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New Day

Shooting Survivors and Families Console Las Vegas Victims; September Jobs Report; Cam Newton Apologizes; Trump Tillerson Feud; White House Chaos. Aired 8:30-9:00a ET

Aired October 06, 2017 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:30:08] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: The 58 families of those killed in the Las Vegas massacre face an unimaginable future. Our next guests, Sandy Phillips and Patricia Maisch, are reaching out to those. They are in Las Vegas trying to offer whatever help and solus they can because they know all too well what the pain of gun violence brings. Sandy's daughter, Jess Ghawi, was murdered in Aurora in the movie theater massacre in 2012. Patricia survived the 2011 Tucson shooting that killed six people, injured more than a dozen, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

Ladies, thank you for being here. I see, Sandy, you are wearing Jessica right on your chest because you will never forget. We will never forget. Tell me what you're doing in Las Vegas.

SANDY PHILLIPS, DAUGHTER JESSICA GHAWI KILLED IN AURORA, CO THEATER SHOOTING: Well, several years ago we started an organization called Jesse's Message, and that is expanding now into an organization that will be called Survivors of Power. And we work with survivors of shootings all over the country and help them to become empowered in their own communities to tell their stories and to find an outlet to strengthen their resolve to continue living, because some of this, when this first happens, all you want to do is curl up and die.

So when we heard, we have gone to other shootings, Newtown, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, and Orlando with the Pulse shooting, and found out that we made a real difference just by holding somebody's hand.

HARLOW: Yes.

PHILLIPS: And letting them know that this -- this is a life-changing event. You never go back to your former life.

HARLOW: No.

PHILLIPS: This is your new norm. So that's why we're here, along -- along with trying to make sure that the national compassion fund is pushed out so people know to donate there so all the money that's donated gets to the victims and survivors.

HARLOW: Patricia, you are a survivor. You survived the 2011 shooting in Tucson. When you woke up Monday morning, and you saw, oh, my God, this happened again in our country, what did you think and why did it bring you to Las Vegas today?

PATRICIA MAISCH, SURVIVOR OF 2011 TUCSON SHOOTING: I actually knew of the shooting before I went to bed on Sunday night. And my son texted me. He lives in Los Angeles. And he got some information. So, unfortunately, it was a very restless night thinking about -- at that time they said there were two dead and 24 wounded. And when I listened to the number of gunshots, I thought, you know, that's -- that's just not possible that that's all that were killed and wounded. And, of course, as we now know, there's 58 innocence dead and more than 500 people wounded.

Then those wounds will be forever wounds. And the people who experienced them, like me, that did not have a physical wound, those sights, those sounds stay with you. You know, sometimes they're at my back. Sometimes they're right beside me. And sometimes they're in my face.

HARLOW: Oh.

MAISCH: And you just learn to incorporate that in your daily lives. It doesn't go away. And so my hope for these victims is that they get the help they need, both financially, that some of the scam artists out there that are collecting money don't get away with it this time.

HARLOW: Yes.

MAISCH: And that they get the personal help that they need to move on. Not move on, but incorporate that and to continue their lives in some fashion.

HARLOW: Sandy, can you talk about what these parents, especially, are going to go through? I mean, you know, losing a child, losing a father, losing a mother. What is the road ahead like for them?

PHILLIPS: Rough. Extremely rough. First they have to take care of taking care of the services and --

HARLOW: Right.

PHILLIPS: Which is daunting. But it's really not what happens to them right now. They'll have lots of family and friends around them during this initial time. It's several weeks from now. It's several months from now. It's a year from now. All the firsts. The first year anniversary of the shooting, the first birthday, the first, whatever, celebration -- Christmas, Easter, whatever that first celebration is after your child's death is crushing.

So we try our best to stay in touch with these people and let them know that when those times come, we're a phone call away, we're a text away. If they're anywhere close to us, we can go over and hold their hand. Whatever it is that they need. We just try to help them find their way and let them know what we've learned through our experience and try to make -- lesson the load a little bit for them. [08:35:13] HARLOW: We are so glad that you are both there lessening

the load, as you say. Sandy Phillips, Patricia. And I would also note, Patricia, you are wearing a purple scarf also to mark domestic violence month, and a message you want to send as well.

So thank you both, ladies, and thank you for being there.

MAISCH: Can I say one thing, Poppy? We'd like to say they were taken, not that they were lost.

HARLOW: Yes, you're right. You are right. They were murdered. They were taken. Thank you for being there to help the survivors and the families. We'll talk to you both soon.

MAISCH: Thanks.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Important. What we say matters, and that was a great interview. Poppy, thank you very much.

So, Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton now says he's sorry he made sexist remarks to a female reporter. No question about that. What did he say in his apology? Next in the "Bleacher Report."

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[08:40:11] HARLOW: All right, it's time for CNN "Money Now." The Labor Department releasing its September jobs report. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans in the Money Center with the numbers.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi. I'm going to call it a really messed up jobs report and here's why. Harvey and Irma really screwed this up. Look at that. A sharp boom breaks on job creation in this country in the month. We lost 33,000 net new jobs.

Here's why. Eleven million people with jobs lived in the counties that had disasters declared because of those hurricanes. So this is all hurricane stuff here. It's the first time in a long time we have seen a decline in jobs created.

But this is why I say it's so messed up. The unemployment rate down to 4.2 percent. That is now the lowest since early 2001, continuing that trend of steady jobs creation driving down the unemployment rate.

Here are the sectors quickly. Look at this. If you are a wage -- you know, a wage earner, a paycheck to paycheck earner in any of those places, restaurants, bars, any of those places in Texas and in Florida, you really got hurt. You lost some wages. And that's where we saw those jobs lost, you guys.

CUOMO: Christine Romans, playing hurt, thank you for coming in with a cold and doing this for us. Appreciate it. Have a good weekend, my friend. Feel better.

Panthers quarterback Cam Newton apologizes a day after intense and warranted criticism for sexist remarks to a female reporter. Coy Wire has more in the "Bleacher Report." He needed to do this.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Chris, and he -- Newton says that he has two daughters of his own that he is teaching they can grow up to be whatever they want to be. So why would he say it was funny to hear a female reporter talk about pass routes? He apologized for it last night. Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAM NEWTON, CAROLINA PANTHERS: After careful thought, I understand that my word choice was extremely degrading and disrespectful to women. And, to be honest, that was not my intentions. And if you are a person who took offense to what I said, I sincerely apologize to you. And to the young people who see this, I hope that you learn something from this as well. Don't be like me, be better than me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: The apology was too little too late for some. Earlier in the day, Newton lost a sponsorship with Dannon yogurt, who said that his comments were sexist and disparaging to all women.

HARLOW: Coy Wire, thank you for bringing us that. We appreciate it.

The White House on the defensive over the growing Russia investigation. Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein joins us with his take, next.

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[08:47:05] CUOMO: In a CNN exclusive, we're learning that Special Counsel Bob Mueller and his team met with the former British spy who put together that controversial dossier about Russian collusion.

Let's get to "The Bottom Line" on this development and much more with CNN political contributor Carl Bernstein.

We don't know what Mueller met with him, but we know that his team did. What do you make of the current state of play in the White House?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: I think it's impossible to separate the rage that the president is in about Mueller's investigation from the rest of the president's rage about many things happening around him, including Tillerson's comment that the president is a moron. Purportedly he made that comment.

And what there is a sense of, people I talk to in the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill, is that the wheels are coming off this presidency and, in the White House, that there is an attempt by those closest to the president, especially Kelly, especially the military leaders, to try and constrain the president from his own inclinations to say wild things, to act irresponsibly. It's almost as if there's a protector around the president. He's constantly complaining, going into rages about the investigation, about disloyalty among his aides. It's an extraordinary situation, unlike anything I have seen in 50 years in Washington.

HARLOW: The protectorate around the president preventing from chaos if you asked Republican Senator Bob Corker. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: I think Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis and Chief of Staff Kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos. And I support them very much.

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HARLOW: So, Carl, is that a one-off, an anomaly from a Republican senator on his way out who wants to voice his opinions, or is that reflective of what you're hearing among other Republicans on The Hill?

