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Skinny Jeans Danger; Trump Surges in New Hampshire; Interview with Lewis Black. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 24, 2015 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:07] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here we go with the five things you need to know for your NEW DAY.

At number one, lawmakers in South Carolina agreeing to debate whether the confederate flag should be removed from the state capital grounds. Several other states now considering similar actions.

One of the escaped prisoners in upstate New York may be on the run barefoot. A source telling CNN either Richard Matt or David Sweat left a pair of boots behind at a cabin where the pair's DNA was found.

Some new insight into Freddie Gray's final moments. "The Baltimore Sun" obtaining a copy of his autopsy, reporting that he suffered a high energy injury to his neck and spine while inside the police van, likely after a sudden stop.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev today will be formally sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The 21-year-old has the opportunity to speak. It's unclear, though, if he will.

The White House today expected to announce a softening approach to its tough hostage policy. It will now allow families to speak with captors and even pay ransom without fear of prosecution.

For more on the five things, be sure to visit newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Skinny jeans, fashionable, feel good. Study says they're also potentially dangerous. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins me now.

Christine, I hope you're not about to make me go through a massive wardrobe shift.

PEREIRA: You're taking this very personally.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You're going to have to clean out your closet --

CUOMO: What? ROMANS: Chris Cuomo, because fashionista's tight jeans could land you in the hospital. According to a new study, one 35-year-old woman's legs swell so badly she could not walk. She spent the day helping a relative move. All that squatting caused her legs to swell inside the skinny jeans because the jeans were simply so tight it put pressure on her nerves and blood vessels. There's a technical name for it, compartment syndrome.

Eventually, her feet grew numb. She fell. She could not get back up. She could not use her legs. At the hospital, doctors cut the jeans off. She spent four days -- four days in the hospital on an IV unable to walk.

Now, this is a cautionary tale, of course, but scientists are noticing this. The lesson here: don't squat for long periods of time in skinny jeans or otherwise. If you feel discomfort or tingling, stand up, walk around. And if you know you'll be doing a lot of squatting, skip the skinny jeans all together. Go with loose or stretchy pants so your legs can breathe.

PEREIRA: How about a pair of --

ROMANS: Common sense. Real common sense there.

PEREIRA: How about skinny jeans that actually are not like constricting?

ROMANS: Well, you know --

PEREIRA: Because, like, they have some give to them. Isn't that the point of them?

ROMANS: We were talking about in the '80s, you know, you'd lay on your bed and you'd pull your Levi's up --

PEREIRA: Do up your pants. Remember that?

ROMANS: To try to fit into them. Well, they were just denim then. Now there's a lot of stretchy material. But that also allows you to wear much, much tighter clothing than you would have otherwise.

CUOMO: I have a question for you two.

ROMANS: Yes.

CUOMO: I can't relate to the '80s thing. I spent most of my time trying to get them off. My question is, skinny jeans, when will you women learn that it does not have to be absurdly tight pants?

PEREIRA: You women. I love conversations that start with that.

CUOMO: Why are you wearing such tight pants?

ROMANS: I'm sorry, the mental image of Chris Cuomo in the '80s trying to take his pants off is just too much for me (INAUDIBLE) at this early hour. CUOMO: I didn't say mine.

PEREIRA: Oh.

CUOMO: Surgio Valenta (ph) could make a nice cut, though.

PEREIRA: That was your first mistake. You thought --

ROMANS: Our producer is having a heart attack.

CUOMO: All right, all right, not wearing tight pants. I get it.

ROMANS: Let's move along.

PEREIRA: Thanks, Christine.

CUOMO: I get it. If your pants hurt you when you wear them, they're too tight. Well done.

All right, so Donald Trump, he cannot win, you say? Well, then why is he in second place in the all-important New Hampshire primary. He has the front-runner, Jeb Bush, in his sights. Judge for yourself if he is the better man, ahead. Oh, la, la, sasson (ph).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:38:15] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I can't believe Bush is in first place. You know, I'm -- some people are thrilled. I'm not thrilled because how could Bush be in first place? This guy can't negotiate his way out of a paper bag.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: But this guy can. And only The Donald is not surprised he's in second place in a New Hampshire poll that just came out. The aptly named runner now seeks to trump his competition. Take a look at the numbers, by the way. You get to look at how close he is here, 14 for Bush, 11 for The Donald, eight for Walker, seven for Marco Rubio and six for Dr. Ben Carson, who was just on our show.

