epic fourth-quarter performance from superstar Jayson Tatum.
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HARLOW: Well, explosions heard in Jerusalem from CNN crews on the ground as a new barrage of rockets was fired from Gaza toward Israel. Islamic Jihad commanders announced that they'd fired those rockets for Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, calling it revenge of the free.
Let's go straight to our senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman, who joins us. Ben, this literally happened right above you.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. In fact, we saw two barrages coming out of Gaza, which is just a few miles behind me. Those two barrages were both intercepted by Israeli air defenses, we believe the Iron Dome.
So we've heard reports that one house here in Sderot was hit. Hit by what is not clear, because what we saw, I mean, literally, it was right above our heads where the intersections took place.
And moments later, we saw things like this, this piece of shrapnel that fell just in front of us and all around us, really.
So the air defenses do appear to be working. Now, just after those two barrages happened, right over here in Northern Gaza, we saw a huge explosion and a mushroom cloud afterwards, which was an Israeli air strike. It's not clear what the target was.
That is the Northern end of Gaza where oftentimes in the past, missiles have been fired in the direction of Israel.
Now, this comes after a relatively calm period just after midnight. For about 13 hours, there was very little fire going in either direction. There was hopes that the Egyptian-led mediation efforts would bear fruit.
But what we've seen today, Friday, is that -- that fruit has yet to be realized and that the fire continues -- Poppy.
HARLOW: And Ben, we're just showing our viewers that absolute panic on the streets of one of the settlements there, children, parents, just running as this is taking such a toll. And remarkable reporting. Thank you very much.
MATTINGLY: Well, Elon Musk announcing minutes before yesterday's closing bell that he has hired a new CEO to run Twitter, without naming her. He says she will be starting in six week and that his role will transition to being executive chair and chief technology officer, overseeing product software.
Now, "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that Twitter is in talks to hire NBCUniversal's head of advertising, Linda Yaccarino.
Now, Musk conducted a poll last December, asking -- a Twitter poll, asking if he should step down as CEO. The majority agreed, yes, he probably should.
Well, joining us now is CNN media analyst and Axios media reporter Sara Fischer.
Sara, I think what I was so fascinated by is advertising, more specifically, advertising revenue has always been kind of the elephant in the room during Elon Musk's tenure.
This would seem to be a pretty good person to address that as an issue. Is that kind of the dynamic of what might be driving this? SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Absolutely. Linda is considered one
of the biggest industry leaders in advertising and has been for many years. She oversees a very large budget across so many different platforms, mediums and events.
And so she's definitely the person that you're going to want to have leading your ads business.
The question that I have, though, is that, for platforms like Twitter, where they've long struggled to catch up to Meta and Google, is that they don't have a lot of small and medium-size business advertisers. They rely too heavily on the big brands. That's Linda's bread and butter, the big brands.
And so I'm curious to see, because we, Axios, also reported that Linda is in talks about that role. I'm curious to see if and when she comes in, what her plan is for some of those smaller advertisers. Not just the big ones on Madison Avenue that she's used to working with.
HARLOW: I mean, the thing here is you don't know what Elon Musk is going to do, in terms of content moderation. "The Journal" points that out this morning, right?
So big brands want safety. They want to be on a platform where they know what's going to come. That -- that's an interesting needle to try to thread when you've still got Elon Musk at the helm, right? And he could change that rule at any moment.
FISCHER: It is. But big brands really trust Linda. I mean, she is considered, like I said, the foremost authority on Madison Avenue for the person who they should be and want to be working with in terms of advertising.
I actually think the bigger risk is whether or not Linda can convince Elon not to be erratic enough to just, like, fire her in a few weeks. That's the bigger risk. She's got a huge job at NBCU. She's the chairman of all advertising and partnerships. She oversees everything from big sports events to the Olympics.
So now you're going to go into this pretty risky situation where you just have to hope that Elon Musk doesn't change his mind.
But you're right. For advertisers, that erraticness is a little bit of a cause for concern. There's only so much that Linda can do.
One thing I'll tell you, though, Poppy, that my sources have told me. Elon Musk hates meeting with brands. He hates doing the advertising circuit. He hates going to these conferences. So if there's one silver lining here, it's that he hates doing it so much, maybe he's incentivized to keep Linda onboard just so he doesn't have to go back to doing it.
MATTINGLY: You've got to love those incentives.
HARLOW: There's that. I kind of love that.
