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75,000+ Kaiser Permanente Workers Brace For Strike; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Honored On New Postage Stamp; Arrest Made In 1996 Murder Of Rapper Tupac Shakur. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 02, 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]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: We're talking about Oregon and Colorado. But also here on the East Coast, Virginia and D.C.

So you mentioned, Poppy, some of the issues here --

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah.

SOLOMON: -- like pay increases, but one of the big issues is actually staffing shortages, right? And we have seen this before with health care. So the workers say they're concerned not just about their own burnout -- that they're being spread thin -- but also about patient health care, right? That's a really big issue.

Kaiser Permanente, for its part, says hey, wait a minute -- this is not unique to Kaiser Permanente.

So they said in a statement, "Every health care provider in the nation has been facing staffing shortages." They point out that millions of people -- and we can pull up the statement for you -- millions of people have left the health care industry over the Great Resignation. And they say we're not unique to this.

Now, in terms of the strike, the company does say we have made contingency plans so that health care doesn't suffer. But I should say this issue of staffing shortages -- it's not just unique to Kaiser Permanente. It's not even just unique to the U.S. because remember over the summer we saw the health care workers in the U.K. also strike.

So I should say in the 10:00 hour on "CNN MAX" -- a little shameless plug here -- we are going to be talking to the director of the union.

And I'm really curious to learn sort of what solutions the union has for these companies because it's a pretty complex issue. You have increased demand because of a -- of an aging population. Also, people who put off elective surgeries during the pandemic --

HARLOW: COVID.

SOLOMON: -- they're now getting it. Exactly.

HARLOW: Yeah.

SOLOMON: So increased demand but fewer workers, right? So we're going to talk about that in the 10:00 hour.

But for now, all eyes over the next few days on --

HARLOW: On this.

SOLOMON: Exactly.

HARLOW: We'll know maybe tomorrow, maybe Wednesday.

Thank you, Rahel. Appreciate the reporting -- Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And as one strike could begin another may be coming closer to an end. Today, the actors' union and major studios are set to resume talks for the first time since the actors went on strike 2 1/2 months ago. It comes one week after the Writers Guild and studios reached a tentative contract agreement. As both sides go back to the bargaining table they're still divided on key issues like streaming revenue share, pay increases, and artificial intelligence.

The two strikes have had a huge financial impact. More than 100,000 behind-the-scenes workers have been without jobs. Major studios like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN's parent company, have seen their stock prices drop. And analysts say the global box office will lose as much as $1.6 billion in ticket sales.

Joining us now to discuss this and the return of late-night shows this week, CNN senior media analyst and senior media reporter of Axios, Sara Fischer. Good to see you.

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST, SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER, AXIOS: Hi.

MATTINGLY: I know you were at the Jets game last night -- the Jets game; not the Taylor Swift game.

My working assumption in the wake of the writers' deal is that would serve as kind of the construct or the baseline for these negotiations. Do you think this will wrap up quickly or is there still a long way to go?

FISCHER: I think this will wrap up quickly -- in a matter of weeks as opposed to months. And it's because you're right -- this has a lot of opportunity to pull from that deal of the writers to shape their own for the actors. But there are a few unique issues.

So, for example, when it comes to AI, the writers' deal strike has a huge AI part of it, but this one will need to adjust things like digital replicas of actors. That's not something writers have to worry about.

And then actors also have other unique issues. For example, they want people to be able to do more tryouts in person as opposed to having to do tapes themselves, which they say are more costly, et cetera. HARLOW: John Oliver has quite a take. Let's play it for folks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN OLIVER, HOST, "LAST WEEK TONIGHT": And while I am happy that they eventually got a fair deal and I'm immensely proud of what our union accomplished, I'm also furious that it took the studios 148 days to achieve a deal they could have offered on day (bleep) one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: I miss John Oliver. He's back. Late-night's back tonight.

FISCHER: Late-night's back. So we have three of the big major shows returning tonight.

The thing I'm looking to see is how all of these strikes and the pandemic will shape late-night forever. Obviously, these huge monologues are so fun but they're going viral online. It calls into question whether or not some of the networks need to be paying some of these high-paid late-night hosts to go on every single night. So we'll see how they address it tonight.

HARLOW: What do you mean? They'd just go on a couple of nights?

FISCHER: Maybe just go a couple of nights. Maybe shift the schedule. I mean, late-night and daytime talk has been so greatly impacted by the shift to streaming.