Let's discuss. CNN's senior political reporter Chris Moody and CNN national political reporter Maeve Reston.

Maeve, I begin with you. Do you see these poll numbers as proof that the people want the straight talk of The Donald or is it just name recognition?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: I think a lot of it is name recognition right now, but clearly here in New Hampshire Trump is connecting with some people. You talk to voters here and in Iowa and they say that they love the fact that he just cuts right to the chase, says whatever's on his mind. They're tired of all of the political maneuvering that they see with all the other candidates. At the same time, I think it's really important to remember that

Donald Trump has a ceiling that the other candidates don't have in the sense that everyone knows him, they know what they're getting. And there aren't a lot of people out there who are just sort of experiencing him for the first time the way that there are with other candidates.

At the same time, he is going to be really a disruptive force in this race for some of the other top tier candidates because he takes up so much oxygen.

CUOMO: Maeve Reston, with the discount effect, with the taking up oxygen, with the direction, I take the other side, Chris Moody. Why isn't he legit? He's got the big name. He's got the money, probably not as much as he says, but who cares. And he's number two in a place where they take this very seriously. Why isn't he legit?

[08:40:05] CHRIS MOODY, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: Well, I think Maeve is right about it being a ceiling. Donald Trump really has nowhere to go but down but a lot of other candidates have a lot of place to go but -- have nowhere to go but up. I think Donald Trump is going to be a problem in the short-term for candidates that are not doing well in the polls that need time on the debate stage in order to get their name I.D. out there. Sitting senators, governor who might not make the cut, the polling threshold to get on that debate stage, it's a really catch 22. In the long term, if Donald Trump lasts this long, all the way to the New Hampshire primaries, he's going to be a problem for guys like Chris Christie who are really putting all their eggs into that New Hampshire basket that need that. And if it comes down to Jeb Bush and Donald Trump, that could knock off a guy like Christie. But that's, of course, assuming that Donald Trump even has an interest in getting all the way to an actual Election Day.

CUOMO: All right, but, Maeve, you know, the better he does, the more interest he's going to have.

RESTON: But, Chris, one important thing --

CUOMO: Go ahead. Go ahead.

RESTON: One important thing to remember is that Donald Trump is going to have to file his financial disclosure form. And I think the big question that we're all waiting to see, because he's played with this many times. He hasn't gone quite this far in previous cycles. But if he has to lay out all of his finances and, you know, under penalty of perjury and tell all of us about, you know, the business deals in the past, is he going to stick it out longer than a few months or is this a publicity stunt? I don't think we know the answer to that question yet.

CUOMO: I also wonder if we're setting up a straw man with this financial report. I mean a lot of his things are privately held things. You value them the way you want. I mean this isn't the IRS he'd be giving it to. It would be the FEC (ph). But, you're right, that is a legitimate barrier. But with what we just saw going on in South Carolina, Marco Rubio,

definitely legit in the eyes of everybody following this race, right? He waffled on this. Oh, it's a state issue. It's not about being president. The same kind of thing that Huckabee said, that Cruz said. If issues like that keep coming up and you have a Trump out there who says, take the flag down, this is silly, do you think that kind of approach may start to persuade people that they're tired of this game everybody else plays? Maeve?

RESTON: I -- I think that it can, you know, really force the other candidates to come out and talk about issues that they don't want to talk about, as we saw with the confederate flag. And, you know, also just push them into discussions that they don't want to be having certainly on the debate stage, but really across the board. I mean he does have a way of just getting under people's skin and, you know, forcing them to talk about issues that Republicans really don't want to talk about right now.

CUOMO: I mean did you -- Chris, did you see what happened with Dr. Carson on the show this morning? You should take a look at the interview. He lays out this very cogent case about why you must confront issues that are uncomfortable. You must see what happened in Charleston as a hate crime because that racism must be confronted even if it's difficult, even if it reminds people that the confederate flag symbol is ugly for many. And then I asked him, well, what do you think then about the gay rights flag, the gay pride flag being compared to the confederate flag? What do you think about that, you know, because they're obviously the second most likely group to be a victim to the hate crime. And he says, I'm not going to talk about it. Maybe another day. I don't walk to talk about it.

MOODY: (INAUDIBLE) --

CUOMO: Donald Trump, you think he ducks that question? He doesn't duck anything.

