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Rose Wysocki is Interviewed about the Buffalo Shooting; Preview of Upcoming Primaries; Taliban Forces Women to Cover their Faces; Holocaust Survivors Finally Meet. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired May 20, 2022 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

ROSE WYSOCKI, PRODUCE MANAGER, TOPS FRIENDLY MARKETS: I had no idea where they were. And I was just like, where's Tom, where is Sidney (ph)? Oh, my God, where is Sidney? He was on his break. He was in the front of the store. Where is he? So I was frightened for the rest of my family because I didn't know where they were. I did not know where anybody was.

And this has just made me realize that you need to pay closer attention to what's going on around you. You need to pay closer attention when people say things to you.

But I just want everybody to know that not only are we Buffalo strong, not only are we Tops strong, but we are Jefferson strong, and we will be back to our community that we love. They worked too long, too hard to get this store in that neighborhood and we will be back no matter what. We will be.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And you've said too -- you've talked so much about this tight knit family, not just in Tops, but within that entire neighborhood, as you just pointed out. And I was struck that that you really see as a message to anybody who would think to follow in these horrific footsteps or be inspired by some of this racist thinking. What is your message there, Rose?

WYSOCKI: My message to them is, you know what, you think you're going to win, you're not. We're going to win because all you're doing is making us stronger and bringing us closer together. Everybody, when we walked out that back door, the whole community was there. How that spread through that community so fast was incredible. And as we're walking out, they're calling our names and relieved to see us and hugging us. They all wanted to touch us and feel us and know, yes, this is really what I'm seeing. I'm not imagining it.

So, you know, anybody who has this hate in their heart, you need to stop and look at your own life. What's missing in your own life that you need to fix? Because all you did was bring us closer together. That's all you did. You've just made us stronger. And we're not going to let your hate interrupt our lives.

We love each other. I love my community. I love my Tops family. You just made us stronger. That's all you did. We are Tops strong. We are Jefferson Avenue strong.

HILL: Rose, we so appreciate you taking the time to join us today. I know there's a rough few days ahead as people prepare to say good-bye. It is so important to keep that community together. Thank you.

WYSOCKI: Thank you. Have a blessed day.

HILL: Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks surging in a new poll, but only after losing Trump's endorsement. Data phenom Harry Enten here with the numbers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:36:48]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're just a few days from some big primaries, including in Georgia, where the former, Donald Trump, has worked hard, really hard, to defeat incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp.

CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten here.

So, how's that going for him, Harry?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: He's about to probably get embarrassed, John. That's the word, embarrassed.

So, look, this is a new Fox News poll that was released on Wednesday night. You need 50 percent of the vote plus one to avoid a runoff. And look at where Brian Kemp is. He's at 60 percent. He is at 32 points ahead of David Perdue.

Look at where we were in March, folks. Brian Kemp was at 50 percent. David Perdue is just 11 points back. In that two-month period, David Perdue has basically fallen to the ground, while Brian Kemp, there we go, has skyrocketed. Brian Kemp, the very clear favorite ahead of that primary on Tuesday.

BERMAN: And just to be clear, David Perdue is the candidate that Donald Trump very publicly endorsed. Brian Kemp, the candidate Donald Trump very publicly wants to defeat.

ENTEN: That's correct. How dare Brian Kemp, he thinks, certify a legitimate count last -- two years ago.

BERMAN: So, again, there are other races on Tuesday you're watching also. And there may be some -- the possibility of tough results for Trump there as well.

ENTEN: Yes, I mean, you know, one of these is in Alabama. Mo Brooks. Remember Donald Trump endorsed him originally and then withdrew that endorsement. And it was because he didn't want to get behind a loser. And when he withdrew that endorsement back in March, Brooks is behind. He was behind by ten. But look what's happened in that two-month period. Without Trump's support, Brooks has gone up. And so now you have this possibility, not only in Georgia, where you see David Perdue going down, but you also have this possibility in Alabama where Trump's old candidate actually does well without him. So, I think Tuesday could be one of those more embarrassing days for Donald Trump.

But, you know, John, one of the things I think is notable, you know, we spoke about Georgia and the governor governor's race here, is that Trump has not exactly had a lot of good luck in gubernatorial races so far this month. So, you know, you go to Idaho, Brad Little defeats the Trump endorsed candidate. Nebraska, Jim Pillen defeats the Trump- endorsed candidate. In Ohio, there was no Trump-endorsed candidate but Mike DeWine beat back three pro-Trump challengers. So, in gubernatorial races, a lot of voters are saying we don't care what Trump is essentially says.

BERMAN: Might be more of a different calculation and people are thinking more locally.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: Harry, I think most people know you've got a podcast, a wildly popular podcast.

ENTEN: Oh, thank you.

BERMAN: And this week you are, I think, focusing on something extraordinarily important. What is it?

ENTEN: Yes, I'm focusing on something extraordinarily important. So, look, you can tune in, get it on Apple, Stitch or any podcast app. This week, does wearing glasses mean you're smarter? Most people think so. Court defendants even try the nerd defense wearing glasses in court to basically say, hey, you know what, I couldn't have committed that crime, you know, I'm a good person. But is it actually true? Well, you're going to have it tune in and find out.

