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New Day

August Jobs Report; CNN Hero Chip Paillex; ISIS Social Media; Reflecting on the Life of Joan Rivers

Aired September 05, 2014 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here we go with the five things you need to know for your new day.

At number one, the NATO Summit wrapping up with big developments. NATO leaders say they'll help Iraq fight ISIS if they ask. The U.S. also announcing a core coalition of 10 countries that will take on the terror group.

Rebel leaders in Ukraine are meeting with Russian and Ukrainian officials to discuss a ceasefire deal. This meeting is being met with cautious optimism as heavy fighting rages in eastern Ukraine.

The third American to be diagnosed with the Ebola virus has arrived in Nebraska for treatment this morning. Dr. Rick Sacra contracted the disease in Liberia. He is currently being treated in a special isolation unit at the Nebraska Medical Center.

A little less humor in our world today following the death of Joan Rivers. The legendary comedienne was 81. Her funeral will be held Sunday in New York City.

This is amazing. It may have been one of the largest creatures to ever walk the earth. Look at this, the first look at a previously unknown dinosaur species, Dreadnoughtus schrani. It weighed about 65 tons, which is heavier than a 737 airplane. Oh my goodness.

We always update those five things to know, so be sure to go to newdaycnn.com for the very latest.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Mic.

We have breaking news into CNN. The Labor Department just released the jobs report for August. Let's get to chief business correspondent Christine Romans.

Good to have you here. What do we know?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi.

We know that the numbers were a little bit lighter than we had expected. If you hit that August number, you can see, 142,000 jobs were created. We had expected 226. So that's going to be a disappointment to people who wanted another strong month above 200,000. You see we had six in a row. We thought this would be seven. For the longest stretch of 200,000 plus since, you know, since I think, gosh, more than 10 years. But that didn't happen.

The unemployment rate, though, Chris, pretty interesting here. The unemployment rate staying down here at 6.1 percent. This is like the lowest in about five years. So that's a pretty good number there overall. And I don't think that's going to come up for you, but if you look at where we've come in the recovery, you can see just - just how bad it got. We were above 10 percent. Ten percent. And then now we've been coming down here. So 6.1 percent.

CUOMO: Why'd they miss the number?

ROMANS: You know, they missed the number because there wasn't the job creation they thought, but you do - you do still have people getting work. You are still eating through the unemployment rate. It's two different surveys. So sometimes they're not exactly in sync. So that's important to watch here.

When I'm looking in these numbers I see health care had job gains. I see construction had job gains. We'll want to see that there were broad-based jobs gains, not just low wage job gains. That had been the hallmark of the recovery, Chris. It was just low wage jobs gains for so long.

When you look, if you hit that 2014 number, you can see where we are on average here now, still a pretty good looking year so far. On average, more than 200,000 jobs created every month. You want to see that momentum. You don't want to see a little pullback like this month. You want to see momentum like this continue into the fall.

CUOMO: But as you taught me, the number is not enough. It's what the sectors are -

ROMANS: Totally.

CUOMO: The types of jobs, under employment -

ROMANS: Totally.

CUOMO: All of that analysis is important. And I wonder where we can get that. I know where we can get it. Christine Romans is going to be answering questions about this morning's job report. She's going to host a FaceBook chat live with U.S. Labor Secretary Mr. Tom Perez. It's at 11:30 Eastern this morning. You go to facebook.com/cnnmoney.

Christine, thank you.

ROMANS: Thank you.

CUOMO: I will be there.

ROMANS: Great.

CUOMO: I will have a weird screen name so you won't know it is me.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This week's CNN hero is taking on food deserts, areas where people have little access to fresh produce. Take a look at how Chip Paillex turned a small garden into 49 acres of fresh fruits and vegetables for those who need it most.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHIP PAILLEX: These are awesome, aren't they?

I started the farm with my daughter. The first year we were able to get 120 pounds of produce. With all the extra produce, we brought it down to the local food pantry. I realized that people were hungry for fresh fruits and vegetables.

We grow, we glean and we give.

When we first started the program, it was basically my family. Now we're around 4,000 volunteers.

Excellent.

It's not just feeding people. Our goal is really to educate the folks who receive the produce.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, are you guys ready for some corn?

