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U.S. Warns of Possible Violence by Domestic Extremists; U.S. to Ship Out Vaccines instead of Stockpiling; Hospitals in Brazil's Amazon Sink as Virus Variant Surges; China Poses U.S.' Top Security Concern; Iran Must Resume Compliance before U.S. Rejoins Pact; GameStop on Wild Run with Shares Soaring More than 400 Percent; Protestors Clash with Police for a Third Night in Lebanon; Ongoing Effort to Vaccinate Those in Communities of Color. Aired 12-12:45a ET

Aired January 28, 2021 - 00:00   ET

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

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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.

Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, the calls are coming from inside the house. U.S. security officials warn of an increased threat from domestic terrorists angry over lost election and emboldened by an attack on the Capitol.

Government and confidence meets the new coronavirus variant in Brazil and the end result is a surge in the number of seriously ill patients with hospitals in one major city on the brink of collapse.

And the hottest stock on Wall Street is hitting unbelievable highs thanks to crowdsourcing by nostalgic small-time investors and, yes, we will explain what all of that means.

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VAUSE: For the first time, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued an advisory which warns the country is facing a growing threat from violent domestic extremists. Officials did not name any specific group but said those who are opposed to Joe Biden's election, angry about COVID restrictions and fueled by false narratives and emboldened by the storming of the Capitol may be plotting further attacks.

We have details now from CNN's Jessica Schneider.

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JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: This is a new bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security and it is significant because it warns about threats from domestic extremists.

Typically, when we see advisories like this from DHS, it's to warn about foreign terrorism threats, like, for example, about a year ago when there was an advisory released about Iran-related threats after the U.S. strike that killed Iranian general Soleimani.

But in this case, DHS is warning about domestic extremists and the violence that they might cause because of the results of the 2020 election or even COVID restrictions. Now there is no specific threat here. But DHS is putting it this way, saying that they do not have any information to indicate a specific, credible plot.

However, violent riots have continued in recent days and we remain concerned that individuals frustrated with the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances and ideological causes, fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize a broad range of ideologically motivated actors to incite or commit violence.

Now this bulletin also says that domestic extremists have been emboldened by what they perceive as a successful attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th and that there could be further violence, all the way into the spring.

Now this comes at the same time that there is increasing concern about the safety of congressional members. Some of the newer or lesser-known members of Congress, they just don't have the amped-up security like congressional leaders do. And this is leading to concerns.

I've spoken to staffers on Capitol Hill, who say that, when they go home with their members, that's when there is the concern. They don't have the security.

So now additional security is being added. Some local police departments are giving security to these congressional members when they get to the airport or when they get home to make sure they are safe.

But a lot of concern coming on the heels, especially of this new DHS bulletin warning of these domestic extremist threats -- Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Joining us now, Elizabeth Neumann, assistant secretary of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, now the co-director of the Republican Accountability Project.

Boy, that sounds like a big project. Good to see you, Elizabeth, thanks for being with us.

ELIZABETH NEUMANN, REPUBLICAN ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: Thanks for having me, John.

VAUSE: OK, it's important to know that this is an advisory from Homeland Security, it's not an alert. But that in itself is remarkable but not entirely surprising, given that national security officials have been warning for years that there is a growing domestic terror threat within the U.S., right? NEUMANN: That is correct. We have seen this problem on the rise for many years. When you take a step back and look at the data, it's been on the rise for 10 years. It wasn't maybe apparent to us until about 2-3 years ago. This was an excellent overdue step that DHS took today.

VAUSE: With that in mind listen to FBI director Christopher Wray at a Senate hearing, back in 2019.

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CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: A majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we have investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.

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VAUSE: From your time serving in the Trump administration, did Trump every show any concern over this domestic terrorism threat, was there any indication that he thought it was a national priority or a risk to national security?

NEUMANN: No. In fact there were several attempts by Secretary Kelly, by Secretary Nielsen, by myself, to my colleagues at the White House.

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NEUMANN: And while you -- there was some empathy or understanding by certain White House staff that this was important, they seemed to understand that the president was never -- sorry; let me clarify -- president Trump was never going to go after this.