Now, it's important to remember late-night can come back after the writers' strike because they don't really need actors. But even though the actors -- the writers' strike has been resolved, so many of your favorite series that require acting are still on hold until we get his new deal.

MATTINGLY: You know, this is slightly off topic but you're always a reporter no matter where you are.

HARLOW: Including at MetLife.

MATTINGLY: You were at MetLife last night and what you said about your experience versus the experience of those of us watching on TV had was fascinating to me. What was it?

FISCHER: I was shocked that there was no mention of Taylor Swift inside the stadium whatsoever. So we didn't see pictures like that. She was never on the Jumbotron. If you were inside you would have had no idea she was ever at the game. And I think it was sort of our New York-New Jersey way of saying Taylor, if you're sitting on the wrong side we're not going to give you any airtime.

MATTINGLY: (Laughing).

It's a football game.

HARLOW: It's a thought that Taylor -- someone called it -- called it the Taylor Swift game last night? You?

[07:35:00]

MATTINGLY: No. I would never. I would never. There's too many Jets fans in here to call it a Taylor Swift game.

FISCHER: Thank you. Thank you.

HARLOW: Sara --

MATTINGLY: Sara, thanks for coming in. Appreciate it.

HARLOW: Good to see you.

So the Supreme Court starts a new term today. On the docket, a Second Amendment case and a case looking at social media companies.

Also today, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being immortalized with a Forever stamp honoring her lifetime of achievements. We sat down with her granddaughter to talk about her legacy.

(COMMERCIAL)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Well, following a trailblazing career dedicated to service and equality, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is set to be honored with a Forever stamp. That stamp -- you see it right there -- features Justice Ginsburg wearing her black judicial robe with an intricate collar, of course, symbolizing what became such an iconic part of her wardrobe.

The U.S. Postal Service says the stamp is meant to honor Ginsburg's groundbreaking contributions to justice, gender equality, and the rule of law.

Justice Ginsburg spent her life fighting for equality and believing it would change the Supreme Court. Here she is during her confirmation hearing. This is 1993.

[07:40:02]

JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG, CONFIRMATION HEARING 1993: In my lifetime, I expect to see three, four, perhaps even more women on the high court bench -- women not shaped from the same mold but of different complexions. And I surely would not be in this room today without the determined efforts of men and women who kept dreams alive -- dreams of equal citizenship.

HARLOW: Chief Justice John Roberts pointed to Justice Ginsburg's dedication to equality at a Supreme Court memorial service earlier this year saying, quote, "She changed our country profoundly for the better."

So happy to be joined now by Justice Ginsburg's granddaughter, Clara Spera. She is a senior associate at WilmerHale and a lecturer at Harvard Law. It's great to have you.

CLARA SPERA, RUTH BADER GINSBURG'S GRANDDAUGHTER, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, WILMERHALE, LECTURER, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: Thanks. I'm glad to be here.

HARLOW: What does it feel like to look at this?

SPERA: It's really remarkable and it's incredible that there will be her image in households and offices all over the country with her stamp. It's really incredible.

HARLOW: I was struck by Judge Wilkinson. That's a retired conservative justice who was appointed by President Reagan. And he reflected on how your grandmother might have thought about this honor. And he said, "Perhaps she would see her Forever stamp as a feminist response to Abraham Lincoln's penny -- a small but lasting symbol of unity in a fractured time."

What do you think?

SPERA: Yeah, I loved that piece by Judge Wilkinson and --

HARLOW: It was great.

SPERA: -- I definitely agree. And, I mean, I think something like this would have been beyond her wildest dreams --

HARLOW: Really?

SPERA: -- especially at her confirmation hearing in 1993 to think that she would be honored in this way.

HARLOW: You know, it was so interesting to listen back to that. And she said three, perhaps four women --

SPERA: Yeah.

HARLOW: -- on the court. We have four now.

SPERA: We do.

HARLOW: This court is also very different than the court she was on.

SPERA: Um-hum.

HARLOW: How do you think she would view this court right now? It has changed so dramatically.

SPERA: Well, I think that on -- first off, as you mentioned, having four women on the court is something that she would be absolutely delighted about.

And as she noted in her confirmation hearing, she was hoping that those women would not be cut from the same cloth, and that's certainly the case. We have women from different backgrounds, different legal viewpoints, and I think that's something she would celebrate. And certainly, the court is very different from when she was on it,

but she was on the court for a long time --

HARLOW: Um-hum.

