Return to Transcripts main page
CNN This Morning
Juneteenth Becoming Busy Holiday for Travel; Montana's Climate Battle; Therapeutic Benefits of Magic Mushrooms. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired June 16, 2023 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Federal holiday. And, increasingly, that new federal holiday is really packing airports around the country. So, who better to talk to than our good friend Pete Muntean at Reagan National Airport. His home away from home.
So, Pete, give me a sense, just how busy is this going to be this weekend? Are we talking about busier than Memorial Day, July 4th, all of them?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, almost add Juneteenth to the list of those holidays. You know, the federal holiday is not until Monday, Erica, but things have been really busy here and in airports across the country. In fact, the line at one point was past where I'm standing here at the Terminal 2 north checkpoint here at Reagan National Airport.
And 2.73 million people screened by TSA at airports across the country yesterday. That is 14 percent higher than the same day last year. In fact, almost reached the post-2020 high mark that we saw on the Friday before Memorial Day when 2.74 million people were screened. So only about 10,000 people shy. The numbers all week have been huge, above 2.4 million people each day.
And here's what's happening. Really a confluence of things. Not only the federal holiday of Juneteenth, but also more states recognizing it. It's Father's Day weekend. And, of course, the kickoff to summer travel that happened back on Memorial Day. In fact, it will be even busier in the air than we have seen since the depths of the pandemic.
The FAA says it anticipated 52,000 flights nationwide yesterday scheduled by air carriers. About 50,000 today. It dips off a little bit, then comes back bigger even next weekend. So, this is really a huge holiday weekend for travel. Add it to the list with Memorial Day, Labor Day, July 4th. We're really seeing the genesis of what will be a big holiday weekend for years to come.
There's also a lot of pent-up demand because of the depths of the pandemic. So, that is causing people to really pay for it. $288 is the average round trip ticket according to travel site Hopper, although this weekend people are really paying more, about $318, Erica.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know the last time I have seen a $280 ticket.
HILL: No.
HARLOW: But --
HILL: I paid $193 for a one-way -
HARLOW: What?
MUNTEAN: It sounded low to me too.
HILL: For a one-way for my son to go from Indiana to New York City.
HARLOW: One-way, yes. Yes.
HILL: So, that was a one-way. That's the only time I saw it under $200.
Pete, appreciate it. Thank you.
HARLOW: So, Montana's constitution, this is so interesting, by the way, promises a clean environment for present and future generations. Next you're going to meet the so-called climate kids who are challenging the state's government's actions because they say they are violating the constitution. They're doing this on behalf of the planet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLAIRE VLASES, PLAINTIFF, OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST: And I hope that as a young person we might actually have a chance to make a difference and -- for my - for my life and for my kids' life. You know, not all hope may be lost.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:36:45]
HARLOW: Smoke from those Canadian wildfires are once again bringing really poor air quality to the United States. Millions in the Midwest under air quality alerts as that smoke continues to move south. Here is the smoky skyline in Chicago yesterday. The hazy skies of my home state, Minnesota. My mom told me they had the worst air quality yesterday, just FYI. I said, we got that last week. The smoke is forecast to push further south over the next few days.
HILL: Montana is emerging as a key climate battleground state right now. A fight there is brewing between the state itself and a group of kids who have now sued the state and they're arguing that its support of fossil fuels is in direct violation of their constitutional rights.
CNN's chief climate correspondent Bill Weir has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In big sky country it's a story fit for a big screen. On one side, 16 young people from ranches, reservations and boom towns across Montana ranging in age from five to 22. On the other side, the Republican-led state of Montana, which lost a three-year fight to keep this case out of court, but is still determined to let fossil fuels keep flowing despite the warnings from science that burning them will only melt more glaciers, blacken more skies, and ravage more rivers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on the evidence you've seen, does it point to harm for these youth plaintiffs?
DR. STEVEN W. RUNNING, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA: Harm now and accelerating harm in the future.
WEIR: And the whole plot pivots around the Montana constitution that promises the state shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations.
NATE BELLINGER, SENIOR STAFF ATTORNEY, OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST: They have filed seven different motions to try and have the case dismissed, and none of those motions have been successful.
WEIR: While the first week included scientists testifying to the data --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dr. Stanford, has fishing for bull trout and native cutthroat trout already been impacted by climate change?
