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Pastor Calls For Attorney General Sessions To "Repent" For Immigrant Stance; Anti-Semitic Incidents On The Rise In The United States; What Are Social Networks Doing To Stop Hate Online?; CDC Confirms 10 New AFM Cases, 72 Total This Year. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 30, 2018 - 07:30   ET

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


[07:30:00] REVEREND WILL GREEN, PASTOR, BALLARD VALE UNITED CHURCH, ANDOVER, MARYLAND, CONFRONTED ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS AT EVENT ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: I would really invite anyone who feels so called to return to those words, literally, to read the bible -- the 25th chapter of Matthew.

To talk about it with their friends, with their pastors, with their parents, with their children, with their neighbors and say well, where do I stand? Which side am I on? How does my -- how are my values lived out in the world?

And the criterion that we should be judging ourselves by -- the criterion by which Jesus judges us is are we helping others? Are we, literally, feeding people who are hungry? Literally, visiting people are jailed?

Literally, welcoming people who are strangers, which is that interesting word used in translation -- strangers. What does strangers mean? It means asylum seeker.

It means a person who is crossing boundaries -- people who are crossing borders and who are seeking community protection and well- being, which is what we're all seeking. The ability to have -- to have a good life and a safe life. So, Matthew 25.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The president -- the president calls them -- the president calls them invaders.

And I will note the attorney general -- and I don't think you would deny that the attorney general considers himself a man of deep faith. He says it is in his faith that the government can pass laws, and among the laws that the government can pass is restricting immigration. He doesn't see a conflict between law and scripture.

GREEN: I call these people my friends, I call them my neighbors, I call them my family. God calls them my people, Jesus calls them beloved. And that's who I listen to for my messaging and that's how I -- that's how I see -- try to see the world -- through the eyes of Christ.

I see friends, I see neighbors. I see people I love. People I am called to be in community with and to serve. I'll speak to something else you said -- you were referencing there about conflict between the laws of the nation and conflict between that and the laws of our Lord.

Of course, people of faith need to side with God when there is a question about conflict and tension between what our nation is doing and what God is calling us to do. All people of faith need to be very clear about where they stand in this divide. We stand with God.

As a -- as a protestant Christian, as United Methodist, I stand with scripture. My Unitarian Universalist friends talk about standing on the side of love, which is a beautiful thing. Where do we stand when there's conflict?

Certainly, in terms of religious liberty, we have to be very clear about where our first priority is. Our first priority is always to God. As a Christian, my first priority is always -- there's no question -- it's to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And to people who have difference or who don't have religious practice, I'd also invite you to think about the first thing I was trying reference. What side do you stand on? What are your principles, what are your values?

I hope that you are rooted, like I try to be, in love, in justice, in community well-being and taking care of others. That's what's most important.

As a religious leader, I'm grateful for the chance to share this message and to remind people that's where we need to stand. And invite people -- you know, even this very day -- to say how am I going to -- how am I going to live that out? What would it look like for me? How am I doing on this --

BERMAN: Yes.

GREEN: -- and how do I stand on the side of love, of justice, and taking care of others?

BERMAN: Reverend Will Green from Massachusetts. Again, thanks for being with us.

Let us know if you hear back from the attorney general. If he engages you in this dialogue that you are inviting him to enter into.

Thank you, sir.

GREEN: Absolutely.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John.

As you know, America is struggling after the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in history. So what is behind the rise of crimes against Jews? CNN investigates, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [07:37:51] CAMEROTA: This morning, Pittsburgh prepares to bury three victims of the synagogue massacre. At the same time, the anti- Semitism is on the rise in America, spiking dramatically over just the last two years. Why is this happening?

CNN's Sara Sidner has a report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Investigators say Robert Bowers wanted all Jews to die. The suspect using his arsenal of weapons to try and kill as many Jews as he could now face a myriad of hate crime and murder charges.

In Squirrel Hill, the center of Jewish life in and around Pittsburgh, resident Hallie Goldstein says fear was never part of the equation until now.

HALLIE GOLDSTEIN, RESIDENT, SQUIRREL HILL, PENNSYLVANIA: Before, everyone was just saying how they felt stronger and they felt braver. And I don't feel brave, I just feel scared.

SIDNER: Now, there is reason to fear. Eleven people were just slaughtered in a synagogue in America.

For years, incidents of anti-Semitism were on the decline in America. Then came the 2016 presidential election. Since then, a meteoric rise -- a 34 percent increase in 2016; a 57 percent increase in 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League that tracks it.

JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CEO, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: That's the single- largest surge we've ever seen since we started tracking this data.

SIDNER: Nothing is sacred. Not human life or places of worship or even where the dead are buried.

In Omaha, Nebraska, a veteran's memorial scarred with a swastika. In Indiana, a synagogue desecrated. In Sacramento, California, flyers targeting Jewish students on campus.

MICHAEL GOFMAN, STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA: It screams of the same type of graphics and the same type of design that the Nazis use.

SIDNER: This is in Potter County, Pennsylvania just a few months ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my country.

SIDNER (on camera): It's right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This --

SIDNER: This is also my country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys didn't win the culture war. Get the (bleep) out of here -- (bleep) now. SIDNER (voice-over): And no one can forget the torch-bearing men in Charlottesville, Virginia spewing their hate-filled rhetoric.

WHITE U.S. NATIONALISTS, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA: You will not replace us! You will not replace us!

SIDNER: What is behind all this? The ADL and those who track hate say there is no doubt political rhetoric is, in part, to blame.

[07:40:02] That rhetoric can be subtle or in your face, like U.S. Rep. Steve King, for example, retweeting messages from a known Nazi sympathizer.

REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: I'm not deleting that because then you all pile on me and say King had to apologize. He was wrong. He knows he's guilty.

I'm not. I don't feel guilty one bit. I'm human.

SIDNER: This Trump political ad raised eyebrows, featuring prominent Jews to target global special interests.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And for the global special interests --

SIDNER: While those accused of anti-Semitism for years, like Louis Farrakhan, continue to tweet and make inflammatory statements.

GREENBLATT: When Jews are literally under attack we should have a zero tolerance policy on intolerance. It's unacceptable that anyone, from the president to Minister Farrakhan to anyone in between should make derisive comments and all of it should be called out. All of it should be unacceptable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (on camera): And it all adds up.

And let us not forget social media sites like Gab that give a place for people to express these kind of anti-Semitic sentiments. That is where we found the suspect and him spewing such hate -- even warning that he was about to "go in."

We do know from many, many months of looking at Gab -- I covered hate in this country and I actually ended up going there after Charlottesville because that is where many of the white supremacists and neo-Nazis migrated to because they kept getting kicked off of platforms like Twitter, and so it is a place.

Even a few minutes after this horrible massacre -- after the world learned of it, there were many, many anti-Semitic tropes all over that social media site -- John.

BERMAN: Sara Sidner for us in Pittsburgh.

Sara saying she covers hate in this country. Sadly, it appears as if it's a growing beat. We thank you for the work that you do on that.

And there were those who were noticing, including Jonathan Greenblatt -- right here -- of the Anti-Defamation League -- that there has never been as safe of a space for anti-Semitism to thrive as exists now on social media.

So what is Silicon Valley doing to stop it? We'll discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:45:53] CAMEROTA: The Anti-Defamation League reports a 57 percent spike in crimes against Jews in one year alone.

In all of the hate-filled crime of this past week, what role is social media playing?

Joining us now is Laurie Segall. She's a "CNN Business" senior technology correspondent. She reports on this stuff all the time.

And, CNN political analyst David Gregory. David, we have scrambled you back into the chair because you were making the point that social media has a role to play in anti-Semitism.

What are your thoughts?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I just think there are communities of hate that are more available now.

"The New York Times" reporting this morning about the number of Instagram posts with the hashtag "JewsDid911" and it's an astounding number.

And the fact is that we have in our society the ability to be together alone.

You know, this shooter in Pittsburgh would have at his disposal a community of hate when this is clearly a lonely, misguided person. And we know, based on what his writings are, what motivated him and he's given a platform in a way that weaponizes that hate in a way that we've not seen before.

And I just don't think, as others have scrutinized social media companies, that these companies have really thought about what they have unleashed -- what they have made possible. And now, they're trying to rein it back in -- often, not very successfully.

BERMAN: Laurie Segall, you are the others of whom David Gregory is speaking there who know a lot about these social media companies.

So what are they doing and are they doing enough, frankly?

LAURIE SEGALL, BUSINESS SENIOR TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT, CNN BUSINESS: Well, I think they're scrambling at this point.

You go to Silicon Valley -- I just spent the last month in San Francisco and at the dinner table they're talking about did we ruin democracy? The pendulum went all the way over here -- we've got to come back.

You know, they've invested a lot of money. They're working quite a bit on different types of moderation, on artificial intelligence to do this type of thing. But, human nature has shown that they're already behind and this is very, very dangerous -- a lot of this rhetoric online.

And it's also moving off just Facebook and Twitter onto places like Gab. And we spoke about this last year in a series we did about alternative tech where there's even less moderation. Where this hate can go even farther.

And something that struck me even last week with an explosive device being sent here to the Time Warner Center.

When we were standing outside I was thinking of what one behavioral psychologist said to me who studies the Internet. He said I worry that our world is beginning to resemble a chat room. That we are becoming our avatars and thinking about these clicks and these swipes turning into police sirens and bullets.

And with -- the hate has always been there and the manifestation of this with all these conspiracies going viral, and these companies enabling them to do so and not getting on top of it. I think it's a huge, huge problem.

CAMEROTA: Well look, I mean --

GREGORY: And it's --

CAMEROTA: Yes, go ahead, David.

GREGORY: No, no. I would say the nature of the conversation, right?

I mean, we talk about this in terms of our teenagers. When they enter politics -- you know, discussions about Kavanaugh, for instance, that my 16-year-old would be part of on Instagram, were just hate-filled back and forth about the issues which mirrors a lot of what's happening on cable news, as well, and other parts of our society. And it's unmoderated. There's not a lot of restraining voices.

And so you get this shooter, for example. We have no idea, except what he's talked about, what motivated him.

People wonder whether Trump is the catalyst. He may view Trump as a sellout -- as someone who's not extreme enough. And he expressed some of those views surrounded by Jews with some of his criticism.

So again, some of this is allowing us to both see it more clearly, respond to it clearly. But again, the platform -- the connective tissue is more than we've ever seen.

CAMEROTA: So here's exhibit A. This was in "The New York Times" on Saturday about the serial bombing suspect.

"For years, many of Mr. Sayoc's posts simply reshared existing images, links, and videos. But in recent months, he began to create more of his own posts. He began posting less on Facebook and dialed up his efforts on Twitter, where he could engage directly with his political heroes and foes."

We know that one of the targets of his threats -- a woman said that she had alerted Twitter that this was happening and they had ignored it. I mean, it feels as though they were asleep at the switch, and may still be since this was relatively recently.

[07:50:09] SEGALL: I think part of the problem is that oftentimes it takes media pressure or something horrific happening for these companies to realize they made a mistake.

You know, they sent her back a note and said this doesn't violate our policies with this line on context matters. First of all, what does that mean? They've got to do a better job explaining themselves.

And I think part of the issue with why they're having trouble explaining themselves is because they, themselves, are falling into this incredibly uncomfortable role where there's this gray area as well and where clearly, this didn't fall into that gray area.

And after -- when all of this stuff had happened they sent her a note when they finally took his account off, after he had put out threats of violence all over the country, and said we're sorry -- we made a mistake. Well now, these mistakes are life and death at this point.

BERMAN: Yes. The issue is there's a line. It's a very difficult line between speech and violence and they are forced to identify what that line is and when someone's crossed it, and it's very difficult.

And I will say that social media companies didn't create hate. Hate's been there for a very long time.

CAMEROTA: But, you know, I would just say why don't they err on the side of caution? And the reason they don't is because of their bottom line. They are afraid that if they do things like shut down this kook that they would somehow lose clicks and lose subscribers, and that's just not acceptable. They should err on the side of caution.

SEGALL: You know, look, these are billion-dollar businesses at this point.

You look at Facebook. They said they would be investing $1 billion and to try to get on top of this. At the end of the day, this is a company with a bottom line and they are going to lose profit. They said they're willing to take the hit to do this.

But is that enough? We will see.

And as I said before, at this point it's life and death when it comes to some of these instances.

GREGORY: But they also posit themselves as utilities instead of understanding --

SEGALL: Yes.

GREGORY: -- they are both media companies, they are leaders, and they haven't really lived up. They have a lot of arrogance. Don't want a lot of political pressure --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

GREGORY: -- or interference --

SEGALL: Yes.

GREGORY: -- but they don't accept the responsibility.

CAMEROTA: David Gregory, Laurie Segall, thank you very much for the conversation.

Now, to this. There are more cases of that polio-like illness that can paralyze children that have been discovered. Is the CDC acting urgently enough? Everything you need to know.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:56:00] CAMEROTA: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now under fire after confirming 10 new cases of that rare polio-like illness, acute flaccid myelitis or AFM. There are now 72 cases across 24 states. Parents and doctors are slamming the CDC over a lack of urgency after AFM has left children paralyzed.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: OK.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They arrive one-by-one to this home in Albany, Oregon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love you.

COHEN: These mothers and their children suddenly struck by a paralyzing polio-like disease.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Ready or not, here I come.

COHEN (on camera): You ladies drove hours and hours to get here. Why did you do that?

MIKELL SHEEHAN, MOTHER OF CHILD WITH AFM: McKenzie's going to have a surgery here in the next couple of days. That's a little bit scary.

And it was time for us to come together to show her how much we love her and how we're going to do whatever it takes to make sure that this doesn't happen to another little girl.

COHEN (voice-over): Part of that is to give a message to the Centers for Disease Control about acute flaccid myelitis or AFM. COHEN (on camera): If you could give the CDC a grade for how they've handled AFM, what grade would you give them?

GROUP (in unison): An F -- failure.

SHEEHAN: They haven't handled it. They're still not handling it.

COHEN (voice-over): These moms say the CDC hasn't done enough to let emergency rooms know the signs of AFM, such as suddenly weakened or paralyzed arms or legs. And children, they say, are losing valuable time in getting treatment.

COHEN (on camera): How many of you were sent home from the emergency room?

GROUP (all raise hands).

COHEN: All of you. You brought your paralyzed children into the emergency room --

SHEEHAN: And were sent home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three times I was sent home.

SHEEHAN: Yes -- twice, we were sent home.

HEATHER WERDAL, MOTHER OF CHILD WITH AFM: I was told to bring him back in four days if he wasn't better. In four days, his diaphragm had stopped working and he would have died.

COHEN (voice-over): Declining an on-camera interview, a CDC doctor got on the phone with us and said the messaging about AFM could be more effective.

DR. NANCY MESSONNIER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CENTER FOR IMMUNIZATION AND RESPIRATORY DISEASES (via telephone): Our message isn't getting everywhere it needs to, and so we need to work harder at this.

COHEN: And, the CDC's own medical advisors say the agency has had some missteps.

DR. KEITH VAN HAREN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY, STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, STANFORD, CALIFORNIA: We feel that their potential is tremendous as an institution. The CDC is not rising to its potential in this particular case. We feel that they're not playing their A game on this.

COHEN: Dr. Van Haren and other CDC advisors tell CNN that the agency has been hesitant to focus research efforts on the particular virus they say evidence indicates is the cause of AFM. But the CDC says --

MESSONNIER: This is a mystery so far and we haven't solved it yet, so we have to be thinking broadly.

COHEN: Back at McKenzie's Halloween party --

MCKENZIE ANDERSEN, AFM PATIENT: I can't believe this is happening. It's crazy how much people come together just to help one girl.

COHEN: These families wish McKenzie well in her surgery this week to deal with the complication of AFM --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There you go, Cammie (ph). You got it Cammie -- so close.

COHEN: -- and they hope the CDC moves fast so no other children become paralyzed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (on camera): The CDC has a meeting next week with its board of medical advisors. We'll see what change that might bring -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Elizabeth. Thanks for watching this for us. I know a lot of parents are concerned.

New signs about how the president will address the tone in this country or perhaps inflame it. Your top story, now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RABBI JEFFREY MYERS, TREE OF LIFE SYNAGOGUE, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: God's the one I turn to to help lead my flock through this difficult time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to hug somebody and we have to lower the rhetoric.

MAYOR BILL PEDUTO, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: It would be best to put the attention on the families and if he were to visit, choose a different time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is about making sure that when the president comes to Pennsylvania he brings with him words of healing.

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president has denounced racism, hatred, and bigotry in all forms.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, FORMER MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY: The president, who should be unifying -- instead, he is inciting people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What our nation needs to be doing is more praying as opposed to pointing fingers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's not responsible for what happened this week but going forward, if he does not change, he will be.