SPERA: -- and she saw different permutations of the court during her tenure as an associate justice. And I think she would recognize that this is part of the natural ebb and flow of what the Supreme Court looks like over the years.

HARLOW: A lot of your pro bono work deals with what Roe instituted, which was a constitutional right to abortion, which has now been overturned by the Dobbs decision. It's been just over a year --

SPERA: Um-hum.

HARLOW: -- since the court did that.

And I want to talk about your grandmother's view of this.

SPERA: I know that she was certainly concerned about the status of reproductive rights starting from Roe. Because she often noted that Roe created a target for conservatives and those who were anti- abortion to focus on, and that's exactly what happened. And after 50 years of determined --

HARLOW: Um-hum.

SPERA: -- fighting from one side, Roe eventually fell on Dobbs. And no matter how Roe would have been decided, it would have created the same target.

HARLOW: You told me back in 2018 that you hoped within a few decades more of your grandmother's opinions would be adopted as majority opinions.

SPERA: Um-hum.

HARLOW: Do you believe that day is ahead even if it's not now?

SPERA: I have to hope so.

HARLOW: I want to end with you talked about her dream. We opened with her dream that there would be maybe four female justices on the Supreme Court. We have that.

But here's a little bit of what she told me when I was lucky enough to interview her. This is back in 2018.

HARLOW: So, final question. Help me finish this sentence, OK? There will be enough female --

GINSBURG: Oh.

HARLOW: -- justices on the Supreme Court when there are...

GINSBURG: You know what the answer is. When there are nine, of course.

HARLOW: There were nine men for a long time.

When the history books are written -- some have been, but continue to be written about her, what do you think the most important thing is that they will remind future generations?

SPERA: That she worked as hard as she could for as long as she could, and did the very best that she could.

HARLOW: Clara, thank you very much.

SPERA: Thanks.

HARLOW: Thanks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: It was a fascinating sit-down -- one, because of the moment. More broadly because of the legacy.

HARLOW: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: You followed Ruth Bader Ginsburg so closely over the years. What was your takeaway from it?

HARLOW: Yeah, and Clara is going to speak tonight at the whole ceremony. Luckily, the government's open to have this honor her grandmother.

Look, I think that even if you disagreed with her on the law, she was, remember, such good friends with the late Justice Antonin Scalia. She showed us -- they showed us together what it was like to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

[07:45:02]

And I actually think about that a lot in this moment -- sort of the way that she conducted herself and made her points. A lesson she had learned, actually, from her mother, she told me.

So I just think in this moment, look to -- look to unlikely friendships -- people who disagree that actually work together.

MATTINGLY: It might be a better place if more people did. It was a great interview.

HARLOW: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, after nearly three decades, an arrest has been made in Tupac Shakur's shooting death. Does this close the book on one of America's biggest unsolved murders? We're going to discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just after the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight, Shakur, along with record company executive Marion "Suge" Knight headed for a nightclub along with about 10 other cars. But while stopping at this intersection, a car with four people pulled up and opened fire on Shakur and Knight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:50:00]

MATTINGLY: After 27 years of mystery, a suspect in the murder of Tupac Shakur is set to be arraigned in court this Wednesday. That's according to our Las Vegas affiliate KLAS. Duane Keith Davis was arrested Friday on charges of murder with use of a deadly weapon. Davis is not accused of shooting Tupac Shakur but Las Vegas police say the 60-year-old orchestrated a plan to kill the rapper in retaliation for a gang-related attack on his nephew.

And Davis has long placed himself at the scene of the 1996 shooting in Las Vegas. He even wrote a memoir in 2019 in which he admitted to being in the passenger seat of the car from which the shots were fired.

Joining us now, CNN anchor, Sara Sidner. And CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller.

Sara, I want to start with you because you spoke exclusively with the stepbrother almost immediately after this happened. How is the family reacting right now?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR, "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": You know, the first thing is they're extremely frustrated that it has taken 27 years to get to this point.

But what gets them even more is that this person has been in the orbit of this investigation for 27 years, since the very beginning. He was questioned by police. He admitted that he was in this car -- the white Cadillac where the drive-by shooting emanated from that killed Tupac Shakur and injured Suge Knight.

And so, they can't quite understand why now and why it has taken so long.