MOODY: You know, it's really interesting, Chris. Last week, before South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley came out with her stance against the rebel flag, I talked to a number of Republican presidential candidates who were gathering here in Washington, D.C., and none of them would take a concrete stance on it. It was only until several days had passed this week that they would actually come out and say something, that they wanted to have it taken down. And so I think it is -- it is fascinating how it took them a while to really maybe come up with an idea about this or really build up the courage to take a stand without Nikki Haley saying something. It did take them quite a while for --

CUOMO: Am I exaggerating the currency of Donald Trump? Of course I am. Are Chris Moody and Maeve Reston smarter than I am and more astute on these issues? Of course they are. But that's why we're in this segment together. Thanks to both of you for the perspective on what happens.

RESTON: Thank you.

CUOMO: And, you know, look, the election is just right around the corner. Moody may still have that tie on. What do we only have, 502 days left before this. Anything can happen. Five hundred and two days and, look, the seconds are just ticking down. So we'll keep talking about this as things become relevant.

What do you think about The Donald and why he's popular right now? Is it just name recognition or is it something more? Use the #newday if you're going to do it on Twitter. If you want to post a comment on Facebook and actually think about it, do facebook.com/newday.

Mic.

PEREIRA: Five hundred and two days until the election. I feel like this man, comedian Lewis Black, has a few comments about that. But you know what, he'll talk about that but he'll also talk about this great, new movie. I saw it yesterday. Loved "Inside Out." He's the voice of one of the characters. Can you imagine which emotions he might represent?

[08:44:47] We'll talk to Lewis Black in a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(CLIP FROM "INSIDE OUT")

PEREIRA: That was a clip from Disney Pixar's new hit movie. It's called "Inside Out." It is a fantastic coming-of-age story about an 11-year-old girl and the five emotions inside of her kind. One of those emotions is anger, voiced by the wonderful comedian, Lewis Black, who joins us here in the studio this morning.

We're going to talk about this film. Saw it yesterday. We're going to talk about that in a second. Great stuff to get to. But we cannot have you here on our couch at CNN NEW DAY and not talk about what's going on in the world right now. Especially what we see going on in South Carolina.

CUOMO: Speaking of anger.

PEREIRA: And the confederate flag. What do you make of all the discussion that's going on? I know you went to college in the south.

LEWIS BLACK, COMEDIAN, AUTHOR, PLAYWRIGHT, SOCIAL CRITIC: I went to UNC. Here's the thing. Here's like interesting. I arrived at UNC in '66-'67. There's a parade that they have each year, a fraternity down there, and I don't know if it's on confederate day. I can't remember. And they're carrying a confederate flag. That was my first year. That was done. They did that and it was done. You don't carry the flag. That was it. That's in '67. How long does it take? We're always a day late and a dollar short. Really? You just arrived at this?

[08:50:01] CUOMO: What did you make of a lot of the Republican candidates not wanting to discuss it early on, saying it's a straight states' right issue?

BLACK: I love that states' rights stuff. It's not a states' rights thing. It's a kind of a tough [audio deleted] to put it simply.

PEREIRA: What about those people --

CUOMO: Which is Latin, of course, for these issues that you must deal with.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: There are those that argue - The people that are against the idea of taking it down, are saying we're proud South Carolinians, this is our heritage, this is part of our history, it should stay up. Your response is?

BLACK: You're able to keep it for a long time and really great and now it's time to move on, okay? And you put it - you know, like everybody has said, in a museum where it belongs. You know, and keep it inside -- You can have it in your house. If it's that important, put it over the fireplace! Stare at it! I mean, wake up and look at that marvelous flag! Unbelievable.

CUOMO: I feel like you're being sarcastic about that. I feel like you don't want to do it at all. What did you make of the reactions coming out of Charleston? All right, so, all blacks, the victims, it's so obvious to everybody, there's push-back from part of the base on the right saying, why do you have to make everything about race? Who says this was a hate crime? If it was a hate crime, it was a hate crime against Christians. And why are you calling it terrorism? It has nothing to do with terrorism - political ideal. You know, we know who really the terrorists are. All those points are pushed back in a situation that should have been so painfully obvious and galvanizing. What do you make of it?

BLACK: I think it's -- once again, you have him brought in to -- That woman forgives him. That's the defining moment of all of this. That's the stunning moment that we have in time. And then you've got this idiocy, this babble around it. What do you mean? Wait a second, they walked in - Walked in, hung out with them, shoots them. You think it was a Christian hate crime?

CUOMO: He is a Christian.

BLACK: There's a ton of white churches he could have wandered into. He's sitting there with a Rhodesian flag on his chest. Who -- I haven't thought about Rhodesia in 20 years.