DR. JACK STANFORD, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA: Oh, very definitely.
WEIR: The emotion has come from plaintiffs laying out their stories of loss.
SARIEL SANDOVAL, PLAINTIFF, OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST: You know it's really scary seeing what you care for disappear right in front of your eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How does it make you feel knowing that the state is not considering the climate impacts in its permitting decisions?
TALEAH HERNANDEZ, PLAINTIFF, OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST: Makes me feel like the state is prioritizing profits over people because they know that there is visible harm coming to the land and to the people and they're still choosing to make money instead of care for Montanans.
WEIR: While the state's attorneys briefly question a plaintiff's ability to connect her mental health to the climate, they've mainly saved cross-examination for the experts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the judge ordered that we stopped using fossil fuels in Montana, would that get us to the point where these plaintiffs are no longer being harmed, in your opinion?
RUNNING: We can't tell in advance because what has been shown in history over and over and over again is when a significant social movement is needed, it often is started by one or two or three people.
RIKKI HELD, LEAD PLAINTIFF, OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST: I know that climate change is a global issue, but Montana needs to take responsibility for our hearts (ph) and minds (ph) and they cannot just blow (ph) it off and do nothing (ph) about it.
[08:40:09]
WEIR: Judge Kathy Sealy doesn't have the power to shut down any extraction or usage of fossil fuels, but a judgment for the young plaintiffs could set a powerful precedent for Our Children's Trust.
BELLINGER: I think we're really at a tipping point right now.
WEIR: The Oregon non-profit is also helping kids in Hawaii sue their state over tailpipe emissions. And they've revived Julianna v United States, the federal case that could end up before the Supreme Court.
CLAIRE VLASES, PLAINTIFF, OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST: I just recently graduated high school, but I - I think it's something everyone those is that we have three branches of government for a reason. The judicial branch is there to keep a check on the other two branches. And that's what we are doing.
WEIR: Claire Vlases grew up in beautiful booming Bozeman. And like the other kids too young to vote, she sees the courts as the only place for someone like her to have a voice.
VLASES: It's hard knowing the power to make a change is in the hands of other people, especially my government. And I hope that as a young person we might actually have a chance to make a difference. And -- for my - for my life and for my kids' life, you know, not all hope may be lost.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: It's always the kids.
WEIR: Always the kids.
HARLOW: It's always - it's always the kids, right? And all the stake -- like they have the highest stakes here.
WEIR: Exactly.
HARLOW: So, I just said to you in the middle of the piece, how can they lose given that language in the constitution is so explicit, but?
WEIR: Well, that language was put in, in 1972. It was a fascinating convention where 100 grassroots people, no politicians, came and rewrote the state's constitution. And at the time the evidence of environmental destruction was so great they put that in.
I don't think that the Republicans have a chance to take that out of the constitution right now, but we'll see what kind of defense they put up, whether they counter the science of climate change in all, whether they say, you know, the economy is just too dependent on this to do anything about it. But it really is a tipping point as people try to use the courts to get some action because legislations have done nothing.
HARLOW: That's so interesting.
HILL: It is fascinating. It's such great story.
Bill, thank you.
WEIR: You bet.
HILL: And, stick around, because you're going to weigh in on this next one.
Psychedelic mushrooms, could they - yes. Yes. Did you know that, Bill Weir.
HARLOW: Bill's like, why are they making me stay for this one.
WEIR: Yes.
HILL: Get ready.
WEIR: Hand them over.
HILL: We're not doing a taste test though.
WEIR: Oh, we're not. OK.
HILL: Special tea right ahead.
HARLOW: Oh, my gosh.
HILL: Mushrooms, could they be the future of mental health care? Our colleague David Culver went on a wellness retreat, tried it out for himself.
HARLOW: He joins us live in studio with the whole story next.
HILL: Hello.
HARLOW: I didn't know you tried it.
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes.
HARLOW: Oh, wow.
WEIR: Oh, yes.
CULVER: (INAUDIBLE).
HILL: He had to be able to really report on it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the cabling scan we can look at the health of the fibers. We'll see their health before and after your trip to Jamaica.