KIDS: Yes!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoo!

PAILLEX: When kids come out for the first time from the inner city, they immediately are struck by the fact that food grows out of the ground.

There you go.

For them to be able to actually harvest it and then bring it home to their families, that's huge.

Who's the first time you ate corn right off the stalk?

We also go into inner city areas that do not have any access to fresh fruits and vegetables and so we set up a free farm market.

How we doing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have diabetes. Some things that I need for my diet a lot of times I can't afford.

PAILLEX: You like this corn, huh? Yes, this is good stuff.

I believe that everyone deserves to be able to eat healthy. There's no greater reward. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Chip Paillex, this week's CNN hero. We're taking a look at him.

Take a look at this also. Is this Boston man the reason why ISIS is so good at social media? Terrorists with Twitter accounts and more Americans joining the fight, how do we turn it around? We're going to ask a counterterrorism expert coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: An American from Boston on the FBI's most wanted terror list is suspected of playing a key role in the social media campaign of the brutal terror group ISIS. So who is Ahmad Abousamra and how many other Americans are answering the call to terror? For more on this let's bring in Philip Mudd, CNN terror - counterterrorism analyst and former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorism Center.

Philip, we hear - we've heard kind of in the abstract quite a bit about the concern of American officials about Americans overseas or westerners going overseas to take up the call of ISIS, but what do you make of this man especially, born and -- raised in Boston, college educated with a degree in computer technology. Why is he such a concern, do you think, for the U.S.?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think when you look, for example, let's take it back to the beheading videos, at what ISIS is trying to do, they're trying to talk to people in Europe, in the U.K. and the United States using not only messages that might resonate but also using language, using accents that resonate. They want American accents. They want British accents. If they're speaking to Germany, I've seen them use people who are native German speakers. If they want to recruit people in the United States, they've got to have somebody who can talk the talk, walk the walk, somebody who is in country, Syria and Iraq, and say, hey, I'm like you. It's not that bad over here. It's not what you see on TV. Why don't you come join us. People like this are really dangerous.

BOLDUAN: How important then do you think is the social media apparatus of a terror group like ISIS? It definitely -- their ability to kind of create in real time these kind of Hollywood almost style productions separates them from a group like al Qaeda, that's for sure. But how important is the social media fight, if you will, for ISIS?

MUDD: It's important but it's also an Achilles heel if we wait long enough.

BOLDUAN: Why?

MUDD: The importance - the importance is, at the fringes of extremist movements, there are people who are going to pass around these messages, pass around these photos. For example, photos of a child who was killed and say, look, this is the reason we have to go out there. We have to defend the faith, we have to defend kids like those we see killed on an ISIS video. The Achilles heel, though, is really important, but again, only if we have time.

There are a lot of people who look at the justifications from people like ISIS, their religious justifications, the same thing happened for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They look at them and say, look, in the central tenets of Islam, you cannot justify this. What you're putting on video is not acceptable. And there's a large core of the religion that will respond to these sort of videos, these tweets and say, that's interesting, but that's a bastardization of what Islam is. That does not respect Islam and you're wrong.

BOLDUAN: It's also interesting in the question of how many Americans, if you -- let's just take that aspect of it, how many Americans are actually overseas and radicalized and fighting with ISIS and other terror groups? The attorney general has asked about that and he responded yesterday. I want to get your take about this, on the issue, the concern of radicalized foreign fighters returning to the United States was kind of the question. He says, I think we have a pretty good handle on who is there and also a pretty good handle on who potentially might want to go there. Do you believe that?

MUDD: Pretty good covers a lot of turf. Yes, I believe that. I've been there, including with this attorney general at the threat table.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

MUDD: Pretty good handle means things like, you're seeing people go through travel centers, you're getting alerts from our friends out in the region, you're having friends and family come forward saying my son is gone. So let's say you've got a handle on 95 percent of the people going out, which in my world is not only a pretty good handle, that's a great handle.

There's two problems with that. Number one is resources. Let's say that's 100, 200 people. In the world of the FBI and state and local cops, trying to follow around 100 and 200 people for six months, a year, two years to determine whether when they come home from Iraq they're going to do something, that's a resource disaster.

