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Trump on ISIS; North Korea Preparing for Missile Launch; October Jobs Report; Trump's Twitter Account Down; Spacey Accusations. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired November 03, 2017 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00] MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Basic sort of template response that Donald Trump uses regularly in his rhetoric with people. So there's no reason to believe that it's correlated to direct policy there. This is just the president mouthing off.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Here's -- here's one --
ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But there is reason to believe --
JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No.
HARLOW: Why?
BURNS: That it correlates with the way he views the world in general, right --
HOOVER: Yes.
BURNS: And the way he wants to approach things in general.
AVLON: Well, of course, but that's not -- that's not --
HARLOW: John, here's why it's so --
AVLON: Yes.
HARLOW: One of the reasons why it is so important, what his words mean, because these are American men and women putting their lives at risk in this fight.
AVLON: Yes. That's one of many reasons why it matters what the president says. And when he says ten times harder, it may be a verbal tick and a Trump family mantra that offers insight into his psychology, but a president's words actually mean something. And the answer to your question, what evidence do we have that we're hitting them ten times harder is, none.
Now, you can give them credit for the escalation and the fall of Raqqa. That's a long term plan. They've been aggressive. But this is specifically response to a direct question about the attack on Manhattan's west side. The president's direct claim doesn't comport -- does not appear to comport with reality, with administration policy. And it's our job to point that out clearly, not adjust to the new normal.
BURNS: I would just say -- and I -- again, I'm not defending the administration's practice of using, you know, extreme narrative license in the way they talk about the world.
AVLON: That's a fancy word.
BURNS: But -- but I do think that our presidents have generally talked about terrorism and the fight against terrorism in some pretty creative ways. There wasn't actually, you know, a poster in the old west of Osama bin Laden, they wanted dead or alive. We're not actually putting (ph) these people --
AVLON: But we wanted him dead or alive.
BURNS: Yes. And he wants to hit back ten times harder.
HOOVER: Yes. Here -- OK, then -- then here's what that looks like. What does that mean for Niger? What does that mean for everywhere in the world where we have -- where ISIS is now diffused in Syria, so they're showing up in North Africa? I mean we're not actually having real policy discussions about $100 million drone facility that we're building in Niger in addition to the one that we already have. And those are the conversations we should be having, not just the brawl of who's tougher.
AVLON: Yes, this --
HOOVER: We have to leave it there because there's a lot ahead.
AVLON: That's right.
HARLOW: The president just taking off now for this Asia trip. Thank you all very much. Have a good weekend. We appreciate it.
A lot of news, you probably saw it overnight. Eleven minutes. That is how long the president's Twitter account was down last night. Some may think that's funny. This actually has a big national security implication. We'll get to all of that ahead.
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[09:36:23] HARLOW: This morning the president is on his way to Hawaii before making his first official 12 day trip to Asia. This as South Korea says that the North may be preparing for another nuclear missile test any time. The agency says they are seeing vehicles moving around a missile research institute in Pyongyang.
Joining us now from Beijing, our international correspondent Matt Rivers.
So, Matt, look, this is critical, always, but especially as the president makes his way to Asia as we speak for all of these important meetings. What exactly is the intelligence telling the South Koreans right now? MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as of now, it's
telling the South Koreans that the North Koreans show no sign of stopping what they're doing. That intelligence agency on Thursday saying that signs point to a missile test in the coming days or weeks. That could happen while Donald Trump is in this part of the world and that they're just about ready, in the moment of their choosing, to push the button on the next nuclear test.
So it shows that the North Koreans, despite Donald Trump's best efforts, are not really slowing things down. And what that's done in this part of the world has really put everybody on edge, Japan, South Korea, China. They might have differing ideas on how to solve the problem, but everyone is tense.
What you've seen in countries like Japan and South Korea, to a smaller extent though in South Korea, is a call to militarize. If North Korea's going to continue to build up, if there might be a conflict, then the logic goes, we should be building up our armed forces too. You've seen it in Japan where under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe they've built up their military in a way that, frankly, we haven't really seen since before World War II.
Donald Trump actually alluded to that in an recent interview. He said -- he called them a warrior nation and said that China -- he tells that to China all the time, that if they don't do something about North Korea, that Japan's going to keep going down that current path.
China does not like that at all. They don't want to see Japan armed. But you have to wonder if Donald Trump saying that gives you a glimpse into his thinking of these negotiations that are going to be coming up on these trips.
When he comes here to Beijing, North Korea is absolutely going to be number one on the agenda here in terms of what's talked about. Both sides haven't really seen eye to eye. Trump wants China to do more. China says it's doing enough already. So it's a bit of a stalemate at this point. If they're going to break through, maybe that talk about Japan is one of Trump's ways to gain some leverage and get China to do what he wants them to.
HARLOW: Ys. And one thing we do know about the president is that he can be effective in these one-on-one, person to person interactions. So maybe that will move the needle a bit here when he has these on-on- one meetings across Asia over the next two weeks.
Thank you very much, Matt Rivers for us in Beijing.
So, overnight, the president's Twitter account was down for 11 minutes. And some laughed about it, joked about it. But experts in the intel community are saying, this is a serious national security concern. The details, next.
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[09:43:32] HARLOW: Some really strong jobs numbers this morning. Unemployment in this country now at the lowest level it's been in 17 years. The U.S. economy gained over 250,000 jobs last month.
Christine Romans, our chief business correspondent, is here to break it down.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there.
HARLOW: Good morning.
ROMANS: You know those jobs that we lost during the hurricanes, or in the wake of those hurricanes, now back and then some. Some strong job creation, 261,000 net new jobs. That's the most of any single month in the new Trump administration.
You can see the performance there. Even last month, September, that looked like it was going to be a job loss, turns out we did have some jobs created. About -- I think about 18,000 there. And some other revisions up there. So that's what the jobs look like over the past year. A strong performance here.
The unemployment rate, 4.1 percent. Poppy, this is a new low for the recovery. And 4.1 percent is a number that, you know, frankly, economists consider that full employment.
HARLOW: Right.
ROMANS: There's 6.5 million people looking for a job, who want a job right now, unemployed, technically unemployed. We have 6 million or so job openings. So now there's this discussion about how you match those people who want a job with those empty jobs.
Let's look at jobs gains, where it happened. No surprise, restaurants and bars. Those are the jobs that came back in Florida and Texas after they were lost because of those hurricanes. Business, information systems, those were 50,000 jobs. Manufacturing added 24,000 jobs. And we saw another month of job creation in health care.
Health care has been a very important bright spot in job creation in this recovery. What has not been part of this recovery is wage growth. Confounding again, 2.4 percent wage growth. That's just not very strong. And it's actually weaker than it was in September.
[09:45:08] I want to quickly add how many jobs this is overall in the Trump administration, 1.46 million.
HARLOW: Yes.
ROMANS: That's February to October. That is not quite as robust as the last ten months of the Trump -- of the Obama administration, 1.86 million then.
HARLOW: Right.
ROMANS: What I take away from that is, we've had strong job creation for a couple of years now.
HARLOW: For a long time. ROMANS: Right. And it has been a pretty good pace here -- a pretty good -- I mean you could make an argument, companies are making an awful lot of money. They're starting to hire workers again. But we just don't see that wage growth. And that's been disappointing.
HARLOW: It has, but we'll take this number for sure.
ROMANS: Yes.
HARLOW: Christine Romans, thank you.
ROMANS: You're welcome.
HARLOW: Have a good weekend.
For eleven minutes last night the president's Twitter feed, handle, all down. Completely blank. The president writing about it. My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the world must finally be getting out and -- word must finally be getting out and having an impact.
Despite the why, there are serious questions about the how. How could someone at a customer service level at Twitter on their last day working there do this? And what are the national security concerns?
Our senior technology correspondent Laurie Segall not only has reporting on this, she is with me.
And, Laurie, you have internal e-mails about this and word from the CEO about this. How could this happen?
LAURIE SEGALL, CNN SENIOR TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Sure. You know, last night, we got e-mails, Jack Dorsey had sent out an e-mail to employees. He said, we're trying to work to understand this. We're taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again.
And then, Poppy, a couple hours later he sent out another e-mail, you know, saying, we have some work to do and thanking employees for trying to get on top of this issue.
This issue is a very, very big deal. You know, maybe the president's Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes, but the idea that, you know, this company could be a gatekeeper of information and that could happen is such a way is very noteworthy.
I did speak to one employee who said that there are some alarms and other things in place for if someone accesses that account. You better bet that, you know, there will be more safeguards on that account now.
But the idea that that was able to happen is noteworthy, especially at a time where we're wondering about control and if the tech companies have control over their platform.
And one other thing I think is really notable. I've been talking to different employees and there's a lot of internal chatter and internal debate right now at Twitter over the president's Twitter account. Some -- one employee told me they thought that some employees thought it should have been taken down after he tweeted about North Korea. He said they won't be around much longer in a tweet. Another employee said, you know, no, this is newsworthy, it needs to stay up.
So you're beginning to paint this picture of these internal debates happening behind closed doors. And, by the way, another employee thought that Twitter account should be taken down and it's was taken down.
HARLOW: Right.
SEGALL: So it's a pretty big deal.
HARLOW: OK, two things, Laurie.
One, could this employee have actually tweeted from the account as well and sent messages out that world leaders read and potentially act on? And, secondly, the week that this is happening for Twitter, I mean this is when execs in the company were up on The Hill for two days getting grilled by members of Congress.
SEGALL: Yes. I mean I think that point is very noteworthy, right? They took this down for 11 minutes. But this is a safety issue. What if they had tweeted something horrific. This is from a world leader's account. That's a very, very big security issue. And that has to be looked at.
And then, you know, this -- one employee said to me, this is the worst thing that could have happened on this week when we're up against, you know, looking at Congress, trying to explain we have control over our platform. And you have this rogue employee showing that actually they don't necessarily in this situation, Poppy.
HARLOW: Laurie Segall, great reporting from inside the company. As always, thank you very much.
Ahead, a story you have to hear. Predatory. That is how multiple people -- eight different people are now describing Kevin Spacey's behavior over years on the set of "House of Cards." The actor facing new accusations of sexual assault. The details with our Chloe Melas, who broke the story, next.
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[09:53:34] HARLOW: New this morning, Kevin Spacey, dropped by his talent agency and his publicist. Why? Because of a growing list of sexual assault and sexual harassment accusations. Since actor Anthony Rapp first went public with his accusations, many more people have come forward, including eight people who currently work on or worked on Netflix's "House of Cards" with Spacey.
It is our entertainment reporter, Chloe Melas, who broke this story. She joins us now.
And just so -- I mean this was good, old-fashioned shoe leather reporting. You had a list of 100 people who worked on show. CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: More than 100 people.
HARLOW: More than 100, and you just started calling them and it was --
MELAS: I just started cold calling.
HARLOW: Unbelievable what they told you.
MELAS: So, you're right. So, Poppy, so when these allegations by Anthony Rapp came forward and Sunday night and when Netflix said, look, we're going to put this show on hold and we're going to look into this, I thought to myself, something seems not right here. I need to see what the crew knows. The show was in the middle of its filming the sixth season. There's hundreds of crew members on the set in Baltimore, Maryland.
And that's when, like you said, I started cold calling people, reaching out to them on social media and the response I got was overwhelming. A lot of people didn't want to talk to me, but this is what they would say, keep going, keep digging, you're doing good work, please expose this behaver.
HARLOW: You know, there are a lot of victims here. You know, a lot of them really young men.
MELAS: Yes.
HARLOW: In vulnerable positions, just getting their sort of start in Hollywood.
MELAS: I just want people to know, you know, I spoke to all different people in all different capacities on the show who worked various seasons, some who still work on the show, and what they all say is the same thing, that Kevin Spacey, who is one of the E.P.s, the star of the show, runs this whole operation pretty much. That he would target allegedly young men in their 20s who are production assistants, backup actors, crew members, and would, you know, nonstop flirt with them and then --
[09:55:25] HARLOW: Grab them.
MELAS: It turned into harassment, and then it turned into nonconsensual physical contact with them, massaging their shoulders, touching their stomachs, making sexually inappropriate comments to them.
But the biggest bombshell, Poppy, is that I had one person accusing Spacey of sexual assault in a very horrible incident that we are not even going into in order to protect his identity. And he's actually looked into possibly seeking criminal charges against him.
HARLOW: Wow.
Chloe, important reporting. I know you have more accusers reaching out to you right now. Please, keep us posted.
MELAS: I will.
HARLOW: We appreciate it very much.
No comment from Spacey at this point.
So, ahead for us, the president just departed on this really important trip to Asia. All of this as the Russia cloud looms over the White House. The president dismissing it all this morning. We're going to dig into all of the developments.
Stay with us.
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