BERNSTEIN: No. And I believe that the big story right now, if we can get to it in the press by going to Republican members of the Congress, talking to them on background, going to military leaders and leaders in the intelligence community is that many of them have lost confidence in this president. They doubt his fitness to be president. They doubt his competence. They're worried that he has to be restrained and constrained by these military leaders.

Remember, George Washington resigned his commission so that we could have civilian control of the military. Now we increasingly have military control of the presidency. This is not quite what our system was meant to do. And at the same time, people are counting on these military leaders, Mattis, McMaster, et cetera, et cetera, to constrain and keep this president from doing wild things. This whole question now of the Iranian deal in which the president is going up against the recommendations of his own national security apparatus, going his own ways.

There's a sense that this president is the president of his base, and that's who he appeals to. He's not the president of all the people in the sense of presidents traditionally. He's made no attempt to unite the people of the country.

And our allies -- and this increasingly worries McMaster, Mattis, the others, Tillerson -- our allies are dismayed by the conduct of this president. They don't believe he's a consistent leader in the sense of American leadership.

So, meanwhile, people around the president, who are coming before grand juries and are coming before investigators are talking because there are e-mails of their -- that they have produced that have had to be turned over, some 20,000 e-mails from people in the White House, and they have no choice, including people very close to the president, they have no choice but to talk truthfully to the prosecutors. And this, too, is a source of great consternation and rage by the president, who sees his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at the center of these investigations. So there's a lot of lashing out.

And, meanwhile, the work of the presidency is not being done in the traditional sense. We have many appointments that haven't been filled. We've never seen this kind of chaos in a presidency before. We've seen difficult 100 days, difficult first six months, Bill Clinton's was disastrous in some ways. This is different because it goes to the character and confidence and feeling that the president of the United States, including among those on the White House staff, may be unfit for the office.

CUOMO: Carl, quickly, he says, it's your fault. That it's the media.

BERNSTEIN: Yes.

CUOMO: That you are making stuff up about him. You dwell on the negative. You give him no credit. And that's why he's caught in the cycle that he's in.

BERNSTEIN: I think he's caught in the cycle that he's in because of his own actions and inactions. Look, he's used the power of the presidency, somewhat effectively, to promulgate regulations of the type that he campaigned on. It's not as if he's done nothing in these areas, environmental regulations, business regulations, other things. He has plenty of power and he exercises it.

This is something different. And the idea that -- to make the conduct of the press the issue, as Nixon did in Watergate, but no president has done what Trump has done in terms of the press. He doesn't understand the free press. He doesn't understand the First Amendment. And, increasingly, if we're to believe the poll numbers, and that's only a snapshot, the credibility of the press is rising with quite a rapid ascent, while the credibility of the president of the United States is moving downwards.

So it's not working attacking the press except to his base. And, meanwhile, it is further alienating and further dismaying those on Capitol Hill who see this president as flailing.

We are in a dangerous situation in this country. That is what Republicans, many of them, including some in the leadership, will tell you on Capitol Hill when you talk to them privately. They are worried that we have a president of the United States who is really not stable in terms of the way he is occupying the office and exercising the powers of the presidency. It is an extraordinary situation. And that's the real story.

CUOMO: Carl, appreciate it. Thank you very much. Have a good weekend.

HARLOW: Thanks, Carl.

CUOMO: Political state of play. It all matters. But we have a much bigger concern as we end this week.

HARLOW: Yes, we do.

CUOMO: This has been tough, emotionally and deadly. We now know all 58 who were stolen by an act of unprecedented evil, the Las Vegas massacre. Tonight, at 9:00 Eastern, Anderson Cooper is going to honor the victims, who they were, how they lived. It's an "AC 360" special. And we're going to show you their faces now. And they were all of us, men, women, all races, creeds, all of us. We must never forget. And we have to figure out how to make their lives matter, to find ways to stop this violence. Take a look.

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[08:59:48] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, good morning, everyone. John Berman here.

The breaking news this morning, preparing for a direct hit. What looks to be a hurricane that will make landfall smack in the middle of the fragile Gulf Coast. Now lest there be any confusion, this is not Harvey or Irma or Maria, all of which caused so must damage already. No, this is yet another one. This is Nate, with New Orleans right in its path. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama all