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CNN This Morning
Fed Chair: No Longer Predicting A U.S. Recession; Irish Singer Sinead O'Connor Dies At Age 56; Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) On Bipartisan Group Of Lawmakers Reintroduction Of Nuclear Fallout Compensation Bill. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired July 27, 2023 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00]
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So that's good news. That, in combination with the fact that he was in the ICU for a very short time, which indicates that the doctors thought he was stable and that his heart function was normal, another good.
They still need to sort of figure out what happened here and one of the things they do is they put an EKG that can monitor his heart rhythm over a long period of time. It's something known as a Holter monitor. And that's because the snapshot may not catch something but if you leave the monitor on over 24-48 hours you may see something that's surprising that Bronny himself may not have known about. So that's likely what's happening now.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, always good to have you. Thank you.
GUPTA: You, too. Thank you.
HILL: So, a question for the Fed. Just how exactly have Barbie and Taylor Swift impacted the economy? I was laughing at it, too. It turns out --
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: (INAUDIBLE).
HILL: Well, the ladies may be helping out here, and you're welcome.
HARLOW: Totally.
(COMMERCIAL)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: The staff now has a noticeable slowdown in growth starting later this year in the forecast, but given the resilience in the economy recently they are no longer forecasting a recession.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[07:35:04] HILL: No longer forecasting a recession. You heard it there from Fed Reserve chair Jerome Powell in terms of what the central bank is now predicting.
In just about an hour from now, the Commerce Department is set to release new GDP numbers. Analysts say they believe the economy grew more than expected between April and June.
CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here. So what else did we hear --
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Good morning.
HILL: -- from chairman Powell yesterday? Good morning.
ROMANS: I mean, no longer forecasting a recession -- the Fed staff.
HARLOW: That's a big deal.
ROMANS: I mean, the "R" word was recession for so long. Now the "R" word is resilient. And the Fed chief might get his so-called soft landing after all.
I mean, you've had 11 rate hikes in a row and the Fed did suggest -- the chief did suggest they could have another one in September depending on what the data show.
But the economy is moderately -- growing moderately. The job market is still strong. Inflation still too high. So interest rates -- the cost to borrow money is going up. But so is the interest you're getting on the money in your savings accounts and CDs. That's where we are in terms of interest rates right now.
HARLOW: Something you may not have expected to come up at a Fed meeting and a press conference with Jerome Powell, Barbie, and Taylor Swift, but they did.
ROMANS: Yes. Jeanna Smialek asked him -- from The New York Times -- asked him very specifically: when you look at Taylor Swift concerts and you look at the Barbie movie, and some of these things that are happening in the public sphere that are showing the consumer will spend their money, is that a good thing for the economy or is it a bad thing for the economy? And the Fed chief noted that the consumer has been quite resilient.
But longer-term, on the margin, if we're too strong here that means the Fed has to keep raising interest rates. So it's a double-edged sword. Barbie and Taylor Swift are a double-edged sword. They are --
HILL: But, you right, and we have talked -- there's the Beyonce effect in Sweden --
ROMANS: Yes.
HARLOW: Yeah. HILL: -- I think it was.
ROMANS: Absolutely.
HILL: But also -- I mean, there were good numbers for hotels in May in Philadelphia when Taylor Swift was there.
ROMANS: Yes. No -- and the Beyonce effect is being felt all over the place, quite frankly --
HILL: Yeah.
ROMANS: -- in restaurants, hotel rooms, hair salons. Wherever there is a big event that people want to go to people will spend their money.
HARLOW: She's --
ROMANS: We're calling -- we're calling it funflation.
HARLOW: She's here in New York.
HILL: Funflation.
ROMANS: Funflation.
HARLOW: She's in New York -- Beyonce --
HILL: Yes.
HARLOW: -- this weekend.
ROMANS: Yes.
HARLOW: Sienna really wants to go. I was like you need --
HILL: I really want to go.
HARLOW: I want to -- and I told her. I was like momma wants to go.
HILL: Yes. Sienna, that ticket's mine.
ROMANS: Funflation.
HILL: Great seeing you.
ROMANS: Nice to see you, guys.
HILL: New overnight, an emergency alert declared for the nation's largest power grid system. This, as more than 140 million Americans are under heat alerts.
HARLOW: Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SINEAD O'CONNOR, IRISH SINGER: Singing "Nothing Compares 2 U."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: We'll remember the voice and the fearlessness of international pop star Sinead O'Connor.
(COMMERCIAL)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O'CONNOR: Singing "Nothing Compares 2 U."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Irish popstar Sinead O'Connor, who became well-known for both her music and personal struggles, and her fearlessness, right -- she has died according to Irish media. She was 56.
[07:40:00]
A statement from her family reads, "It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinead. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time."
No cause of death immediately available. London police said moments ago they are not treating the death as suspicious.
Joining us now, clinical psychologist, Dr. Rebecca Berry. And contributing editor at Rolling Stone, Anthony DeCurtis. Good morning to you both -- appreciate it.