The second piece, Kate, is, let's say you miss 5 percent of them or 2 percent of them. And those are the people who commit something like what the Tsarnaev brothers did. You know, I've been there at the FBI. You know what people will say? They'll say, nice on the 98 percent and captured. Why'd you miss the 2 percent? The level you've got to get is not pretty good handle. The American expectation is perfect handle.

BOLDUAN: Yes, the United States government has to be right 100 percent of the time.

MUDD: Yes. Yes.

BOLDUAN: Terrorists have to be right 1 percent of the time to get to their objective.

MUDD: That's right.

BOLDUAN: That's absolutely true. I want to get your take, finally, the State Department may be in

trying to combat this social media savvy of ISIS has put out a video or an online campaign, if you will. Can the United States, the State Department, effectively fight, if you will, ISIS on social media?

MUDD: No. Next question. No, here's the point. You know, when I've watched terrorists talk, when we talk to them at the CIA, these are very committed people who are not going to be persuaded by a message from a government they don't view as credible.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

MUDD: Now, I applaud what the State Department is doing. There are other people outside ISIS who might watch what they say, but the people who will be the architects of ISIS' demise are in ISIS today. They're the same people tweeting photos of beheadings, trying to explain why they beheaded journalists. Over time, people in villages in Iraq, people in cities in places like Turkey and Jordan are going to say one thing, and that is, we know you try to represent the faith but you do not. This is an aberration of the faith. It's an embarrassment. We won't tolerate this. We can't combat that. The people on the ground can.

BOLDUAN: Yes. It's another front, though, on the social - another front to fight ISIS on social media, on the ground in the battlefield. It just shows what a challenge it is.

Philip Mudd, it's always great to have you. Thank you.

MUDD: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: All right, have a great weekend.

Comedy's sharpest tongue is quiet this morning. We're going to continue to remember Joan Rivers' legacy with the comedian who knew her very well and credits the legend with helping her own career.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOAN RIVERS, COMEDIAN: Can we talk here for a second? That -- since - there's no big deal to have a woman in the White House. John F. Kennedy had 1,000 of them. I am telling you right now. Right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

KATHY GRIFFIN, COMEDIAN: Respect must be paid to this woman and she blazed the trail, obviously for me, all the girls.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

PEREIRA: That was Kathy Griffin paying tribute to her dear friend Joan Rivers on CNN with Anderson Cooper last night. (BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

PEREIRA (voice-over): Rivers is considered a trailblazer who knocked down barriers for women in comedy and changed the landscape for female stand ups.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

PEREIRA (on camera): Our next guest, Judy Tenuta, first met Joan back in 1986 when she was the first comedian to appear on Rivers' talks show. Judy joins us live bright and early from Los Angeles. You remember that day as it was yesterday, I bet.

JUDY TENUTA, COMEDIAN: I remember even what I was wearing.

PEREIRA: What were you wearing?

TENUTA: I think she would be proud. I had on a long sort of Grecian prom gown, white with green sash.

PEREIRA: Did she skewer you for your fashion?

TENUTA: No. You know, I really wish I could have been arrested by Joan, you know? She never, I'm sure she would have. I brought my boa in her honor.

PEREIRA: Oh, girl. I love that.

TENUTA: You know, everybody's got to wear their boa today.

PEREIRA: I love that everybody is remembering Joan in their own way, and seems to be always with smiles and laughter. One of the things that we just talked about in that intro was she was a trailblazer. I know she would cringe at being called that. But she did the same thing for you, she was supportive of you. Tell us about that.

TENUTA: Yes, like I said in 1986, I was one of the first comics that she had on her show on Fox, and she said, go out there, take no prisoners. She was, yes, she was just very encouraging. And then later in the '90s, she had morning shows, and she had me on those, too. And I just remember she was one of the first to really encourage me and very supportive, you know. Come back any time.

PEREIRA: And a rarity we often hear in the show business. Show business, not show friends is the old saying in Hollywood. Talk to me about what you think might have fueled her. She worked incessantly..

TENUTA: Yes, she was the quintessential workaholic. She was like the energizer bunny. Yes, and I would -- I just think she just -- she was like a roman candle, you know, lit at both ends.

