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Reddit User Apologizes; Former Brickmaker Builds Nursing Career; Trump & Putin Meeting; U.S. Weighs Options for North Korea; Trump's Relationship with Allies. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired July 05, 2017 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00] BILL CARTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Was Jewish. He -- he was obviously a -- you know, a -- not a prankster. People are defending it, well, this was just a joke and --
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And they're saying it's a teen.
CARTER: Yes, they're saying it's a teenager.
CUOMO: It is not a teen.
CARTER: Right.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: No, we can confirm it's not a kid.
CARTER: It's not a kid. So, I mean, you can argue that CNN is actually protecting this guy because if you revealed his name what he did was really vile and nasty and I think he would be subject to ridicule.
CUOMO: Should CNN --
CAMEROTA: Oh, absolutely. Well, I mean, I think that we're protecting his safety.
CARTER: Yes.
CAMEROTA: That CNN is protecting his safety --
CARTER: Yes.
CAMEROTA: Because --
CUOMO: Is that our job?
CARTER: It's not our -- it's not our job.
CAMEROTA: I think that if we can --
CARTER: But -- but, I mean, the sequence is --
CAMEROTA: Should we if we can?
CARTER: The sequence is interesting. He -- he apologized supposedly before CNN contact -- he contacts then CNN. CAMEROTA: Yes.
CARTER: But he probably had heard or sensed that he was about to be found out.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CARTER: And -- but now as a -- interestingly, his apology, which he then posts, gets removed from Reddit. Why does it get removed from Reddit? Because they don't want this. They don't want people to apologize for this behavior. They want to be able to defend this kind of behavior.
CAMEROTA: I think that that's really notable, Bill, because -- I mean this is what I thought was remarkable, Chris, was that we saw somebody who was a troll apologize, you know? We -- we wish that they wouldn't do it, obviously, to begin with.
CARTER: Right.
CAMEROTA: The racist stuff is repugnant, obviously. But it went to the next level where some humanity snuck in accidentally somehow and here's what -- and I -- I --
CARTER: Maybe it wasn't accidental.
CAMEROTA: Well, look, I mean, it snuck in, OK?
CARTER: Yes. Yes.
CAMEROTA: However it got there, all right?
CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER & EDITOR-AT-LARGE: And --
CAMEROTA: And so here's what he said. Let me read it. "I would also like to apologize for the posts made that were racist, bigoted and anti-Semitic. I am in no way this kind of person. I would never support any kind of violence or actions against others simply for what they believe in, nor would I carry out any violence against anyone based on that or support anyone who did."
One more thing, Chris, before I let you speak --
CILLIZZA: Sure.
CAMEROTA: Because this is important. He talks about his own motivation. "I was trolling and posting things to get a reaction on Reddit and I never meant any of the hateful things I said in those posts." This is our world.
CILLIZZA: Yes.
CAMEROTA: People are doing this for sport and fun and I think that when somebody apologizes, it's just a moment that we should note.
CILLIZZA: I think worth noting as well. Though, there's a difference between apologizing and sort of being broadly forgiven for doing something that was not a one-off. As we've talked about before on the show today, this was not a one-off, as Bill notes. I mean this is the -- he had done things like this in the past. I think it is a wider lens into a number of people who -- and I take him at his word here -- who do not understand -- and some people do understand this -- but who do not understand that doing things on the Internet for and about people --
CAMEROTA: Have consequences.
CILLIZZA: Have real implications.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CILLIZZA: That, you know, you can't just do this stuff and say, like, well, I never knew it would hurt anyone and then say going on television and attacking someone adhominem and say, oh, I didn't -- why would anyone be offended by that? Do people watch television? I mean, you know, that's the --
CAMEROTA: Agreed.
CILLIZZA: It doesn't take away from, yes, I think you make the right point, Alisyn, which is, apologizing for this kind of content is better than not apologizing for this kind of content. But at the same time there is a --
CUOMO: Right. It's a little convenient to apologize when you're exposed.
CILLIZZA: Right. Right. And it --
CUOMO: And there's a lot of stuff on this person's site. You're not a bigot by accident.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CUOMO: But, you know, whatever. You want to be big-hearted about it, that's fine. And CNN's not exposing his identity.
The president, though, wind up being the main story here, though, right, because there are a lot of haters and hateful people and ugly people in our world, unfortunately. When you take what they are and use it as president of the United States, now the White House is saying they didn't get it from Reddit.
CARTER: Right.
CUOMO: Well, then, what does that mean?
CILLIZZA: Right. And, Chris, just -- just very quickly --
CUOMO: Yes, Chris.
CILLIZZA: Just very quickly on that. I do think it is notable that the White House has said nothing about where he got it -- CUOMO: Right.
CILLIZZA: How he found it. Who -- but what they have said is, he didn't get it from Reddit.
CARTER: Right.
CILLIZZA: Well, you know --
CARTER: Well, they're trying to distance themselves from this guy for this very reason --
CILLIZZA: Yes.
CARTER: Because he is a bigot and he did come across this way and he was anti-Semitic and they don't want to be associated with that.
CUOMO: Well, should they have to say where they got it, because I feel like what we're doing right now is, there -- this can't be -- they're not telling the truth. But let's -- let's leave it alone because we've got more important things to talk about. I don't think you can ever surrender high ground on the truth --
CARTER: Yes.
CUOMO: Because, let me tell you something, the White House won't surrender it if they have it on the media, and they shouldn't.
CAMEROTA: But we don't know if they're telling the truth. We just know they're not being transparent. We know they're not being transparent.
CUOMO: But it -- but they don't -- don't they have to answer the question?
CAMEROTA: Sure.
CARTER: Well, they -- they --
CUOMO: Because if they didn't get it from Reddit, fine. Where'd you get it?
CARTER: (INAUDIBLE). They don't -- they -- clearly they proved they don't have to do anything. They shut things down all the time when they don't want to talk. So they don't have to do it. It does sort of -- it is a commentary on their approach if they don't do it.
CUOMO: See, I would argue they do have to do it.
CARTER: But who's going to force them, Chris? They -- they are going to say, no, it was --
CUOMO: (INAUDIBLE), the media stay on it.
CILLIZZA: Well, Chris, they don't -- Bill's right, they don't -- Bill's right, they don't have to do it. They don't have to do it. Should they do it? Yes. I think they should do it. CARTER: Yes, they (INAUDIBLE).
CUOMO: And I'm -- and I'm taking it a different way, which is, I'm not talking about legally. I'm talking about the right thing to do for the American people.
CARTER: Yes.
CUOMO: What are we dealing with right now? We're dealing with a crisis of confidence. We're dealing with the politicization of truth.
CARTER: Right.
CUOMO: That only that is true if I agree with it already.
[08:35:02] CARTER: Yes.
CUOMO: That needs to stop. Everybody says it does, except most people are lying when they say that. They really don't want it to stop. It plays to their advantage. But I think they do have to address this.
CARTER: In -- in a world of principle, they do.
CUOMO: If you didn't get it from Reddit, then you have to tell where you say you got it.
CARTER: Chris -- right. But in the world of principle, they do. But if you just throw that out the window, which they've done repeatedly on a number of topics, they don't -- they prove they don't have to do it because they're not being forced to do it. Their base doesn't care for them to do it. In fact, they'd be upset in a way if they did it. It would look like a concession to the media.
CILLIZZA: That's right.
CARTER: Which they don't want to ever do.
CAMEROTA: Well, listen, here's -- the guy who did it, OK, the Reddit guy who did it, here's what he's saying that we haven't heard from the White House. This is just, again, a strikingly different tone now that it's all come out. Here's what he's saying. "The meme was created purely as satire. It was not meant to be a call to violence against CNN or any other news affiliation. I have the highest respect for the journalist community and they put their lives on the line every day with the jobs that they do in reporting the news." I know you're laughing. He didn't have to say this. He didn't have to say this.
CARTER: No, no, he didn't, but to me that's the -- this is the reason they take it down. They don't want people saying that.
CAMEROTA: Reddit. Sure, that's different. Why is the Reddit moderator taking it down? I think that's gross that they're taking this down.
CARTER: They don't want -- they don't want --
CUOMO: But you don't think that it's out of convenience that this man is apologizing?
CAMEROTA: I don't care.
CARTER: Well, maybe, but it's still --
CAMEROTA: I think that the words are nice to hear and it would be nice to have ever the White House say that they understand there are consequences to showing violent satire.
CILLIZZA: That's right, words -- words matter. Words matter.
CUOMO: But saying fake news or any ugly things like that --
CILLIZZA: You know, particularly when the 33 million --
CUOMO: This isn't just trolling is all I'm saying and I think you've got to be quick to forgive somebody who's coming forward out of convenience because they're worried about being exposed. Don't forget, there's a trade here.
CAMEROTA: I mean --
CUOMO: I'm going to be really apologetic.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CUOMO: Don't expose me.
CAMEROTA: I understand. I'm (INAUDIBLE) --
CARTER: I don't think we give him credit, but the statement is worth crediting.
CAMEROTA: Yes, the statement, I think, is worth crediting. And also, I just -- I'm encouraging this tone. I just want to encourage the tone. If you do something wrong, it's OK to apologize after doing something that was repugnant publicly.
CARTER: Right.
CUOMO: I just don't think you're a bigot by mistake, that's all.
CARTER: Yes.
CAMEROTA: All right, on that note, Chris and I have talked a lot so you guys didn't get a chance to. Thank you very much, Bill and Chris.
CUOMO: President Trump is on his way to Europe. This is his second overseas trip. He's got a big, big situation on his plate. North Korea just did something they have never been able to do before. So what needs to happen at this G-20 Summit? We've got Christiane Amanpour giving you "The Bottom Line," coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:40:57] CAMEROTA: Time now for the "Five Things to Know for Your New Day."
President Trump departing about 30 minutes ago on his second foreign trip. He will head to Poland first then the G-20 Summit in Germany where the president will have his first face-to-face meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin.
CUOMO: North Korea releasing video appearing to show its first ever successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. South Korea and the U.S. conducting joint military drills just hours after that test.
CAMEROTA: Qatar responding to a list of 13 demands for a Saudi-led coalition of four Arab nations. The response has not been made public yet. The countries cut off ties with the Gulf nation last month over concerns about Qatar's alleged support of extremism.
CUOMO: Forty-four states refusing to provide some voter information to the Trump Election Integrity Commission. Meanwhile, a privacy group has gone to federal court asking the commission to stop the collection effort.
CAMEROTA: New York City's police commissioner calling the deadly shooting of an officer this morning, quote, "an assassination." A gunman shot the officer in the head while she was sitting in a police vehicle. Nearby officers chased down the suspect and killed him.
CUOMO: For more on the "Five Things to Know," you can go to cnn.com/newday for the latest.
CAMEROTA: So, President Trump making his way to the G-20 Summit in Germany where he'll be navigating the threat from North Korea and gearing up for a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin. We will have "The Bottom Line" with Christiane Amanpour.
CUOMO: But, first, when a British brick maker suffered a stroke, he thought his life was over. But then he had a fateful conversation with a nurse and it inspired an entirely new career. CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta heads across the pond for this week's "Turning Points."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Each day in St. Helen's, England, registered nurse John McElroy wakes up to his dream job. His path into medicine was unusual.
JOHN MCELROY, NURSE: I worked in a local brick factory for 25 years. Just remembered I had like a mild headache. The world was spinning. It was as if something had just exploded.
GUPTA: John was rushed to the hospital. His diagnosis, a stroke.
MCELROY: And I was speaking, but it was just gibberish and I lost sight in my right eye.
GUPTA: He had trouble with both balance and coordination. McElroy soon lost his job. The stroke, it seemed, took everything.
MCELROY: And I was thinking like, you know, what can I do? I'm too young.
GUPTA: A chance conversation with a nurse rekindled his childhood dream.
MCELROY: And then she said, you'd make a fantastic nurse. I wanted to be a nurse when I was younger.
GUPTA: After 25 years in a brick factory and a stroke, nursing school was tough.
MCELROY: I can't tell you how many times I thought of -- I wanted to stop.
GUPTA: But he didn't. He earned his degree and he became a nurse.
MCELROY: You're doing really well.
GUPTA: Today, the majority of McElroy's patients have brain or spinal issues.
MCELROY: When I walk in onto the ward, it is actually a dream for me. I know exactly how they feel.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:48:07] CAMEROTA: The president is in the air heading to Europe for his second international trip and in a few hours he will land in Poland. Then on Friday, he'll take part in G-20 Summit and meet for the first time with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
So let's get "The Bottom Line" with CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.
Christiane, great to see you. So what do we expect from this first face-to-face meeting with Putin?
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, of course everybody's agog because, you know, last time the president came there were all sorts of dramatic happenings and this time he's going to meet Putin, who's been the bete noire of his administration and the main focus inside the United States politically and legally. And so we don't know, is he going to come out with any, you know, soft talk about Putin? Is he going to even suggest perhaps that sanction relief might be on the table? Is he going to talk about the meddling in the U.S. elections? It's really going to be interesting because up until now everybody who's watching and analyzing this relationship keeps wanting to know why President Trump is not harsher on President Putin, not just about the collusion, the interference in the U.S. election, but also his expansionist of policies abroad. CUOMO: I mean there's certainly a lot there to unpack. Look at North
Korea. An added wrinkle there now. He tweets this morning, the president of the United States, in a way that seems a fair reading of it to suggest that he's done trying to work with China on North Korea. What do you do with something like that as you enter the G-20?
AMANPOUR: Well, Chris, that's a really good question because you remember just a few months ago, shortly after the inauguration, one of the centerpieces, one of the first things that President Trump did was meet with President Xi and afterwards, you know, was very sort of flattering. They were both sort of flattering each other. And President Trump believed that Xi would be the key to North Korea and the denuclearization.
[08:50:02] Since that has not happened, you've seen the rhetoric and the action between the two countries develop, get harsher, and more belligerent. And not only that, you've seen President Xi and President Putin, ahead of Trump's visit, get together in Moscow, as they did yesterday, and put out their own North Korea solution, and that was to the detriment of the United States policy, basically saying North Korea should freeze, didn't even condemn it, despite North Korea's violation of the U.N. Security Council, but just freeze its program, but only in return for a U.S. freeze of military exercises with South Korea and the U.S. THAAD missile defense shield. So that is a no go for the United States. So it's very interesting to see how that will work out.
And then there's very little that we know could actually have an effect on North Korea. And I tell you why I say that, because I've been speaking to former CIA and DIA analysts now at the Heritage Foundation, Bruce Klingner, who was one of only a very few people who recently met for the very first time with North Korean diplomats on neutral ground in Sweden. This is what he said about the prospects for de-escalation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRUCE KLINGNER, FORMER CIA DEPUTY DIVISION CHIEF FOR KOREA: They made very clear, very emphatically clear that denuclearization is totally off the table. There's nothing that the U.S. or Seoul could offer to induce them to abandon their nuclear arsenal. They became irritated when we tried various options of suggested things that would get them back to the negotiating table. They said, quite simply, accept us as a nuclear state and then we're willing to either talk about a peace treaty or fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, Chris and Alisyn, that's dramatic, accept us for what we are, or we have you over a barrel and we might fight. Now, everybody's always wondered whether North Korea's more bluff than -- and bluster than action. But, frankly, its action speaks louder than words. It has relentlessly pursued a ballistic missile program that now, according to the United States and others, could even reach Alaska.
CUOMO: And shifted the onus onto the United States. You had the -- General Brooks (ph) this morning there in South Korea saying only self-restraint stopped a war this time. That sounds like just talk.
CAMEROTA: So that brings in the U.S. allies and NATO, of course. And, as you know, Christiane, you know, body language experts had a field day from the president's last trip with looking at the handshakes, you know, analyzing the pushes of, you know, various world leaders to get to the front. How do you think that President Trump will be received by allies?
AMANPOUR: Well, to be honest, the body language was really interesting because it was the first time he had met with his allies. But the substance was even more interesting. The fact that the line, which is fundamental to NATO, in other words, we support Article 5, we're on board, an attack on one is an attack on all of us, was removed from President Trump's speech and that caused a lot of jitters. And after that, Angela Merkel said, well, we're going to have to, you know, start going it alone and looking after ourselves. The Canadians are saying the same thing.
So it's that. It's the threat of trade protectionism. It's the pullout of the climate accord. All those issues are front and center for the allies and they're going to -- we're all going to be waiting to see whether there's any course correction on some of those discordant notes from the G-7 Summit last month in Italy.
CUOMO: Boy, so much to look forward to in this situation. CNN's going to cover it. We have the best in the business, like Christiane, on it for you. Thanks for being with us.
AMANPOUR: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Let's do some "Good Stuff."
CUOMO: Please.
CAMEROTA: OK. You got it. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:58:48] CUOMO: Hump day "Good Stuff." For 18 years, his job has been putting a smile on the face of his customers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Need some help there?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: That's Chris Visa (ph). Most say that he's thrived as a greeter at this Lowe's in York County, Pennsylvania.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first person I look forward to seeing is Chris, because he's always here greeting the customers.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: And a lot of people feel like that. So co-workers didn't think twice when they saw Chris having to use store supplies to repair his wheelchair. Instead, they raised $27,000 to give him some new wheels.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a small town and it's very nice for everyone to come together and help me out. I'm glad to help anybody out and they returned the favor and I really appreciate it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: He says he's so grateful, he's going to have tears in his eyes for the rest of his life. But just think about that. York County, Pennsylvania, you know, they don't have money growing on trees down there.
CAMEROTA: Right. Sure.
CUOMO: But they came together. $27,000.
CAMEROTA: $27,000 is how much a wheelchair costs?
CUOMO: Yes, well, you know, to get the ones that have -- yes -- yes, they're too expensive. There's no question about it.
CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.
CUOMO: But this is an advanced wheelchair, obviously. But, still, it's really expensive. They came together and they made it happen for Chris.
[09:00:01] CAMEROTA: That is a great story. A great "Good Stuff." Thank you very much.
Time now for CNN "NEWSROOM" with Poppy Harlow and John Berman.
Take it away, guys.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, good morning, you guys. Have a great day. We have a lot to get to. Let's get started.
