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Don Lemon Tonight

President Trump Casts Doubt on Whether he'll Accept Election Results; Fact-Checking What Trump Said About Health Care; Key Model Projects More than 371,000 U.S. Covid Deaths by January 1; FDA Claims Vaccine will be Based on Science; Dr. Fauci's Comments on FDA's Vaccine Decision; Trump Signs Health Care Executive Order; Protests Over Breonna Taylor Decision Continue for Second Night; Trump and Supporters Post Fake Videos About Biden on Social Media; Former Facebook Director of Monetization Says They Took a Page From Big Tobacco's Playbook. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired September 24, 2020 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN Tonight. I'm Don Lemon. 11:00 p.m. here on the East Coast. Forty days, 40 days until Election Day, and we are following multiple breaking news stories that could impact how Americans cast their votes in the 2020 election. Tonight, President Trump trying to cast doubt on whether he will accept the results of the election, falsely claiming again that voting by mail is rife with fraud.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are the election results only legitimate if you win?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, we have to be very careful with the ballots. The ballots, that's a whole big scam. We want to make sure the election is honest and I'm not sure that it can be. I don't know that it can be with this whole situation, unsolicited ballots. They are unsolicited, millions being sent to everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And yet, this is what his own FBI Director said in a Congressional hearing just today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: A fact check just ahead. With COVID-19 now claiming more than 202,000 American lives, Dr. Fauci warning that even with a vaccine is available, we still need to wear masks and practice social distancing. And the second night of protests in Louisville, Kentucky after no police officers were charged directly in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor. We are going to go live to Louisville in the hour ahead.

I want to bring in now CNN's White House correspondent, John Harwood, and our legal and national security analyst, Asha Rangappa. Good to see both of you, especially Asha. I haven't seen for a while. John every night, but it's always a pleasure, just the same.

So, Jonathan, I'm going to start with you. The president continues to attack the integrity of our elections. He won't commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Does this show just how worried he is about his chances?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Of course it does. Everyone can see what the polling is showing us. We've had in the last couple of days, two national polls with 10 point gaps favoring Joe Biden.

We had, just today, three Fox News battleground polls in Nevada, where he has an 11 point lead. In Ohio, which is a state Donald Trump won by eight points in 2016, Biden is up by five in Pennsylvania, which may be the tipping point stayed in the election, Biden is up by 7 points.

So, it's very clear the president is behind. And that's why he is suggesting that no outcome could be legitimate because all -- foreseeable outcomes favor Joe Biden. So he's raising these false claims about voter fraud and trying to raise doubts and suggesting he's going to challenge the election.

And maybe he will, but it's also possible, Don that Joe Biden's lead is substantial enough in enough places that he is going to be clearly the winner on election night. We don't know that, but it is not cast in stone that we are going to be counting votes for two weeks after the election.

LEMON: So, Asha, listen. I am of the belief that this could be a shiny object, this whole, you know, not peaceful transition of power, but I think you believe that it's more than that. Because you said we need to be prepared for the unprecedented actions that Trump may take with this election. But now allow this -- his wishful reality to become reality. Explain that.

ASHA RANGAPPA, CNN LEGAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. We need to be alert, prepared, and responsive. But we also have to remember that we do not need Trump's consent to transition peacefully to a newly-elected president.

LEMON: Right.

RANGAPPA: He does need our consent in order to continue governing, and he knows that, and he is scared because of what John just explained. He is very behind. His only option is to get people to go along with an alternate reality where he holds all the power.

I would call it a test of compliance. And when we fear, when we get a freak out and we panic, we agreed to go along with his reality and we can't do that. We need to have good emotional hygiene in the next 40 days and not let his fear and panic become our own.

[23:05:00]

LEMON: Easy enough for you to say. Look. I sit here every night. No, I'm just kidding. I'm messing with you.

(LAUGHTER)

Can you imagine the notes I get? I don't know how you do it every single night. How do you do it, Don. You're telling me my emotional quotient -- whatever you said, hygiene. Oh boy. OK, anyway. Where am I?

So, John, today the Justice Department said that -- they found that nine 9 military ballots -- nine, were discarded in Pennsylvania and seven were for Trump. What's going on here?