Let's begin with you, Anthony. I just remember the life, the voice, the fearlessness. That moment on "SNL" that no one will ever forget --
ANTHONY DECURTIS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, ROLLING STONE: Of course.
HARLOW: -- with the photo of the Pope.
DECURTIS: Well, you know -- I mean, Sinead was just an incredible kind of cataclysmic talent. From her first record, which actually I reviewed in Rolling Stone -- I mean, I sort of announced her as somebody that was going to be extremely important. I didn't really understand the ways in which she would ultimately be important.
But there was a kind of fearlessness about her that you've mentioned. A willingness to kind of defy any kind of expectation. And that worked extremely well and I think it's had a huge impact, particularly on younger female artists who look up to her.
From a -- certainly from a commercial standpoint, it essentially destroyed her career. But those are the kind of complexities I think that Sinead was dealing with her entire life.
HILL: In terms of those complexities, Doctor, she had talked a lot and wrote about what she struggled. She talked about abuse as a child. She talked about that lingering trauma for her and how it influenced her life. Speaking out about it so publicly, that had its own power.
DR. REBECCA BERRY, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, NYU GROSSMAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Yes. She, in many ways, was an advocate for mental health issues and certainly, I believe was attempting to break down the stigmatization around mental health by being so public about her own struggles.
HARLOW: We talked about, last hour, with our correspondent Chloe Melas that she had a child who she had lost last year at the age of 17. This also comes in a moment when so many more people, thank goodness, are speaking out --
BERRY: Yes.
HARLOW: -- about their mental issues and the power of that coming from someone like her.
BERRY: Yes, right. I think that in seeing Sinead be so vocal about her struggles and her history of childhood trauma, and really abuse, the hope is that it can really open the door to other individuals, including youth, to also seek help and support for what they're going through and really learn ways to manage some of the difficult pain and distress that they may be having.
HILL: Yes. You were talking about what she contributed, right? It was tough to know with that first review what she would ultimately become, who she would become, and what she would mean --
DECURTIS: Yes.
HILL: -- to so many people.
But I know you've also noted that some of those struggles -- some of her very public struggles, in some ways, also hindered her efforts to really be an advocate.
DECURTIS: Yes, absolutely. I think that there is a kind of -- a way in which her, I think, emotional and psychological difficulties became somehow really intertwined with her kind of social and political views and it became just easy for people to dismiss her. And I think that was sad because -- I mean, I think that now, certainly, we can see all of the things that she talked about with child abuse, certainly. I mean, it's a much bigger issue now. People are much more aware of that. And the elements of that.
But when she tore up the picture of the Pope on "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE," that's all that people talked about. And that was -- I mean, that was a big problem for her.
Now, you could say well, that's what you do if you're a punk or you're a radical, or you're -- whatever you -- you just kind of upset the apple cart. But if you think about your protest is hoping to bring people over to your side -- I mean, I don't think Sinead really managed to do that.
HILL: I was wondering if some of that may have softened though in later years as more people were speaking out some of their struggles and maybe how that played. And it will be interesting to see.
DECURTIS: An action like that today would be perceived very differently.
HILL: Yes. That's the time.
DECURTIS: Without a doubt.
BERRY: It wasn't the time to receive that. It wasn't the way to -- for her to get the support. But certainly, as we know about the conditions from which she did suffer, there was a lot of complex things happening for her and the distress that she was feeling.
HARLOW: Yes.
Doctor, thank you very much. Anthony, thank you.
DECURTIS: Thank you.
HILL: Well, "Oppenheimer" is scoring big at the box office, of course. It tells the story of the man behind the atomic bomb. Behind the scenes, though, there are also generations of families who have suffered incredible health issues as a result of those nuclear tests and the fight continues for them. Just ahead, we'll speak with a congresswoman who is helping to lead that charge.
[07:45:00]
HARLOW: But first, shark sightings have been forcing Cape Cod officials to shut down beaches throughout this summer just as tourists flock to the popular Massachusetts vacation destination. One group, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, is working to keep tourists and sharks safely apart in today's Impact Your World.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MEGAN WINTON, SCIENTIST, ATLANTIC WHITE SHARK CONSERVANCY: I am Megan Winton. I'm a scientist at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. My collaborator, Dr. Greg Skomal, from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. What are we doing today, Greg?
DR. GREG SKOMAL, SENIOR FISHERIES BIOLOGIST, MASSACHUSETTS DIVISION OF MARINE FISHERIES: We are looking for white sharks so that we can identify them and tag them.
We've got a spotter plane looking in these shallow areas so we can go up to them.
He's got scars on his side. Wow, he's looking right at me.
So over the years, we've tagged over 300 of these animals using a variety of techniques from acoustic tags, satellite-linked tags, to camera tags -- you name it.
Using drone technology. Also, we are observing the behavior of white sharks close to shore. WINTON: Do you want to radio in? It's getting close. About 300 feet angling in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three feet. We're going to close the public beach.
WINTON: So whenever we're out on the water or we're flying the drones from the beaches, we're always reporting those sightings through the Sharktivity app. Our real-time receivers are also integrated into the app so any time a tag shark swims past one of those buoys that information gets pushed to Sharktivity immediately. People can also report their shark sightings through this as well.
SKOMAL: Ultimately, we're looking for patterns of movement that will tell us when and where white sharks are most likely to be so we can inform the public and enhance public safety. And the ultimate goal is to -- is to co-exist with this species.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: To learn more about organizations helping with shark conservation, visit cnn.com/impact or text FINS to 707070 to donate.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:50:48]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Clip from Universal Pictures "Oppenheimer."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: The blockbuster film "Oppenheimer," about the father of the atomic bomb, is bringing renewed attention to those exposed to the nuclear fallout. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has reintroduced legislation, which is designed to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
It's a federal law that was passed in 1990 to help those exposed to radiation while working in uranium mines or were affected by nuclear testing. But that act, notably, does not cover people living in the vicinity of that 1945 Trinity atomic explosion in New Mexico. In fact, the state wasn't included in the original law.
Joining us now is one of the lawmakers behind this push, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico. It's good to have you with us this morning.
I think a lot of people would be surprised that New Mexico wasn't initially included. As you've been working along with your colleagues from New Mexico -- again, this is a bipartisan effort to expand the scope of this act. I was struck by what Tina Cordova said. She has been fighting for
this. She is the co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders. She called this an over-glorification of the science and the scientists in terms of the film -- said that to Axios.
Here is what she told our affiliate. Sorry, we may not have that sound. What she said is how disappointed she was that this film had not addressed the broader issue and the fallout of this testing. She said she hadn't heard anything from the film company. We reached out.
I'm curious. Have you had any discussions with Universal?
REP. TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ (D-NM): We have reached out to Universal because as we tell this story about the brilliance of Oppenheimer -- the destruction that was caused by this atomic bomb -- we need to remember the people who were affected right under the area of the bomb -- under that radiation cloud that continued for miles. There were probably 500,000 people who had direct effects from the testing of the very first atomic bomb.
HILL: How could they then not be included in this act from the 1990s?
FERNANDEZ: I have never received a good answer to that.
But my job and the job of Sen. Lujan and our bipartisan group of senators and congresspeople is to bring attention to that and to try to get passed an amendment, which would include New Mexico as well as some other counties in Utah, in Arizona that were clearly under the -- were downwinders, as we call them -- were downwinders from these atomic tests. There were 100 above-ground atomic tests in the United States and the world.
HILL: It is remarkable. I think, too, the scope of the exposure. I was surprised at the scope of the exposure.
I know you've said you believe the federal government knowingly poisoned people living downwind of the Trinity test site. Also, predominantly Navajo uranium mines for decades.
I was struck by an op-ed from the president of the Navajo Nation in Time this week ahead of the movie who said, "Children played in the contaminated water while livestock drank from radioactive aquafers. What came next -- cancers, miscarriages, and mysterious illnesses -- is a direct consequence of America's race for nuclear hegemony. It's an accomplishment built on top of the bodies of Navajo men, women, and children -- the lived experience of nuclear weapons development in the United States."
The scope of the damage is so broad and I know you've dealt with it directly.
FERNANDEZ: Yes. My family was in the downwind area because my grandmother lived within -- we believe a good 150 miles were severely affected. She lived there. She died early from leukemia. Two people in my immediate family -- lung cancer -- non-smokers. But I think it's not just my family. It's the fact that there were
children who were playing with the atomic dust that was falling. They thought it was like snow in summer.
[07:55:02]
Imagine -- that ash is falling on chickens, on the ground, in the water where people were getting their drinking water from and the water for their livestock. And we have never acknowledged it or compensated these victims.
HILL: What --
FERNANDEZ: There was a sacrifice that New Mexicans made.
HILL: What would it change to add New Mexico and the counties in those other states that you mentioned to be covered by this act?
FERNANDEZ: Well, my act actually does make that change. It adds New Mexico. It also makes sure that we add the uranium miners who worked in the mines after 1971. We must include all of those workers who actually sacrificed for the United States national defense.
And the RECA -- we call it RECA -- it actually acknowledges that we should be covering these. That we should take responsibility for those who lost their lives or suffer from cancer.
Why they left out New Mexico, no idea, no sense -- but let's get it in now. Now is the time to address the harms to New Mexicans and Nevadans --
HILL: Yes.
FERNANDEZ: -- you know, people in Arizona as well.
HILL: We only have a couple of seconds left. Are you confident that you can get this through?
FERNANDEZ: With -- we are telling the story to the world so that we can get it through. I think we start with making people know the story, and once they know the injustice, my hope is that we do, indeed, act. There will be a vote in the Senate today on an amendment to the NDAA. We will see how that goes.
HILL: Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez, I really appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you -- Poppy.
HARLOW: Erica, thank you.
New reporting on Mitch McConnell after he froze mid-sentence for 23 seconds yesterday. What we're now learning about several previously unreported falls.
HILL: And no plea deal for Hunter Biden after yesterday's hearing went sideways. We're going to break down what happened there and where the plea deal goes from here. (COMMERCIAL)
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