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At This Hour

Tens of Thousands of Protesters Clash with Hong Kong Police; Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) Discusses Contempt of Congress of Barr, Ross & Trump's Executive Privilege on Census Documents; Researchers Race to Combat Political "Deepfake" Videos; David Ortiz Takes First Steps as Police Arrest 2nd Suspect in Shooting. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired June 12, 2019 - 11:30   ET

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

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[11:30:55] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: An intense situation right now in Hong Kong that could be nearing a breaking point. Thousands of demonstrators are taking to the streets in massive demonstrations against a controversial extradition bill, which could lead to suspected criminals in Hong Kong being extradited much more easily to mainland China.

The video of how large these protests have been have been astonishing. It is a dramatic scene.

And it is also getting ugly, as police have been using tear gas now to try and push back the crowds, get a handle on the crowds. The latest reports are that at least 72 people have been injured in the clashes.

But let's get to the ground. CNN's Matt Rivers is joining me now from Hong Kong.

Matt, what are you seeing right now and what has happened throughout the day?

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, it started early this morning in Hong Kong with relatively peaceful protests because the legislature in Hong Kong was debating that bill.

But really around 3:00, 4:00 in the afternoon -- 4:00 a.m., that would be in U.S. time -- that's when police started using tear gas, using rubber bullets, using pellets, using water cannons, and pushing protesters that had gathered way from the legislative building, basically where we are right now. Behind this barricade, there are thousands of protesters that go way back that street. They've broken -- completely blocked this street.

This would be like standing in Wall Street in Manhattan. This is the financial district in Hong Kong, except it's been blocked off. Protesters have built these makeshift barricades in the last couple of hours. This is aluminum sheeting, metal barricades that the police use. There's all kinds of things that have been thrown in here.

The point of all this is because of that line of police officers right up the road there. That's the front line for the police. They're all in riot gear. They all have tear gas canisters and all kinds of things that they could use.

The question now, Kate, is, what happens next. It's calm right now. You have to figure that police will not let these people stay here forever. How does this end? When will they move in? Do they use tear gas? These are the questions that we're waiting to find out.

BOLDUAN: The situation you're in the middle of right now, it's anyone's guess what could ignite the next clash or calm things down. It truly is.

Stay safe, Matt. Appreciate it. We'll be watching that closely.

Coming up, though, we're going back to Capitol Hill for the breaking news that the White House is asserting executive privilege now over all of the documents that a key committee is requesting with regard to the U.S. Census. So, what happens now, as the committee continues to consider its contempt vote against the attorney general and commerce secretary? A member of that committee joins me live, next.

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[11:38:08] BOLDUAN: The Justice Department made the threat and the White House delivered. Just minutes before the House Oversight Committee was scheduled to meet and vote on holding the attorney general and the Commerce secretary in contempt of Congress, President Trump stepped in, asserting privilege over documents at the heart of an escalating beef between the White House, between the administration and House Democrats.

Attorney General Bill Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross have not complied with committee subpoenas to turn over documents about how a citizenship question was added to the 2020 Census. That's how this whole issue is getting started in the committee. It's also an issue that is currently before the Supreme Court.

Let's figure out where things are right now and where they're headed.

Joining me now is a member of the House Oversight Committee, Democratic Congressman John Sarbanes, from Maryland.

Congressman, thank you for being here.

REP. JOHN SARBANES (D-MD): Great to be here, Kate.

BOLDUAN: With the president making this protective assertion of executive privilege over all of the documents that your committee has requested, does this vote that's going to happen then this afternoon to hold them in contempt, is it going to get you further rather than closer to getting your hands on any of these documents now?

SARBANES: I think it gets us closer. I mean, what we're doing is pressing forward. And now we're going to pursue the opportunity to team up with the courts in order to do that. I mean, you can look at this as Article I, the Congress, teaming up

with Article III, the courts, to demand accountability from Article II, the executive branch.

And that's all part of what I think is a very thoughtful strategy of putting pressure on the administration to come clean on all fronts, not just with respect to this issue but many, many issues. Because it's all part of the search for the truth, which is what the public wants to see.

BOLDUAN: The Justice Department, in part of this back and forth, has said that this move, the contempt vote, is premature, because they say they're trying to work with the committee on the documents. Wilbur Ross said they've already produced 14,000 documents that you've requested. Are they not telling the truth?

[11:40:15] SARBANES: Well, they're certainly exaggerating if they're suggesting they've cooperated and tried to provide the information we asked for.

