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Patriotism And Protests On NFL's Opening Sunday; Hillary Clinton's Pneumonia Jolts 2016 Race; Interview with Rep. Jerry Nadler; Is America Safer 15 Years After 9/11? Aired 06:30-7a ET

Aired September 12, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Opening Sunday in the NFL on 9/11 and there was drama on the field and off. Coy Wire has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report." Go ahead.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Chris, let's zoom through these headlines. Yesterday, one big question was who and how many would join Colin Kaepernick's protest of racial injustice during the national anthem.

And on the 15th anniversary of 9/11, we saw players and entire teams using the moment as a call for change. The game in Seattle saw both the Seahawks and the Dolphins taking stances before the game.

For Seattle, all 53 players locking arms in a show of solidarity and on the other sideline Dolphin's pro-ball running back, Arian Foster, three of his teammates taking a knee during the anthem.

The Kansas City chiefs also stood arm in arm with cornerback, Marcus Peters raising a fist at the end of the line. Patriots' players, David McCorty (ph), Mark Tallas Bennett wait until after the anthem to raise their fists.

While (inaudible) helped hold the giant flag on the field making statements before the New England played the Arizona Cardinals.

[06:35:05]Break out the smelling salt because Pats fans, you can get high, no Brady, no Frank, no problem said Jimmy Garoppolo. Tom Brady serving that four-game suspension. Garoppolo serving pots of gold at the end of rainbows on the road allowed Brown complete 73 percent of his passes, a touchdown, no interceptions lead the Pats to beat the favorite Cardinals 23-21.

And finally, did you see the battle at Bristol? New record for the largest crowd ever at a college football game. Nearly 157,000 fans crammed into NASCAR Bristol Motor Speedway to watch Tennessee defeat Virginia Tech.

Alisyn, a couple more games tonight, Monday night football Pittsburg and Washington in the early came, and we also have the Rams at the Niners in the late one. More to come.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I am all over those, Coy. Thank you for that preview.

All right. Hillary Clinton's campaign revealing that she is being treated for pneumonia. Should the candidates be more transparent about their health histories? Clinton backer, New York congressman, Jerry Nadler, joins us next with his thoughts.

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[06:40:26]

CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton's health under the microscope today after being diagnosed with pneumonia. Clinton fell ill at the 9/11 Memorial yesterday. She's seen here stumbling as she got into her van. Her campaign has canceled a two-day trip to the west coast.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler who has endorsed Hillary Clinton. Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

REP. JERRY NADLER, (D-NY): My pleasure.

CAMEROTA: People were worried yesterday. Voters, you know, just regular viewers were worried when they saw her stumbling getting into her van. Should her campaign have said a day earlier, she has pneumonia?

NADLER: Ideally, they should have. But I think in this day in age when everything about a candidate's health or anything else is exaggerated, I thought they could avoid doing that. Unfortunately, they couldn't.

But the fact of the matter is she is a generally healthy candidate and person. She has walking pneumonia and she'll get over it.

CAMEROTA: Were you with her yesterday?

NADLER: Yes, a little while before that.

CAMEROTA: How was she?

NADLER: She seemed fine. I was standing near her at the memorial service. It was very hot and stifling. I could see someone feeling a little faint or something. I left because I had to go somewhere else just shortly before she did so I didn't see the whole incident.

CAMEROTA: Someone in the picture of health could feel faint yesterday. I mean, and the punishing pace that these candidates keep up 24/7. I mean, it's incredible the stamina they have. But that, this video here was really troubling. I mean, watching her stumble a few times and seemingly almost fall to the ground.

NADLER: Well, when you have pneumonia and you have and it's very hot and you have heat, you could stumble. That could happen. It doesn't mean there's anything significant about your health that is going to go on more than a few days.

CAMEROTA: Is it time for both candidates to release their full medical records so the voters really know for sure and don't have any sort of voters' remorse in November?

NADLER: I think it's time for candidates to release more. Hillary has released considerably more medical records than Trump has. Trump's medical record --

CAMEROTA: It wasn't a medical record. It was a letter from his doctor.

NADLER: Yes, it was a joke. No real information in it. Hillary, you see her cholesterol level, the standard things and these things --

CAMEROTA: I mean, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has described it as a two-page summary, but certainly not the full report.

