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New Day

Tom Brady Makes History In Opener Against Cowboys; Carlos Alcaraz Wins U.S. Open Title, Now World # 1; New Book Reveals Longtime Tensions Behind Obama-Biden "Bromance"; Harrison Ford Makes Emotional Return To "Indiana Jones" Franchise. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired September 12, 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]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: That has momentum but at a certain point, the pressures domestically are huge for these nations. Natasha, great reporting. Thank you so much.

An epic finale to the U.S. Open, a Spanish teenager becoming the youngest person ever to clinch the world number one ranking.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And Tom Brady makes history just by walking on the field. The Bleacher Report is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, he made history just by walking on the field. Andy Scholes with the latest in the Bleacher Report. Good morning, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Good morning, John. You're one of the weird is off seasons ever retiring and retiring taking 11 days off during training camp. Brady taking the field for season number 23 last night. And is likely Brady's final season opener and Brady at 45 years old, the oldest ever to start a game in the NFL at quarterback. He threw just one touchdown in the third quarter to Mike Evans but it was plenty as the Bucs dominated the Cowboys 19 to 3.

[06:35:11]

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TOM BRADY, TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS QUARTERBACK: I've been one of the oldest guys for a long time. So, you know, it was fun to be out here playing with my teammates and just enjoying the game. I think every time you take the field, you got something to prove. You know, nothing's promised in this game. It's a violent game. You got to prepare every week. You can't take anything for granted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: That was a super rough night for Cowboys fans. Not only were they the only team in week one did not score touchdowns. Quarterback Dak Prescott injured his thumb on this play. Owner Jerry Jones saying afterwards Dak is going to need surgery on it. He's going to miss considerable time.

Carlos Alcaraz, meanwhile, is now the youngest man ever to top the world tennis rankings after winning the U.S. Open yesterday. The 19- year-old Spaniard beat Casper Ruud in four sets for his first Grand Slam title. Just an incredible run for Alcaraz. He won three straight five set matches to get to the final. He's the youngest when the U.S. Open since Pete Sampras in 1990.

Meanwhile, imagine having this seat in Chicago yesterday. That's a tough row right there. Soldier Field was just a mess as it was a downpour all game long. It was so bad that the Bears actually got a penalty for trying to dry off the football in a field goal attempt. That actually knocked them out of field goal range the penalty did. Bears though did get a huge upset when beating the 49ers 19 to 10.

And check out how they celebrated. The only way you should after a game like this sliding all in the wet turf into the endzone. Some pretty cool pictures right there. John, credits all those Bears fans who stuck it out that whole game long and that downpour. At least they got a win out of it.

BERMAN: To get an upset win over the 49ers, I'm sure that guy would have had twice as much water dumped on him if he had a choice, right?

SCHOLES: Completely worth it, yes.

BERMAN: Hasn't been so good for the Bears lately. That's a great day getting (INAUDIBLE) win.

SCHOLES: It was a shocking win. Yes.

BERMAN: All right, Andy, nice to see you.

SCHOLES: All right.

BERMAN: It is often described as a presidential bromance. But a new book claims there is more to the Obama-Biden friendship than meets the eye.

KEILAR: And happening today, President Biden is set to relaunch his Cancer Moonshot Initiative, marking 60 years since President John F. Kennedy said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN F. KENNEDY 35TH U.S. PRESIDENT: We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other thing, not because they are easy, but because they are hot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:42:05] BERMAN: Relentless and heavy rain through the Midwest is trigger flood watches at Chicago. This was the scene for many parts of the city on Sunday. Let's get right to Meteorologist Chad Myers. Good morning, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, good morning, John. The pictures from Soldier Field were funny but pictures there not funny. A lot of those underpasses did go underwater here. 2 to 4 inches in the stripe right around Chicago. There was more to the west of Milwaukee, up to 6 inches of rain in some spots there.

So let's get to it. This weather brought to you by Safelite, your vehicle glass and recalibration experts. Yes, more rain is coming. More rain is still coming for Milwaukee and for Chicago and Flash Flood Watches and Flood Watches are posted for parts of the area because it is still raining even though we had so much yesterday. We widen the view.

This is part of a cold front. That will make a beautiful week for everyone east to Chicago as the air dries out. Now it's still going to have to rain first. But the air will dry out. Flash Flood Watches in effect for places like D.C. and Baltimore where rain could be heavy at times, but it's the cold front that's going to push all of that humidity away, dry you out and really make the air you breathe feels so much like football weather, not what we've had over the past couple of weeks, months in a row. John?

