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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Israel Teen Reunited With Family After Being Held By Hamas; WAPO: McCarthy Told Trump "F You" In Phone Call After Ouster; Tucker Carlson Endorses Trump For President; Biden Campaign Prepared Legal Arsenal To Combat Deepfakes; TikTok Claims It Does Not Censor Content Critical Of The Chinese Communist Party; Lawmakers Warn TikTok Manipulates Digital Information. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired November 30, 2023 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Let's begin with CNN's Matthew Chance live for us in Tel Aviv.
Matthew, if the pause is not extended, how quickly do we expect hostilities to resume?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it could be very soon. In fact, the Israeli government have said that they're prepared to move almost immediately to resume that military action if there is no extension of this hostage exchange deal. Yesterday, it ran up to the wire as well. And the Israeli military put a deadline of 07:00 a.m. local time before they would resume military activity inside the Gaza Strip. And so, yes, that's about seven hours from now, about midnight your time at Eastern Time over there.
So there's still some time, there's still a few hours left for a last minute deal to be hammered out. And I expect that behind the scenes diplomatic efforts are in overdrive to try and make sure that this hostage deal that has gone on for seven consecutive days will go on for an eighth because it's, you know, it's in the interests of all parties, Israel is getting significant numbers of its hostages out. And on the Palestinian side in Gaza, they're getting prisoners released and of course, they're getting an important influx of humanitarian aid. Every day, this pause in the violence, this pause in the Israeli military operation continues. And so, look, the hope is that this can go on for longer, but at the moment, there's no deal.
And, you know, there's just a few hours to go seven hours at most, we think, before time literally runs out on bringing the parties together for an extension of this deal, Jake.
TAPPER: Matthew, within the hour, six newly released hostages crossed back into Israel. Two other hostages were released earlier today. Is that it? We do expect any other hostages today?
CHANCE: Yes, we think that's it. That's eight hostages altogether. Remember, Israel set the number of 10 hostages that it wanted every day in order for this to be a 24 hour pause in the military operation. There were two Israeli hostages released in addition to the 10 yesterday, so they brought that number forward, it seems, and made 10. But I mean, the point is, it's getting increasingly difficult for Hamas, it seems, under the terms of the current deal, which basically focuses on women and children to gather enough hostages in a single day to make this swap.
There are still about 140 hostages inside Gaza. And so, there is still Israeli hostages there, as well as other nationalities as well we understand who can be swapped, and Hamas is, you know, sort of in charge in vast swathes of Gaza. But when it comes to the adult males and it comes to the hostages who are members of the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli military, then you -- look, what Israeli legislators are saying to me is that Hamas is going to want a different equation, it's going to want a different deal. At the moment, it's getting three prisoners released, for instance, for every one Israeli that set free. If we're talking about much more higher value from their point of view individuals like Israeli soldiers, they're going to want more than that.
And so, that is a process of negotiation that the Israeli say they're willing to enter into if there are more hostages being released. But you know, it still has to be agreed and it hasn't been yet.
TAPPER: All right, Matthew Chance in Tel Aviv for us, thanks so much. Even though the pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas has officially lasted for seven days, we are also seeing an upswing intention and violence. Hamas is taking credit for today's terrorist attack at a bus stop in Jerusalem that left three innocent civilians dead and seven wounded, including some Americans. CNN's Ben Wedeman is in Jerusalem.
The attackers who were also killed afterwards were brothers, Ben?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. They were 38 year old Murad Nimr and his brother 30 year old Ibrahim. Now, we've seen video of the actual attack taking place. What you see is their car which they drove from Sur Baher, which is at eastern suburb of Jerusalem, drives up right in front of this bus station. The two get out and just start opening fire on people waiting for the bus, this was at rush hour in the morning.
And you see, they go back, they try to get back in their car after shooting people. And then it appears bystanders, one perhaps a soldier, one of civilian draw their weapons and kill them on the spot. So, three people dead, seven people injured. And in the aftermath of this, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, yes, we should be giving more weapons to civilians. And his words were echoed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
And it's really underscores the level of tension here even though at the moment, at the moment the guns have gone silent in Gaza itself. And as far as the situation in Gaza, as people watch the clock, as the clock ticks down to 07:00 a.m. tomorrow, the 100s of 1000s of people who have been made homeless, who have been displaced, particularly from the north of Gaza are struggling to survive.
[17:05:30]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (voice-over): There isn't much left to retrieve from the moonscape, it was Zahra City in central Gaza, just some scraps of wood pulled from the ruins, the odds and ends that were once people's lives.
We've come to get what we can says Amja Deshanti (ph). The kids things, our clothing, whatever we can get from under the rubble. Here, found this, a daughter's toy. No one can live here anymore. The destruction total.
Life in Gaza has been reduced to the basics of pre-industrial existence where people have become hewers of wood where they can find it. In drawers of water, even if that water is barely potable. Besame Latar (ph) goes out early every day to collect the firewood his wife uses to prepare meals. The United Nations estimates around 80 percent of Gaza's population has been displaced. More than a million jammed into schools converted into shelters.
People here are living on top of one another says Besim (ph), the place is full of filth. All these kids are going to get sick. The World Health Organization reports that without adequate hygiene, health care and food, disease is spreading Besim's wife, Hetam (ph), tears up the daily bread old and stale to be made into a thin soup with lentils. We used to feed this to the sheep, now we give it to the children, she says.
There's no more room at this school in Maghazi central Gaza. (inaudible) extended family of more than 20 sleeping the back of a truck protected from the elements by plastic tarp. She fled from Northern Gaza with only what she could carry desperate now to find enough food to feed her children. When my son tells me, I'm hungry, what can I say, she asks. We try but we can't find anything. Our life is hard.
Hard, perhaps is an understatement. Welcome to the apocalypse now. Ben Wedeman, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER: And our thanks to Ben Wedeman for that report. The twisted minds of the terrorists of Hamas today released a brief hostage video of a man named Yardin Bibas. Bibas is of course the father of the very youngest hostage, 10 month old Kfir as well as his brother four year old Ariel. Hamas has claimed without producing any evidence as of yet that those two boys as well as their mother, who were all taken hostage back in October 7, said they were all killed by an Israeli airstrike on Gaza. We do not know that to be true. We do not know that they're dead even.
Here is an image with a hostage video released today. We're not going to show the video. Of course it's pure Hamas propaganda. It does show the father, Bibas, pleading with Israeli officials to bring him and his family home as soon as possible. He was kidnapped on October 7. He has been held separate from his family since then.
The last time I spoke with Yael Engel Lichi, her nephew Ofir Engel was being held hostage by Hamas after he was kidnapped while visiting his girlfriend at kibbutz Be'eri. He since marked his 18th birthday in captivity. After more than 50 days being held by Hamas, you're now seeing some of the very first photos taken of Ofir being reunited with his parents. He was one of the 12 hostages released yesterday.
And his aunt, Yael Engel Lichi, joins me now. Thank you for being here. I don't get a lot of opportunities to do good news in -- since October 7. So, this is a nice respite. I'm grateful to be able to show these pictures of your family back together.
Now, understanding that after more than 50 days of being captivity, you know, expectations have to be tempered. How's he doing?
YAEL ENGEL LICHI, AUNT OF RELEASED HOSTAGE OFIR ENGEL: Hi, thank you for having me again. And we -- I saw him today for the first time after we saw him last night around 12:00 a.m., yes, at night, midnight, they just came into Israel. It was so exciting. I can't imagine and I can't -- I didn't know you can feel all those feelings together the same time in such -- so we went to visit him today.
[17:10:17]
And I was really frightened to see him because, you know, after 54 days, we saw him yesterday on T.V., he looked a little bit pale and much more thinner. But he's alive. And he's walking on his feet. And when I saw his mother and father hug him, I knew the hard part was over, and we start a new episode of recovering and healing and hugging him. It was not easy to see him.
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: I think it's -- I look in his eyes, as I told you before last time, he has such a big green eyes. And, sorry, it was not the same. It was not the same. He looks good. He was smiling with us.
We hugged him. But we saw that he had been through something very, very hard.
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: And he told us things from there. And -- but he's alive and he's back home. So, not home yet --
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: -- in the hospital.
TAPPER: I mean, how he looks -- obviously, you know, this, but how he looks today is not how he's going to look in a month, right? I mean, Emily Hand, that little girl, that Irish Israeli girl, you know, her eyes, she has that 1,000 Yard Stare. But how she looks today isn't going to how -- isn't going to be how she looks in a month, necessarily. We can always hope that, you know, he'll get better. Has he shared any details about his experience?
LICHI: Yes, he -- actually, he really remembers every, I think every hour of this 54 days. We have been there, I have been there only for a short while because we need to give him space and they are doing a lot of tests to him. But as generally I can say that they did a lot of psychological terror on him. They kept telling him you won't come home, nobody cares about him. They kept telling him that everyone there, all his girlfriend's family was dead, that his government doesn't seems to take care of.
And he was hold in a, I think, so in an apartment. So he was not underground. And he was not alone. So I think he had a lot of luck. You know, it's funny to say, but he had luck being with some other hostages.
But if it were 45 days, and I asked him, how did you count the days? How did you know what day it is because he didn't have the chance to see television or radio or nothing? And he told me every day he baited another finger. So as the days went through he knows that -- his nails, not his fingers, so he knows how many days went over. And they were all kept in small room.
They had a lot -- very little food. But it's not with the physical terms, it was the psychologic terms. He looked so afraid. And I went there in the hospital and I saw some other children that just went out today and yesterday. And I thought to myself, it's not reasonable that children, just innocent children were taken and kept there for 54 days. It's like normal.
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: It's not normal and we couldn't stop crying with him. It was -- I can't explain. I don't have the words to explain how horrific it is, really.
TAPPER: Was he in the home?
LICHI: And we hope --
TAPPER: Was he in the home of a family? Was he kept in the home of a family? I mean, did he say anything about who he was staying with?
LICHI: We just know he was staying with some people that guided them all the time. They weren't allowed to go outside. They told him to whisper all the time because they told him that if he will talk loudly the Israeli army will bomb this house and kill him. So, my brother told me that this morning after he slept few hours he wake up and just -- he just -- didn't speak loudly, he just whispered. And he told him again and again, it's OK you can talk normally.
[17:15:07]
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: You're back home. And then around 08:00 in the morning, my brothers send us a picture of him sleeping in the bed and said, all we wanted is to see our kids sleep again in a safe bed.
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: I tell you, it's not normal. And I heard the item before, and I really sorry for all the people that lost their home there in Gaza. But the world should understand that what happened here on October 7, I hear more and more stories of hostages going out and what they did to other people and what they did to the women there, it's really horrible. And there are some people that won't get over that. Not in a month not in a year.
TAPPER: Yes. No, I know.
LICHI: And I hope it's really -- it's not something children must go through.
TAPPER: What Hamas --
LICHI: None of them.
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: Not here and --
TAPPER: What Hamas --
LICHI: And you know today -- yes, sorry.
TAPPER: Go ahead. Go ahead. No, please.
LICHI: Today terror attack that happened in Jerusalem --
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: -- the two Hamas took responsibility of, so the two terrorists made it, they just live 200 meter from us.
TAPPER: Is that right?
LICHI: So, my daughter asked myself, it's not only in Gaza. How can I go by bus to school if I know there are terrorists near my house? And it must stop. All these situation must stop. The world should understand that the Hamas, what they're doing, taking people like that.
And I think I send you the small (ph) movie that Phil (ph) meets his girlfriend, Yvonne (ph). And I was there when they met and it was so painful, because she was so happy to see him but she just came back from the memorial day of their two nieces and aunt and her father's still kept there.
TAPPER: Yes.
LICHI: So.
TAPPER: It's awful. What Hamas did to so many people, and in many ways is doing to the wrong people.
Yael Engel Lichi, thank you so much. Please come back when Ofir is ready to talk or at least come back and show us pictures of him when his -- the light is back in his eyes and his smile is back because I know he's going to get better. And we're so happy that he's back and we're so happy that he's alive.
LICHI: Yes. So yes.
TAPPER: Thank you so much for being us.
LICHI: Yes, (inaudible). Thank you. Thank you so much.
TAPPER: Coming up, the new report today about a tense call between Donald Trump and Congressman Kevin McCarthy. Wait until you hear why Trump reportedly did not want to help McCarthy fight to keep his seat as House speaker. Plus, the new attempts to keep political ads produced with AI generated images off your T.V. screen. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:22:01]
TAPPER: New reporting from the "Washington Post" describes a tense phone call between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump in the days following McCarthy's ousting from the speakership. In the call, Trump explains why he did not stop McCarthy from being removed the speaker. The "Post" reporting, quote, "During the call, Trump lambasted McCarthy for not expunging his two impeachments and not endorsing him in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the conversation. "F you," McCarthy claimed to have then told Trump," although he didn't say F, you know.
A spokesperson for McCarthy said that he did not swear at the former president and Trump declined to comment. We should note, of course, that McCarthy and presumably his spokespeople are a little fast and loose with the truth on occasion. My panel is with me now.
David Urban, what do you make of -- what do you make of the story? I find it --
DAVID URBAN, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: Shocking. I find it shocking.
TAPPER: I find it pretty easy to believe?
URBAN: Absolutely. I find it believable. There's --
TAPPER: Yes.
URBAN: You know, look, the former president is a scorekeeper as we all know, right? He's got to, in his mind, he's got a tally of who's done me right and who's done me wrong. And the latter list is much longer than the former list, right?
TAPPER: Yes. URBAN: And he is not shy about, you know, keeping score and letting people know when he's unhappy with him. And very rarely is he, I think does he throw -- there's not a lot of people he's thrown bones to, right, and plaudits. And so, I can see that conversation occurring quite easily.
TAPPER: And yet, we got from Liz Cheney's book, Audi, the fact that we remember Kevin McCarthy through Donald Trump that lifeline in January 2021 when it looked like the Republican Party was finally going to break with him after the insurrection, McCarthy went down to Mar-a- Lago, pose for that picture. And then Liz Cheney had that famous conversation, now famous from her book, when she's like, Kevin, what the hell, and he said something along the lines of like, he's depressed, he's not eating.
AUDI CORNISH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He told me he's not eating.
TAPPER: Totally.
CORNISH: He's so caring. I mean --
TAPPER: It's not anything like this. Still makes me laugh.
CORNISH: Yes, I mean, of all the -- like telenovelas in Washington, this is probably the least interesting to me.
TAPPER: I would love to see the Spanish version.
CORNISH: Honestly. But I do think like, this is what happens when you have a transactional relationship and you aren't prepared to deal in a transactional way. One person in this party is like, do what I need when I need it, the other person is like, have you had a snack? Also, can you help me now? Like it's just not understanding what is at stake.
TAPPER: Yes.
CORNISH: And I've never seen political roadkill, but it does feel like this might be what it looks like.
TAPPER: Kevin McCarthy, you're calling Kevin McCarthy a little --
CORNISH: I just think what has he gained out of this year? Urban tell me.
URBAN: Now look, he's got a tough year, right? I mean, Kevin McCarthy has had a tough year. He's done. And Kevin McCarthy, his defense, he elected basically the entire House of Representatives, right? And then they kind of conveniently forgot that he got him elected, right?
KATE BEDINGFIELD, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: A transaction? What did he get?
URBAN: No, that's my point. My point is he literally spent millions of dollars to help Nancy Mace and, you know, Eli Crane and these people to get across the finish line -- [17:25:06]
TAPPER: Yes.
URBAN: -- and get to be the majority.
CORNISH: And they're the first.
BEDINGFIELD: Right.
URBAN: And they were the first to throw out the boat, yes.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes, but at the end of the day, who was in charge? Donald Trump. Right?
URBAN: I mean, I don't know if --
BEDINGFIELD: And in a day Kevin McCarthy --
URBAN: I don't know if he was charge (ph).
BEDINGFIELD: -- could not govern --
TAPPER: Does he have any --
BEDINGFIELD: Well, couldn't govern --
TAPPER: -- at all?
BEDINGFIELD: Does McCarthy?
TAPPER: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: I don't think so.
TAPPER: Oh, he's got --
BEDINGFIELD: Yes, he may -- yes, he has absolutely raised a lot of money --
URBAN: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: -- no question about it. And at the end of the day, members care about that because it costs money to run for Congress, of course.
URBAN: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: But you're only as influential and as powerful as the role you have. He's been -- he's has been removed from that, in part, because Donald Trump wouldn't throw a lifeline because while shocking Donald Trump doesn't care about anybody.