In his memoir that you just mentioned, the 2019 memoir was published by Duane -- he is known as "Keffe D" -- Davis. And in that memoir, he says all these things. He talks about revenge. He talks about the fact that his cousin -- or his nephew, excuse me, had been beaten up by Suge and by Tupac and that they were going to go after them -- that they were looking for them.

And here is what he says that really sort of nails this home. He says, "One of my guys in the back seat grabbed a Glock and started busting back." He means firing back. "First shot skimmed Suge in the head. I thought the mother f-er was dead. As the rounds continued flying, I ducked down so I wouldn't get hit." So, Tupac's family cannot understand why this investigation has just

now come to the point where this man has now been charged in the killing of Tupac.

Listen to what his brother, Mopreme Shakur, had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAURICE "MOPREME" SHAKUR, BROTHER OF TUPAC SHAKUR: He obviously thinks he's innocent. But at the same time, if you're following up on a crime and you have a main suspect, and then this guy who they just indicted has been with him and has been telling the whole -- the same story the whole time for 27 years, why are you just finally now considering that he was so close to the number one suspect?

I watch "LAW & ORDER." I'm not a cop.

SIDNER: Yeah.

SHAKUR: I'm just saying.

SIDNER: You feel like it defies logic that it has taken this long when this person's name has been at least spoken about as someone who was, I think, in the car when Tupac was shot and killed in the car -- of the initial first suspect in the case, correct?

SHAKUR: Self-admitted, yeah. Self-admitted. I haven't seen none of his work. I haven't read his book or -- you know, I seen a couple of interviews. But he self-admitted, so -- and, you know -- and people -- but honestly, people talk all the time. People want attention. What they're saying may not necessarily be true so it has to be investigated and follow up -- followed up on. And I guess nobody's been following up until now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Mopreme Shakur basically, at the end of that interview, said look, I just miss my brother.

MATTINGLY: Right.

SIDNER: I miss my brother. He was taken from us and now we're going to have to go through this all over again. We've been on a rollercoaster already for 27 years because a lot of people were running their mouths. Now we're going to have to bring it all up again and go through what he believes will be a trial.

HARLOW: Yeah, of course -- his family.

Sara, it was fascinating. Stay with us.

Let's bring in John Miller into this. On this question of why this wasn't followed up on, a former police detective who had investigated the case before, told CNN Friday that Davis had confessed to having a role in the murder back in 2009. But that confession was under something known as a proffer agreement, which means they couldn't use it against him.

Even -- Davis even wrote in his memoir, quote, "I sang because they promised I would not be prosecuted."

How does that play into all of this?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: It's a key. I mean, Keffe D sat down and did this proffer -- talked to LAPD and DEA in a case that was -- that was headed towards bringing this murder charge and solving a lot of other shootings and things that happened in between.

The proffer agreement, of course, grants him immunity from prosecution. But there are conditions to every proffer agreement and one condition is you have to be telling the whole story and it has to be all true, and you can't lie.

[07:55:01]

And I think the tell here, as they say in Las Vegas, is when they did the search warrant at Keffe D's house just a couple of months back and they went through the residence, and the warrant was drawn up for any tapes, any notes, any journals.

You know, what they established was the story he gave during the proffer wasn't the whole story and their position is it wasn't true, which means the proffer is no good. Because one condition is if you're lying, the whole deal goes out the window. The other thing is he was the last living person who was in that car who could be prosecuted.

So this is Kevin McMahill, the sheriff and the chief of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, and the D.A. saying we're going to take a shot. He's going to argue I have immunity from this and we're going to argue he blew it.

HARLOW: Wow, fascinating.

Final thought?

SIDNER: Yeah. I was just talking about this proffer. And the other thing I think sometimes is that if they can corroborate that he was involved by someone else through other means and maybe some of the search warrant did that as well because they got all kinds of things -- electronics and so forth.

But in the end, innocent until proven guilty. At this point, he has said a lot of things. There's a lot of things out there that he's said in the public view and we'll see where the case goes.

Meantime, the family is just -- all these things are coming back. All these hurts. All these frustrations are coming back at this time.

HARLOW: Sara Sidner, thank you. Great reporting as always. And John, the analysis -- appreciate it.

So we're keeping an eye on Trump Tower this morning. The former president is set to leave from his apartment here because he's going in person to court for his -- the beginning of his civil fraud trial. That starts in just a little bit.

MATTINGLY: And a pivotal week ahead for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as he fights to keep his job. We'll dig in, next.

(COMMERCIAL)