The reason we're making this move is because they basically stonewalled. The documents they've turned over have not been responsive at all. It's not the number of documents necessarily. It's whether they're meaningful and they actually address the committee's request. That has not happened here.

We don't want to move forward in this way. We feel compelled to do it because the administration has not been responsive.

We have a responsibility, as the committee, as the Article I legislative branch that does oversight, and particularly our committee, the committee on oversight, to pursue these things to try to get facts. That's what we're doing, on a very important issue, which is the way the Census is conducted in this country every 10 years.

BOLDUAN: I want to ask you, very broadly, you touched on how the courts are working on this as well. When you look kind of broadly at stonewalling coming from the White House, House Democrats have had wins in court. Just ask Nancy Pelosi. She points it out all the time.

SARBANES: Yes.

BOLDUAN: On this Census question, there have been, I think, three federal judges that have blocked the question from being added as it's worked its way through the courts. The Supreme Court now is taking it up. Why not wait to see how that plays out before you make your move?

SARBANES: Well, look, these are moving on different tracks. What's happening in the judicial branch of the Supreme Court, reviewing this decision, that's moving along on its own pace. We'll see when that decision comes down. But that should not affect our committee's moving forward in a responsible way, as we're doing.

So, we're on a different track. Those tracks may intersect at some point, but we have a responsibility to move, as the Oversight Committee, and in fulfillment of our responsibility as the Article I oversight branch to get this information. That's exactly what we're doing.

BOLDUAN: So, assume that the vote happens this afternoon, Bill Barr, Wilbur Ross, held in contempt in terms of the committee. What's next? Have you received any assurance from the chairman that this contempt citation will move to the House floor for a full vote?

SARBANES: Well, we're taking it one step at a time, obviously, which is how I think you do these things. You want to make sure you're crossing your "T"'s, dotting your "I"'s, you're moving in a deliberate conscientious way so --

BOLDUAN: Are you going to push forward for it to go to the floor?

SARBANES: I think there will be a lot of pressure to move it to the floor at some point if we don't see some accommodation.

As you noted, the fact that we're bringing this pressure is actually getting some wins from the courts at different levels. It's also creating some more accommodation for responsiveness on the part of the administration. Look what just happened with Judiciary's interaction with the Justice Department.

So, we make these moves, which I think the public wants us to make, apply the pressure, see if we get a response that's cooperative. If we don't, then we move it to the next level.

BOLDUAN: Congressman, let's see what happens first, what happens in committee.

Thank you for coming in.

SARBANES: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up, it's getting harder to tell what's real from what is fake online and it poses a major risk in the 2020 election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEC BALDWIN, COMMEDIAN: -- all night.

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Testing. Testing. Gina. Gina.

(LAUGHTER)

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BOLDUAN: A new report on how to spot and, hopefully, how to stop deepfake videos. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [11:48:30] BOLDUAN: Next time you see a video online, you really do need to look again. Just take a look at this video, a video that appears to show Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

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MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, FACEBOOK: Imagine this for a second. One man with total control of billions of people's stolen data, all their secrets, their lives, their futures.

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BOLDUAN: It looks like Zuckerberg. It sounds like Zuckerberg. It's really a manipulated fake. That is what is called a deepfake. It was created with artificial intelligence to show how technology could easily be used to spread misinformation, raising a lot of concern now for what that could mean for the 2020 presidential election.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan is taking a closer look. Watch.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They're going to Mexico. They're going to many other countries.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): Here's President Trump.

BALDWIN: They took my microphone to Kenya and they broke it, and now it's broken.

O'SULLIVAN: And Alec Baldwin's impression of him from "Saturday Night Live."

But now, take a look and listen at this.

BALDWIN: I'm picking up somebody sniffing here.

O'SULLIVAN: That's not really President Trump. It's just his face mapped on top of Baldwin's.

Researchers at USC created this clip and many others of prominent politicians showing just how easily viewers could be tricked.

UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN: Listen, America, Donald Trump cannot be president.

O'SULLIVAN: Videos like this are known as deepfakes, a new, sophisticated way to create fake videos using artificial intelligence. And their potential damage is catching attention on Capitol Hill.

While some technology experts say the trek is exaggerated, it's very real for lawmakers like House Intelligence Committee chairman, Adam Schiff.

[11:50:07] REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): It is a race between the A.I. to create them and the A.I. to detect them. O'SULLIVAN: His committee is scheduled to hold a hearing tomorrow,

discussing national security challenges of artificial intelligence, manipulated media and "deepfakes."