URBAN: And clear that -- yes. And clear they didn't care bunch because Eli Crane wouldn't be a congressman and Nancy Mace wouldn't be in the Congress if it weren't for Kevin McCarthy. TAPPER: So --
URBAN: It literally saved them.
CORNISH: But in terms of congressional stories --
BEDINGFIELD: But they didn't show up.
URBAN: Yes.
CORNISH: -- 2023, it's his.
URBAN: Yes.
CORNISH: The story of the rise and fall of this person.
TAPPER: So, you guys remember Mad Libs from when you're a kid -- when we were kids?
BEDINGFIELD: Yes. I was playing last.
TAPPER: Noun -- OK. So --
BEDINGFIELD: Last night -- not kidding, last night.
TAPPER: So, everybody under 30 -- 40 won't get this reference. Do you remember Mad Lib?
CORNISH: Everyone under 60 you said?
TAPPER: All right. So in any case, this is a new --
URBAN: Guilty.
TAPPER: -- this is a new story from Mad Libs. But news breaking news, just as hour Tucker Carlson announced on the Roseanne Barr podcast that he is endorsing Trump for president. Thoughts.
CORNISH: I mean --
URBAN: Shocking again.
BEDINGFIELD: I mean, really? Like, this huge --
URBAN: Shocking.
BEDINGFIELD: -- shocking news.
TAPPER: OK. Well.
URBAN: And I'm shocked that Elon Musk just doesn't come out endorse Trump. Just -- come on. He's like -- it's after, you know, he's like, I'm bought bone for buying but I'm not going to tell you I'm voting for.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes. TAPPER: By the way, did you see Elon Musk at the interview with --
URBAN: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes.
CORNISH: "The New York Times" Deal Summit?
URBAN: Yes.
TAPPER: The summit with --
BEDINGFIELD: Yes.
CORNISH: The interview Andrew Ross Sorkin?
TAPPER: -- Andrew Ross Sorkin, which is --
CORNISH: Yes.
TAPPER: -- a great interview.
CORNISH: Yes. Especially since he called him Jonathan (ph) at one point.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes. I'm only here because you're my friend, Jonathan.
TAPPER: Did you see that? Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes.
TAPPER: I'm over here because you're my friend, Jonathan.
BEDINGFIELD: And then Andrew Ross Sorkin said, I'm Andrew.
TAPPER: I'm Andrew.
BEDINGFIELD: And then Elon went on to tell Disney to Eff off and not to advertise --
URBAN: Not the blackmail. Don't blackmail.
BEDINGFIELD: -- on his platform anymore. So, this is a very -- this is an interesting tactic for a CEO to tell the advertisers to Eff off.
TAPPER: But what do you make -- I mean, what do you make of that? And then the argument was, what do -- you know, you're going to destroy your platform. And --
URBAN: Yes.
TAPPER: -- Musk basically said, well, the platform will be destroyed --
BEDINGFIELD: Yes.
CORNISH: Yes.
TAPPER: -- but the world will know it was Bob Disney that did it. The world will know.
CORNISH: I mean, he's always used this argument about free speech. And again, it's one of those fundamental misunderstandings about free speech into the Constitution, it protects you from government overreach.
URBAN: Yes.
CORNISH: When your just Orlando (ph) with a business and your business is relies on advertising, they have the right to walk away, that's their free.
URBAN: Fortunately, he's got like 100 plus billion dollars that he can burn for a while.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes. But there's also an argument that he has essentially wanted to tear the place down since he got there, right? I mean, he tried to back out of the deal initially, because he recognized that it either wasn't going to be profitable in the way he wanted or he wasn't going to be able to exert the influence that he wanted with the board and with the advertisers. So, it's sort of hard to, to think that he had a legitimate business plan from the start. I think he wanted to influence the discourse in the public square.
TAPPER: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: That's what he cares about.
CORNISH: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: So he tells, you know, "New York Times" deal book that Disney can eff off. And that's satisfying to him.
CORNISH: It's also easy to think that --
BEDINGFIELD: That's not a business --
URBAN: I think people cheer for that. I think they don't care.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes.
URBAN: I think people want extra cheering.