BERMAN: Maybe the weather will make the Patriots play better. Chad Myers, thank you very much.

KEILAR: In new book describing the story bromance between Barack Obama and Joe Biden reveals the behind the scenes of one of the most consequential relationships in 21st century politics is something far more complicated. In "The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama," author Gabe Debenedetti. writes this, "The popular notion is that they share some sort of uncomplicated bromance. But if we want to truly understand the men or their moment, uncritically subscribing to that neat narrative -- which ignores real unease and outright tension -- benefits neither the public nor the presidents."

Joining us now is the author of this book and National Correspondent at New York Magazine, Gabe Debenedetti. Gabe, it's so great to have you to talk about your new book here. You know, just last week, I know you were watching, as we saw these two presidents get together for the unveiling of the Obama portrait at the White House. And they were speaking glowingly of each other, which plays into this bromance narrative you speak of.

Your reporting, though, paints such a more nuanced picture here, especially when we look back to 2020, where you write in your book about Obama on the fence about Biden running, in part because you seem tired and not up to a draining campaign?

GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI, AUTHOR, "THE LONG ALLIANCE": To make a long story short, this is undoubtedly a bromance that is the closest relationship between two presidents, you know, a president, the former president that we've had, certainly between a president and a vice president. But there's no doubt that Obama has a lot of feelings about Biden and about Biden's politics. And so, in 2020, for example it wasn't totally obvious to Obama that it would be a good idea for Biden to run because he was trying to be the oldest president ever.

[06:45:07]

And it took a lot of convincing before Obama essentially said, OK, let me get off the fence here. And that is really emblematic of this long and complicated relationship that's now spanned over two decades.

BERMAN: What I think it's really interesting and instructive, in a way, for the way Washington works now and going forward gate is, you really write about two different perspectives on governing, and how to behave politically. And it's personified in the different President's view of Mitch McConnell. Explain.

DEBENEDETTI: Yes, that's a really interesting point. Obviously, they've had different incentives over the times of their presidencies. But what you saw very often during the Obama years was that Biden was the one who was dispatched to deal with Capitol Hill. You know, of course, he had these three decades in the Senate, and he was the one who had to go deal with Mitch McConnell.

There was this famous moment in 2013, at the White House Correspondents' dinner when Obama says, you know, people think that I just need to go and get a drink with Mitch McConnell. But why don't you go and get a drink with Mitch McConnell? Joe Biden did not like that joke, because he of course, thought that it was a very central part of his role to have to deal with the Senate Republicans.

Now obviously, it's different because right now, Democrats do control most of Washington. But still, Biden sees it as very essential to have that relationship with Capitol Hill. That was something that Obama did not often like to do. And so you saw that dynamic play out in different ways over their eight years together.

KEILAR: It was interesting in 2020, part of the reason Obama didn't want to weigh in too much, he weighed in, as you describe more, as a friend, was because he had been against Biden running in 2016. And he had really thrown his weight behind Hillary Clinton. Does he underestimate Biden at many turns?

DEBENEDETTI: There's certainly a question. And if you ask a lot of people around Biden, there's no doubt that that is the case. You know, the 2016 experience is such an inflection point for them, not only because Barack Obama, essentially behind the scenes, pushed Clinton to run and dissuaded Biden from running, but that was also a very painful time for Biden. It was when his son Beau was very ill and then passed away.

And one of the things that Obama was saying to Biden behind the scenes was, I'm not sure that you are up to this right now. And Biden, of course, was saying that within his family as well, but for Obama, it was very clear case that Clinton was the right person to carry on his legacy. And that Biden at that moment was not. Now that was, as I said, very painful for both of them and it continues to be to this day. They don't really talk about that experience. And it very much colored the way that Obama thought about 2020.

You know, in 2020, he was open to the idea, certainly leading into it, that Biden could be the right guy, but he was skeptical of it. And it took quite a lot of convincing before he finally got there. He was instead interested in a whole range of other candidates. And in fact, sort of famously at this point, because of reporting that's come out since then, sat down to offer advice with basically everyone in the field. He and Biden were having ongoing conversations during that time, but they never had one of those, OK, what is this going to look like conversations. It was more sprawling than that.

BERMAN: You know, Gabe, you finished actually writing this book months ago. But there's a whole new chapter in a way that sprouted up this last month as the Biden White House has been able to what some consider get things done, right?