NADLER: I think it would serve everybody if both candidates released more, but, you can't compare the two campaigns. She released a reasonable medical summary and he did not. She has shown her taxes and he has not.

So much of this campaign really should be about the fact that he taxes. Why do his business relationships with Vladimir Putin and has he paid taxes? How many people has he cheated? I mean, we know he cheats people all the time.

CAMEROTA: His taxes won't reveal that.

NADLER: They'll reveal a lot. I wonder what they would reveal. The fact is it has become standard that every presidential candidate releases taxes without doing that and yes, he says he's released financial disclosures. I do financial disclosures as a candidate, as a congressman, they don't show nearly as much as your taxes do.

CAMEROTA: Look, we ask for these things all the time. How do we compel the candidates to release more?

NADLER: You can't compel it, only the voters and someone said on the show a little while ago, only the voters can. But I think far more important, frankly, than the health results, we have two healthy candidates, I'm sure, is the tax returns because what would that reveal that we don't know?

CAMEROTA: I know you visited 9/11 yesterday as you were saying and what were your thoughts 15 years later?

NADLER: My thoughts were what a waste and what a terrible thing obviously. I mean, the Lower Manhattan has recovered and twice as many people live there and it's economically booming. But the devastation and the people -- I also remember, I represent ground zero.

And I worked very closely with Hillary when she was senator from New York and getting the $20 billion in funding for recovery and other things, and in trying to deal with the health impact.

And here people don't even talk about it. It was the Bush administration and Mayor Giuliani who are telling people it is safe to go back to work when some of us are screaming don't go back to work, don't send your kids to (inaudible) in high school. You're going to get sick. Move Wall Street. We were saying that.

It was obvious that the toxins were all over the place and thousands of people are sick today and will die because the Bush administration, Christy Todd Whitman and Mayor Giuliani said it was safe when all the data said it wasn't safe.

CAMEROTA: And I know that you're fighting for the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act to be reauthorized. What will that do?

[06:45:01]NADLER: It was reauthorized last year. We got it reauthorized. That provides two things. It provides health benefits, health care under central health that specializes in all the diseases for 9/11 for all the first responders and the survivors.

That is people who live there, lives downtown or work downtown, or go to school downtown or happen to be there, and secondly, it provides victims' compensation.

CAMEROTA: Doesn't it need to be reauthorized in December or no?

NADLER: No. We reauthorized it last December. It's reauthorized for seven to five years for the health benefits and five years for the victim's compensation. We may have to revisit in five years.

CAMEROTA: There you go. Congressman Jerry Nadler, thanks so much for being here. Let's go to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, so we're seeing something evolve in the NFL right now. It started with one quarterback's silent protest over social injustice, but now it's resonating with a larger audience. You see more players showing solidarity and taking different steps, taking a knee during the "national anthem." What is going to happen next and what is the NFL going to do and what is the discussion we should be having, next.

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[06:50:01]

CUOMO: The NFL season opened with a range of players showing solidarity with Colin Kaepernick's "national anthem" protest, but also a lot of solidarity with being Americans.

You did see raised fists during the anthem like the Kansas City Chief's Marcus Peter to the Seattle Seahawks linked arm in arm the entire team, an obvious display of unity.

Let's discuss what's going on and what the reaction maybe and what you grow out of it. We have analyst and sports columnist for "USA Today," Christine Brennan, and Kavitha Davidson, writer for ESPNW and ESPN magazine.

Christine, what are you hearing around the league about how this is evolving? What players are thinking about in this vein? CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Chris, it's a great question. The word you picked is the perfect word, evolving. For me what I think we saw happening yesterday was maybe a little bit of a stop sign. Like we were at the intersection and everyone kind of said, whoa, it's 9/11. Let's not have a mass protest here. Let's be respectful.

We saw that as you pointed out over and over again. There were very few individual protests and individual actions. Signs of disobedience or any kind of protest 9/11.

What I think we're going to see as a continuation of it next week moving forward. It's not just the NFL, we saw it in soccer with Megan Ropino, high school, college, et cetera. I think it will begin in earnest, again, whatever that means exactly the numbers I have no idea.