CORNISH: On X.
URBAN: Yes.
CORNISH: But paid people bouquet of checks.
TAPPER: So, before we go, of course, it is Audi Cornish Thursday as we all know.
CORNISH: Still trying to make it a thing and I'm here for it. My favorite day of the week, Audi Cornish Thursday.
CORNISH: Yes.
TAPPER: And your new podcast dropped today. Everybody should check out Audie Cornish's podcast. It's about the U.N. climate conference.
CORNISH: It is. It's about climate narratives. The stories we tell ourselves about whether we should panic, cope or adapt. And we're talking to people who make movies, video games, books. We're talking about how they talk about climate change in a way that isn't depressing and doesn't make you want to walk away.
URBAN: Tell us what should we -- what should we do with those three.
TAPPER: Yes.
URBAN: You can give us -- you know, give us an option.
TAPPER: I's awaiting word.
CORNISH: I mean, you had to tune in.
URBAN: Tune in the podcast. Oh, it's easy.
CORNISH: Wherever you get your podcast.
TAPPER: The podcast is called "The Assignment with Audi Cornish" and you should download it anywhere you get your podcast. I get them -- I'm a -- I get them from the podcast app on my phone.
CORNISH: I like it.
TAPPER: Is that where you do?
CORNISH: Yes. I thought you're going to say the radio you made like a hand lotion. I got nervous.
URBAN: Mad Libs radio.
CORNISH: Yes. Like, where are we --
TAPPER: I'm not Gallagher (ph).
CORNISH: Fire site chat.
TAPPER: I'm not like a prop guy.
BEDINGFIELD: You smash it from here.
TAPPER: OK. Another hip reference, Gallagher.
All right, thanks guys for being here.
OK. Next up on THE LEAD, the new attempt to crack down on deep fake content and political ads as we come up on this big election year. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: In our Tech Lead, President Joe Biden's presidential campaign is looking to stay one step ahead of deep fakes. A new task force is preparing legal responses to misleading images and videos generated by artificial intelligence. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan joins us now with more. Donie, what sort of deep fakes does the campaign expect to encounter and how can they find it legally?
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jake, yes, look, the internet right now is a wash with artificially intelligence content that's been created using AI whether it's video, images, audio, even music. And earlier this year, one of the early campaign ads from the RNC actually was entirely was entirely full of AI images. Have a look?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This just did in, we can now call the 2024 presidential race for Joe Biden.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My fellow Americans.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This morning and embolden China invades Taiwan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Financial Markets are in free fall as 500 regional banks have shuttered their doors.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[17:35:07]
O'SULLIVAN: So all the images you saw in that piece, all the images you saw there is an imagined version of a dystopian version if Biden were to be reelected. The concern of course, though, now is that AI could be used for more nefarious purposes they -- it could be used to make it sound like a candidate or candidate surrogate, has said something or done something incriminating, potentially politically damaging to a campaign. In the case of the Biden campaign, it could be the President himself, his son, Hunter Biden, a tape might emerge. We all know how critical at times tapes and political campaigns can be.
The issue, of course, I hear is that, the -- there is there is no law, essentially, banning this type of deceptive content. U.S. election law currently prohibits campaigns fraudulently misrepresenting other candidates or parties. But that does not extend right now to deep fake content. So what the Biden campaign is trying to figure out is ways how if a video or image does emerge, or an audio tape, how they can try and get it taken down off the internet, and they've been looking at existing laws, even novel uses of some American laws, but also looking to Europe, if videos or images are posted or hosted on platforms in Europe, they will use new -- they plan on invoking new, strict European internet laws to get their content taken down.
But Jake, as you know, I mean, once a video is out there, an image, piece of audio, it's very hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
TAPPER: Yes. Donie O'Sullivan, thanks so much.
Does TikTok suppress information that the Chinese government doesn't like? See what we found when we compared popular social media posts on that platform versus Instagram? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:41:06]
TAPPER: In our Tech Lead, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is continuing to investigate China's strategy to control and manipulate content online especially on Chinese owned TikTok. I want to take you back to a year ago when I interviewed the head of Public Policy for TikTok Michael Beckerman. I asked him if TikTok censors content on the platform, especially content critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER: The fear is the U.S. State Department obviously has accused China of genocide, holding up to 2 million ethnic Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in detention camps, concentration camps in the Xinjiang, province, and that that's what TikTok was censoring, not necessarily references to the German concentration camps. First of all, do you acknowledge that the Chinese government has these Uyghurs and others in concentration camps?
MICHAEL BECKERMAN, HEAD OF PUBLIC POLICY, TIKTOK: Well, that's not something that I focused on. But I can tell you that for content moderation is done from the United States, we do not censor content on behalf of any government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So we are at THE LEAD and CNN looked at some data that we believe is going to be used at the hearing of the Select Committee on this strategic competition between U.S. and China this evening, we looked at that data and we crunched the numbers for ourselves. And we took the total number of hashtags on both Instagram and on TikTok, data that can be found on each company's website. And we compared the number of posts on one platform over the other.
And let's review, and a reminder here, that Instagram did launch in 2010. And TikTok launched in 2018. So the hashtag labored Uyghurs, which is the ethnic minority that the Chinese government is oppressing and accused of sending to detention or concentration camps. That hashtag is 10.4 times higher on Instagram.
The hashtag Tiananmen, which alludes to the 1989 pro-democracy protests in China that left hundreds dead when the Chinese government suppressed it, is 153 times more likely to have posts on Instagram than on TikTok. For every one post on TikTok that says hashtag Tiananmen, there are 153 posts on Instagram.
So yes, the content exists on TikTok, but there's far less of it on TikTok than on other social media apps. And that seems very convenient for the Chinese Communist Party. We reached out to TikTok for comment, and they say hashtags are not the only metric for comparison. They say look at video views, and they tell us that the views for hashtag Tiananmen are 3.4 million. But views are 24.4 million for hashtag Tiananmen Square. So someone saw something about Tiananmen Square on TikTok, but there are over a billion people on TikTok. So should that view number be higher?
So here's what they told us, quote, this comparison of hashtags is unequivocally inaccurate and has been cherry picked to advance a made- up political agenda. Instagram has been around far longer than TikTok and has more users, so in some cases, there will be more posts associated with certain hashtags. The fact is, this content has been viewed millions of times on TikTok in the past week alone, as anyone can see on the site for themselves. It is common knowledge that hashtags are generated and added to videos by users not by TikTok, unquote.
[17:44:45]
We'll be posting this segment on TikTok. We'll see how it does. The big question of course, is TikTok doing the bidding of the Chinese government there is an attempt tonight to get answers to that serious question and the chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party he's going to join me next after this quick break.
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TAPPER: We're back with our Tech Lead now in a closer look at how TikTok may be manipulating what you and your family and your kids see online. It's an issue at the center of a hearing being held tonight by the Select Committee on the strategic competition between the U.S. and China and we're joined by the chairman of that Committee right now, Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, thanks for joining us. What has your Committee discovered in terms of how the Chinese government might use TikTok to control the flow of information?
REP. MIKE GALLAGHER (R WI), CHAIRMAN, SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY: Well, first of all, Jake, I want to say the analysis that you did in the previous segment was very important and for TikTok to dispute the methodology does not make much sense because in mid- November, they were the ones who propose this very methodology and pointed people to use these very same data, a post tide to hashtag. So it's simply using that methodology that TikTok themselves highlighted and you start to see these anomalies, why there are certain differences between Instagram and TikTok that don't make much sense.
[17:50:14]
There could of course be an endogenous variable confounding the data. But right now we don't have an explanation for the anomaly. And I just found TikTok's response warranted further investigation. We're hoping to get into that tonight, but also tease out the connections between TikTok, their parent company ByteDance that owns them, and of course, the connections between ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party. And we have clear evidence that ByteDance has done the Chinese Communist Party's bidding, they shut down a news platform when the CCP said it failed to follow appropriate political direction. The head of ByteDance was forced to issue a groveling apology to the CCP, and vowed that future product lines would follow appropriate Socialist Party direction.
So clearly, there is an intimate relationship between ByteDance and the CCP, which raises the question of whether we want to allow a platform like TikTok to be the dominant news platform in America. That's the bipartisan concern we have on the Committee.