DEBENEDETTI: Yes, absolutely. I mean, and that sort of paints the ongoing dynamic here. And you saw it, you know, when Obama comes over to the White House last week to do the portrait unveiling. And even a few months ago, when he was there in April, you can see the tenor shift, even between those two times that Obama was in the White House, which is, of course, the last few times they were publicly together.

The first time Obama made a joke saying Vice President Biden, which of course, Biden laughed about very publicly, but not everyone around him thought it was all that funny. They thought that there was a little bit of respect missing there. Now, of course, Biden has been able to accomplish a lot, including on some topics that really evaded Obama -- eluded Obama for a long time, gun control, climate change, you know, massive -- relatively massive legislation here.

And there are some people around Biden who say, listen, we are finally doing this stuff. There are some people around Obama that say, well, yes, you better have learned the lessons. That's the whole point of the presidency.

KEILAR: Yes, look, there's a tension that you describe so amazingly, and yet, their legacies are almost symbiotic here and you really capture that in this great book, Gabe. And we thank you for spending some time with us this morning to share a little bit about it.

DEBENEDETTI: Thanks so much.

KEILAR: Harrison Ford making an emotional return to the Indiana Jones franchise CNN data guru in Harrison Ford aficionado, Harry Enten, is here with the numbers behind his success.

BERMAN: And we are live in the United Kingdom as the casket carrying Queen Elizabeth makes its way to its final resting place. You will hear Prince Harry's tribute to his grandmother.

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[06:51:50]

KEILAR: Two decades after the September 11 attacks, conspiracy theories about what exactly happened that day remain widespread even taking root at the core of our political parties. John Avlon has more in today's reality check.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This past Sunday marked the 21st anniversary of the 911 terror attack on our country. And look, I understand that memories fade and that for rising generations who weren't born yet, they won't have as much emotional resonance as it always will for me and others who were alive at that time. But I expect a lot more from folks who were adults then especially if they're running for office right now.

Instead, the contagiousness of 9/11 amnesia continues to stun me, particularly when I hear it coming from members of the Republican Party, which for a long time, found unique purpose and their party's response to 9/11, often suggesting it made them more patriotic. But this post-Trump crew is a very different breed of cat.

For example, the current Republican nominee for attorney general in Maryland, Michael Peroutka, was exposed by CNN's KFILE for having hosted a series of radio shows devoted to sick 9/11 conspiracy theories focused on the idea that the al-Qaeda attack was somehow an inside job by elite bureaucrats using controlled explosives. Meanwhile, over in Minnesota, the GOP nominee to be the top election officials in that state, a woman named Kim Crockett last year compared to campaign to change voting rules after the 2020 election to this September 11 terror attack, seriously.

Not only that, the GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters in Arizona said back in 2006 there's, quote, nothing wrong with being a conspiracy theorist over 9/11. Now this one goes all the way back to his college days when Masters was a member of the notoriously conservative Stanford vegan co-op, I'm kidding. But according to emails published by the Huffington Post, the future right winger was busy defending a conspiracy theorist and skepticism about official 9/11 reports, even questioning democracy and exploring the idea that America is fascist. Comments that would likely have been disqualifying in a pre-Trump Republican Party.

Now CNN hasn't verified the email cited by HuffPo, but Masters even predicted that his opponents were trying to twist the comments he wrote years before. Now, the question is why so many in the Trumpist GOP would gravitate towards these conspiracy theories? The answer might just be Donald Trump himself.

It wasn't only that Trump promoted baseless conspiracy theories as president including seal (ph) about Osama bin Laden not really being dead to do a break from the members of SEAL Team Six. And it's not just his more recent clueless comments the day before hosting Saudi Arabia funded LIV Golf tour this summer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, nobody's gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately, and they should have as to the maniacs that did that horrible.

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AVLON: Yes, we have gotten to the bottom of it. But what's striking about all this is the impact that Trump's had on the amount of 9/11 misinformation acceptance inside the GOP. Check this out. The Washington Post last year noted the shift of opinion on 9/11 conspiracy theories over the past two decades.

Back in 2006, only 18 percent but it was likely that the U.S. knew about 9/11 beforehand. By 2020, 42 percent but it was possible or likely.