DAVID CULVER, CNN ANCHOR: And that trip while in Jamaica.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CULVER: Or trips, I guess, there will be two of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:46:51]
HARLOW: Quite a moment for research on psychedelics. In this case we're specifically talking about psilocybin, known as magic mushrooms. They are being studied for their potential therapeutic effects on conditions like depression, anxiety and substance abuse. And while it is illegal on the federal level, Oregon became the first state this year to legalize magic mushrooms for therapeutic use. And in countries where they are legal already, some people are turning to wellness retreats.
Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Embarking on a psychedelic trip -
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
CULVER: Requires a willingness to be vulnerable. To hold nothing back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This wasn't easy, I imagine for any of you, to just say, yes, let me jump in. And you're here for a reason.
CULVER: Documenting it with cameras, for a story to be shared with the world? Well, that suggests a near total surrender to the unknown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let go. Let go with it and just go with the flow.
CULVER: The experiences you're about to witness, they're intimate. They're exhilarating. And exhausting. After taking a dose of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, you wait.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Psilocybin bring you what you need, not what you want.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: David.
CULVER: Hi. Good morning.
HARLOW: This is our David Culver.
HILL: HI. Good morning.
HARLOW: Sorry, we're so entranced by this. This is your incredible reporting. And you did (ph) this (ph).
CULVER: It was. It was a journey. Not the kind of trip I thought I'd be here on TV talking to you guys about at - in the morning, but, yes.
HILL: Yes. But it's so interesting.
So you went there to Jamaica, right, as part of your reporting, as part of your research.
CULVER: Yes.
HILL: All of the people we were just talking about in the break briefly -
CULVER: Yes.
HILL: They agreed to let you film what they were experiencing on one condition.
CULVER: That I went along with it.
HILL: Yes.
CULVER: I -- look, so I'm - I'm - I'm big on immersive reporting. I feel like, you know, that's part of what I did in Wuhan early, that's part of what I did living through a lockdown and some of the extreme conditions of China and Shanghai in particular. And even, you know, covering the migrant crisis at the border and going along on a freight train.
This was - this was an opportunity to go forward with it, yes, but to do it in a respectful and, hopefully appropriate way. I hope that's how it comes across because it's so intimate, it's so personal. And for these individuals in particular, it's something that they really were going to divulge a lot of their personal lives on camera so that, in their words, it could potentially help others.
And we say potential because it's not for everyone. And, actually, experts have weighed in on this. We can play a little bit so you can get a sense of what folks are saying in the industry right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM ECKERT, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, INNERTREK: So many mental health issues are based on a kind of rigidity, a stuckness. The psilocybin experience helps kind of break that up.
DR. ROBERT CARHART-HARRIS, PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY, UCSF AND INNERTREK ADVISER: That doesn't mean it could treat everything in psychiatry, but I think it is realistic to think that this could be a breakthrough in mental health care. [08:50:07]
CULVER: Sounds promising, but by no means a cure-all.
DR. FRED BARRETT, COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENTIST, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Psychedelics may not be entirely safe for people who have a personal or family history of psychosis, patients with bipolar disorder may be at great risk of taking psychedelic drugs and having another manic episode.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The risks come in more psychologically, right, because without support in some cases they could be destabilizing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CULVER: That's a huge part of this, this support factor, right?
HILL: Yes.
CULVER: And you see therapeutic is listed there. And that's kind of my approach to this in coming in, is I was comfortable doing it. First of all my doctor evaluated it fully and I wanted to do it after, you know, hearing the potential benefits but also knowing that the folks would be more comfortable going along with me should I be able to participate.
WEIR: How was your trip, though? That's what I'm dying to know.
CULVER: So, we did two doses. The first one was uneventful. Not much of anything.
HARLOW: Really?
CULVER: The second one was a trip. It was - it was -- this is going to - this is going to sound so L.A. and out there, but it takes you to places that I didn't expect to go. I mean I'm such a rule follower, Bill. Like, I mean this is -- this is something that's so different for me. I didn't drink before it was legal.
HARLOW: Yes.
CULVER: I sat on the judicial council in college. So, this was so -
HARLOW: Of course you did.
CULVER: My family and friends are going to say, you did what?
HILL: Yes.
CULVER: What are you thinking?
But -- but this was -- it was emotional. It was draining.
WEIR: Yes.
CULVER: And it's so much to get in an hour, but it was also so many place that I went to on a - on a deeper inner level that I'm grateful for, to be honest. I walk away feeling, yes, at peace.
