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New Day

Replacement Conspiracies Driving Gunmen; Russia's Lost a Third of Their Combat Forces; Gas Prices Soar; Mavs and Stars Make History. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired May 16, 2022 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Appear to have motivated some of the most heinous recent mass murders in the U.S. and around the world.

Just this weekend, an 18-year-old man accused of shooting and killing ten people in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, allegedly wrote a manifesto online claiming ethnic and cultural replacement of whites.

The gunman accused of killing more than 20 people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 allegedly uploaded a document on the internet before the shooting, saying, quote, this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, no me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by the innovation.

The man who allegedly killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 spouted nonsense on social media about Jewish people being somehow responsible for immigrant, quote, invaders.

And the shooter who killed 51 people at a mosque and Islamic center in Christchurch, New Zealand, named his own manifesto "The Great Replacement."

The theory has been amplified by voices on Fox News.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: I mean everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it. Oh, the, you know, white replacement theory. No, no, no, this is a voting rights question. I have less political power because they're importing a brand-new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that?

SERFATY: And openly defended by name by sitting members of Congress.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY: And in light of the shooting, we have reached out to Congressman Babin and Perry as week as Senator Ron Johnson and J.D. Vance. Those were the Republicans that we mentioned who have promoted elements of replacement theory in the past, but, Kaitlan, we have not received a response from any of them.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Sunlen Serfaty, thank you.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, joining us now, CNN political commentator S.W. Cupp.

You know, S.E., I think we need to be careful actually referring to this as fringe based on some of the polling here. The AP did a poll, roughly one in three, 32 percent of adults agree that a group of people is trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.

How does an idea like this get to 32 percent?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, right. I mean, you have to -- you have to say at the outset what this shooter did was his -- you know, his decision alone. No one, as far as I know, told him to go out and shoot up a supermarket. But, there is a cause and effect to amplifying this garbage. And some of the consequences are intended, right? It stirs up racial anonymous, ethnic anonymous, religious anonymous. That is the intended effect of turning neighbor against neighbor and getting people angry and afraid. Growing that base that is angry and afraid is part of the consequence. That's how it spreads.

The next consequence is, those people go out and vote for characters who believes in that. Folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert, or name your nationalist or anti-Semite or, you know, conspiracy theorist. Those people get elevated.

And then, finally, those people run, right, and you get more Kathy Barnettes who spew Islamophobic and anti-LGBTQ stuff, conspiracy theories. They feel empowered to run because this garbage that was once disqualifying has been so mainstreamed by political leaders and far right-wing media that they're not wearing hoods anymore, they're not hiding in the basement, they're out in the open talking about this, you know, openly as if it's no big deal.

COLLINS: Well, and I think that's one of the most grim aspects of this is to see the parallels with other shootings.

CUPP: Right.

COLLINS: And in this manifesto that the authorities say was authored by this suspect, he references Dylann Roof, who, of course, carried out the racist attack in Charleston in 2015 that also left church members dead. And it just -- you see how so much of this is like the shooting that happened at the mosques in New Zealand. You just see all these parallels between these different attacks.

CUPP: It's compounded and compounded and compounded. And, you know, you see -- you see it in the numbers, the rise in hate crimes, the rise in extremism. And folks on the right don't even acknowledge that that is real. Tucker Carlson has said right wing extremism doesn't exist. It's not a thing.

So, there's the disinformation, the conspiracy theories, the racism, turning people against each other, the fear mongering. It's this cauldron of hate and it's metastasizing in our country. And I just want to say to these people who used to be colleagues and friends, what are you doing? When is it going to be enough? We've had an insurrection. We have a rise in hate crimes. We have these horrific shootings where people are telling you exactly why they're doing it, because of stuff you're saying.

[06:35:04]

When is it going to be enough? When will you have reached your disgusting, gross goal? And when will you stop feeling completely disconnected from all of this? Like you've done nothing to get us from a to b. When will it be enough?

BERMAN: And, S.E., you raise a good point here. It's not like there's ambiguity here. There's a 180 page manifesto where this suspected killer tells us exactly why he did it. It's in plain words.

And in terms of acknowledging the existence of white supremacy and the consequences, we have these stats again from the ADL where 55 percent of the killings, extremist killings in the last ten years are by white supremacists. It's just there for everyone to see.

And, again, I just want people to reflect on a moment. And I'm bringing up Ruth Whitfield as an example, but any ten of the victims here or the victims in El Paso or the victims at the Tree of Life Synagogue. But Ruth Whitfield was 86. An 86-year-old American. How do you get to a concept where Ruth Whitfield is any less American than the next person, than I am? Just think of that.

CUPP: Because it doesn't matter. Neighbors, Americans, are your enemy now. If they aren't voting with you, they don't hate the same people you do, they are the enemy. You know, you remember when Trump was telling four women of color elected to Congress to go back where they came from. They are American citizens. So that doesn't matter anymore in this, you know, exercise in hate.

