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Sparks Fly over MLB Pitcher Check; Biden Addresses Crime Surge; Pelosi Expected to Name Capitol Attack Probe Committee; Retail Workers are Quitting in Record Numbers. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 23, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Major League Baseball has no idea what's going on. They're more than they bargained for. And there are going to be a lot of upset pitchers.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The rules say that a manager can't ask the pitcher to be searched in bad faith.

ENTEN: Right.

BERMAN: That's a subjective thing. And Max Scherzer, the pitcher, admitted he was putting his hand through his hair more than usual to give himself a better grip on the ball --

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: Which is legal with sweat and rosin. I know it's a thin distinction there.

ENTEN: Their -- the rules are so unclear. There's so much, you know, basically a decision that has to be made by the umpires. They -- the discussions with the managers. It's just a chance for a mess. And this, I think, illustrated it last night. And Scherzer's one of the best pitchers in the league.

BERMAN: Yes.

ENTEN: And, I don't know, you know, this is just crazy.

BERMAN: Look, Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: My Nats (ph) -- my Nats (ph), though, come on. You can see, though, it worked, right? I mean he got very -- he was getting ticked off.

BERMAN: He pitched --

KEILAR: There's a reason why the -- he's doing it.

BERMAN: Pitchers are all bent out of shape about this because they basically want to be able to cheat. It's just -- it's the way that they want to be able to slap stuff, slather stuff on the ball. They want to be able to cheat. They're upset that they're not going to be able to cheat as much as they have been.

ENTEN: I --

KEILAR: What would you cheat with if you had your --

BERMAN: Super glue.

ENTEN: Oh, you're a receiver in the NFL. Super glue.

BERMAN: I'd use super glue and an emery board if I could.

ENTEN: An emery board is exactly -- I've been doing it.

BERMAN: Yes.

ENTEN: You know, although, I was a knuckleball pitcher back in high school and, you know, I actually did throw a five inning perfect game against Marvin Luther (ph). So, you know, I think I have some real authority on this subject.

BERMAN: And that was after being called for goaltending six times in basketball.

ENTEN: That's right.

KEILAR: Yes, Berman has a trophy, like, a three-inch-tall trophy. So, I don't know. I don't know, guys.

BERMAN: Size doesn't matter on trophies.

KEILAR: All right. OK. OK. Al right.

BERMAN: All right, good.

KEILAR: I enjoyed your segments, Harry, but I have to say, I loved the mayoral race, but I really enjoyed the sports segment. So thank you very much.

Coming up, we have some new details about the steps that President Biden is expected to announce today about combatting violent crime.

BERMAN: Plus, has cancel culture gone too far? The latest celebrity apologizing for something she did in her early teens.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:08]

BERMAN: This morning, cities across the country, red states and blue, are coping with a sharp spike in violence. Today, President Biden plans to lay out his strategy to help stem violent crime.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (voice over): President Joe Biden will announce a plan today outlining a strategy to curb the surge in violent crimes in many American cities. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says the administration's focus will be tackling gun violence in the upcoming summer months.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There are major cities across the country where gun violence is absolutely the driver, where it is absolutely increasing, and that will be a central part of what he'll talks about when he delivers his remarks.

BERMAN: Biden's address will come after a private meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland, local officials, law enforcement and community leaders, all looking to fix the problem as homicide rates in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago have all increased from the same point last year and the year before, though violent crime is down nationwide from where it was five and ten years ago.

Now, the president plans to sign executive actions aimed at reducing gun crimes, officials say. This comes after he signed six gun control- related executive actions in April.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Gun violence in this country is an epidemic. Let me say it again, gun violence in this country is an epidemic and it's an international embarrassment.

BERMAN: With limited power to impose sweeping gun control reform, officials say Biden's planning to urge Congress to take action, a call the president has repeated to his Capitol Hill colleagues time and time again since taking office.

BIDEN: I don't need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps that will save lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act.

And I'll do everything in my power to protect the American people from this epidemic of gun violence. But it's time for Congress to act as well.

BERMAN: But despite the spike in violent crime, passing any bills through a gridlocked Senate will be difficult. And Republican leaders are using rising crime as a talking point in their quest to take back control of the House and Senate in 2022. Biden also faces pressure from some Democrats calling for major police reform. Change, the White House says, can happen while also addressing the rise in violence across the United States.