So they would talk about things, about preventing violence but never domestic terrorism. They certainly wouldn't call out white supremacy directly.

TRUMP: Do they ever explain why, saying then why president Donald Trump would never go after them?

NEUMANN: Not directly. Reading between the lines, it seemed to be a combination of factors.

One, I think he appreciated that they were somewhat loyal to him, that they liked him and he has a tendency to not criticize people that support him. So I think that was one aspect to it.

He also has a tendency, anytime he is criticized, which you might remember, with the Charlottesville episode, he got criticized for saying there were good people on both sides.

He has this tendency when he is confronted with, hey, you should not have said that, to double down as opposed to saying, yes, that's not what I meant to say. So there was a variety of factors at play.

Bottom line he should have done something, he should have said something. He refused to do it. VAUSE: With that in mind, here's a little more from that DHS bulletin

about the domestic terrorists, motivated, according to this FBI advisory, by a number of factors, including anger over COVID-19 restrictions, the 2020 election results, police use of force, long- standing racial and ethnic tension, including opposition to immigration.

So in other words, it's your garden variety Donald Trump make America great again rally. It seems to just cater to his supporters.

NEUMANN: Yes. And, sadly, that's true, that with all this documented, this bulletin was doing is documenting the threat that has been assessed for quite some time. If you go back to in October 2019 -- or, sorry -- 2020 assessment, the homeland threat assessment, it also noted that domestic violent extremists might be motivated to carry out attacks, based on all of the factors you just listed.

So this isn't new, it's just the previous administration didn't seem to think it important to warn the public about this threat environment we're operating in.

VAUSE: Just quickly, "USA Today" published an op-ed you wrote with a colleague on why Republicans should now be held accountable. This is part of your argument.

"Republican leaders are suddenly preaching the importance of unity and healing. The first step toward recovery is repentance and accepting responsibility for their role. There can be no unity without truth and accountability."

The problem it seems right now for the Republican Party is that the domestic terrorists, the QAnon nut jobs, the conspiracy theories, they are their base. They made -- the Republican Party made the deal with the devil and now they got to pay the price.

NEUMANN: Yes, it's frustrating from a security perspective. It is also frustrating from a political perspective. Look, not everybody that voted for Donald Trump, 74 million Americans, a preponderance of them are good people. They voted for him because of policy beliefs that he was the best candidate, based on their policy positions.

But there is a sizable portion that have gotten stuck or trapped in QAnon or have started to get entangled with white supremacist ideology, maybe not in the movement itself but starting to head in that direction.

And it is a dangerous place for these people to be. They're very vulnerable right now, now that their president -- that the president that they thought was going to take office on January 20th didn't. They feel hurt, they feel deceived. And they could be recruited by some of these darker forces, like neo-Nazis and anti-government extremists.

So it's a very particularly dangerous moment and we really need Republicans, elected Republicans, to come out and tell the truth. The election was not stolen; apologize if they were part of the big lie and vote to convict Trump. Convict the person that was the big leader behind these movements that led to the violence on January 6th.

That would go a long way to reducing some of the vulnerable individuals that might be toying with darker extremist elements.

VAUSE: It would go a long way but there have not been too many profiles in courage on the Republican side of late. We can hope. Elizabeth, thank you for being with us, we really appreciate it.

NEUMANN: Thanks so much for having me, John.

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ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR ADVISER, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM: It will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one.

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VAUSE: That stark assessment is from a senior White House adviser, Andy Slavitt. He says while action is being taken to increase supply, there remains problems with distribution. But he says, as soon as vaccines are ordered by a state, the federal government will ship that instead of keeping all of the doses in one stockpile.

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SLAVITT: Any stockpile that may have existed previously no longer exists.

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SLAVITT: Our practice is to maintain a running inventory, of 2-3 days of supply, that we can use to supplement any shortfalls in production and to ensure that we are making deliveries as committed.

But we are passing doses directly along to states, very much in real time, as they order them.

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VAUSE: The number of possible admissions in the U.S. is starting to fall but the death toll remains high, topping 3,600 on Wednesday for one day. Experts say those numbers should start to come down over the next few months.

As the U.S. and other wealthy countries rush to buy more vaccines, the head of the World Health Organization warns, poorer nations are being left behind. That equal access is key to ending the pandemic.

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DR. TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Even as the first vaccines begin to be deployed, the promise of equitable access is at serious risk. We now face the real danger that, even as vaccines bring hope to those in wealthy countries, much of the world could be left behind. The emergence of rapidly spreading variants makes the speedy and

equitable rollout of vaccines all the more important. A me-first approach leaves the world's poorest and most vulnerable people at risk. It is also self-defeating.

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VAUSE: We're about to see just how bad it is for the world's poorest and most vulnerable. The northwestern part of Brazil not only battling a massive coronavirus outbreak, it's also up against a new variant of the virus that's more contagious and is spreading. CNN's Matt Rivers is following the story for us and a warning: some viewers may find the content of this story disturbing.

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MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The tense quiet outside the small hospital in Iranduba, Brazil, can change so fast. An ambulance suddenly pulls up in front of the hospital as a woman inside is given CPR, medics desperately trying to save her.

But a hospital source told us she died soon after this video was shot. The woman was the third COVID-19 patient to die here this morning alone.

The overwhelmed hospital is a small example of a massive outbreak here in Brazil's northwest. Its epicenter known as the gateway to the Amazon, the city of Manaus. The city of about 2 million is replete with scenes like this, patients packed into unsanitary hospitals with a startling lack of ventilators or even just oxygen.

Recovery is a mirage. In what's been the city's deadliest month in the pandemic by far, many here are simply waiting to die.

This doctor says, "We've got 15 patients and there's 2 beds. It's difficult to say that we choose who lives and dies but we do try and save the ones with the best chance to live."

Health officials at all levels have acknowledged shortcomings. And doctors and nurses are clearly doing their best with the little they have. But Manaus has been here before. In April and May last year the health care system collapsed for the first time during the first COVID-19 wave.

Some studies suggested up to 75 percent of Manaus got the virus. Thousands of newly dug graves pockmark the city cemetery but now even those are not enough.

RIVERS: So that's why the government is quickly building these, so- called vertical graves. They are basically coffin-sized sections that will stack on top of one another and they are doing it this way because they are running out of space.

By the time this project is ultimately done, the government says they will have built 22,000 vertical graves to meet the expected demand. RIVERS (voice-over): So many people got sick the first time, many

here simply believe that herd immunity would prevent another round, despite many warnings from experts that that might not be true. Brazil's COVID skeptic president, Jair Bolsonaro, said there wouldn't be a second wave.

Things opened up, life got back to normal and then came a new COVID variant, p1, originating right here in Brazil, a kind of a perfect storm.

SCOTT HENSLEY, VIRAL IMMUNOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: I'm usually not alarmist about these kinds of things and I'm concerned about what we are seeing in Brazil right now.

RIVERS (voice-over): A recent study in Manaus found two-thirds of recent infections are caused by the variant, prompting fears that this variant spreads faster.

Back outside the small hospital in Iranduba, we meet Maxilila Silva da Silva. Her brother has been inside with COVID for weeks in desperate need of better care that just doesn't exist here right now.

Next to the hospital, a refrigerated container was brought in to store bodies.

"Take our cry for help to the world," she tells us.

"Tell them that this system is killing Brazilians. People who can't get into hospitals are dying."

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RIVERS (voice-over): Halfway through our interview, though, we had to pause. There was a new suspected COVID patient arriving, crying as he's admitted, because everybody here knows what can happen once you go inside -- Matt Rivers, CNN, Manaus, Brazil.

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VAUSE: Still to come, did Donald Trump's get tough approach on China leave the Biden administration with a much stronger hand when dealing with Beijing?

We'll have more on, that in a moment.

Also ahead, he may be in jail but Alexei Navalny's home and office were the target of police raids in Russia and he's not the only Kremlin critic paying a steep price for challenging Vladimir Putin.

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VAUSE: A little normality, something from the past, has returned to our daily life, it's comforting, reassuring, most probably didn't even notice. But the daily White House briefings are back.

On Wednesday alone, there were briefings not only at the White House but State Department, Pentagon, a virtual briefing by the Coronavirus Task Force, officials taking questions and answering them from reporters, not walking away after some brief statement or a temper tantrum or tweeting out short bursts of information or just not bothering to show up at all. The briefing is back.

One key Biden administration official answering questions on Wednesday was the freshly sworn-in secretary of state, Antony Blinken. He talked about some of the biggest foreign policy challenges, like arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a potential new agreement with Iran and the relationship with China.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I think it's not a secret that the relationship between the United States and China is arguably the most important relationship that we have in the world going forward.

It's going to shape a lot of the future that we all live. And increasingly, that relationship has some adversarial aspects to it.

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VAUSE: CNN's Ivan Watson standing by live in Hong Kong with more on the adversarial aspects that are affecting China's neighbors as well -- Ivan?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, worth noting he went on to say there were also cooperative and competitive aspects to this relationship. But for sure, the tensions in the region are higher. There does seem to be a feeling out period going on between Beijing and the new Biden administration after the acrimony and the sheer hostility that was underway between Beijing and the outgoing Trump administration, which got slapped with sanctions as Joe Biden was being inaugurated and sworn into office.

But as far as the adversarial side of this, you see that reflected in the posture, for example, of the U.S. military here in Asia.

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WATSON (voice-over): This is a sneak attack, a war game beneath the iconic heights of Japan's Mt. Fuji, where the U.S. military practices landing small teams of Marines deep behind enemy lines. The scenario imagines they're raiding an island in Asia and blowing up missile launchers that threaten U.S. warships.

INFANTRY OFFICER GENE HARB, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Well, we're training for specifically here as a peer or a near peer competitor who has advanced weapons systems, who has the ability to conduct orbiting via satellites. WATSON: After nearly 20 years battling insurgents in Central Asia and the Middle East, the U.S. military is training to fight a much more sophisticated enemy in Asia.

Is Asia in the midst of a power struggle right now?

RORY MEDCALF, HEAD, NATIONAL SECURITY COLLEGE, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY: Yes, the short answer is yes. This is now the center of gravity for influence in global economics and politics. China is seeking to be a dominant power, or an imperial power and many countries in this region don't want to see this dominance happen.

WATSON: One of the biggest international challenges facing President Biden is a relationship with China that grew increasingly hostile under the Trump administration.

BLINKEN: President Trump was right in taking a tougher approach to China. I disagree very much with the way that he went about it in a number of areas, but the basic principle was the right one.

WATSON: In a speech to the World Economic Forum this week, China's leader called for more cooperation, not conflict.

XI JINPING, PRESIDENT OF CHINA (through translator): The misguided approach of antagonism and confrontation be it in the form of Cold war, hot war, trade war or tech war would eventually harm every nations' interest and sacrifice people's welfare.

WATSON: But China under Xi Jinping has been quick to flex its military and economic muscles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You surrender now. Surrender.

WATSON: Using its growing power to intimidate neighbors says Richard Heydarian, a political scientist and author from the Philippines.

RICHARD HEYDARIAN, POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES: I mean, China, a blogger has practically all major neighbors with the exception of Russia, right? I think that says a lot about how China is also mishandling its foreign policy and its relations with other countries.

WATSON: Look at these points of tension. Taiwan with the islands military had scrambled to meet increasingly frequent overflights from Chinese warplanes. The Himalayas, where Chinese and Indian troops have been fighting deadly border skirmishes. The South China Sea, where the U.S. and other navies have stepped up their own naval maneuvers around China's man-made islands, which are part of Beijing's strategy to claim virtually all of the sea for itself.

And the East China Sea, where war planes and warships jockey around islands claimed by both Japan and China. All potential flash points in this regional power struggle.

The competition in Asia also involves trade, technology and even public health. The world is watching to see how Biden confronts this complicated 21st century contest.

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WATSON: So part of Trump's legacy here in Asia that he is leaving Biden is this much more confrontational approach to China, with the accusations that China uses its economic might to punish other countries when it doesn't like what they are doing politically.

But clearly, the Trump administration's erraticism, the fact that it was so unpredictable, it pushed smaller countries here in the region to recognize -- many political scientists here say -- that they kind of have to take their own defense more into their own hands.

That compounded with what many countries here perceived as China's much more aggressive posture here has resulted in something really interesting, where countries like India, Australia and Vietnam and Japan have all been getting closer to their own bilateral and trilateral agreements.

And defense cooperation and then the quad has gotten more active, the Australian Indian, Japanese, U.S. kind of lose conglomeration.

A real question will be will Biden follow through on his pledge to continue challenging China but also to shore up the U.S. alliances here in Asia?

And as we all know, Biden already has some very serious challenges to deal with on the home front probably first -- John.

VAUSE: Just a few. Ivan, thank, you live for us there in Hong Kong.

On the Iran nuclear treaty, the new Biden administration says the U.S. will consider rejoining the international agreement once Tehran is in compliance.

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TONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: If Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same thing.

And then we would use that as a platform to build with our allies and partners what we call the longer and stronger agreement and to deal with a number of other issues that are deeply problematic in the relationship with Iran. But we are a long ways from that point.

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VAUSE: The day before Blinken's remarks, Iran threatened to block short-notice inspections of its nuclear facilities. Tehran is demanding an end to U.S. economic sanctions before rejoining the nuclear deal.

The Biden administration has paused pending arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates while it reviews the agreements. The reviews are typical for a new administration but it could also signal a change in policy.

At the end of last year, the Trump White House pushed through a number of arms sales to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, including 50 stealth F-35 jets and a side deal to the normalization agreements with Israel.

Moscow accord is set to hear an appeal from the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny just a few hours from now. He is facing a long jail sentence for embezzlement. But his real crime, it seems, is challenging the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. CNN's Matthew Chance reports now from Moscow.

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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's always been the Kremlin's instinct to silence its critics, why these Russian police are raiding the offices of Alexei Navalny in Moscow, say his supporters.

At the family apartment, banging on the door, even while the opposition leader is held in jail. This is real pressure being ratcheted up on the man the Kremlin appeared to see as a major threat.

He's already survived an agonizing attempt on his life with a nerve agent. Now the anti-corruption campaigner faces multiple criminal proceedings and years, potentially, behind bars. He's only the latest to feel Vladimir Putin's wrath.

Take Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest oligarch. He famously fell out with Putin by funding opposition groups and highlighting official corruption before being arrested and serving 10 years in a Russian jail, while his oil company, Yukos, was broken up.

"Looking back, I was one of the lucky ones," he told me from exile in London.

"I lost the decade of my life in prison. But others who challenge Putin have paid a far higher price," he tells me.

That list is long.

Russia's most prominent investigative journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, shed light on Russian operations in a brutal war in Chechnya before being gunned down in her apartment building in 2006 on Putin's birthday.

Then there was Boris Nemtsov, the fierce Putin critic and opposition leader, shot dead in 2015 outside the Kremlin's walls, as he walked home from a restaurant.

The Kremlin denies any connection with the killings. Opposition figures say beatings and threats are commonplace. Political opponents are also shamed and discredited, sometimes with secretly recorded sex tapes, like this one of a former Russian prime minister turned Kremlin critic. Mikhail Khodorkovsky says the new U.S. administration must now take

the global lead to protect Alexei Navalny.

"Personal sanctions must be imposed by President Biden and others in the West on those closest to Putin," he tells me.

"This would be extremely painful for Putin's entourage and will affect the stability of his power," he says.

It would also show Alexei Navalny himself and the tens of thousands across Russia protesting for his release that they have powerful allies -- Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: A sharp decline on Wall Street and an epic showdown over a struggling chain of brick and mortar video game stores. Why GameStop is surging in popularity and short sellers are panicking.

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JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Wall Street finished in the red Wednesday. The Dow is down more than 2 percent, the biggest loss since October. That's after the U.S. Federal Reserve offered a cautious and uncertain economic outlook because of COVID. Weak earnings reports from Boeing and Tesla also played a part.

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One stock, though, in particular has been on a real tear and, at the same time, it's causing some real economic pain for professional traders. GameStop is a holdover from the 1990s, found mostly in shopping malls, and the company had been struggling with the pandemic economy. And its stock price has been weighed down.

Hedge funds and short sellers were moving in for the kill, bidding on a further decline. That is until a group of amateur investors on the online platform Reddit banded together and basically said, We'll show you, Wall Street. Not this day.

They've been driving up the GameStop shares by more than 400 percent since Friday. The games are getting a lot of attention, including regulators and at the White House.

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JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Our team is, of course, our economic team including Secretary Yellen and others, are monitoring the situation. It's a good reminder, though, that the stock market isn't the only measure of the health of our economic -- of our economy.

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VAUSE: Joining us now, Ian Sherr, editor at large for CNET News. Ian, thanks for being with us. It's a great story, but I can't decide

whether, you know, this is David, the small-time investor, is getting one back against goliath, the hedge funds and short-sellers, or if this is another cautionary warning that stock prices can be manipulated, or more proof the stock market is really just a glorified casino. Is there something behind door No. 4?

IAN SHERR, EDITOR AT LARGE, CNET NEWS: You know, if I tried to figure out what door No. 4 was, it's that you also just can't figure out the market sometimes.

I mean, it's crazy to see what's going on. And what's really fascinating, I think, is that, in a lot of ways, as you point out, this is people kind of getting back at Wall Street.

You know, one of the funny things about GameStop is that it has been one of the most shorted stocks on the market since I can remember. And I've been covering that company for over a decade. And part of the reason was because everyone was betting, well, you know, this company sells video game discs. Aren't those going away? Aren't we downloading them over the Internet? And it's true.

And I think a lot of people thought this company is not long for this world, especially because of the -- what's been going on with the pandemic. But what's interesting is that the short sellers, right, the people betting against the company's future, basically overplayed their hand. They actually had more short interest in the company than there were outstanding shares, which means that they basically basically opened themselves up to be completely screwed by what happened.

HOLMES: And they were, at least some of it. The man who found fame and infamy in stock market manipulation, Jordan Belfort -- He's also known as the Wolf of Wall Street -- had this advice for investors right now. Listen to this.

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JORDAN BELFORT, AUTHOR, "THE WOLF OF WALL STREET": You need to be really, really careful, I think you could actually make a lot of money. I have friends that are making a ton of money playing these hot, you know, Reddit stops and just being pumped up. It's truly -- it's like a modified pump and dump, because at the end of the day, it will most certainly go back down, because it's not trading based on any rational fundamental value.

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VAUSE: And this all begs the question, how does it end? When does it end? Because you know, the bigger the bubble, the louder the pop.

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SHERR: I mean, if I knew that, I'd be on Wall Street. I wouldn't be talking to you.

VAUSE: That's a nice answer.

SHERR: It's really hard to tell what's going to end up happening, and as you mentioned, this is going to end with the stop going back to normal. I don't know what's going to

happening, as you mention this is going to happening, as you mentioned, this is going to end with the stock going back to normal. But I don't know what that's going to look like and when and who is going to get hurt in the process.

And we are seeing major funds lose billions of dollars from having bet against GameStop, and then seeing this market go up and the stock go up. And in the same reign, we've seen these Reddit people getting tens of millions of dollars. I mean, it's unbelievable.

At one point, someone's going to be left holding the bag.

VAUSE: Yes.

SHERR: And that will be the unfortunate person who loses all their money.

VAUSE: That's a fundamental part of Wall Street. You know, money goes from somewhere to somewhere else, and someone has to pay, I guess. But, you know, apart from GameStop, there are other nostalgia companies, if you like, possibly benefiting from crowd sourcing investors.

BlackBerry -- I loved my BlackBerry in time -- it's up almost 200 percent just on the -- this year alone. The movie chain AMC up more than 300 percent on Wednesday.

You know, if this crowdsourcing stock trade is here to stay, how do you think it will change the stock market? And if nothing else doesn't mean short selling just becomes too risky and maybe goes away.

SHERR: Well, it's interesting, because when you think of short selling, it's not entirely terrible, right? Like, a lot of people look at short sellers as bottom feeders, because they are betting against someone's success. They're wishing for failure.

But the reality is that short sellers were the people who recognized the 2007, 2008 recession before anyone else did. Right? They were the ones who were raising the alarm about the housing market. Short sellers do have a reason for being.

I think what's interesting here is that, if this does turn into kind of an ongoing thing, and these amateur investors, as you call them, identify stocks that are being over-shorted, right? People betting too much against the companies, then maybe this is going to force short sellers to kind of change their methods and be a little more reasonable, which you know, I think a lot of companies would like.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, hates short sellers. So of course, he's tweeting and loving all of this. I'm sure he would like to see things change. VAUSE: And as far as this particular group of crowdsourced investors,

if you like, they still come together just in a very kind of genome, like, way kind of thing. There was no organization, really, was there? There was no head guy who called everyone together and organized all of it. It just sort of formed over the Internet.

SHERR: Yes. I mean, this is the beauty of the Internet in a lot of ways. Right? It's that people find each other in really interesting and unusual ways. And sometimes, it turns into pretty crazy stuff, like what we're watching now.

And you know, I think what's going to be interesting, is that let's say this does turn into a thing. Right? We start seeing this happening over and over and over again.

It's not going to just be this one community, right? Eventually, you're going to see other communities pop up. And that's where it's going to get really interesting.

But you know, a lot of the experts tell me that this, as was mentioned before, kind of a glorified Ponzi scheme. And if that's the case and people end up getting wiped out, then I have a feeling that things won't probably change very much.

VAUSE: Ian, thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate the insights and the explanations. It's been great.

SHERR: Thanks for having me.

VAUSE: Pleasure. Take care.

Well, this year is off to an incredible start for America's youth poet laureate, after wowing the country with an original poem at Joe Biden's inauguration. Amanda Gorman now gets to recite another one, this time before the Super Bowl halftime show next month and another massive television audience.

The 22-year-old has also signed with one of the world's biggest modeling agencies, IMG.

Next on CNN NEWSROOM, COVID-19 cases are soaring in Lebanon. A nationwide lockdown is further devastating the economy, and that's lead to anger and desperation up and down the country.

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VAUSE: Well, for the third consecutive night, protestors squared off against police in Lebanon. The economy there was in dire straits before the pandemic, and now it's just gone from bad to worse, and frustration is boiling over.

CNN's Ben Wedeman has our report from Beirut.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For a third night in a row, protestors confront security forces in Lebanon's second largest city. People in Tripoli are angry over the current monthlong total coronavirus lockdown, which has pushed many over the edge, from poverty to utter destitution.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stay at home! Stay at home! This is how you're asking people to stay at home?

WEDEMAN: Adds her husband, "Give money to the people for them to eat and drink."

Since Monday night, protesters clashed with the army, which brought out armored personnel carriers and water cannons, trying to restore order.

Wednesday, Lebanon recorded its highest daily COVID death toll yet.

Tripoli is a microcosm of what ails Lebanon, home to some of the country's richest families and home to many of its poorest.

The Lebanese economy began falling apart in late 2019, sparking massive nationwide protests. COVID-19 has only made a bad situation dramatically worse.

Whatever official social safety net existed before has all but disappeared. What little help comes from mosques, churches, NGOs, political parties and relatives abroad.

"Desperate need is what's moving the city and the sickness of corona, which has gripped it," says Lida Saidi (ph), who runs one of Tripoli's biggest charities.

The Lebanese government, perpetually in the throes of political paralysis, is out of money and out of solutions. And the people increasingly out of patience.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Beirut.

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VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. WORLD SPORT is next with Patrick Snell, and then I'll be back in about 15 minutes with a lot more news. Stay with us. You're watching CNN.

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