And let me just say -- I want to say this real clear and I say this after every mass shooting, it's important, there is a problem here that is mental health. This person was clearly mentally ill. Happy healthy people don't go shoot up a grocery store or a church or a school.

But what happens when a mentally ill person gets radicalized by this garbage, it's not surprising that they do awful, awful things under the guise of some kind of cause. And so that's why words matter. We have to be careful with our words. And it is infuriating and exasperating and saddening to watch people with huge platforms pretend -- pretend they have nothing to do with this.

BERMAN: S.E., thank you for being with us this morning.

CUPP: Thank you.

BERMAN: So Russia's mounting battlefield losses. One intelligence estimate says that they have lost a third of their combat forces in Ukraine. COLLINS: Plus, this Monday morning, there is another new record for

gas prices stopping $5 in some states as many Americans are wondering how high they could go.

BERMAN: And Naomi Judd remembered in songs and tears at a public memorial in Nashville that was fit for a country music queen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALES (singing): How beautiful heaven must be. How beautiful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:42:35]

BERMAN: Russia has likely lost a third of its forces on the ground. That's according to the latest intelligence assessment from the United Kingdom's defense ministry. Behind me right now you're looking at what Ukrainian forces say was an attack on an entire Russian battalion trying to cross a river in the east. The Ukrainians said they destroyed the pontoons and thwarted nine crossing attempts. You can see the damage the Ukrainians there are bringing to the Russian forces. And this is just one example across the wide range of the battlefield.

Joining me now to talk about this is Steve Hall, CNN intelligence analyst and former national security analyst -- former CIA chief of Russia operations.

Steve, great to see you here.

A third -- a third of its military strength the U.K. says Russia has lost. What do you make of that?

STEVE HALL, CNN INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: You know, to put it in the most simple terms, it continues to go very poorly for Russia in Ukraine, and especially along these areas that they really hope to be able to control.

Now, we've already seen, you'll recall, the previous chapter where the Russians, you know, at first said we're going to take it all and we're going to end up in Kyiv and other places in the west. They've clearly abandoned that. They decided to refocus on the east and on the southeast and now it's going badly for them as well. As a matter of fact, the Russians are now saying, well, it might not be both Luhansk and Donetsk that we can take. It might just be part of that Donbas region. So, it keeps getting dialed back further and further.

BERMAN: Yes, it really is interesting. The Russians lost here, they lost here, they lost here and now in Kharkiv they've been pushed back substantially. And we have this new video to show you right here in the big wall here of Ukrainian forces, they're at the border, they say, in this picture, the Russian border, the Ukrainian/Russia border saying, Mr. President, to President Zelenskyy, you know, we're here. We've made it all the way.

HALL: I mean videos like this just show you the height of morale and the professionalism that we're seeing on the Ukrainian side, which the reporting that we're now indicating -- that we're now getting also indicates that the -- that that's not happening on the Russian side. You're not seeing this sort of celebratory type of thing where they're maintaining their borders.

So, this is a big deal because the will to fight is so important. And as Russian -- young Russian men get conscripted in more and more, you're going to have, I think, less of a morale -- or more of a morale issue for the Russians, much less so for the Ukrainians.

BERMAN: Because some of these pictures will make it, one way or another, inside Russia.

I want to talk about what's happening with NATO, because both Finland and Sweden right now, Finland right here, Sweden right here, have taken more of the official steps to join NATO.

[06:45:01]

And this is something that Russia says it's very concerned about. Basically their deputy foreign minister says, don't expect us to take this lying down.

You've spent so many years, you know, working in, around, covering Russia for the CIA. How big of it is a deal -- how big of a deal is it with Finland joining NATO?

HALL: This is -- this is a huge deal, John. I mean you can see the border here. I mean it's a -- it's a -- it's an over 800 mile border with Russia. Who would have thought three months ago with both of these countries, Sweden and Finland, proclaiming their neutrality, as they've done for so many decades since World War II, their judgment was, look, it's best if we try not to aggravate Russia too much. Of course, now that Russia has become so aggressive against Ukraine, against Georgia, against other places in the neighborhood, these countries are now saying, well, hold on a second, Vladimir Putin, because of your actions and solely because of your actions we are now going to try to get into the NATO alliance because, of course, we're concerned. And Finland, of course, has had the winter (ph) war which -- with Russia where they lost quite a bit of territory. So, it's no surprise that both these countries are very interested.

BERMAN: Do you think Russia would attack Finland to stop it from happening?

HALL: You know, there's always the overblown Russian propaganda, oh, we're going to have to rearrange forces, we're going to have to take this very seriously. In fact, they will move some forces around, but there's not going to be much of a tactical impact. It's mostly propaganda, as there usually is with Putin.

BERMAN: Stee Hall, great to see you. Thank you very much.

HALL: Sure.