PSAKI: Police reform is long outdated but it's also important to take steps to -- to put in place gun safety measures, to take any -- use any lever he can as president to do exactly that and to ensure there is appropriate funding and resources needed to ensure there's community policing in communities across the country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Look, Joe Biden was the primary author of the crime bill in the 1990s, something at that actually caused problems for him in the Democratic primary for president. So it's not like this is an issue that is new to him. It's something he's dealt with his entire career and was accused of being too tough for parts of it.

And, look, he's trying to thread a needle here, which is to say, we need police reform, but we also need to do something about the rise in crime we're seeing in some cities.

KEILAR: I thought it was interesting what you pointed out, which is that if -- you might think, based on some of the criticism, that crime is sky high, but it's actually lower than it was, as you said, five or ten years ago. But the trajectory is going in the wrong direction and that is politically very perilous. It just is.

BERMAN: In the wrong direction and very quickly.

KEILAR: That's right.

BERMAN: Like -- like alarmingly fast it has risen in the last year or two.

KEILAR: A brazen murder in New York City, speaking of. A man gunned down while sitting in his car. The victim's fiance will join us next hour.

BERMAN: Plus, what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now saying about investigating the Capitol insurrection. Her brand-new interview, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:43:49]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I still hope for a bipartisan non-partisan commission. But if the Republicans won't go for that, then we'll go for a select committee to determine the truth of what happened that day. And the truth means, how -- how was it -- how did it start? What are the causes of it in terms of the attitude of the American people? But then, more particularly, how was it financed? Who started all of this? The public has a right to know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That interview right in Statutory Hall.

KEILAR: Yes, very cool. I love it. It's beautiful.

BERMAN: Where you were -- you were -- you were there, you covered Congress there.

KEILAR: I did. It's one of my favorite sort of rooms. Would you even call it a room?

BERMAN: But the floor is very hard, I'm told.

KEILAR: Yes. Shin splints if you cover The Hill for sure.

BERMAN: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi right there telling April Ryan in a new interview that she may form a select committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection if a bipartisan commission cannot be formed with Republican support.

It comes as two sources tell CNN that Pelosi told a House committee Tuesday that she will create that select committee. She had already decided to do so. Pelosi later denied that she has made a decision already. It seems like she wants to control the announcement.

[06:45:00]

April Ryan joins us now. She's a CNN political analyst and a White House correspondent and D.C. bureau chief for "theGrio."

Like, April, this select committee, how will it be different than the bipartisan commission? Why does she think it's necessary? What does she hope to get out of it?

APRIL RYAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, why it's necessary is because an insurrection happened. The legislative branch was warred upon, if you will, by insurrectionists who were led by the words of the then president.

At issue, Republicans do not want to validate what happened. They want to change the narrative. So she wants to get the facts to put it in front of the American public to see how this happened, how it was financed, all the origins of it, the whos, whats, whens, wheres and whys, if you will. And then there will be a report given. That's what happens with select committees when you investigate something serious like this.

KEILAR: What stood out to you the most in this interview with the speaker, April?

RYAN: Well, we spent about 40 minutes. She was very honest. She talked about in Statuary Hall her concern mostly at that time on January 6th for her staffers and the staffers around the Capitol, and for the janitors, people who had to hide and barricade themselves in rooms. She was very open and honest about the move forward, what she hopes. But she was standing more on democracy.

And we also talked about other issues to include voting rights, infrastructure, and policing, and the president's efforts with crime that she says will not undermine the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

KEILAR: Is she optimistic? Did you get the sense that she's optimistic about being able to move forward on any of these legislative items? I mean it seems like the deck is really stacked against President Biden and the Democrats.

RYAN: You're absolutely right. And in this "Grio" exclusive, Speaker Pelosi made it clear that they're throwing this in the court of public opinion. They're throwing this out there for coalitions to get behind them. Coalitions like the Poor People's Campaign led by Reverend William Barber, who's quite often on your air. He's actually holding a protest today at 1:00 in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building on the issue of voting rights. And he said, you know, he had been pressing, along with other ministers, had been pressing Joe Manchin in West Virginia because they say many white Republicans are saying that Joe Manchin is lying because they are also affected by voting rights as well as the disabled, as well as Asian-Americans, as well as brown Americans. This is not just a black issue.

So they, the speaker, the president of the United States, are really relying on coalitions to push this effort, these efforts forward as Republicans in the Senate are stalling everything every which way.

BERMAN: April Ryan, terrific interview. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

RYAN: Thank you, John Berman.

BERMAN: More and more Americans are saying, take this job and shove it.

Will you sing me a bar there?

KEILAR: No.

BERMAN: OK. We'll ask one worker why she decided to leave her retail job.