PEREIRA: I want to read to you, I want to go back in time to 1965. This is a review that appeared at the time, "The New York Times" put this in their paper. I'll read out loud to you. "Joan rivers, a new comedian of ripening promise is an unusually bright girl who is overcoming the handicap of a woman comic, looks pretty and blond and bright and yet manages to make people laugh." My, my dear, how have times changed?

TENUTA: Oh, I don't know who wrote that. He's going to get smacked.

PEREIRA: But when you think about that, about the time when she was making a name for herself.

TENUTA: Yes.

PEREIRA: She literally kicked the door down.

TENUTA: Yes, she did. She was truly a trailblazer for especially female comics like myself, and she was fearless. I loved it, you know? She had no filter. She would talk -- right?

PEREIRA: None.

TENUTA: I mean, she would say anything.

PEREIRA: You were on "Hollywood Squares" together. Tell me about some of those fun times.

TENUTA: That was fun, yes. I remember one time in particular I was sitting in the middle square at the bottom and she was to my left and the Smothers Brothers were to my right.

(LAUGHTER)

TENUTA: I said Joan, Joan, Dickey's hitting on me. She says goes, that two-timer. She was just great.

PEREIRA: What do you think you learned most from Joan?

TENUTA: Really, I would say fearlessness, you know. She would stop at nothing. So don't edit yourself. The first to be politically incorrect.

PEREIRA: Absolutely. Judy Tenuta, thank you so much for putting on your boa and coming to talk to us about your friend, our friend Joan Rivers who made us laugh and will continue to.

TENUTA: Loved her.

PEREIRA: I think a lot of people are taking a look back at some of the videos of her and remembering and laughing out loud for sure. Judy, thanks so much.

TENUTA: Thank you.

PEREIRA: We have a very special edition of the Good Stuff for you just ahead. Wait for it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

RIVERS: Well, she's charming. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now she's charming.

RIVERS: And she's not the best dresser in the world but it's not just me that was saying this, because her slip was showing and everybody kept saying that. Why is she wearing it over her dress? It wasn't just me.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BOLDUAN: Make sure your slips not showing.

PEREIRA: Thank goodness we don't have to wear those anymore.

BOLDUAN: Oh is that true? Oopsies.

CUOMO: You know, being in the business of asking questions, it's worthy of note that Joan asked a question, can we talk? She asked the question in a way that changed our culture. So we're going to do a little special edition of the Good Stuff for her. She was great for a reason that has nothing to do with comedy. And you may not know this, but for over 25 years Joan Rivers was unusually dedicated to charity, specifically God's Love We Deliver.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO (voice-over): You should look it up, its a group that brings meals to the sick and the homebound and Joan packed thousands of those meals personally and even delivered them herself.

RIVERS: 3, 300 doorbells are rung every day and meals and love is given out to these people. I come away every time I deliver the meals thanking God that he's letting me be part of this.

CUOMO: You know, now look, any attention to charity is good, but it is rare that someone shows the actual personal effort that Joan rivers did.

PEREIRA (voice-over): Put on a hairnet and get behind the line.

CUOMO: She never asked for credit but she did as for money and in 2009 she won "Celebrity Apprentice" and gave her $5,000 purse to the charity, she was shameless about asking for money and well worth it. Gods Love We Deliver says of her quote, "Joan's impact on God's Love will be felt always by our clients, volunteers, staff and community." And they've named their new kitchen in her honor.

PEREIRA: That's so great.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO (on camera): Yes, she would have liked it.

BOLDUAN: You had over the years -- CUOMO: I bumped into her. She was really good at giving people advice

and on "The View" once she was like oh, I saw you trying to be funny on "The View." Don't.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: I said so what should I do? She's like in your business that's easy, just tell us the truth. We're not going to like you for it so if you want to be liked don't be in the business.

PEREIRA (on camera): She was so kind when she would visit us in L.A., always so, so friendly and warm.

BOLDUAN: You heard that from people on her staff today and heard that from a lot of people.

CUOMO: For all of the jokes about the plastic surgery, she was exactly what she didn't appear to be visually. She was so real and so authentic and that's why she was one of the greats. A lot of news this morning. Let's get you to Carol Costello. The Friday edition of "NEWSROOM."

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Happy Friday, have a great weekend. NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning, I'm Carol Costello, Thank you so much for joining me.