HILL: So it was -- was it therapeutic?
CULVER: It was - it was surprisingly therapeutic for me. And that's the thing, I mean, I think I had these experiences in China, too, where I was trying to process after being disconnected and isolated from my family for two and a half years and not seeing them. I have a very close-knit Cuban family, so that was tough.
HARLOW: Oh.
CULVER: But, I mean, having - having the opportunity to process that. And then I lost, you know, like many people during Covid, folks who I couldn't properly mourn with my family with. And to feel their energies come to me in that moment - I'll get emotional even thinking about it - but, yes, to feel them in that moment was something I did not expect. I mean I'm - I was kind of blown away by it.
That said, I know it is not for everyone. And some folks even on our retreat, one in particular, walked away saying, didn't do anything for me.
WEIR: Yes. That's o fascinating, right?
HARLOW: Yes.
WEIR: I've been -- people in my circles have done ayahuasca (ph) retreats, which are all the vogue.
CULVER: Yes.
WEIR: I just read a story about a research -- a guy in Chicago took MDMA, who was sort of a virulent while nationalist, and it changed him.
HARLOW: Really?
WEIR: It says it tapped him into love for the first time and -
HILL: And that stuck with him after - I mean after the drug was out of his system?
WEIR: And that stuck with him. It changed his personality. Yes, there's a story out of the BBC on this. So, I think we're just beginning to understand what these things, how they interact, right?
CULVER: Was - now was that a structured setting too?
WEIR: It was. It was a University of Chicago research project.
CULVER: Yes. I think that makes a huge difference, too. It's not just taking this recreationally.
WEIR: Yes.
CULVER: It's taking it with the lead up, the preparation and then also the integration on the back end and making sure that it's done in a mindful manner.
HILL: And is someone leading you to that - to that point. It's someone leading you through this.
CULVER: Absolutely. It's --
HILL: You're not just experiencing it on your own.
CULVER: Yes.
WEIR: There's a guide who's talking to you and bringing you back out of it, that sort of thing?
CULVER: Yes. And in the case - yes, we had the guide. And in the case of these medical, you know, professionals on this retreat, they were around us too. And I went up to one of the nurses who had dealt with really bad trips in her years covering, you know, psychiatric situations, and she's like, I'm with you. I'll be with you throughout this. And, you know, physically, they're holding your hand and they're guiding you through it. So, it's a journey.
HARLOW: We can't wait to see the entire hour.
CULVER: Thanks, guys.
HILL: Yes.
HARLOW: Wow.
CULVER: I'm excited to share it.
HARLOW: Immersive reporting at its best, as David Culver always does. Thank you both.
Bill, thank you for sticking around. (INAUDIBLE) for your great reporting.
WEIR: Yes. (INAUDIBLE).
HARLOW: The all-new episode of "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper," that is David's remarkable reporting, it airs this Sunday, 8:00 p.m. Eastern, only right here, and Pacific by the way, only right here on CNN.
HILL: We are following news out of Texas this morning in the wake of a devastating tornado which we know has left at least three people dead. As many as 100 people injured. We have our crews there live on the ground in Perryton. We're going to get you updated right after this break.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:58:35] HILL: A devastated mother turning her pain into power. When this week's CNN Hero lost her two-year-old son in a hit-and-run on her block, she decided she needed a way to channel her trauma into something positive. Meet the incredible Mama Shu.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHAMAYIM HARRIS, CNN HERO: After Jakobi got killed, I needed to just basically change grief into glory, pain into power. Folks thought that I was crazy. Like, that lady crazy, talking about she about to buy that block and fix it up. Because they didn't see -- I saw crystal clear what it could look like.
It took about eight years or so to actually clean up the block. We started buying the lots next door and now we have 45. It was so many things inside of my head that I wanted to actually build for the people. I felt that that is what we deserve.
Beauty is healing. You can change your environment. You really can.
Sometimes I just sit and I just smile. But then I say, you know what, I'm not done yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Not done yet. To see more of Mama Shu's incredible work, just visit cnnheroes.com. And while you're there, you can also nominate your hero.
HARLOW: Thanks for being my hero today, as always, Ms. Erica Hill.
HILL: Oh, back at you, sister.
HARLOW: Have a great weekend.
HILL: You too. Enjoy.
HARLOW: Everyone have a great weekend.
"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts now.