KEILAR: Plus, Berman's favorite story, because he tracks Britney Spears so closely. Do you? No?

BERMAN: I had one of the most informative interviews ever with Jason Alexander, the guy that she was married to for a day.

KEILAR: Really? That's interesting.

BERMAN: I have done extensive Britney Spears coverage.

KEILAR: All right, so you have. OK. Well, then you're going to love this because she's expected to speak out in court today about the control that her father has over her life in this conservatorship that she's been under for years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:52:27]

KEILAR: More Americans are quitting their jobs than ever before. This is according to Labor Department statistics that show that in April alone 4 million Americans left their jobs. The largest exits are happening in the retail industry with 649,000 retail workers putting in their notice last month.

Let's talk about this now with one of those workers, Christina Noles. She quit her retail job last month. She is now working at a law firm as an intake specialist.

Christina, thank you so much for being with us this morning. Tell us a little bit about your path and your decision here because

you spent the past eight years, really most of your adult working life, in retail. But then the pandemic changed how you saw this job.

Tell us what happened that made you decide, I'm quitting.

CHRISTINA NOLES, FORMER RETAIL WORKER WHO QUIT FOR LAW FIRM JOB: Well, you know, first of all, thanks for having me.

Second of all, one of the things that led to this whole life change was really the conditions that kind of became apparent. You know, I spent most of my adult life working with people. And I like working with people. But the actions of people over the pandemic make it hard to enjoy that any longer. And late last year my workplace had to shut down for two weeks due to a COVID exposure by one of our other managers. And that was when I kind of thought to myself, I think it's time to make a move.

And there's an author that I follow, her name's Glenna Doyle (ph), and she has this mantra that says, we can do hard things. And it's a very easy thing to think about and say, we can do hard things and I can do this hard thing.

And, you know, the amount of verbal abuse that retail employees are expected to just accept, that's made acceptable, is a big deal for me personally, and it was a big reason as to why I wanted to leave, let alone, you know, the fact that the wages are not, you know, measurable to what they should be, of course, and the long hours, you know, working nine straight nights, getting out at 10:30 in the evening, you know, having little to no time for yourself.

So whenever the opportunity arose in April to apply for my current job, I jumped at it because I felt like there was nothing else I could do but go on to this to further myself.

KEILAR: So, you know, it sounds like the pandemic was very much this inflection point for you, that it really opened your eyes to something that you decided you need to make a change with.

[06:55:03]

I wonder, there's a -- you know, you say that someone saw your work ethic, that they told you to apply for a job and you were hired, which, congratulations, that's a huge achievement.

NOLES: Thank you.

KEILAR: For a lot of people, you know, looking at the possibility of quitting a job, it's, you know, it's not necessarily a possibility for them. What do you say -- what do you say to them coming from your experience?

NOLES: Well, you know, first, I would say that I do find that the pandemic was pretty much a catalyst for a lot of workers who had been, you know, historically undervalued. And I think that that catalyst has driven a lot of people to say, you know, I'm going to take this chance to do what I wanted to do, and it gave them that courage.

As for me, you know, I'm very aware that I was extremely lucky that someone saw what I was doing in my normal course of routine and said, that's what I need at my job. And, you know, I would say for anybody who is looking to change careers, one of the things that I did following December, especially when it came to applying to new jobs and applying and taking these chances to get out of the retail sector was find what you like about the job you're in. And, for me, I enjoy helping people. I enjoy working with people. You know, it's not a stretch to say that I'm an incredibly sociable person and it's my favorite part of the job. But the retail aspect of it was what was untenable for me.

So I would say to anybody who's looking to move to a different sector, find something about the job you like. And, you know, I understand that's very easy for me to say on the other side of it, but I do think that looking to jobs that are kind of similar but different, one of the things that I had been recommended was to look at things like receptionist jobs. You know, any of us who have spent any time in retail, you have a fair amount of clerical skills that you can apply to other things. So that's kind of my big advice, which I understand is, you know, applicable to me but not maybe for everyone.

KEILAR: Well, I'm sure that it's applicable to somebody, Christina. And, look, we wish you happiness and fulfillment. And we thank you so much for your perspective on this. There are a lot of people, I think, who are in your shoes through the pandemic has made them maybe rethink their employment. So, thank you, Christina Noles.

NOLES: Thank you so much.

KEILAR: It is a stunning development in the murder of "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Four of the Saudis involved in his killing received paramilitary training right here in the United States.

BERMAN: Republicans blocking an effort to just debate voting reform. So what's next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)