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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

World Honors The Victims And Survivors Of the Holocaust; TikTok Facing Lawsuits Over Child Safety Concerns; Biden Signs Order Expanding Access To Child And Elder Care. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired April 19, 2023 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[05:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And they wear it like this, which is also intentional as a sign and a memory of what Jews had to do during Nazi occupation, which is wear a Jewish star on their body, either on their lapel or on their arm.

And so it is important everybody here understands, and really around the world important to remember so that this saying that we have, "never again," actually lives out, especially at a time with antisemitism on the rise not just here but even more so in the United States.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Dana, I know you -- I saw you posted some pictures -- you and your brother are there. Talk to me a little bit about sort of what it feels like to be there and to be such an important part of remembering that history.

BASH: I mean, it's beyond emotional and I didn't really know how I was going to take it all in, and I'm still not really sure. It will take me a while to process it. But you're right -- my brother and I are the great-grandchildren of people who were murdered at Auschwitz- Birkenau.

And like Wolf said, we actually went into the gas chamber that still exists where his grandparents were likely killed. And we saw at Birkenau our great-grandparents were Hungarian and so they were taken there pretty late in the war in 1944. And we learned that they were probably likely taken straight to the gas chamber and then the crematorium.

They also have a cattle car -- part of the trains that were used to bring all of the Jews in there.

And just seeing all of that and being on the ground where our great- grandparents walked to their -- to their death was really, really -- sorry, it's hard -- I'm getting a little emotional now.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And, you Dana, Dana --

BASH: It was -- it was really overwhelming. It was really overwhelming.

BLITZER: And what was so powerful, and I'm sure you agree -- yesterday was what they call the March of the Living --

ROMANS: Yes.

BLITZER: -- where tens of thousands of people, especially young people, from not just here in Poland but from countries all over the world -- they've come here to march from Auschwitz to Birkenau to remember and to honor all those people who were murdered during the Holocaust. And to see all these young people here and they are so, so dedicated to making sure that we never forget, it was really an emotional --

BASH: Yes.

BLITZER: -- powerful experience I think for both of us.

BASH: It was. And one thing I forgot to add and that is that these are being -- as we're talking to you, behind our camera, Poles are walking by and they're all wearing these. Four hundred fifty thousand of these have been given out all over Warsaw. Why 450,000? Because the Warsaw Ghetto, which is where we're standing -- the former Warsaw Ghetto -- was leveled in 1943. But at its height, the Nazis put 450,000 Jews behind walls around where we're standing now before they eventually murdered most of them.

BLITZER: And this POLIN Museum, which is dedicated to the thousand- year history of Polish Jews is right on the grounds of where the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was, and that makes it extremely, extremely special.

And later today we're going to be at I think it's the last remaining --

BASH: It is.

BLITZER: -- synagogue in Poland.

And as you point out, Christine, before World War II there were three million Polish Jews. Today, a few thousand live in Poland and that's about it. It's part of the history --

ROMANS: Yes.

BLITZER: -- of Poland -- of the Polish Jewish community.

ROMANS: Eighty years ago -- you can just reach back and touch how close that is when you look at generations of people and now all those young people marching it. It's just all so meaningful.

Thank you, guys. We'll be watching more of everything you're doing today.

OK, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:38:02] ROMANS: All right, here is today's fast-forward lookahead.

Today the Supreme Court will decide whether to keep in place a ruling that would restrict access to a key abortion pill. Justice Samuel Alito's stay on the order expires tonight.

President Biden will speak in Maryland today contrasting his economic agenda with that of House Republicans. He will discuss the impact of GOP spending cut demands in exchange for a debt limit increase.

An airline industry leader set to warn about the nation's pilot shortage at a House hearing today. She's expected to tell the panel this. There's a coming tsunami of pilot retirements that will mean flight schedule cutbacks.

And this. TikTok is facing multiple lawsuits alleging that the popular video app can harm young users by showing them inappropriate content that could pose a risk to their mental health.

CNN created a TikTok account registered to a fake 14-year-old to see the kinds of content teens can view on the app.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: So now we've got one that has a hashtag mental health on it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got to kill you if you want to kill me.

DUFFY: We have a sort of, like, veiled reference to suicide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Joining me now is CNN Business writer Clare Duffy. This is -- this is a little scary. I mean, some of the things that you saw. You created this TikTok account registered to a 14-year-old. Talk to me about what kinds of content the algorithm was feeding you.

DUFFY: Right. So we actually worked with a 14-year-old and their parents to create this account using the 14-year-old's information before taking control of it. And we spent six days scrolling through the app and making searches, and for the first few days we saw what you kind of expect on TikTok -- dance videos, funny little kids, comedy.

But as we started to search for content based on research that's been done by online experts and by lawmakers we found some really concerning content -- lots of content that was sort of sexual in nature, really mature.

We found content that was related to eating disorders. Sort of step- by-step instructions for how to restrict your eating. You know, here is my current. Here is my goal weight. Here is what I'm going to do to get there.

[05:40:00] We saw content that was related to mental health. These really sort of explicit references to suicide like you saw there.

ROMANS: Yes. The suicide references are really, really frightening and how much content can be fed to a young person so quickly. Also, these TikTok challenges. Dangerous behavior can happen from that.

Now, they do have safety features, right, that can restrict what a young person can see. How effective are those?

DUFFY: Right. So one of the things we experimented here was with restricted mode, which TikTok says can restrict some content that might be inappropriate for some users. We turned that on and tried to test how it would change our search results and what would show up in our "for you" page. We have a little clip that we can show you about what that experience was like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: This is almost pornographic.

We found that restricted mode didn't seem to restrict much of anything. We actually saw this same video when we were not on restricted mode. I think we may have seen this one, too, and this one. This actually seems like almost all of the same videos that we saw previously.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God, people's depression gets so bad they can't brush their teeth. People's depression gets so bad they kill themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: OK.

DUFFY: Right. So you see that we saw a lot of the same kinds of really concerning videos even when restricted mode was turned on. And, you know, it's possible that it restricted some content -- we'll never know -- but it didn't seem to have a huge impact.

ROMANS: So what is TikTok saying about this?

DUFFY: So TikTok said in a statement in response to this video we are committed to building age-appropriate experiences where teens can safely have fun and explore their creativity. As part of this, we invest in keeping content with mature themes from reaching younger audiences and offers a tool called family pairing where parents and caregivers can sort of customize the experience of young people.

And look, this account didn't behave exactly like a normal teen would. We obviously sort of went in search of some of this stuff, but we wanted to show what was possible for teens to see on the app.

ROMANS: Interesting.

All right, Clare, thank you. As a -- as a mother of three boys it's frightening to me -- some of the content that is available so readily. Thank you. Nice to see you.

All right, Devin Booker and the Suns light up the scoreboard to even their NBA Playoff series against the Clippers.

Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. Good morning, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Christine.

So this wasn't a must-win for the Suns but it was pretty close. Teams that go up 2-0 in an NBA best-of-seven series win 92 percent of the time. So Phoenix not wanting to lose both games one and two at home, and Devin Booker making sure that wouldn't happen.

The Suns were trailing much of the first half but Booker -- the buzzer-beater to tie it up at halftime. He had 38 in the game. Then Booker and Durant just take it over in the second half. They combined for 63 points. The Suns win 123-109 to even that series at a game a piece.

The Knicks, meanwhile, a rough night in Cleveland and this sums it up right here. Julius Randle accidentally slapping his teammate Jalen Brunson on the play. They weren't even near the ball. The Cavs were up 20 at halftime and they'd win easily 107-90 to even that series at a game a piece.

The Playoffs continue tonight with a trio of game twos. The action tips off with LeBron James and the Lakers taking on the Grizzlies at 7:30 eastern. That's on our sister channel TNT.

All right, the NBA dropping the hammer on Draymond Green for stomping on Domantas Sabonis in game two on Monday. Draymond has been suspended for game three. Draymond defended himself after the game saying that he was just trying to find a place to step, then he pointed out that Sabonis grabbed him first. The league says the decision to suspend Draymond was partly due to his, quote, "history of unsportsmanlike acts."

All right, a scary moment in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last night. Jets center Morgan Barron took a skate to his face in the first period during a scramble for the puck in front of the Vegas goal. He had to leave the ice and received more than 75 stitches in the locker room. One of Barron's teammates said it looked like he got attacked by a shark.

But less than a period later, Barron was back in the game wearing a full-face shield and sporting a bandage above his eye.

Winnipeg went on to beat the Golden Knights in game one 5-1.

All right, and finally, Bills' safety Damar Hamlin has been cleared to resume his football career less than four months after going into cardiac arrest and having to be resuscitated on the field during a game. Hamlin saw many doctors during his road back and they all agreed he suffered a rare incident in which a traumatic blow to the heart at a certain time during the heartbeat caused it to stop.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAMAR HAMLIN, BUFFALO BILLS SAFETY: I died on national T.V. in front of the whole world. You know what I mean? The biggest blessing of it all is for me to still have my people and my people still to have me. Some people might say that coming back to play might not be the best option but that's their opinion. And like I said, I've been beating statistics my whole life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now, Hamlin is already back at the team's practice facility this week participating in the voluntary off-season workouts.

And, Christine, just incredible that we're here and able to say that --

ROMANS: I know.

SCHOLES: -- this today considering the circumstances. Awesome to see him going back.

ROMANS: Absolutely, it really is. It really is.

All right, Andy Scholes, thank you so much.

[05:40:00]

SCHOLES: All right.

ROMANS: Coming up on "CNN THIS MORNING" a woman shot after pulling into the wrong driveway. What we're hearing from the suspect due in court today.

(COMMERCIAL)

ROMANS: Your Romans' Numeral this morning is 5.2 billion. Bye-bye red envelopes in the mail. Netflix is ending its DVD service after sending out more than 5.2 billion of them since 1998. Remember when Netflix revolved around sending DVDs through the mail in those easily recognizable red and white envelopes? Well, the last DVD will be shipped on September 29.

Looking at markets around the world, Asian markets finished lower. European markets are also down this hour. U.K. inflation still above 10 percent. That was a disappointment.

On Wall Street, stock index futures also leaning down. Look, markets barely budged yesterday as investors worked through a whole bunch of corporate earnings.

[05:50:00]

On inflation watch, gas prices holding steady overnight at $3.68 per gallon.

Another batch of corporate earnings due today. Tesla and Morgan Stanley will disclose their first-quarter earnings. Regional banks, U.S. Bancorp, and Zions Bancorp also set to report.

All right, President Biden signed an executive order to make childcare more affordable -- a step closer to the so-called care economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the United States of America we should have no one -- there should be no one that has to choose between caring for the parents who raised them, the children who depend on them, to the paycheck they rely on to take care of both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The order also seeks to improve working conditions for childcare and eldercare workers as the pandemic's lingering effects on the labor market are shifting employee demands and expectations at workplaces.

I want to bring in chief economist at ADP, Nela Richardson. She's got her own great new research this morning. But first, before we get to your survey, I want to ask you about this executive order. It's meant to improve working conditions for parents and for childcare workers.

How important is the childcare piece in the labor market?

NELA RICHARDSON, CHIEF ECONOMIST, ADP (via Skype): Well, let's just focus on the data. And good morning, Christine. It's always great to be with you.

We know two things when it comes to the care economy. First, we know that the jobs have not completely recovered from the pandemic. This was a hard-hit industry. There was a lot of people who left this industry during the pandemic.

And the second thing we know is that the care economy has gotten more expensive. And so, for working families, for working women it's a challenge to do both -- go back into the labor market and still afford the care, let alone the time to take care of parents and children.

ROMANS: Yes. We know that in some zip codes childcare is as expensive as college. And in some zip codes --

RICHARDSON: Yes.

ROMANS: -- even an infant in a daycare center -- it can be $5,000 to $13,000. You know, that's just a huge tax on a working family.

Let's talk a little bit here about your new global study of current -- the current world of work. Some fascinating information in here. Nela, it shows workers have higher expectations for pay raises. They have high expectations for flexibility. Sixty-two percent said they expect a pay raise in the next 12 months.

What is the implication here?

RICHARDSON: Well, we're delighted to offer this study -- the global study. It's 32,000 workers over 17 countries. And we've seen remarkable persistence and consistency across the global workforce over the past three years.

Let me just put this -- these numbers in context -- the numbers that you just cited. Because when we first asked the study two years ago workers were really grappling with the effects of the pandemic. Two- thirds of them had experienced job loss or a cut in hours, or some major shift in their working that was negative.

And then last year when we asked the study it was all about flexibility. Flexibility of hours. Getting that hybrid work. Different work arrangements.

Now this year, pay and career progression are out in front. People are really ready to see their careers and their paychecks advance, and that's where we are. We are stabilizing in terms of these flexibility trends. But people are expecting a pay raise -- a big one, too. Eight percent is the average -- 8.3 to be precise -- the global workforce expects in the next 12 months.

ROMANS: Wow, bosses on notice. Your employees have higher expectations.

The trend of digital nomads -- people working remotely -- it still lives, obviously, post-pandemic. Yet, your study found more people think flexibility of hours is more important than flexibility in location. What does that tell us?

RICHARDSON: Well, we found in numerous studies and, in particular, this one that workers enjoy hybrid. They enjoy the mix of being in the office but also the flexibility maybe to take care of children or elderly parents as well. To have some flexibility to leave work, to change their schedules. Even people who are on-site -- if they have some flexibility in terms of their schedule it's important.

It's not as important in terms of location. People are not saying in big numbers that they want to just be remote from anywhere anytime, but they do want that flexibility.

ROMANS: All right, Nela Richardson of ADP. Thank you. Always nice to see you bright and early in the morning.

RICHARDSON: Thanks for having me. Take care.

ROMANS: All right.

Fox agreeing to pay a whopping $787 million to settle the Dominion defamation trial. Details on the last-minute deal ahead.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:59:01]

ROMANS: All right. Backlash for the top boss at an office furniture company after her employee pep talk went off the rails. MillerKnoll's CEO Andi Owen was asked how workers should stay motivated if they don't get a bonus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDI OWEN, CEO, MILLERKNOLL: Get our orders out our door. Treat each other well. Be kind, be respectful. Focus on the future because it will be bright.

It's not good to be in a situation we're in today but we're not going to be here forever. It is going to get better. So lead -- lead by example, treat people well, talk to them, be kind, and get after it.

Don't ask about what are we going to do if you don't get a bonus -- get the damn $26 million. Spend your time and your effort thinking about the $26 million we need and not thinking about what you're going to do if you don't get a bonus, all right? Can I get some commitment for that? I would appreciate that.

I had an old boss who said to me one time you can visit Pity City but you can't live there. So people, leave Pity City. Let's get it done. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:00:08]

ROMANS: OK, so that didn't go over well.

MillerKnoll claims the comments are taken out of context and says it hasn't yet decided on bonus payouts. Owen took home, we're told, nearly $5 million in compensation last year. The company's median employee income is less than $45,000.

All right, thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.