Return to Transcripts main page

NEW DAY

Obama At G-20 Summit; Obama Pressing For Syria Strikes; TSA Expands Precheck Program; Hospital Chemo Case; Faster On The Draw; Russia's Position On Syria; Tension Between Russia And America; Fast And Furious; Mold Found In Popular Yogurt; New Food Safety Campaign; Good News For Lamar; Katy Dethrones Robin; Is Scarjo Engaged?; Ryan Gosling Turned Down "Fifty Shades" Lead

Aired September 5, 2013 - 07:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Hope the morning's going well for you so far. This is NEW DAY, of course, Thursday, September 5th. Coming up, face-off on Syria, President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg, but keeping their distance. We're going to talk to Fareed Zakaria about exactly where Russia stands and if the two leaders can find common ground.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good question. Plus fasten your seat belt, folk, video showing a driver speeding recklessly around the streets of Manhattan, running red lights, cutting people off. The cops have some questions for this person understandably. We're going to talk about it.

CUOMO: Lots of news for you this morning, so let's get right to Michaela -- Mick.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're going to tell you the headlines right now. Meet the allies as Chris mentioned just a moment ago, President Obama now in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the annual G- 20 Summit where Syria, not the global economy, is center stage. There are no plans officially for the president and russian President Vladimir Putin to meet one on one to discuss differences on Syria, but the White House says they'll talk on the margins of the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voting 10-7 in favor of authorizing U.S. military strikes against Syria. The full Senate will vote next week, but the resolution faces an uncertain outcome in the House. President Obama in Russia as we mentioned for the G-20 Summit, he says even if the measure is rejected, he still has the authority to order attacks on the Assad regime.

More air travelers will soon be able to avoid taking off shoes during security checks. The TSA says it is expanding the pre-check program to another 60 airports by the end of this year. It's already in place at some 40 airports. This pre-check program allowed pre-approved passengers to avoid most of the hassles associated with security lines these days including taking off belts and shoes, pulling your laptop out of the cases and removing gels and liquids from your carryon bags. An Ohio judge ruled against a hospital that was trying to force a 10- year-old Amish girl to undergo chemotherapy. Akron Children's Hospital says is Sarah Herschberger will die of leukemia if she does not resume chemo. Her parents say they want to try other kinds of treatment. In his ruling, the judge said giving the hospital control of Sarah's treatment would take away the Herschberger's parental rights.

Boy, a store clerk certainly turned the tables on a would-be robber in Marionville, Missouri. Check it out, when the man took out a gun and asks for all the money, 54-year-old John Lewis pulled out his gun and quickly got the upper hand on the robber and the guy fled. The gunman did not know who he was dealing with because look, Lewis is an Iraq war vet. He's a former undercover detective and is he a prison guard. My friend, you picked the wrong guy to stick up. Those are your headlines at this hour. Kate, over to you.

BOLDUAN: All right, Michaela, thank you so much.

Let's talk more about President Obama in Russia right now for the G-20 Summit. Joining me now to help break it down and what it means and what could be accomplished in the meetings, Fareed Zakaria, host of "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS." Fareed, thanks so much.

So the president and Vladimir Putin are going to be face to face at least having a handshake in about an hour. The question I think everyone wonders even if face to face or maybe even a conversation on the margins, do you think the president can win over Russia, can win support of Vladimir Putin as it relates to military action in Syria at this point?

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, CNN'S "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": It's going to be very tough. There's a whole bunch of issues that come in the way.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about those issues though, because it's complicated and important to understand how we got to where we are today, the relationship especially at it relates to Syria. What is at stake? Let's look at the animation, what's at stake for Russia in Syria?

ZAKARIA: Well, it's an interesting question because objectively it isn't a huge relationship. They do have defense exports. The Russians sell the Syrian stuff, but not a whole hell of a lot. They have a port which I think we have here. The Port of Tartus but it's largely unused. The Russian maybe doesn't really need it much, don't go there much.

The part I think may be at the heart of this is the Russians worry that if Assad falls in Syria, a whole bunch of Islamic militants will come to power and start spreading Islamic militancy and Jihad into Russia. Remember Russia is very close to Syria and remember where the Tsarnaevs come from, right, the Chechnya Dagestan area. That's where they are worried. It will become a kind of conduit of Islamic radicalism right up into the heart of Russia.

BOLDUAN: Well, that's interesting because that concern of who takes over if Assad falls is also a shared concern of many lawmakers here in Washington, here in the United States on Capitol Hill in their opposition to U.S. action in Russia. But what do you think are the main reasons for Russia's opposition to going into Syria?

ZAKARIA: Well, the first part that Russian officials have told me often is they feel they got tricked in Libya. In Libya, the United States went to the U.N. and asked for what they claim was a limited mission to protect civilians and turned it into a regime change strategy to get rid of Gadhafi. The Russians don't like that and they feel like they were tricked so they're probably not going to fall for the same trick again in their words again.

Russia has also tended not to like the idea that the U.N. can interfere in the domestic affairs as they see it of other countries. This is a longstanding position, the Russians and the Chinese have, part of it is look, Vladimir Putin doesn't want the U.N. looking at what he does to his internal rebellions and revolts, whether in Chechnya or protests in Russia. I think they find themselves -- it's difficult to see why they would do it because this kind of Russian nationalism is very popular in Russia. When Putin --

BOLDUAN: All politics is local.

ZAKARIA: When Putin stands up to Obama, the Russians say he's a strong leader. He is standing up to the super power and Putin made a reference to it. He said, you know, I was not elected to be nice to the Americans and Mr. Obama was not elected to be nice to Russians.

BOLDUAN: Well, then also and real quick before we move on to the next topic, what also is at play here has to be the relationship with China that Russia has and maybe more importantly Iran.

ZAKARIA: Right. Russia at the end of the day has carved out for itself a set of relationships all of which revolve around many similar issues, protection of sovereignty and things like that. It's an old alliance with Syria. It's one of the last cold war alliances Russia has. So when everything else crumbled maybe this is why they hold on.

BOLDUAN: Talk about the cold war, I want to run through this, the relationship with Russia between the U.S. and Russia has really disintegrated in spectacular fashion since the reset. I mean, they say the worst since the cold war. What's behind all that you think?

ZAKARIA: Well, let's remember to begin with, it was only good for a short period of time when Boris Yeltsin was president, when they needed us. They needed western cash desperately. When the price of oil was $20 a barrel and now it's $100 a barrel.

BOLDUAN: And there are so many tension points including obviously one thing that comes to mind Edward Snowden.

ZAKARIA: Right. So you have the Snowden issue where the Russians have ended up giving this guy asylum. This is a normal cold war style spy change. Frankly, if we had gotten a Russian Edward Snowden, I very much doubt we would have handed him back, but that's a source of enormous irritation. BOLDUAN: Yes, and then you have all of these issues including the gay rights that is going to come front and center when President Obama is hitting the G-20.

ZAKARIA: Right. The president is going to meet with gay activists in Russia as a pointed snub to Putin on this issue.

BOLDUAN: I think at its core is also just generally speaking these two men are very different personalities.

ZAKARIA: You couldn't script this differently. Obama is the city boy, community organizer, you know, law professor, what he likes to do in his free time is play basketball.

BOLDUAN: Right.

ZAKARIA: Putin is a KGB agent spent years deep in the heart of the soviet empire. What he likes to do in his free time is wrestle tigers, ride horses, do judo.

BOLDUAN: And show up a lot with his shirt off.

ZAKARIA: Show up a lot with his shirt off. Unless they can find a way to do, I don't know, judo with their shirts off they're not going to bond.

BOLDUAN: All of this just really shows what's at stake and really everything that's at stake for president in these meetings at the G-20 right now.

ZAKARIA: It's the challenge. Remember you can often have all these differences and that's where diplomacy comes in, you can still find some way to strike a deal.

BOLDUAN: Yes, that's difficult though. Fareed, great to see you as always. Thank you for your insights. "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS," you can see it on the weekends -- Chris.

CUOMO: The description of Vladimir Putin could also describe the man with me now John Berman here to talk about a video that has gone viral. Have you seen this? It's a BMW speeding around the edge of Manhattan. Police are searching for the driver in this YouTube clip. Why? Well, he says he made the trip 26 miles in record-breaking time, also means law breaking so let's bring in John with the story. Hello, my tiger wrestling friend.

JOHN BERMAN, ANCHOR, "EARLY START": You know, this is about a man who has been treating the island of Manhattan like his own personal racetrack. It's a dangerous competition creating huge internet buzz right now, but a warning to the driver, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says he's going to catch you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (voice-over): In New York City, when the traffic light turns green, it is often off to the races, but not like this. This is accelerated 6-minute, hair-raising YouTube video posted last Monday showing a driver dangerously and illegally dashing around Manhattan, cutting people off, and running a red light. It's part of an impromptu and dangerous new competition putting other drivers and pedestrians at risk and has the New York City police on the lookout.

RAY KELLY, NYPD COMMISSIONER: We now have license plate readers that are positioned in the city that will assist in this type of investigation.

BERMAN: The anonymous driver going by the name "Afro Duck" is trying to break a self-proclaimed record to cruise around Manhattan as fast as possible. He claims he did it in 24:07, achieved by driving the 26 miles at average speeds of 66 miles per hour. The sped up video set to a popular dance song called "No Beat" has gained so much notoriety, the driver was interviewed by the car blog "Jalopnic."

He defended his actions saying being a fast driver doesn't mean that you're inherently a bad or reckless driver. The previous record was claimed by a group calling itself "The Corporate Broadcasting Company," who also posted a sped up YouTube video back in 2010. They claimed a time just over 26 minutes.

So how long does the 26-mile loop actually take? Another video posted by Jonathan Harper claims that if you follow the speed limit, the same route takes a lengthy 41 minutes, double "Afroduck's" record.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Now "Afroduck's" only advice to drivers who might want to try this is watch out for speeding tickets. I'm not sure anyone should be taking his advice. It seems like a fairly reckless thing to do. We might add it really does appear that police are out there in force right now on the hunt. One of our producers, he sits right back there, noticed some police out this morning when they stopped him on the way to work. They'd never been in that location before, clearly on the lookout.

CUOMO: Afroduck is in our midst?

BERMAN: Afroduck is somewhere, maybe one of your producers.

CUOMO: Truth is it's dangerous, average speed 66 miles an hour, I don't know how they did that around the island of Manhattan without being reckless. John Berman, thank you very much, my friend.

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY, two food alerts to tell you about a voluntary recall of Chobani Greek yogurt and a warning that rinsing your chicken before cooking it might do more harm than good. Why? We'll tell you.

CUOMO: Look what I have on my wrist.

BOLDUAN: What is it?

CUOMO: The new smartphone right there. Can you see it? Look at that, notifications, voice memo. It's all right here, highly anticipated Galaxy gear, right on my wrist and they say I can keep it.

BOLDUAN: Actually better looking than I gave it credit for yesterday. Not the wrist, no, not the wrist.

CUOMO: Come on, I can't flex much longer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY everyone. Two important food alerts to talk about this morning, a popular yogurt brand pulling some of its products after several reports of mold and it turns out you have probably been handling raw chicken completely wrong according to a new public health campaign out.

Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is at the CNN Center this morning with more on this. These are two important things a lot of parents are listening to right now, Elizabeth. Let's start with the yogurt. What are the concerns there? What are we talking about?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's interesting because this all appears to have surfaced through Twitter. People started tweeting that something was kind of funky with their Chobani yogurt. So for example, this one woman, Shelby, she said usually a big fan, but this strawberry Chobani is not good. It tasted really old. And then someone else said, "My vanilla Chobani is fizzy and tastes like wine. Is this bad?

And then someone else tweeted if the foil top of my Chobani yogurt is puffed up and the yogurt taste fizzy, does that mean it's spoiled? Well, Lilac Sunday, apparently yes. Apparently, the Chobani yogurt company then came out and said we found some mold in our Chobani yogurts. They recalled some products. It wasn't a huge amount of products. It was only about 5 percent of their total products that they put out there on the shelves, but still for the people who ended up getting it and taking it home it was probably pretty shocking.

BOLDUAN: Potentially affected Chobani yogurts to pay attention to, but what is on the shelves now is that safe to eat? Do they think they've gotten everything that potentially had any mold out of the way?

COHEN: You know, they say they've gotten the vast majority. So one has to wonder about the small minority, is it still out there? It appears that it might be. Now I want to be clear, Kate, that the FDA says that no one has gotten sick from this as far as they know and the experts we talked to said, you know what, mold from dairy is usually, it doesn't make you sick so it's not a health hazard. I t probably doesn't taste very good.

BOLDUAN: All right, now let's talk about this chicken issue, if you will. It kind of is turning conventional cooking wisdom on its head. Everyone, you know, you get the chicken breasts and you go off and prepare them. But now we're hearing you probably should not. Why?

COHEN: Right, you think you're doing good, you think you're washing something off of it right, but in fact what you are doing is bad because take a look at this. This is from Drexel University. You're washing your chicken, but guess what? You're putting that bacteria all over the place, it's on you, it's on the counters. In fact, one analysis showed that you could find the bacteria 3 feet away and you're not actually getting it off the chicken so that's the worst part.

BOLDUAN: That's the key part the rinsing isn't doing anything.

COHEN: It doesn't work and it seems to be causing harm, so don't do it. The trick is you just need to cook your chicken because there are bad bacteria inside potentially and outside so just cook it thoroughly.

BOLDUAN: And it goes without saying the germs that are splashing off of the chicken not good germs that you want on your counter, which could then get, you could then get into your body.

COHEN: Right, exactly. You could get sick, salmonella possibly, it's all bad. You don't want any of that. So don't wash it. It doesn't work, just cook it thoroughly.

BOLDUAN: All right, good advice to start the day with. Elizabeth, great to see you. Thank you.

COHEN: Thanks.

CUOMO: That's why I keep a sponge with a very light bleach water solution next to my sink. Sponge is already in it. Always use it on the counter because it's filthy.

BOLDUAN: Yes, that's a good idea. There you go. You can thank him later.

CUOMO: Take a little break and think about it right now. We come back on NEW DAY, a voter hurling some serious insults at New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner and he does not let it slide. You are going to want to watch this extraordinary on camera toe-to-toe battle.

BOLDUAN: And "Blurred Lines" the undisputed song of the summer. Was someone finally able to roar past Robin Thicke on the charts? Details in our "Pop Four."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: I need the eye of the tiger or something to wake me up today. Welcome back to NEW DAY. It is time for the "Pop Four." Here is someone to wake us up, Nischelle Turner.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: This is your song so this will give you a little bit of energy. First, our number four story this morning, potentially some good news for Lemar Oden. There are reports that he has checked into rehab. A source telling "People" magazine he realized he needed help and we would love to see him get it. Good luck to you, Lemar. I am Katie, hear me roar. Robin Thicke has been dethroned is our number three story. His 12-week run on top of Billboard Hot 100 has come to an end all thanks to "Roar" Katie Perry's new single. It is a good one.

Number two, wedding bells ringing this morning, Scarlett Johansson is engaged to her advertising executive, Bo Romaine. Rumors of an engagement began swirling after the ring she has on her finger she was wearing in Venice.

BOLDUAN: That little thing.

TURNER: Costume jewelry, not. They have not chosen a wedding date. That's what her they tell CNN.

All right, guys, what could have been our number one story, 50 shades of fall out. Yes, Ryan Gosling could have been saying, girl, to Dakota Johnson because he was offered the lead of "50 Shades of Grey," but he passed on the role, this according to the "Hollywood Reporter." He would have been a good Christian Grey. He's got that thing, guys. He's got that thing.

BOLDUAN: Are you nodding your head because you're unhappy?

TURNER: Exactly, busy looking at the picture.

BOLDUAN: I'm having the same feeling right now.

CUOMO: I got, listen, I get the respect among the ladies for Ryan Gosling --

BOLDUAN: Have you started the series?

CUOMO: However, I tell you what? I think you should get used to disappointment with him. He has a role as a director. He is a very smart guy, creative guy and he may see his future, maybe direct shirtless or something like that.

TURNER: That would be nice. We could see the behind the scenes footage and get our fix. Chris Cuomo, I love when you give me insight to what I do.

CUOMO: It only happened once.

BOLDUAN: Chris knows something about everything and he'll let you know it.

CUOMO: Look, somebody's calling you.

Coming up on NEW DAY, just months after announcing she has a fatal brain tumor, Valerie Harper back on TV and she's doing "Dancing With The Stars," but first she is talking to our Nischelle Turner.

BOLDUAN: President Obama is now in St. Petersburg, Russia for the G- 20 Summit. That doesn't mean his icy relationship with Vladimir Putin is warming up at all. We'll have more on that, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: After we've gone through all this, are we going to try to find a reason not to act?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: War on two fronts. President Obama set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin this hour as the two engage in a war of words. While back at home, the president wins a key vote in the battle to get approval for his attack plans.

BOLDUAN: The gathering storm. A tropical storm forms in the Caribbean. Scientists say the Atlantic is long overdue for a hurricane. We're tracking it all this morning.

PEREIRA: The watch of the future? We have it here, the Samsung Smartwatch, the smartphone for your wrist. Will it revolutionize the tech world?

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It means the final closure. It means we can move on with our lives now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Good morning and welcome back to NEW DAY, everyone. It is Thursday --