TAPPER: And it's not just about allegedly suppressing news related to China, such as Tibet or Hong Kong, which I didn't even mention in that segment. But some supporters of Israel have suggested that TikTok is not only promoting anti-Israel sentiment, but just outright anti- Semitism, which also would feed into the Chinese government's anti- Western goals. Is there evidence of that that you've seen?
GALLAGHER: Well, if you just look at the data, there's about, you know, 50 to one SKU in terms of pro-Palestinian versus pro-Israel content. Even if you just account for younger voters who might have a more pro-Palestinian SKU or be less enthusiastic about supporting Israel, people under the age of 30. It doesn't align with what we know about basic polling data.
So there is that, there's also a difference if you try to do that apples to apples comparison between Instagram and TikTok in this case, it's about a five to one post difference for Instagram and TikTok, whereas the average is usually two to one or in a band between one to one and 3.2 to one. So again, you have these anomalies that don't seem to make sense, unless there's some other variable that TikTok can come up with.
And again, I just want to stress, all that is, is using the metrics, the goalposts that TikTok themselves put out in November when they started to get asked questions about anti-Semitism, which is rampant on their platform. And of course, there were particularly acute cases, like people sharing Osama bin Laden's -- Osama bin Laden's letters to America and praising the content they're in.
TAPPER: Right. And of course, we should point out there's a big difference between criticizing Israel or being pro-Palestinian and like being anti-Semitic, which is, those are three different things. You've described TikTok as digital fentanyl. And we know social media can be addicting. And look, TikTok is addicting. It's a great app, but TikTok in particular, because it is such a well done app, it's very popular, especially among younger Americans. And I just wonder, can the genie even be put back into the bottle?
GALLAGHER: I think so I think we can legislate a responsible solution to this issue of social media apps that are controlled by foreign adversaries, or countries of common concern, and pair that with a positive framework for how we regulate cross border data flows, which right now is the Wild West. And we don't really have any regulatory process. To me, that's eminently possible. We're working on such legislation right now on the Hill. But, you know, and while I grant that social media in general, is assessable, and it has adverse impacts on kids, under the age of 30, in particular.
The problem with TikTok really the unique problem with TikTok is its basic ownership structure, right? It is owned by ByteDance, which is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. And even if you hate Facebook, or you hate Instagram, or you hate whatever social media company in America, the same thing is not true of those companies. So that is the core of the issue, as well as all the reports we've had about how data might be being used.
And then again, just the basic point, that TikTok is increasingly a news platform for young Americans. It's not just about the data. It's not just about the spying or the espionage. It's whether we want to allow it to become the dominant news platform in America. And I think that's a risk we can't take.
TAPPER: Yes, of course, the Chinese are quite different with what their kids see on their version of TikTok much more educational, much more controlled, much more limited in terms of how much screen time they let their kids have. Before you go, I got to ask are you going to vote to expel George Santos tomorrow?
GALLAGHER: Right now I'm a lean, no, just because of the presidential concerns. I'm admittedly working through the entire ethics report right now. This would be unprecedented for some It hasn't been convicted. Clearly, he should have resigned however that would have been the right thing to do. It does not look like he's going to do that. I'm glad he's not running for reelection. He should not be a member of Congress, so I like the balance that against the new precedent we're setting here which I fear based on evidence we have, from all these other things where we broken precedent, it will ultimately be used, it will escalate and both parties will just start to try and kick members out for things that are less severe than the ethical implications or the ethical crimes of George Santos.
[17:55:28]
TAPPER: All right, Chairman Mike Gallagher. Thanks so much. Appreciate your time today.
GALLAGHER: Thank you.
TAPPER: One of the world's most famous soccer stars was just sued for a billion dollars. That's next.
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TAPPER: And our Money Lead, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo could pay more than 1 billion with a B, billion dollars in a class action lawsuit for his ad campaign with crypto giant Binance. The lawsuit accuses Ronaldo of using quote, deceptive statements to sell a collection of non-fungible tokens or NFT's last year. Just last week, Binance agreed to pay more than $4 billion in fines and penalties for enabling transactions linked to child sex abuse, narcotics, and terrorist financing notably, Ronaldo is still promote Binance on X. Talk about an own goal.
[18:00:28]
Our coverage continues now with Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM". I'll see you tomorrow.