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): There are visuals that obviously were planned.

O'SULLIVAN: Highlighting this altered video of Nancy Pelosi. It is not an example of a "deepfake," but was edited to make it looks like she was slurring her words.

SCHIFF: It would be very easy to introduce a doctored video that could have a very sizable impact, anonymously, at various places around the globe at one time. And whoever introduced it, would always have some level of plausible deniability.

O'SULLIVAN: Other technology experts agree.

HARNY FREID (ph), PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BEREKLEY: We'll get to a point in the near future where you are not going to be able to distinguish between the two. And we sort of want to get out ahead of this before we get to that point.

O'SULLIVAN: Harny Freid's (ph) team at U.C. Berkeley studied hours of footage of political figures and 2020 presidential candidate's movements when they talk, constructing a system called fingerprinting. Aiming to help the government and news organizations separate the real from the unreal.

FREID (ph): By the end of '19, and lead up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries, we will have most if not all of the candidates fingerprinted.

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BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is Donie O'Sullivan.

Fascinating what they are doing with this in order to get out ahead of this, like have like a basis of what our facial candidates are, the candidates, so they can tell a deepfake. But terrifying almost. I fear to ask what it could mean for 2020.

O'SULLIVAN: I think, on a positive note, it is good that we are talking about it now rather than starting this conversations in 12 months' time.

BOLDUAN: Right.

O'SULLIVAN: In 2016, Russian trolls, bots, false news on Facebook, those fake ads, that all came as a surprise to the U.S. Intelligence Community and to the media. So there's, as you see there, a concerted effort to try and get ahead of it.

I think one of the biggest concerns here is, you've seen those fake videos. But what it also allows is for sort of plausible deniability if somebody -- (CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: On the flip side.

O'SULLIVAN: Exactly. Think about the "Access Hollywood" tape from 2016. Trump could have said, that is a fake.

BOLDUAN: So what you hear and see, you need to question what you hear and see. We do it every day for different reasons, but now we really need to --

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BOLDUAN: Yes, it is a whole new level.

Donie, great stuff. Thank you so much.

O'SULLIVAN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Great to see you.

Coming up for us, Red Sox legend, David Ortiz, taking his first steps now in the hospital, just as a second suspect is arrested in his shooting. Are police getting any closer to answering the one major question: Why would someone want to shoot such an icon, such a beloved star like David Ortiz? That's coming up.

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[11:57:38] BOLDUAN: Former Red Sox star, David Ortiz, is showing some progress in his road to recovery. He took his first steps, we're told, following a second surgery after he was shot in the back at a bar in his native Dominican Republic Sunday night. This, as police have made a second arrest.

CNN's Patrick Oppmann is at police headquarters in the Dominican Republic. Alexandra Field is in Boston where David Ortiz is recovering.

Patrick, first to you.

What do -- what are you learning about this second arrest?

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're hoping to learn a lot more very soon as police and prosecutors here in Santa Domingo at police headquarters have told us that they will be offering a press conference at some point, still very much up in the air, where we will learn more about the second arrest, or they have told us potentially more arrests. And as well, hopefully, a motive, which still remains very much a mystery.

But we do know a second individual was arrested yesterday. Again, police saying this is not the last arrest, that increasingly this looks more like an organized hit against David Ortiz, that they are saying it is a complex and complicated plan, that may involve multiple individuals. And so we hope to be learning more about that today because everybody

we talk to here says they cannot imagine why anybody would want to kill or hurt such a beloved sports figure.

And one of those people is actually the mother of the first suspect. She says her son, who is believed to have driven the motorcycle, in the attack of David Ortiz, is also a big fan.

BOLDUAN: That is something to hear, Patrick.

Alexandra, what are the doctors saying about Ortiz, his condition and recovery right now?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he is still in the intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital right here in Boston. There are promising signs though. We learned from a spokesperson that he was able to get up yesterday, take a couple steps. That was after he had two surgeries to repair the wounds from that bullet that went from his back and into his stomach.

He woke up after the surgery in the Dominican Republic wanting to see his family and his doctors here. It was, of course, the Red Sox who brought him back to Boston. He is now with his wife and with his children. They say that he is stable and starting to recover -- Kate?

BOLDUAN: Alex, thank you so much.

Patrick, thank you.

Looking forward to the update from the D.R. a little later.

Thank you all so much for joining me as well. Hope you have a great day.

"INSIDE POLITICS" with John King starts right now.

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