Huge Beef Recall Expands Nationwide; Six "Happy" Iranians Free; Hard Times at General Motors
CUOMO: Six Iranians are free this morning a day after being arrested for dancing in a YouTube video to the song "Happy". Authorities in Tehran called the homemade video vulgar and an affront to public chastity. The director of the video is still in custody, hasn't been released. But the president of Iran is giving a contradictory message. He's tweeting, saying he believes in free expression and that happiness is the right of all Iranians. What's going on here? Let's bring in chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour joining us from London. Help me understand this contradiction.</s>CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHEIF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, how can you not groove to that beat? Seriously, Chris, and of course, Iranians are just like all of us. They want to their music, their freedoms, and their fun. Their president supports them. But basically what this is is young people caught in a struggle between the hard liners and the moderates. The moderate president who told me in an interview that he actually wants to have more internet freedom and more social freedoms, but he hasn't been able to implement that while he is negotiating this deadly serious nuclear deal with the United States and the West. The hard liners are in control of the police and the morals police and judiciary, and they're just trying to tweak the president at every opportunity they can and hang on to their own kind of little bit of social control.</s>CUOMO: So is this an example of the president of Iran not having control of his government?</s>AMANPOUR: No, it's not. What happens in Iran is that it's a multi- pronged hydra. (ph) You have a lot of different areas of power, centers of power. What's happening is that the president was overwhelmingly elected. Now, that surprised the hard liners. They didn't think this man was going to be elected. They thought their guy, the hard liner, was going to be elected last year. Now the president has done something very, very difficult and new, and that is entered into these very serious nuclear negotiations with the United States and the West. There is a group of hard liners who said that they don't want this to happen. Now, they can't directly full-frontally attack the president because right now he has the support of the supreme leader. So they're trying to attack in other ways. So as I say, the social part of Iran, the judicial part of Iran is unfortunately being run by the hard liners right now while the president tries to secure this deal and, if he does, it be bolster his position in Iran, and he will be able to tackle some of the other issues, the social issues and political issues that he's promised.</s>CUOMO: Was this a little bit of an example of #diplomacy that the international community -- you know, the international community, social media, kind of getting behind what happened to these individuals, do you think it helped their situation?</s>AMANPOUR: You know, it probably, did but let's face it, Iran is -- Iran is meant to have no Twitter, no Facebook, no internet. But of course, everybody does. The Ayatollahs are watching, and the world is watching. And the fact that the president tweeted and many people all over the world tweeted, it did bring a huge amount of pressure. But again, here's what they've done. They've released these wonderful looking young people who look like all of us, they've released them now having forced them to make a public confession. They've released them, and they've probably given them a strict warning. And they say they released them on bail. There may be future legal ramifications. We don't know yet. But they've kept the director. And this is what they do frequently. They say, OK, we'll release these people; the world will shut up, but we've kept the director and that is our warning to you. It's a very ugly game that they play.</s>CUOMO: So the message to those out there who care about this is, don't forget because there's still somebody who is being held, and there may be a case going forward. Let me get your take quickly on what's going on in Nigeria with the U.S.. They're sending in intelligence people, personnel, and military personnel to neighboring Chad because they have a better relationship with them. Do you think this is the right move by the U.S. to get more involved in the situation going on there?</s>AMANPOUR: Well, I think the United States has to. It's already pledged to do so publicly. The president -- the first lady has been involved in this, bring back our girls campaign. And the world is truly outraged, and so are many in Africa. But let's not overblow what's going on. The U.S. and the rest of many -- many western countries, including China in some way, are trying to help. There's surveillance; there's overflights. The troops that have gone to Chad, the U.S., the Pentagon, said these are not actually ground troops of the type that are going to go rush into Nigeria with arms drawn. This is logistical support. These are ground support staff that will do security, that will do logistics, maintenance of the surveillance and other aircraft that are being used in the search over Nigeria.</s>CUOMO: All right, Christiane, thank you so much. We know that you bring attention to situations like this happening in Africa and every where else all the time. And right now there's a lot of focus on this one. So it'll be interesting to see what happens next. Thank you for being on the show as always. Michaela, over to you.</s>PEREIRA: All right, Chris, thanks so much. Thank to Christiane, as well. Let's talk about the hard time of General Motors; 29 recalls so far this year covering nearly 14 million vehicles. The once proud auto giant reeling from safety problems, eight figure fines and cover-up charges. In fact, since 2009 when G.M. filed for bankruptcy the company has recalled more cars than it actually sold. Wow. We bring in our chief business correspondent Christine Romans. And I got to tell you, we seem to be talking about new recalls all the time. What are we at now?</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CHEIF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, 29 recalls, separate recalls just this year. And you're right. They have now recalled more cars this year than they have made in the past five years is just mind boggling. They're recalling for a lot of different things though, everything from faulty tail lamp wiring to little clamps inside the fender to the really important recall, 2.6 million recalled because of a faulty ignition switch.</s>PEREIRA: Next question, why now? Why -- what's going on to just sort of cue all of these recalls all of a sudden?</s>ROMANS: It's a more aggressive, more pro-active</s>G.M. PERERIA: The new</s>G.M. ROMANS: The new G.M., and here's why. Because it has been revealed that G.M. knew, the engineers knew about the ignition switch problem years before they issued a recall. There were 13 deaths linked to accidents with that ignition switch recall problem, and that is why the new CEO Mary Barra is now really pushing ahead and they're doing recalls. I would say, and most analysts say, more aggressively than they otherwise.</s>PEREIRA: Getting out ahead of the story.</s>ROMANS: Right.</s>PEREIRA: OK, so you hear recall as a consumer, it sets off all sorts of red flags. It makes one wonder are these cars as safe as other automakers?</s>ROMANS: So you're going to get one of these letters from the auto dealer. You're going to get a letter saying that this is a model that you need to recall, what to do, how to bring it back in. But mostly, these cars are safe. I mean, G.M. has a safety rating of 4.4 stars out of 5 for NHTSA. I mean, it's got four models on top the international -- you know, the insurance highway safety list. I mean, they've got a lot of safe cars. Some of these things are just technical problems, and in some cases they have led to accidents in the ignition switch case, but by and large, your car is probably still safe.</s>PEREIRA: Those two things are not going to line up with consumers though. Because if you're out shopping nor a car and vaguely remember a news story about a recall, even though the safety numbers are there, how do they get the message across?</s>ROMANS: If you want to buy a corvette, you're still going to buy a corvette.</s>PEREIRA: Good point.</s>ROMANS: If you want to buy a Terrain, you're still going to buy a Terrain. If you want to buy a Chevy Spark, you're still going to buy the Spark. Some of these cars I just mentioned are among the best -- highest rated models out there. So we haven't seen the sales decline yet. We've seen the company take a huge -- put a bunch of money aside to pay for what they're going to have to pay out eventually, but we haven't seen sales fall.</s>PEREIRA: This has got to take a toll on the business, and it's got to take a toll on its new G.M. Mary Barra who has been on the job a very short amount of time and this is what she's dealing with. Although she's sort of behind it because it's the new plan.</s>ROMANS: Look, she has done a pretty good job of getting two outside entities to do a big internal investigation. We're going to get the results of that next month. She has done these aggressive recalls. She's appeared before Congress. And she's getting high marks for how she's leading this company. And she keeps talking about the new G.M. and the new safety culture at G.M. even as there's a lot of criticism of the old safety culture. One thing to remember, though, she has been at the company 30 years, her entire career. So some people are saying she's doing a great job talking about the new G.M., but she's also part of the old</s>G.M. PERERIA: Well, and talking about the old G.M., they've got to look at what was the cause of these mistakes, these safety issues. Was with it a culture? Was it oversight, lack of regulation? That's something they're going to be looking at.</s>ROMANS: Absolutely. Was it -- many years of record numbers of car production where safety took a backseat? What was it that caused that kind of a safety culture that now G.M. says it is changing.</s>PEREIRA: Rushing to get the production out, who knows. Christine, thanks for crunching down the numbers. You see it and you think, oh, no. Oh no. It's good to chat with you about it. Thanks so much. Chris?</s>CUOMO: All right, Mick, here are some of the stories to start your new day. The president promising to respond to the V.A. scandal, but how? How do we make good to promise to support our troops? Then a kidnapped woman found and freed after ten years and one daughter. We're going to talk to Elizabeth Smart about the case. And ahead of your holiday weekend, where is the beef? Why won't the government tell us which restaurants served tainted meat? Let's get after all of it right now.</s>BARACK OBAMA, U.S. PRESIDENT: If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable, disgraceful, and I will not tolerate it, period. UNIDENTIFIED MALE; Mr. President, we need urgency. We need you to roll up our sleeves and get into these hospitals.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 80 more service members on the ground set to aid in the hunt.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Searching for the girls operating an unmanned, unarmed predator drone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They traced 11 illnesses in four states back to this ground beef coming out of Michigan.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People who were exposed have already been exposed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The girl reportedly telling police she ended up marrying and having a baby with her alleged kidnapper.</s>CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome back to NEW DAY. It's Thursday, May 22nd. Now 7:00 in the east. CNN has uncovered explosive new allegations against the V.A. health system in Phoenix. I hope you're paying attention to this story because we now have wounded veterans, American heroes, who saw combat in Iraq and Afghanistan forced to wait months for medical, care even though they were supposed to receive priority treatment. A doctor at the Phoenix V.A. makes these shocking revelations, and they make them to CNN's Drew Griffin. He's been cover this story from the start. Take a listen.</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You are telling me that our troops coming back from war, now separated from active service --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who should have priority for scheduling do not.</s>GRIFFIN: -- who are coming to the Phoenix V.A. for follow-up care for war injuries --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Correct.</s>GRIFFIN: -- are being put on a waiting list and made to wait six to ten months?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, or longer.</s>CUOMO: President Obama is now promising someone will be held accountable. It doesn't look like it's going to be the V.A. secretary, at least for now. Eric Shinseki still has the job and the president's support. So what is he going to do? Because these allegations, while they're new, the problem are not. White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski has the latest. What do we know?</s>MICHELLE KOSINSKI, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi Chris. Well, there's a lot going on, even today. Three top V.A. officials have been called to the Hill to meet with the House V.A. Committee. The White House's top advisor is at the Phoenix V.A. where of course this scandal broke. And now we have heard directly from President Obama using an angry voice saying people will be held accountable. He's not going to stand for these kinds of allegations. The thing is this administration, as well as the one before it, did stand it for years because the V.A. itself made it very clear that these things like scheduling issues and delays were ongoing problems. Also on the subject of accountability, the president didn't really get into how the V.A. secretary is being or will be held accountable even if only because this happened on his watch for years. Now, this has all prompted some strong words even from some Democratic lawmakers and the American Legion called the decision not to fire V.A. Secretary Eric Shinseki unfortunate. Kate?</s>BOLDUAN: Michelle, thank you very much for that update. Let's discuss more with Congressman Jeff Miller, Republican chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, someone who has been focusing clearly very much on this issue. Mr. Chairman, it's great to see you. Thank you so much.