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New Day
Ryan Reynolds Films Colonoscopy, Docs Discover Polyp; Retail Sales Rise Slightly In August; New Documentary Explores America's Response To Holocaust. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired September 15, 2022 - 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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[08:32:09]
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we're pretty competitive guys. We're so competitive. In fact, that last year Ryan and I made a bet. Did we?
RYAN REYNOLDS, ACTOR: I don't remember that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
REYNOLDS: He picks him up. Good.
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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so what happened here is actor Ryan Reynolds lost a bet that potentially saved his life in an effort to raise awareness of the increase in colon cancer diagnoses among people under 50. Reynolds let a camera follow him to his first colonoscopy. And this is what he learned.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You did such a good prep that I was able to find an extremely subtle polyp that it was on the right side of your colon. This was potentially lifesaving for you. I'm not kidding. I'm not being overly dramatic.
REYNOLDS: I love it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean it. This is exactly why you to do this, OK? You had no symptoms.
REYNOLDS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, man.
REYNOLDS: OK. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm thrilled for you.
REYNOLDS: Thank you so much for this. Seriously, thank you for pushing me to do this.
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BERMAN: All right, CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Tara Narula joins us now. It's exactly. That's exactly what my doctor said when it happened to. I had done great prep. Why is this video so important?
DR. TARA NARULA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously, it's personal, but it's really powerful. Powerful, because it increases awareness about colon cancer in general. But also it educates to take away any fear, misunderstanding or stigma around the procedure. And so many times I've heard people say, look, it was watching one video, reading one story that affected me that made me go ahead and get my screening.
We know that screening is so effective, it's one of our best tools. Colon cancer, third leading cause of death, over 150,000 Americans are going to be diagnosed annually with colon cancer. And of the people eligible to get screening, only 70 percent do. So there's a huge room for improvement there.
And when you look at screening, particularly with colon cancer, it's about finding things early so that you can treat quickly and get to it before it spreads and also really lower someone's risk of morbidity and mortality. And with these polyps, most of them are pre-cancerous, they take almost 10 to 15 years before they develop into cancer. So a lot of room and time there to get to something quickly and ahead of the time before it spreads.
BERMAN: It's so important to destigmatize, and I give them both huge credit for doing this because you just need to be able to talk about it freely, because it's not that big of a deal to do it. What are the screening recommendations?
NARULA: Exactly. So for the average risk American, 45 to 75, those individuals should be getting screened usually about every 10 years. For those that are 76 to 85, it should be an individualized decision, something you discuss with your doctor. And then when you're over 86, the recommendation is no longer for screening.
Now there are individuals who are in higher risk categories who may be screened at different intervals, you may start screening earlier, and there are other screening tests besides colonoscopy. So it's worth discussing with your doctor what you feel comfortable with or what you want to have done.
BERMAN: What are some of the risk factors here?
[08:35:00]
NARULA: So risk factors, there are things you can't control. So if you're over 50, that increases your risk. If you're African-American, if you have a history of inflammatory bowel disease, a family or personal history of colon cancer or polyps, they're certain genetic disorders. But then this is important. There are lifestyle risk factors, things that you can control. So if you eat a diet that's high in red or processed meats, low and fruits or vegetables, being overweight or obese, alcohol or tobacco consumption, and being sedentary, these are things that are going to increase your risk.
BERMAN: Dr. Narula, thank you so much. This is one of those times we can all be like Ryan Reynolds.
NARULA: That's right. And it's the best sleep of your life when you have a colonoscopy, so.
BERMAN: That's right. You don't know anything.
NARULA: It's actually nice.
BERMAN: It's over before you know it. Thank you so much for being with us.
NARULA: Thank you.
KEILAR: Time now for five things to know for your New Day. The White House announcing a tentative agreement that averts a crippling nationwide freight rail strike. The deal coming after nearly 24 hours of negotiations involving union leaders, rail companies and the U.S. labor secretary. President Biden was said to be instrumental in getting a deal done.
BERMAN: Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, taking credit for sending to plane loads of asylum seekers to Martha's Vineyard without notice, leaving Massachusetts officials scrambling to find them shelter. The governors of Texas and Arizona have lost thousands of migrants to other states in recent weeks.
KEILAR: The package explosion at Boston's Northeastern University is now being investigated as a possible hoax. Law enforcement officials say they're looking into whether the employee who reported the incident may have lied to police and say he may have staged the incident himself.
BERMAN: Newly released text messages revealed a former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant helped NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre divert millions of dollars of welfare funds from poor families to instead build a volleyball facility where Favre's farmer's daughter plays. It's been called the largest public fraud case in the state's history.
KEILAR: LeBron James says the NBA got Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury Managing Partner Robert Sarver's penalty wrong by only handing him a one-year suspension and $10 million fine. This comes after the league found Sarver engaged in hostile, racially insensitive and inappropriate behavior.
BERMAN: Those are five things to know for your New Day. More in these stories all day on CNN and cnn.com. And don't forget to download the 5 Things podcast every morning.
All right, this just in, two key economic reports will tell you the numbers ahead.
KEILAR: And President Biden gets behind the wheel of a Corvette for a literal victory lap.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Zero to 60 in 3 seconds. My Corvette is 5.2 seconds. Three seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 3.5, but who's counting.
BIDEN: Who's counting.
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KEILAR: Have a second, President Biden getting behind the wheel at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. He checked out several cars including this very orange Corvette, and he gave a speech announcing the approval of the first $900 million for states to install electric vehicle chargers all across the country.
There's a long and rubbed up history of presidents riding in cars and trucks here. In 2017. President Trump welcoming drivers and executives from the American Trucking Association to the White House. Be climbed behind the wheel of an 18 Wheeler.
And then in 2014, President Obama toured a Highway Research Center and got behind the wheel of a driving simulator. In 2007, George W. Bush sat through a final inspection of a Ford hybrid when he visited an Assembly Plant in Missouri.
In 1994, Bill Clinton was allowed to drive a Mustang, a pink one here, when he visited the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. And then before that, George H.W. Bush drove an Ethan (ph) all powered Chevrolet around a test lab track. One thing all these presidents had in common, they weren't on open roads because obviously for security purposes.
High profile government officials and former officials aren't allowed to drive on streets and highways. In 2017, George W. Bush told Jay Leno, he hadn't driven a car on a public road in 25 years. And Vice President Biden said it best in 2014 while speaking to an audience of auto workers.
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BIDEN: There's a lot of reasons to run for president. There's one overwhelming reason not to run for president. I like to get that Z 06 with zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds.
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BERMAN: All right, this just in, the August retail sales are forcing its Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans here with the number CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: A bunch of new numbers this morning, John. Let's look at retail sales of 0.3 percent. In August, there's this push pull for consumers right now. They're feeling high inflation, but they're also having a decline in gas prices. It looks like that decline in gas prices, something that helped them out there.
You can see that July number was revised. It had been flat now revised down a little bit. So it shows you that retail sales flagged a little bit in July, and then picked up in August.
Let's look at first time jobless claims. We get those every week at this time on Thursday. And you can see this trend is pretty interesting five weeks or so now of lower jobless claims. Jobless claims are a proxy for layoffs. What this is telling you is that workers are in high demand in this economy and employers are holding on to them.
They are very rarely out there trying to lay workers off because they need workers so much. We know there are about 11 million open jobs in this country. So you're seeing a picture here of a very strong job market. Still very few layoffs. And you're seeing a resilient consumer still for now holding up in the face of high inflation but falling gas prices, John.
BERMAN: All right, Christine Romans, putting in perspective. Thank you very much.
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The big news overnight, a deal has been reached to avert a potentially crippling railroad stake. We have new details on the agreement and how it came together.
KEILAR: And a compelling new documentary reveals the uncomfortable truth about America's response to the Holocaust. Legendary Filmmaker Ken Burns will join us next.
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BERMAN: An eye opening. New documentary explores America's response to one of the most horrific events of the 20th century, the Holocaust. Here's a preview.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We tell ourselves stories as a nation. One of the stories we tell ourselves is that we're a land of immigrants. But in moments of crisis, it becomes very hard for us to live up to those stories.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Holocaust was beyond belief. People just disappeared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The primary goal was get to the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the golden door was not wide open.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are challenged as Americans to think about what we would have done, what we could have done, what we should have done.
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[08:50:04]
BERMAN: Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick join me now. And I just have to say I've had a chance to see some of this and it's breathtaking.
LYNN NOVICK, CO-DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER, "THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST": Thank you.
BERMAN: And what you address is America's role, America's response here. And what you ask of the viewer is to just be honest --
KEN BURNS, CO-DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER, "THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST": Yes.
BERMAN: -- about what happened. Why is that so important?
BURNS: Well, I think we now have a kind of history that gets sanitized, we're concerned that we don't want to show the more difficult aspects of it. And I think for a long time with regard to the Holocaust, we were protected by the Atlantic Ocean, and the continent of Europe and thought we didn't know, we knew everything that was going on, and that we weren't in any way involved. And we're not, we're not complicit in the Holocaust, we in fact, let in more refugees than any other sovereign nation.
But it's a fraction of what we could have led in. And so, when it was critical for us to relieve the suffering of refugees coming from the Holocaust, we did not do enough. And it's on the administration at the time, it's on the various executive departments. It's on the Congress that had passed pernicious immigration laws in the '20. And it's on the people of the United States, who had inherited a kind of toxic antisemitism, anti-immigrant sentiment, the depression was happening. There's racism in the country.
Hitler had admired the way we had taken care of our indigenous populations. We -- they studied our Jim Crow laws. The German study our Jim Crow laws, to fashion anti-discrimination laws against the Jews.
BERMAN: And that's the thing. And as you say, this is not about the U.S. being complicit.
BURNS: No. Not at all.
BERMAN: And it was did bring in more.
BURNS: Yes, and we won the war. It's our manufacturing and Soviet sacrifice and an American sacrifice that won the war. BERMAN: But by definition, could have done more, could have saved maybe, maybe millions of lives here. And Ken was just addressing something here that I think is really revelatory, which is that a lot of the themes, a lot of the ideas that were in Germany in the 20s and 30s, they were here too like eugenics, for instance.
NOVICK: Yes, exactly. You know, there was interchange of ideas and ideologies. And the idea that there was a superior race which Hitler took to a grotesque extreme, didn't -- you know, that was something that was very popular in America, too, when there was the pseudo- science, it really isn't the science at all called eugenics, which was not just popular, but kind of mainstream, taught in medical schools, used to determine public policy and corrections, prisons, police, you know, everything.
Basically, the idea was, there's a hierarchy of races, even though there is no such thing as different races. There's just as Ken always says, one race, the human race. But this pseudo-science was ranking people into categories, and basically saying, white Aryan Nordic people are at the top, and then, you know, cascading down a ladder. And then what do you do about that?
Well, in Hitler's hands, this became what they call racial hygiene. They wanted to purify their races, their, you know, pool, and they took it to an extreme. But there was an exchange of ideas between the U.S. Great Britain, Western Europe and Germany. And, you know, we have to reckon with that here, too.
BERMAN: Yes, it wasn't just mainstream to somebody who was celebrated by figures who continue to be admired for other things. This is history, all of your documentaries are about history.
BURNS: Yes.
BERMAN: But all of them also make you think about where we are now.
BURNS: Exactly.
BERMAN: And we woke up to the news this morning, that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida sent two plane loads of migrants to Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, including kids and whatnot. And I'm not saying this is not a one for one. This is not a parallel here in any way. But it does address some of the same themes that are part of this documentary.
BURNS: Well it's the abstraction of human life. It's basically saying that you can use a human life that is as valuable as yours, or mine or Lynn's and to put it in a position of becoming a political pawn in somebody's authoritarian game. This is coming straight out of the authoritarian playbook. This is what's so disturbing about DeSantis is to use human beings, to weaponize human beings for a political purpose. It's like when somebody disagrees with him in Florida, like the Walt Disney Company, he punishes them.
This is not the actions of a person participating in a democratic process in which there's an exchange of ideas. This is about punishing political enemies, putting on shows, political shows, political theater, and in this case, this is with the lives of human beings. And what's so ironic is these are Venezuelan refugees, which DeSantis should be supporting because they're trying to flee the corruption of a left-wing government and all of the pain there.
And so this -- the level of cynicism is beyond that. And what we find in all our films is that the themes that we engage in the past are present today. And so when you look at the story that we're telling of "The U.S. and the Holocaust," you understand that the time to save a democracy is before it's lost. We promise you.
[08:55:05]
BERMAN: Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, I want people to watch this. It is wonderful. You are guaranteed to learn something even people who think they know everything on this subject will learn so much here. I really appreciate the work you both have done. Thank you.
BURNS: Thank you.
BERMAN: "The U.S. and the Holocaust" premieres this Sunday at 8pm on PBS and streaming on pbs.org.
The billionaire behind Patagonia giving away his entire company to help save the environment saying, quote, Earth is now our only shareholder.
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