[06:55:08]

Now to be clear, the audience but the most significant shift was among Republicans, between 2016 and 2020. And this is absurd because this right-wing nonsense should have been put to bed a long, long time ago. After all, 911 was seared into our memories precisely because it was witnessed by the world in real time. We know what happened, because it was exhaustively heartbreakingly documented. And not only that, al- Qaeda took credit for it, with the architects bin Laden and now Ayman al-Zawahiri being brought to justice, finally.

One of the main lessons of 9/11 is that we cannot allow ourselves to live in fear, and fear is what helps fuel conspiracy theories. Instead, we must be able to face facts recognizing that we are always much safer when we confront reality together as Americans. Next your reality check.

KEILAR: Really stunning numbers there. John Avalon, thank you for that.

Now this --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: A fifth installment of "Indiana Jones" is coming soon and an emotional Harrison Ford introduced the final chapter at the D23 Expo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRISON FORD, AMERICAN ACTOR: "Indiana Jones" movies are about mystery and adventure, but they're also about heart. And we're really, really happy. And we have a really human story to tell.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: Harry Enten is getting emotional also seeing Harrison Ford get emotional. All right, Harry, let's talk about "Indiana Jones" by the numbers here, as a franchise.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes.

BERMAN: How does it compare to other film franchises?

ENTEN: OK. If there's one thing about "Indiana Jones" you should know is that it makes a lot, a lot of money. So this is the average domestic box office growth among franchises with three or more films, inflation adjusted. Look where "Indiana Jones" is, number three with $519 million average per film. The "Avengers" is ahead of it. "Star Wars" is ahead of it. But pretty much nothing else. %519 million over four films already over multiple decades, that John, is really freaking impressive.

BERMAN: A lot of money right there. How about the critical acclaim?

ENTEN: So you'll notice those films that are on the list, not really on this list. What "Indiana Jones" that's does that's so unique is not only makes a ton of money, but the critics really, really love it. So this is the highest Rotten Tomatoes scores for franchises average for the top 50 domestic box office. And what we essentially see here is look at "Indiana Jones" on average, 86 percent, the average rating.

You and I were talking beforehand, and you were like, oh, that less --

BERMAN: No, no. I wouldn't say I think all of the nostalgia for "Indiana Jones" ignores the fact that "Indiana Jones" and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ever existed. I think we'd like deny its existence. There's Crystal Skull denialism.

ENTEN: Oh, you know what, you can deny it all you want. But the fact is, even with that film in there, 86 percent, 86 percent. So even with the, quote, unquote, John Berman Worst Award, 86 percent is still the average. That's ridiculously impressive over four films.

BERMAN: It is impressive. Let's talk about "Indiana Jones" by the numbers himself, "Indiana Jones" and Harrison Ford.

ENTEN: Yes. So if we talk about "Indiana Jones" himself, one of the things that's so impressive -- what a fine looking guy, we got three fine looking guys up here. Harrison Ford's historic span starring as "Indiana Jones." So he appeared in all of the films, all the films. When we look at people who appeared in every film of a three plus film franchise, 42 years, a 42-year span. That is the second longest span for starring actor and a top 50 domestic box office franchise only sliced alone in the Rocky films plus the Creed films actually beats him.

So we're talking about a film franchise ridiculously successful at the box office, ridiculously well, critically acclaimed. And a star who has managed to basically shred the space time continuum and still looks fantastic.

BERMAN: But he does look great. I don't want to get still him short on that. But there have been other people in these films also.

ENTEN: There have been other people in these films. You know, he has some great supporting cast here. Look at this. Look at all these people who are supporting cast, they're all Oscar nominees or winners.

BERMAN: They were not Oscar nominees in this film.

ENTEN: No.

BERMAN: I promise you, no one was nominee --

ENTEN: No, no. We have this star here.

BERMAN: Yes.

ENTEN: I was anticipating this. They weren't nominated for "Indiana Jones." But you can see all these folks. Denholm Elliott, "Raiders of the Lost Ark." And in this particular one, we already know that Antonio Banderas is going to be an "Indiana Jones" five. So a lot of (INAUDIBLE).

BERMAN: Very quickly. I love this question. One poll asked who you want to be.

ENTEN: Who would you want to be your top choices? If you could live in a movie for one day, who would you want to be? Indiana Jones is the winner here with 25 percent. "Ferris Bueller" I like that but I guess the question is we were talking about this.

BERMAN: Yes. If you say Don Corleone is the guy you want to be, what are you really saying? What is it that you want to do?

All right. Harry Enten, cover your heart, Harry. I'll leave you with that. Really appreciate it.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Well done, sir. New Day's special coverage continues right now.