BERMAN: So we're going to have much more coming up on the pain at the gas pump as prices have soared to a new high. We'll tell you what Americans can expect to pay now.

COLLINS: Plus, the Food and Drug Administration is facing major questions about the nationwide shortage of baby formula. The FDA commissioner will join us live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:53]

COLLINS: This morning, the national average gas price is soaring to a new record high of $4.48 a gallon. In some states Americans are paying almost $5 or more.

CNN's Pete Muntean is live in Alexandria, Virginia, with more.

Pete, what are you seeing there?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kaitlan, it's $4.35 here at this Exon station in Alexandria, Virginia. I just checked Gas Buddy. It's actually some of the cheapest gas around this area right now.

Just look at how fast the prices are going up. The national average of a gallon of gas has jumped 15 cents in the last week according to AAA, up 40 cents in the last month. Think about where we were a year ago. The national average for a gallon of regular gas was $3.04. Hard to think about when you consider today's high prices.

What's so interesting about all of this is that Gas Buddy says that demand for gas actually rose 3 percent over the last week, meaning that Americans really aren't all that daunted by these thigh prices.

I want you to listen now to analysts who say that the prices will continue to go up as oil suppliers still ramp up their production from the depths of the pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM KLOZA, GLOBAL HEAD OF ENERGY ANALYSIS, OPIS: But I think July and August is anybody's guess. And there's absolutely no relief in the price for diesel, which is going to be something that infiltrates every nook and cranny of the economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The national average for a gallon of diesel now $5.57 according to AAA. It's going to have a big impact on the trucking industry, meaning more and more things will get more expensive.

Back to gasoline for a second. Only three states, Georgia, Kansas and Oklahoma, have not seen their statewide average hit $4 a gallon. But one that switches over, all 50 states will see gas higher than $4 a gallon for the first time since 2008. Kaitlan.

COLLINS: It's really something else.

I was driving through Alabama the other week and we passed this gas station with a broken sign, but it said that gas was $9 a gallon. And, you know, we kind of laughed at first, and then we thought, you know, just how high these prices are and how closely people --

MUNTEAN: Not totally unbelievable.

COLLINS: Yes. Pete Muntean, thank you so much for updating us.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

COLLINS: Meanwhile, a leading candidate in a key race in Pennsylvania has suffered a stroke just days before the election. We'll get the latest on his condition.

BERMAN: Plus, we have new details on the Buffalo investigation. The police commissioner saying the alleged shooter had plans to kill even more people after leaving the supermarket.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:57:29]

BERMAN: A game seven bonanza. Obviously the most historically significant game was in Boston, but I do understand Dallas won as well.

Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report."

Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, good morning, John.

Great sports day. We had four game sevens yesterday, two in the NBA, two in the NHL. And Dallas fans were dealing with both. It was the first time ever two teams from the same city were playing in a game seven on the same day. The Mavs giving their fans plenty to clear about last night in game seven in Phoenix. Their defense just incredible. And Luka Doncic was on fire. He scored 27 points in the first half, which was the same amount as the entire Suns team. The Mavs, at one point, lead this game by 46 points. Suns fans booing their team throughout. It was one of the worst home performances by a home team in a game seven ever. Final score, 123-90. Mavs move on to play the Warriors. That series starts Wednesday.

All right, Dallas fans, they were super close to one of the best sports nights ever. The Stars were up 2-1 on the Flames in game seven of their series, but Calgary tied it. We would go to overtime. And in the extra period, off the rebound, Johnny Gaudreau puts it in here to win the game 3-2. All the Calgary fans outside going crazy. They haven't won the Stanley Cup since 1989. Rangers and Penguins, meanwhile, also playing a game seven thriller.

New York's Artemi Panarin coming up in the clutch in overtime with the game winner. Madison Square Garden going nuts after that. Rangers becoming the first team in playoff history to have three consecutive comeback wins in elimination games within the same series. New York's going to play Carolina next on Wednesday in game one of their series.

All right, back to the NBA where the Celtics have ended Giannis and the Bucks' title reign. This game was close until the third quarter. Grant Williams, one of the heroes for Boston, he made seven threes, finished with a career high 27 points as Boston pulled away to win this game easily 109-81. Game one of the eastern conference finals is going to be tomorrow night in Miami.

And, John, I tell you what, TD Garden was just rocking for that game. And you can speak to this. Boston, a pretty special place when the Celtics are doing well in the playoffs.

BERMAN: You look up and you see those banners, 17. Seventeen banners hanging there. Grant Williams, like option six for the Celtics.

SCHOLES: Yes. Yes. At one point, though, him, Peyton Pritchard, everyone was just feeling it, making threes. It just seemed to be Boston's day. And we'll see if it's their time.

BERMAN: I hit two threes in the game yesterday, it got to that point.

[07:00:00]

Andy Scholes, thank you very much.

SCHOLES: All right.

BERMAN: And NEW DAY continues right now.