MATTINGLY: Worse incentives, but it's his, nonetheless.
HARLOW: Indeed. And a she, right? Now so many women at the top of these companies. So it would be a welcome change. Sara, thanks very much.
FISCHER: Thank you.
HARLOW: The FDA easing blood donation restrictions for gay and bisexual men. How this move could really help the nation's blood supply next.
MATTINGLY: And the two men who rocked competitive -- the competitive fishing world in a cheating scandal are sentenced for their crime.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got weights in fish! Get the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of here! Get your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of here! (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
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MATTINGLY: This morning, a major change could help America's blood supply. The FDA announcing that it's making it easier for gay and bisexual men to donate blood.
CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell is here with more. Meg, this has been an issue for a long time.
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
MATTINGLY: What's changing?
TIRRELL: So finally, I think a lot of people were saying this is really overdue. These restrictions had gone into place during the early days of the HIV epidemic. And so it was in order to make sure that HIV didn't spread through the blood supply.
So there had been rules specific to gay and bisexual men. And what is changing today is that now, the guidelines for who can donate blood are becoming the same for everybody. It's based on individual risk. So it has nothing to do with sexual orientation, sex or gender.
And this is really putting the U.S. in line with countries like the U.K. and Canada, which have already done this.
HARLOW: Yes, the U.S. have lagged behind that, obviously. How has the FDA evolved on this? Was it the FDA that had to get this approval?
TIRRELL: Yes. The FDA is making these recommendations to the blood centers. And so really, when this started was 1985. It's a lifetime ban on gay
and bisexual men donating blood. And that was in effect up until 2015, when they changed that to essentially a year of abstinence that people had to perform before they could donate blood. During the pandemic, they shortened that to three months, because there was a shortage of blood. So sort of a step-wise change over time.
And finally now, they are just changing it. It is universal for everybody.
MATTINGLY: An interesting response to the change. But also, why the hell did it take so long? It's just so obvious. Canadian --
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TIRRELL: People are asking.
MATTINGLY: Bizarre.
TIRRELL: You're totally right. The American Medical Association and others have been calling for this for a long time. They came out applauding this yesterday.
GLAAD also came out applauding this, saying that this takes us out of what they called the "the end of the dark and discriminatory past, rooted in fear and homophobia."
They did note, though, that there are still exclusions for people who use Prep, which is the antiviral drug to try to prevent HIV infection. And they really said that still perpetuates a stigma that is happening here.
The FDA, though, said that is based on just concerns that HIV could be undetectable if you're taking those medicines to prevent infection.
HARLOW: Is it going to make a meaningful difference, you think, in the blood supply?
TIRRELL: There's certainly the hope. I was kind of shocked to see the Red Cross says only 3 percent of age eligible people in the U.S. actually donate blood every year.
So, you know, we -- if you've ever donated blood, you've probably gotten text messages from a blood center, saying we have critical supplies. Please come in and donate. And so anybody who can be joined to this pool will be welcomed.
HARLOW: I should do it again. It's been, like, years since I've done it.
TIRRELL: A lot of us said the same thing.
MATTINGLY: It's super quick, and you get cookies.
HARLOW: Of course, Phil. You probably do it, like --
MATTINGLY: No, stop. I just like the cookies.
HARLOW: Good guy.
Thanks, Meg.
OK. This story is wild. Two fishermen whose cheating scandal rocked the competitive fishing world sentenced to ten days behind bars. That's right. An Ohio judge sentenced them to 1 1/2 years of probation yesterday.
The two men appeared in court after pleading guilty to putting weights inside a walleye at a tournament on Lake Erie last year. Watch.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got weights in fish! Get the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of here! Get your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of here! (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
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HARLOW: Tournament officials say they thought the fish seemed too heavy at their weigh-in, so they cut them open, found lead weights and fish fillets inside.
The two men lost out on nearly 30,000 bucks, and now they're also losing a fishing license for three years. I remember -- do you remember when this story crossed?
MATTINGLY: Yes. It's like, what, it was so over the cheating. It was completely insane to me. But also, like messing around with walleye in Ohio? Like, these are my people. This is bad.
HARLOW: Only walleyes.
MATTINGLY: Like, luck that they're only going to jail, that it wasn't, like, worse.
HARLOW: You eat walleye on a stick in Ohio?
MATTINGLY: You can.
HARLOW: It's a thing. The Minnesota state fair.
MATTINGLY: Minnesota, all right.
More in the sports realm, I guess.