BERMAN: That's it? You're not going to actually answer --

ENTEN: No, I'm not answering -- I'm not giving the goods away. Get out of here!

BERMAN: Well, I was going to --

[08:40:00]

ENTEN: You're going to have to tune in.

BERMAN: I was going to wear my glasses, but now I don't know whether I should put them on or not.

ENTEN: You should wear them. You'll look smarter.

BERMAN: Well, did you just give it away?

ENTEN: No. You're going to look smarter. I didn't say you're necessarily smarter.

BERMAN: There you go. Harry Enten, thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, sir.

BERMAN: That clears things up.

All right, so female news anchors in Afghanistan now given the choice, cover your face or lose your job. CNN's Christiane Amanpour live in Afghanistan, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Afghans leading independent news channel, TOLOnews, has been told its female presenters must cover their faces now when they're on camera.

CNN spoke to those women who are now facing that decision. They either defy the order or they move behind the scenes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KHATERA, ANCHOR, TOLONEWS (through translator): It's not clear. Even if we appear with the burqa, maybe they will say that women's voices are forbidden. They want women to be removed from the screen. They are afraid of an educated women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:45:02]

HILL: Yes, it does raise the question of what's next.

Joining us live from Afghanistan, CNN's chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour.

Christiane, good morning.

I think she raises such an interesting point there, what's next? Is it women's voices? Do they need to completely be erased?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, you know what, I spoke to those -- to those people yesterday and they're incredibly brave, incredibly worried. I did press the actual Taliban government official on it, and he said no, no, no, they just need to wear the masks and then they'll go to work. But the actual fact is that it has not yet been enforced and today those same women who were in tears yesterday at TOLOnews were on the air as per usual.

So, I think part of the story is that, you know, their feelings and their words are being heard. It's not like Taliban 1.0 when people never even were able to confront them. Now, when things like this happen, there's a huge backlash. We will see how this plays out.

But I spoke to the former Afghan president who's still here, Hamid Karzai, and he was equally strong and angry about the ban on girls' schools. This is what he told me about it, because, as he said, that all Afghan people, including the religious and including men, support girls going to school.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMID KARZAI, FORMER AFGHAN PRESIDENT: Girls' education is fundamental to the dignity of Afghan life. Therefore, there is no compromise there. Therefore, the call is very clear on the Taliban government, the current government, that the Afghan people will never accept that decision. That the best for them and the country is to have girls go back to school as soon as possible. This goes to the essence of our life and existence as a dignified society.

So, I denounce it in the strongest word and want the Taliban to allow girls to go back to school as soon as possible.

AMANPOUR: That's very strong.

KARZAI: Tomorrow.

AMANPOUR: Tomorrow.

KARZAI: Tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So he was very, very strong and very, very adamant on that.

And, listen, the thing is, I did speak to the leading Taliban government official, the deputy Taliban leader earlier this week and he too said we know that the Taliban people here in Kabul actually want girls to go to school. They understand what it means, both here and for their relations abroad. But there's something stopping it, there's some internal Taliban fight for the moment that is blocking it. We'll wait to see and hopefully it will be resolved. There's certainly a backlash. I think that is the story.

Erica.

HILL: Well, and I would say, a lot of that backlash too is coming because, right, of your reporting. The fact that you have been able to go back now to Afghanistan, to tell these stories, to allow those women to have an even broader use of their voice, as you point out, is imperative, right, holding their feet to the fire there in terms of the officials.

What has it been like? What have you noticed since being back in Afghanistan this time?

AMANPOUR: Well, it is very different. And, listen, these Taliban people who have taken over, they actually do want, not only international legitimacy, that's going to take a lot, but legitimacy inside the country for the first time in 40 years. No matter what you think of the Taliban and their human rights issues, it is one group that's controlling Afghanistan. For the first time in 40 years. So, everything rests on what they do now. And I have to say, we have been very free to report. Obviously, I got

a big interview with a major top government official. So, clearly, they're going to let me report. We got all the papers. We door stopped Taliban leaders. We, you know, we go around doing what we would do covering this story. So, on that regard, we've had a good deal of freedom to operate here. We've got a whole range of voices, both the Taliban side, and, as you see, the women and others who are against them, or at least against these edicts.

HILL: Yes, it's so important.

Christiane, really appreciate you being with us this morning. It's just been fantastic all week. Thank you.

BERMAN: This week's CNN Hero is teaching construction skills to women. It's an innovative approach that she hopes will change the face of a traditionally male industry and improve countless lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to talk about putting the sheeting on the roof today.

NORA EL-KHOURI SPENCER, CNN HERO: Our students learn a little bit of everything. The basics like safety, tools and materials, construction math.

And then we go into hands on stuff, carpentry, electrical, plumbing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 126 3/4.

SPENCER: So our program is actually solving two problems at once. We're training women for a living wage paying jobs in the construction trades.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is where it gets fun.