But I think 9/11 was a moment for many people to pause, which is why we saw the linked arms versus individuals doing things and I think we'll see much more next week and I also believe the NFL has done a very good job so far of threading the needle of saying we prefer, we asked our athletes to stand.

But we also understand and respect as all of us, of course, understand that to respect the rights of any individual in the United States to do what they want to do. The NFL I think has handled this correctly, at least so far.

CAMEROTA: Kavitha, how do you see it? The linked arms and everything else, a raised fist. I mean, do you think this is a trend that we will see grow about personal statements or was this 9/11?

KAVITHA DAVIDSON, WRITER, ESPNW AND ESPN THE MAGAZINE: I think this was absolutely a trend. When Kaepernick first came out and did his demonstration a lot of people criticized the means and the methods and a lot of people said it was disrespectful or flat out not going to be effective.

I think he has proven people wrong at least on that second point because, obviously, it is spreading and the fact that we're still talking about this week's later means it is effective and his message is starting to get across.

CUOMO: Well, here's the distinction when you wear the ribbon of a certain color or breast cancer awareness, it is awareness issue, right? People aren't aware of what a big killer it is, it raises awareness.

This is different, Christine, because everybody in this country should know why they're protesting what they're protesting. That's not a statement on the merits. This is not a secret.

So, the question becomes they can link arms and put up a fist and whatever, is this a means towards having the discussion, a meaningful discussion that these types of protests suggest or do you think that's beyond the reach of these players in this league? BRENNAN: I don't think anything is beyond the reach of the players in the league. I think again whether we individually agree or disagree with what the athletes are doing, I think the fact is they can do it, of course, is a wonderful, fabulous thing that part of our country.

And I have always believed and you guys we talked about this a lot, issues that are in our culture that sports takes us to different kind of conversations and reaches different people.

And whether it was the horrors at Penn State with Jerry Sandusky or the Ray Rice video two years ago and the punch and domestic violence on the power of role models and concussions with our kids, not just with our top professional athletes.

All these things are so important. I believe any conversation is a great conversation. If sports takes us and enables that conversation even more, then I think that's all for the good, for not only in sports and for these athletes and individuals and for journalism, but also for the country at large.

CAMEROTA: Kavitha, there was something unsettling happened at the games. This is on 9/11. President Obama prerecorded a message about where we are on 9/11 and it was booed at some stadiums. What's that about?

DAVIDSON: Yes, I did find that very bothersome. I don't think he said anything in that statement that was particularly controversial. It was actually a fairly standard, vanilla statement for the president addressing 9/11 at a football game.

We also had George W. Bush come out and do a coin toss and he wasn't booed, which I think is interesting, considering that a lot of these issues have to do with respect for the military.

CAMEROTA: Is it because of where -- was this a particular stadium where President Obama was booed? Were these feisty fans or something more?

DAVIDSON: I mean, sports fans in general will take any opportunity to boo, so, there's absolutely that. I believed he was booed in Baltimore. But at the same time I think just at this point the NFL has such its own created patriotism that NFL fans take a pride in standing out against things that they perceive to be rubbing up against that. So, I think that's really what that was about. I didn't really like the president's statement was booed.

CUOMO: New York, Baltimore, Philly, you tend to get a bigger boo index in those bigger cities. But it will be nice to see if the players take the next step and talk about why they're protesting him and what these issues are and what they mean to them. That would be a great discussion to see unfold. Christine, Kavitha, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton's campaign sidelined by a case of pneumonia. Should she be more transparent about health? Should Donald Trump? We talk to Donald Trump's former campaign manager next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton's pneumonia jolts the presidential race.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She has a serious diagnosis and people in this country ought to know about it.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We got information late and it still seems incomplete.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You can put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. The racists, sexists, homophobic, xenophobic.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She could walk into this arena right now, shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching right smack in the middle of the heart and she wouldn't be prosecuted.

GOVERNOR MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're good, hard-working Americans and they all deserve your support.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Neither one of them (inaudible), both of them are good people.

CLINTON: I think his ignorance about Russia and Putin are dangerous.

TRUMP: Honestly, I don't know the gentleman. He's been nice to me.

CLINTON: This is just more of his loose talk that really doesn't have any substance to it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. Hillary Clinton's pneumonia --