HARWOOD: Well, we had these ballots discovered earlier in the week and we had the Trump campaign putting out messages this afternoon saying that Democrats are trying to steal the election, which was completely false. That's not what happened. And later in the day, we got a statement from the Justice Department saying exactly what had happened. You had several military ballots sent in. There was a clerical error by people in the (inaudible) County in eastern Pennsylvania.

The envelopes that military ballots come in look like in the view of some of those staff members, look like applications for absentee ballots. So, the staff members open the ballots thinking that they were going to process somebody's application for an absentee ballot and then discovered it was actually a ballot inside. And because they had opened it prematurely, that spoiled the ballots. So, the ballots were thrown away.

The ballots were, I think almost all of them marked for Trump, a couple of them were able to be associated with specific voters and perhaps those voters will get a chance to cast a ballot again. But this is an administrative issue. These kinds of things happen, but they happen on a small scale. Again, as we said before, there's no evidence of widespread fraud. The Trump administration, the Trump campaign seized on this to try to create the impression that it's suggested fraud, but it does not.

LEMON: Yes. Listen. Everybody's vote should count, but nine, I mean -- OK, come on everybody. Perspective here. Asha, why would the DOJ announce who the votes were for? Why would they do that?

RANGAPPA: You know, at this point, the DOJ is effectively Trump's private law firm. It is very hard to see anything that they do that is, you know, not in some way geared towards helping him. But you know, what I will say to just (inaudible) a little bit in terms of allegations of fraud and potential litigation and all of this. You know, the only vulnerable window that Trump could take advantage of is, if there were a razor-thin margin, and if the entire electoral outcome hung in the balance of you know, say, one state. This is what happened in 2000.

And this is what I went -- John said early on is really important that there are this, you know, right now, larger pulling margins in various states and it's really important in order for us to have a, you know, solid, legitimate election where we don't have this ongoing, you know, contested battle for there to be, you know, a large and decisive turnout for one candidate or the other.

LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate it. I want to get to our fact check of the day and that is Mr. Daniel Dale. Good to see you, sir. So, let's start with health care please. Here is what we heard from the president today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The historic action I am taking today includes the first ever executive order to affirm it is the official policy of the United States government to protect patients with pre-existing conditions. So, we are making that official.

We are putting it down in the stand because our opponents, the Democrats, like to constantly talk about it and yet pre-existing conditions are much safer with us than they are with them. And now, we have it affirmed. This is affirmed, signed and done, so we can put that to rest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: There is a lot for you to fact check their.

DANIEL DALE, CNN FACT CHECKER: That's like alternative reality stuff, Don. It's ridiculous in two related ways. One, saying that he's going to do the first ever executive order to protect pre-existing conditions is like saying I'm going to do the first ever executive order to say that people over 65 are going to get health insurance. We already have Medicare and we already have protections for people with pre-existing conditions in our law, not an order, it's called Obamacare.

So relatively saying that we are better for pre-existing conditions than Democrats who got Obamacare and want to protect it while Trump is trying to eradicate Obamacare and replace it with not much, just an order saying we want to do this. It's just completely ridiculous and he keeps saying this over and over, Don.

[23:10:07]

LEMON: You have been fact checking the presidents Jacksonville rally tonight. So, what stood out to you?

DALE: Well, what stood out was how we are kind of in this infinite time loop of the president saying the same false things over and over. So, he again said that he will once name Michigan's man of the year, even though that award doesn't even appear to exist. And he definitely didn't get it. He said China is paying the tariffs. We know (inaudible), Americans are paying the tariffs. He said he got veterans choice past. Obama signed that into law in 2014. He said again to Kamala Harris during the primary called Biden a racist. She did criticized him on race related issues, but began her criticism explicitly saying I do not believe you're a racist.

He again, referred to MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi as a CNN personality and claimed that Velshi got hit with a tear gas canister. It was a rubber bullet. He kept making fun of Velshi for that by the way. And he kept doing things like inflating his own crowd size and deflating Hillary Clinton's crowd size at their dueling Grand Rapids, Michigan rallies four years ago. He's been saying -- he's been giving these wrong numbers for literally four years now. So, I feel like I'm just stuck in this fact check circle, doing the same stuff dozens of times. It's remarkable.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: I just got, I don't know, it's like a male beauty pageant. You are Michigan's man of the year.

DALE: It didn't happened.

LEMON: Wow, thank you, Daniel. I appreciate it.

DALE: Thank you.

LEMON: For more on the president's attack on the voting process, I want to bring in now Michigan's Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson. Thank, you it's good to see you. You're doing OK?

JOCELYN BENSON, SECRETARY OF STATE, MICHIGAN: Yes. We are getting by another day has passed, 39 to go.

LEMON: Another day has passed. That is a good answer. That's what I'm going to say. When people ask me how I'm doing, I'm going to say, well, another day has passed.

BENSON: Time for another one.

LEMON: Secretary, if President Trump continues to make baseless claims about mail-in voting, how does mail-in voting work in your state please?

BENSON: Well, first of all, the process is secure. Every ballot is securely protected. The security of the process through time tested protections and protocols that involve checking voter's signatures to ensure that no ballot is counted unless we can verify the voter signature, and thereby their identity.

So, we've also got a tracking system in place so that voters can track their ballots and be confirmed when their ballot is received and counted. All of it is in place to give voters the assurance that every vote that they cast -- that every vote that they cast is counted and every voice is heard. LEMON: So, OK. Absentee ballots in your state must be postmarked by

the day before the election. So, they can still be coming in after Election Day. So, Trump won your state in 2016 by about 10,000 votes. So, this could be close. How will you handle it if the votes have not been fully counted on Election Day?

BENSON: Well, look. We anticipate that 3 million people at least will be voting by mail this fall. And under Michigan law, we cannot begin even counting those ballots, tabulating them until 7:00 a.m. on Election Day, and it's just impossible to -- in 12 04 13 or even 20 hours to get through those 3 million ballots and deliver the floor results of the election. And we will be prioritizing accuracy and security throughout the process.

So, we are anticipating it's going to take some time, as it should, when you prioritizing accuracy and security. And we -- nevertheless, doubled the amount of people and machines that will be in place processing in tabulating these ballots. We are hopeful that we will get through them as efficiently as possible and it will be transparent throughout the process to ensure that the public knows exactly where we are at every step of the way.

LEMON: So, you said, machine and person. So, is it tabulated or is it counted by machine? Are people -- is it a combination?

BENSON: high speed tabulators that we have place throughout the state in many places, doubling the number of high-speed tabulators, and also adding high speed ballot envelope openers as well to speed up the process. So, we are documenting increasing the efficiency of the process, but again, always with an eye towards securing the ballots and ensuring the accuracy of the count.

So, we are ready for November. We are ready for this record turnout that we are expecting Michigan, a record number of people voting by mail. What we have constantly have to battle back on is this misinformation that is designed to confuse the electorate about the sanctity of their vote, when there is no evidence that their vote, in any way, will be insecure.

LEMON: OK. So on that note, let's talk about some of the challenges and some of the bumps in the road that can come up. Are you and the Attorney General there working to prepare a response to any legal challenges that may come, that, night or in the following days?

BENSON: Yes. I mean I have spent two decades of my career as an election law attorney. So, between myself and the Attorney General, we are going to use every tool at our disposal to protect every voter, very ballot and ensure there is a full and accurate counting of the vote and that the results of our elections are an accurate reflection of the word of the people.

LEMON: All right. Secretary Benson, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

BENSON: Thank you.

LEMON: Good luck. Another day, another day.

[23:15:03]

BENSON: 39 to go.

LEMON: We will see you soon. A key model now projecting more than 371,000 U.S. Coronavirus deaths by January 1st. Just how bad will things get this fall? Plus, a Facebook executives says social media has torn us apart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

At the very least, we have eroded collective understanding as a country. At worst, I fear we are pushing ourselves to the brink of civil war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So here's' the breaking news. The University of Washington model now projecting more than 371,000 U.S. coronavirus deaths by January 1st. The model also predicting 3,000 coronavirus deaths a day by the end of the year. That as President Trump announces new executive orders for health care, but doesn't offer comprehensive details of the long promised health care plan.

Let's discuss now, Dr. Jonathan Reiner is here, Andy Slavitt as well. Good to see both of you gentlemen. Doctor, let's get right to it. Cases are up in 21 -- cases are up across the country and in 21 states across this country, and now this projection of 371,000 deaths by the end of this year. This is going to be a challenging fall.

JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes. It's going to be a really challenging fall, unless we do things differently. And I don't see signs that we are going to do that.

In some ways, it's a tale of two countries. Part of the country, packets of the country are still doing relatively well, the northeast in particular, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire. All those states have positivity rates less than 1 percent. We will see if that holds. It's going to be challenging with -- as the fall and winter come on.

But throughout the middle part of the country, and I asked with the plains. It's much worst. There are three states today that had both record cases and hospitalizations. North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, South Dakota has a 22 percent positivity rate.

The virus is raging in these places. It's not going to go down unless we do things differently. Unless everyone mask up and getting more testing in there. But where is the political will in these places to do that? It's going to be tough one too.

LEMON: So, tonight, Andy, the FDA commissioner says a vaccine decision will be based on science and the data, not politics. The president has said that the White House could override FDA guidelines proposed to make a vaccine approval more strict. Are you confident science will win out over politics? I asked you a similar question the other night and you said you believe that the president could override it and that we should not be surprised by it. Are you confident that its science is going to win out?

ANDY SLAVITT, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR AT THE CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES: Well, let's always start with this. Vaccines are a good thing. And the president controversy notwithstanding, it's a matter of when we get a safe reliable vaccine and if you want to get one (inaudible) whiles it ready, not before.

Look, I think the drug, companies knowing what they know, about what the president said, would be irresponsible for them to submit an application if they were not entirely ready. And I think it's a very unlikely to imagine that happening before Election Day, without getting politicized. So, if there is no application that comes in, then there is no possibility for monkey business.

Once it comes in, the FDA scientists have a choice to make whether they even want to review it. And so, should they decide not to even review it the president would have nothing to overrule? So, I think they can stop this process from being politicized if they're worried about that. You know, we really do want science to win out.

LEMON: So they do have some control over it. I get what you are saying. I get what you were saying. They have to be strategic about the way they release it, or if they want to release it at the time, so that the president doesn't overrule it if they don't think it's ready.

Dr. Reiner, you know, Dr. Fauci talked about what it would take to fast-track a vaccine, you know, past those new FDA guidelines that would require vaccine manufacturers to a two months to seek approval. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALERGY AND INFECTOUS DISEASE: If the vaccine is so overwhelmingly effective that you would say the risk benefit of having adverse events override the benefit of getting a 98 percent effective vaccine earlier rather than waiting 60 days, that is something that even we scientist would say, you know, we should really take a look at that. You might want to shorten that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: The chance of a vaccine that effective is unlikely. It would be great. What is a realistic timeline for a vaccine approval?

REINER: Probably sometime around Christmas to the first of the year. If we wait two months for most of the patients who enrolled in these trials to pass the two month mark after their second dose of a vaccine that takes us, you know, well past thanksgiving and close to December. And then the review boards have to evaluate this, and you know, this doesn't happen overnight.

So, I think, you know, realistically, if things went just as best as could be expected, I think we are very lucky to be sticking needles in arms by Christmas. And that would be a fabulous victory. That would be an -- that would be a monumental victory. So, there is nothing to be disappointed about that.

LEMON: But you are being realistic about it. You're saying that that is if everything goes well. That you said, if we are lucky to be sticking needles in people's arm by Christmas.

[23:25:00]

REINER: Yes. But that's not a bad thing.

LEMON: No, it's not.

REINER: To think that -- I mean, the genetic code for this virus was only basically sorted out in January of last year. And to think that 11 months later, we could have a consumer ready vaccine, possibly that's spectacular.

LEMON: I get what you're saying. I just want to be realistic and I don't want to give the viewers a false expectations. But I want to make -- before we run out of time, I want to get this health care question. Because I think it's very important.

Andy, today the president has been saying for years now that he is going to introduce health care plan, but he introduced today his health care vision by announcing executive orders. I mean, there's an attempt to protect coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions. There are no details on how that will work. There's no way the president can overhaul the health care system by Election Day. It's just not possible.

SLAVITT: Yes. I don't think he has any intention too. I mean, look, if I were going to explain what an executive order actually is, think of it as a tweet on fancy paper. That's all it is. There is no power of the law that the president has, unless it's granted to him by the Congress. The Congress has granted him no such authority.

So, Don, if you were to go get sick and call an insurance company and say you have to cover me because I've had a pre-existing condition, and the president has signed this executive order and you showed it to them and you took it to court, the judge would laugh, because that's not how it works. Obviously, it's being done within 40 days of the election. I think the public should be able to see through that for four years the president had a chance to fix this and chose not to. He doesn't really care about this issue.

LEMON: And not to mention they are in court now trying to get rid of pre-existing conditions. So it's contradictory.

SLAVITT: Yes, there's that. Exactly.

LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate your time. More protests in Louisville tonight over the decision not to charge police officers directly with Breonna Taylor's killing. We're going to go there live, that's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: It is a second night of protests on the streets of Louisville, Kentucky after no police officers are charged directly in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is in Louisville. Also joining me is Charles Ramsey, who ran the police department in both -- departments, I should say, in both Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. Hello, gentlemen.

Shimon, you first. Give us the latest on the situation in Louisville tonight. What happened there?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes. So, tonight, as you can see behind me, this is Jefferson Square Park, where most of the protesters have been gathering for weeks. Everyone seems to be abiding by the curfew. We are not seeing much different scene from last night when we saw a lot of the police out here in riot gear. That is not happening tonight.

A short time ago, as we were showing here on our air, there was a standoff between police and protesters at a church around 15 minutes away from here. They were negotiating. Clergy there at the church were negotiating with police to try and release some of the protesters who had gone to the church for neutral ground to sort of -- a place for them to stay while -- after the curfew hours.

Police relenting, eventually letting them leave and saying if they go home, they would not be arrested. And so far, protesters here have been doing that, Don.

LEMON: So, you witnessed a confrontation between protesters and vigilantes. What did you see Shimon?

PROKUPECZ: Yeah. So this happened around -- several hours ago. So, the protesters who have been gathering here got word that this group had gathered at a nearby hotel. They were in the parking lot of this hotel, parking their vehicles. The protesters went there and they confronted them.

The group had weapons, they had their weapons out, and they were dressed in military fatigue, helmets, vests, long guns, long rifles, and there was this confrontation that went on for several minutes between protesters and this group of men. Eventually, it ended, and everyone dispersed and walked away. It ended peacefully, Don.

LEMON: That's good news. Commissioner Ramsey, these situations can turn violent and it can happen very quickly. We saw it in Kenosha. We saw it in Portland. Thankfully, that didn't happen here. But when you see these confrontations, as a former law enforcement official, that has got to really worry you.

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It does. I mean, I get very, very concerned. I've handled countless protests between Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. One thing that is different is we didn't have to worry about armed vigilantes or militiamen or people within the demonstrators being armed.

But when you have two sides now and people tend to bring fire arms, particularly the militia people, that is a recipe for disaster. We saw that in Kenosha.

LEMON: Why are these vigilante groups consistently showing up when people are out protesting? Should that continue?

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, they have a right to be there. It is counter- protesting. That is not uncommon. What is uncommon is coming to the protest armed, open carry, and certainly, people have been flaunting, you know, the Second Amendment in recent days, and they have every right to be armed.

But the situation is such that because of a high tension that exists during these demonstrations, the likelihood of someone using that firearm is pretty higher. I mean, last night, we had two police officers shot. We certainly saw what happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It is just not a good situation. I am very, very concerned about it.

[23:34:58]

LEMON: It's interesting, especially when someone is interjected into, as you say, a volatile situation, with a gun. I mean, most of the time, they don't even live in the community. This is astounding to me, that it could happen. Remember in Kenosha, we saw police handing out water, thanking apparent vigilante members.

RAMSEY: Yeah.

LEMON: How should police interact with these groups? Are they treated differently than protesters?

RAMSEY: Well, they shouldn't be. I mean, police should be neutral. Police should not be handing out water to militia, doing anything extraordinary, in my opinion, on the protesters' side. I know sometimes those kinds of things happen.

But I think the police need to be there to protect everyone's right to protest and keep things as peaceful as possible. When you start going too far over to one side or the other, then that can actually agitate the situation, in my opinion.

LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate it.

Facebook is under fire for not doing more to crack down on fake and misleading posts by Trump supporters. And some of the president's voters tell CNN, they don't care if what they're spreading is fake.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: As we get closer to Election Day, President Trump has campaigned and supporters often pose fake videos and misleading information about Joe Biden on Facebook and other social media. They pass it office as humor, but those posts can get millions of hits.

As CNN's Donie O'Sullivan explains, some Trump voters don't care that the posts are fake and don't trust social media fact-checkers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: We've come to a Trump rally in Bemidji, Minnesota today to ask Trump supporters what they see when they open their Facebook feeds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one has been more wrong more often than Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The November 3rd election result may never be accurately determined.

O'SULLIVAN: On that post, is there any label or fact check or anything?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, they have a little thing at the bottom that says voting by mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the U.S.

(LAUGHTER)

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Are you a Facebook user?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I use Facebook, yes.

O'SULLIVAN: What sort of pages you follow on there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anybody that agrees with me.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Only people that agree with you? You don't --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A Republican, an antiabortion guy, a pro-gun, and pro-beer.

O'SULLIVAN: But you not think it will be good to follow some pages of people you disagree with, see if their opinion --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, because they call me stupid. You know, why would I follow people the throw rocks at me constantly because they don't agree with me? I got tens of thousands of people that do.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): So Trump, his campaign, a lot of senior Republicans over the past few weeks have been sharing doctored and manipulative videos on social media. (On camera): The Trump campaign and Trump supporters will often say these videos are clearly jokes, they are memes, people know their memes, and people know they're fake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they say, well, this is fact checked, it's wrong because it is taken out of context, like when Joe Biden fell asleep during a live interview on television.

(LAUGHTER)

O'SULLIVAN: Claimed that he fell asleep. I think that was an edited one, right? That was --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't think it was. It looked pretty live to me. There were no cuts in it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joining us live this morning from New York, hey good morning. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is your wake up call.

O'SULLIVAN: Is this the video that you are talking about?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could be, yeah.

O'SULLIVAN: Biden falling --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I watch it?

O'SULLIVAN: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a Washington Post.

(LAUGHTER)

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): So an article there is saying that it was fake. But it looked real, right? I mean, it looked real.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, I definitely wouldn't doubt that it would happen.

O'SULLIVAN: Even if it is fake, does it change your opinion of Biden?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. You got to sift through it. I missed that one. But it was a good laugh. It was a really good laugh. Like I said, I wouldn't doubt it.

O'SULLIVAN: A lot of people we spoke to today are sharing posts on Facebook that later get fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checkers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anything I put on there about our president is generally only on for a few minutes, then all of a sudden, they're fact-checking me saying this, that, and the other thing, which I know is not true. The fact check is wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right away, they go to conservative sites and say that's wrong, then they pull it. They are not going to the liberal sites. They are the real lies. They are the real liars out there.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Also circulating online, more insidious forms of misinformation, including baseless claims about Vice President Joe Biden being a pedophile.

(On camera): Do you guys seriously think that Joe Biden is a pedophile?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I do. But that's just my opinion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel he is -- I feel he is part of the game of Donald Trump.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): That baseless, fabricated claim about Biden is circulating among supporters of QAnon, a conspiracy theory that the FBI says is a potential domestic terrorism threat. Some of these false claims have been amplified by the president himself.

The FBI is saying QAnon is a dangerous conspiracy theory. Does that make you think for a second, hang on, should I be following this thing?

[23:44:59]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, because QAnon is bringing up the bad things about the FBI. That is why they are saying it. That is why they are afraid of it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'SULLIVAN: And Don, you know, when we published the story on cnn.com earlier tonight, I saw some people online saying, oh, the Trump supporters in that report are dump or stupid. And that is not the case. Any of us, you, me, our moms, and our dads can fall for online misinformation, particularly fake or doctored videos that can look so realistic, and particularly when that misinformation confirms our biases.

That is what platforms like Facebook do. They are designed to keep showing you posts and videos and memes that they think you will enjoy, so you spend long on the platform because the longer you spend on Facebook, the more ads you watch, the more money they make.

But that is pulling us into this sort of online echo chamber which is undoubtedly all contributing to the polarization we see here in the United States today. Don?

LEMON: Donie O'Sullivan, thank you so much.

If you are pointed out the truth and you still don't believe it -- OK, whatever. A former Facebook executive says a social media giant has taken a page out of Big Tobacco's playbook and the result could lead to civil war. He is going to join me, next.

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[23:50:00]

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LEMON: In a congressional hearing today held remotely due to the pandemic, Facebook's former director of monetization, Tim Kendall, made this stark comparison.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM KENDALL, FORMER FACEBOOK DIRECTOR OF MONETIZATION: At Facebook, I believe we sought to mine as much human attention as possible and turned into historically unprecedented profits.

To do this, we didn't simply create something useful and fun. We took a page from Big Tobacco's playbook, working to make our offering addictive at the outset.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Interesting. So he joins me now. Tim, I appreciate you joining me. You compare the way Facebook added new features and learned to deliver incendiary information the way Big Tobacco kept -- how they kept people hooked. How does that work?

KENDALL: Well, look, I think -- I think when we look back at tobacco, it probably wasn't obvious in 1930 and 1940, when they were putting the additives in, you know, each decade, and making the cigarette more and more addictive, exactly what was happening.

But now that we look back on it, we just see this arc of addiction. And my concern is that I think that we are seeing the exact same thing with Facebook.

I think it started with a small set of features that got put into the service 12, 13 years ago. Status updates, the sorts of things that allowed for popularity and comparison, things that are creating all these teenage mental health issues.

But now, we're at a stage where divisiveness and much more toxic additives are being added to the service. And it's good for business. I don't think it's going to stop unless, you know, they're forced to stop it.

LEMON: Yeah.

KENDALL: And, yeah, I just have a lot of concerns and a lot of anxiety about it. And I felt like it was a stark warning and a fair warning to say, look, we saw this happen with Big Tobacco. I'm now worried this is going to happen with, you know, what I call big social -- LEMON: Yeah.

KENDALL: -- which is Facebook and others.

LEMON: Well, to be honest with you, Tim, I can't tell you the last time I've been on Facebook. And I had dipped out of Twitter for a while because it was so toxic. But it's a tool that I need to, you know, for work. But if I didn't do what I did -- what I do, I wouldn't be on Twitter, either, right?

But I want to talk to you about -- this is what we saw in Donie's piece. We just saw that in Donie's -- I should say his piece.

KENDALL: Yeah.

LEMON: About how social media platforms like Facebook draw users into echo chambers. It's easy for them to be fed misinformation like that Biden video. And I just want to play this grim warning that you gave during the hearing today. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENDALL: Social media services that I and others have built, it torn people apart with alarming speed and intensity. At the very least, we have eroded our collective understanding as a country. At worst, I fear we are pushing ourselves to the brink of Civil War.

LEMON: Wow! Civil War, what are these social media algorithms doing to our democracy? Really, a Civil War?

KENDALL: Look, I think it's really scary. Look, The New York Times published a piece yesterday where they quoted a former engineer at Facebook saying that their recommendation algorithm for groups was the single scariest feature they had seen. And basically, what it does is it just pigeonholes people into a lifestyle that they can never get out of.

And you saw it in your prior piece, right? The gentleman just wanted to hear things that he agreed with, right? He didn't want to hear the other side. And even when there was negative stuff on the other side that was false, it didn't really matter to him that it was false, right? He sort of felt like the underlying point was still valid.

And this is what we're seeing and my concern is that the algorithm divides us, because when it moves, you, a few inches tomorrow, and me, a few inches tomorrow, we're further apart, we're more engaged in the platform, and they make more money.

[23:54:56]

KENDALL: And that just continues day on day on day, to the point that, you know, division starts to lead to violence. And we're seeing this. We're seeing this in Louisville. We're seeing this in Portland. We're seeing precursor events that I believe are precursors to what could be, eventually, a Civil War, if the division continues and Facebook isn't checked. LEMON: Yeah, I hear people all the time. When I looked at those guys and, you know, when I was watching the piece before and they were looking at their phones, I just kept thinking, they think it's real because they saw it on the internet, they saw it on Facebook, they saw it on Twitter and so on.

I got to run, though, Tim. We'll have you back. I thought it was fascinating --

KENDALL: Yes.

LEMON: -- what you are saying. And I appreciated having you on. Please come back.

KENDALL: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you.

KENDALL: All right.

LEMON: And thanks for watching, everyone. Our coverage continues.

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