SPENCER: And we're also helping older adults age in place. That's really a win-win. And you get to watch something come together that you built.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does that feel like it's going to work for you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Great.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is awesome.

SPENCER: There's just such a feeling of accomplishment. If we don't see women out there doing this, other women, they'll never see this as an opportunity. If you can't see it, you can't be it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: This is awesome. Love that. [08:50:00]

To see Nora's team in action and get the full story, go to cnnheroes.com.

So, in the January 6th investigation, the committee is demanding answers about a tour that one Republican lawmaker gave on the eve of the attack.

HILL: And a truly remarkable story. Two Holocaust survivors who worked at the same labor camp meet for the first time nearly 80 years later. Their message.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: It's a story of enduring courage and tenacity. Two Holocaust survivors who share similar stories meet after escaping Nazi- controlled Europe nearly 80 years ago.

CNN's Natasha Chen joins us live from Los Angeles with just a remarkable story.

[08:55:03]

Natasha.

NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, emotional and it was such a privilege for me to sit down with them the day before to see them so excited and then to witness the moment they finally met.

Now, what's remarkable is not just that they found another survivor. One of them told me, to find someone at their age who's equally mentally sharp and able to articulate these shared memories and courant political beliefs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN (voice over): Two old men with a painful and miraculous past met for the first time this week after discovering that about 80 years ago they were forced to work likely in the same labor camp, run by the Nazis in Hungary during World War II.

DR. GEORGE BERCI, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: When I was (INAUDIBLE).

FRANK SHATZ, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: I was 18, really. I was 18. So, we look differently than before and after.

BERCI: And we a bit different.

CHEN: Neither 96-year-old Frank Shatz, nor 101-year-old George Berci knew of another living survivor from the same camp. In March, Shatz' niece read this profile in "The Los Angeles Times" and sent it to Shatz in Virginia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I sent it to my uncle thinking they might know each other. CHEN: Shatz noticed eerie similarities with his own past.

SHATZ: This camp was close to a river, a very fast flowing mountain river, and my -- that I was at the same place.

BERCI: Sometimes people, we are very sick, to send it to a hospital, they never return.

CHEN: Here's how each of them described their escape in 1944 when allied forces bombed Budapest.

BERCI: The military (INAUDIBLE) disappeared.

SHATZ: The German guards chased us into the corn field to hide, not because of wanting to save us, but save -- wanted to save themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Russians had pressed their advance through the Balkans into Hungary. The last big, German satellite.

SHATZ: I took off my slave labor uniform.

BERCI: I, of course, removed my yellow arm band.

CHEN: They each lost family members in concentration camps. They each joined the anti-Nazi underground in Budapest, delivering false I.D.s to Jewish families.

SHATZ: I escaped the same time. I joined the same organization. And I said, we must have crossed our (ph) path somehow.

CHEN: Shatz contacted Berci, who wrote back.

BERCI: I didn't believe that there are people who survived.

CHEN: Once an aspiring musician --

BERCI: Of course (INAUDIBLE) my violin.

CHEN: Berci not only survived, he became a surgeon instead, developing a tiny camera to use with an endoscope, the basis or virtually all minimally invasive surgeries today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy birthday.

CHEN: Even a year past a century, he still goes to the office twice a week.

Shatz worked for newspapers both in Europe and the U.S. and still writes a weekly column.

CHEN (on camera): How do you feel about the present day politics with people not believing in the facts of the past?

SHATZ: It's nothing new. Forty years ago Holocaust deniers came out from the woodwork and suddenly I realized it is my duty to bear witness. We are the last generation who can say, I was there, I have seen it, I experienced it.

CHEN (voice over): They fear the past repeating itself.

BERCI: I can't forget what I went through, what my family went through. Therefore, I am very sensitive to certain right-wing stories.

CHEN: Both are frightened by growing extremism in the United States. But in the same way they survived the Holocaust, they view today's problems with perpetual optimism.

SHATZ: Individually, we can all be stupid. But in the end, the quality wisdom (ph) help the pendulum come back to the middle. So it is my faith.

BERCI: I am pretty sure that we can do something. I'm still positive.

CHEN: For now, these old compatriots and new friends will catch up on the last century over dinner.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHEN: Hungarian chicken paprika is what Mr. Shatz told me they were going to have for dinner. These two men are extremely funny. They're both good with their smartphones. But on a serious note, they both told me how important it is for them to see that Putin is stopped and they continue to teach young people about what happened during the Holocaust because they say what happened to them could happen to anyone.

John.

BERMAN: They're going to catch up on the last century.

Natasha, what a lovely, inspiring story. A celebration of life.

[09:00:00]

An affirmation of life and what you can live through and what you can do.

Thank you so much for that, Natasha.

CHEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: I mean, wow.

HILL: What an incredible piece. And the two of them, I mean, what a great interview. I would love to go sit down with them.

BERMAN: They'd be fun to hang with.

HILL: They would.

BERMAN: All right, CNN's coverage continues right now.