PEREIRA: You've been obviously watching the presidential -

BLACK: No, I don't really watch it.

PEREIRA: You don't?

BLACK: No, because it's the summer and it's time for fun.

PEREIRA: It's time for movies!

BLACK: OK? You said, you know - Oh man, Donald Trump has got 11 percent in New Hampshire. You know how many people that is?

CUOMO: How many?

BLACK: 12. It's 12 people.

CUOMO: Come on. You're a little surprised -

BLACK: No, I'm not. It's New Hampshire.

CUOMO: They take him seriously there.

BLACK: It's June. They've been out on the docks. The sun is out. They're liquoring up. Who are you voting for? I'm voting for Donald Trump! They're out of their - You know - Look, we have to keep this stuff -- At what point do we learn the election cycle never ends? And some --

CUOMO: It's only 502 days away.

BLACK: Is that what it is?

CUOMO: Absolutely. You want to know how many hours?

PEREIRA: No. Don't put it into hours.

BLACK: But you've got to - Really, literally, let them do what they do. Let them wander around. There's no reason -- I know it's going to cost a lot of political pundits money -- But let them do what they do. Let them just do it and then in September when they've at least kind of gotten the wheat and the chaff somewhat separated, then come in and look at these puncheons (ph).

PEREIRA: All right. So we've got him all amped up and in character to talk about his film. You represent anger. This seems like a real departure for you.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACK: It really is.

PEREIRA: The emotion you tap into is anger. I saw this film yesterday. I went with a theater full of third and fourth graders, which is probably ideally the group it's aimed at. This is actually a really smart, heady, instructional film.

BLACK: Yeah. I say things about this film I never say about anything. And you feel odd saying it because I watch hundreds of people come on and talk about their films. Boy, you've got to see this one. Boy, you're going to really learn about aircraft carriers. My feeling is that this would - This is a film that when I was a kid I wish I'd seen. Because if I'd seen this film, I wouldn't be the voice of anger, OK? I probably would have balanced out my emotions.

CUOMO: It's really passion. I didn't know there were five emotions.

PEREIRA: We have disgust, we have fear, anger, joy and sadness. CUOMO: I mean, my reach is anger in all of those.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: I know - I know.

CUOMO: I think that he's usually not angry enough about things.

PEREIRA: They came to you some five years ago. This shows you how much effort they put into a film like this. Five years ago was the first phone call you got about this film.

BLACK: Yeah. Five years. They called and said, do you want to do a Pixar - Yes, is what I said.

PEREIRA: You hesitated so quickly.

BLACK: And then it was a year until I went out and worked with them. And then I started to see what they were doing. And then it was another six months and I went back out again. It's the only time that you actually experience the entirety of the creative process is by being involved in a Pixar film.

CUOMO: How often were you angry in the process of doing -

PEREIRA: Probably never.

[08:55:02] BLACK: No. They have a good lunch. PEREIRA: They do?

BLACK: They have the greatest lunch in America.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Look, you have to see "Inside Out." It's fantastic. It's not going to be one of those films that you feel like you have to sit through with your kids. You're going to enjoy it. It's really great.

Lewis Black, really a pleasure to have you here.

BLACK: A pleasure. Thank you.

PEREIRA: Appreciate all your thoughts on what's going on in the world.

BLACK: Thank you.

CUOMO: As if we needed it, coming up next, "The Good Stuff." It will not make you angry.

PEREIRA: It won't? You promise?

CUOMO: Maybe. I may get a little angry.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Time with "The Good Stuff." It's so good even Lewis Black can't get angry about it. It comes out of South Carolina. Two teen boys did an extraordinarily brave thing. They pulled their sleeping 89-year-old neighbor to safety after an electrical transformer fire had her house in flames.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOGAN CAMPBELL, SAVED NEIGHBOR FROM FIRE: I'm scared. I mean -- Just trying to get the door down and save her. That's all I can do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: He was scared, but instead of running away, he ran toward what was scaring him. Logan and James eventually got the door down, pulled Pearl Mavery (ph) out of the smoke and flames. James says he never had a second thought.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES BROWN, SAVED NEIGHBOR FROM FIRE: I've known her my whole life and she's helped my grandma raise me and she's just - I'd do anything for her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:00:01] CUOMO: Not an injury on her. Authorities say if the boys waited even a minute longer, the end would have been very different. Thank you, fellas. That's why you're "The Good Stuff."

PEREIRA: Great example of "The Good Stuff." As are you, Lewis Black. Thanks for joining us. It's time now for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello.