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Michigan Supreme Court Rejects Effort To Ban Trump From Ballot; Special Counsel: Trump Shouldn't Be Allowed To Spread False Info In Court; "NY Times" Sues OpenAI & Microsoft For Copywrite Infringement; Federal Court Blocks Apple Watch Ban Pending Appeal; Man Rescued From Mangled Truck Nearly A Week After Wreck; Americans Coned Out Of Billions By Criminal Gangs In Myanmar. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired December 27, 2023 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:31:43]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Michigan just became the latest estate to keep Donald Trump on the ballot for the 2024 primary election.
BORIS SANCHES, CNN HOST: Yes, the state Supreme Court rejected an attempt to remove the former president from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban.
This comes one week after the Colorado justices accepted efforts to kick Trump off their state primary ballot next year.
CNN's Marshall Cohen joins us now with the details.
Marshall, Minnesota's high court reached a similar conclusion as Michigan last month. Still, it is kind of striking to see the comparison between what the Supreme Court in Michigan decided versus Colorado. Walk us through this.
MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Very different outcomes in these two states. Remember, in Colorado, there was a trial. It was a week long. There were witnesses, cross-examination, testimony and findings of fact.
Michigan is a very different story. They dismissed the case at the very start. And that's the decision that was upheld today by the Michigan Supreme Court.
They upheld the decision to reject this on procedural grounds, basically finding that there was no role here for the courts. This was an unsigned opinion and really just a few sentences long.
One of the justices did publish her thought that -- I will read the quote. It is a very important key distinction from Justice Elizabeth Welch:
"I would affirm the court of appeals' ruling on the issue, which still allows the appellants to renew their legal efforts as to the Michigan general election later in 2024 should Trump become the Republican nominee for president."
Making it clear that this applies to the primary, but not the general. They can refile for the general and file another challenge if Trump ends up winning the nomination.
It sounds like that is exactly what they are going to do.
DEAN: That's very, very important.
COHEN: Yes.
DEAN: Also, if that's the case, this will continue to work its way through the court system. What, if anything, does this latest ruling mean for the appeals process facing the Supreme Court?
COHEN: That is exactly what the Supreme Court is here for, different outcomes at different states where we need national guidance.
Trump and his team have not actually filed the appeal yet in Colorado. We all know that is coming. These are the things that justices in D.C. will be looking at as they examine these different outcomes.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Marshall, pivoting to another Trump legal matter, Special Counsel Jack Smith presenting a new filing today. Walk us through that.
COHEN: Yes, shifting to Donald Trump's criminal case here in D.C. for the federal election subversion. That trial is scheduled for March. Very soon. We will see if that trial date holds because of some appeals going on in that case.
But what Jack Smith filed today, as he gets ready for the trial, he is trying to prevent Trump from making some arguments in front of the jury that prosecutor say have no business being in the courtroom.
They say in this filing, quote, "The court should not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which he propagates irrelevant disinformation and should reject his attempt to inject politics into these proceedings."
Specifically, Jack Smith does not want Trump to blame law enforcement for January 6th. He does not want Trump to try to claim that 2020 was rigged or spreading false claims about the legitimacy of the results.
And also, he does not want Trump and his lawyers to argue or claim in front of the jury that is all a politically motivated prosecution.
[13:35:03]
DEAN: Smith continues to be so specific in the moves that he's making as they attempt to get this to trial.
All right, Marshall Cohen for us, thanks so much.
It is a first-of-its-kind lawsuit. "The New York Times" suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. What "The Times" is accusing the companies of doing.
Plus, a man left trapped in his mangled truck after an accident, drinking rainwater to survive. You have to hear how he was finally spotted and rescued.
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SANCHEZ: Now to a potential blockbuster lawsuit targeting artificial intelligence companies for copyright infringement.
"The New York Times" is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly using millions of articles published by "The Times" to train automated chatbots, which now compete with "The Times" as sources of information.
OpenAI, of course, is the company behind ChatGPT.
DEAN: Right. So CNN business and tech reporter, Clare Duffy, is here to break it down for us.
Clare, walk us through what we are talking about here. This is kind of -- especially considering we do what we do.
SANCHEZ: Right.
(LAUGHTER)
DEAN: We are interested to see how this shakes out.
[13:40:00]
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS & TECH REPORTER: Right. There are all of these concerns, especially among journalists, about A.I. stealing our jobs. And "The New York Times" is now fighting back against this.
"The Times" claims that millions of its copyrighted works were used by Microsoft and OpenAI to train their large language models, these huge data sets that power A.I. tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing Chatbot.
"The Times" claims because their articles were used to train these tools, the tools cannot use responses that mimic "Times" journalism or, in some cases, repeats it verbatim.
There's one example on the complaint I think we can pull up here where a ChatGPT user goes to the chatbot saying they hit the "Times" paywall and could not read a 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning " Times" article. In response, ChatGPT provided the user with the first three paragraphs of the story.
"The Times" worries technology like this will remove the need for readers to go to its Web site and pay for subscriptions, potentially harming its business to the tune of billions of dollars.
"The Times" said in its complaint, "By providing 'Times' content without 'The Times' permission or authorization, these A.I. tools undermine and damaged 'The Times'' relationship with its readers, and deprive 'The Times' of subscription, licensing, advertising and affiliate revenue."
"The Times" said that it spent months negotiating with Microsoft and OpenAI to try and come to an agreement for how it can be compensated for the use of its journalism but that the companies failed to come to a fair deal.
And now, taking a step back, this really does reflect the larger fight over how the future of the Internet will be built.
On one hand, you have companies like Microsoft and OpenAI that said the A.I. tools are essential for the future, and that they need to train them on high quality sources if we want them to work well and be reliable.
But "The Times" is saying not so fast. We need to come to an agreement for how we can be compensated so that our work is not compromised here.
SANCHEZ: Yes, just one aspect of how A.I. will disrupt everything.
Clare, we also want to get an update from you on the Apple Watch ban. A federal appeals court just issued a ruling. What did it find?
DUFFY: The federal appeals court essentially paused this import ban on Apple Watches, the most advanced Apple Watches, like the Series 9 and the Ultra 2, that officially went into effect today.
Now this all relates to an ongoing patent dispute over whether the blood oxygen monitoring technology in the most advanced Apple Watch models infringes on a patent owned by California-based company, Masimo.
The International Trade Commission in October found that, in fact, it did infringe and banned Apple from importing those most advanced models. Apple has appealed the ban.
The ruling today essentially means that Apple can continue to import and sell the most advanced models, the highest priced models, I will say, as the appeals process is ongoing.
So sort of a temporary win for Apple here in this ongoing dispute.
DEAN: More to come on that.
Clare Duffy, thank you so much. Great to see you.
A truck driver in Indiana is lucky to be alive thanks to a pair of curious fishermen.
SANCHEZ: Yes, they were about to call it a day when they noticed something shiny under a bridge they were passing by. It turned out to be a mangled truck with the driver inside, trapped and alive. He had been stuck there for a week.
CNN national correspondent, Athena Jones, joins us with more on this amazing rescue.
Athena, walk us through how they found him.
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Boris and Jessica. It's nice to share an uplifting story for once. This man is very, very fortunate to have been found in that mangled wreckage of his truck after six days.
He was found by two fishermen they're calling good Samaritans. A man and his son-in-law were out scouting for a fishing location, something they did often.
They were by the creek and they were about to wrap up their day when they spotted something shiny off in the distance. They were not sure what it was. It was not obviously a truck until they went to investigate.
Here is more from Mario Garcia, one of those men.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIO GARCIA, FISHERMAN: We were getting to the fishing hole. The truck was a little distance but it was more like mangled. We couldn't tell it was a truck. But it caught our curiosity.
I walked over and my son-in-law followed me, and we went up to it. I looked inside and moved the white airbag and there was a body in there.
And I went to touch it. He turned around. That -- it almost killed me because it was shocking. But he was alive. And he was very happy to see us. Like, he was really, like -- I have never seen relief like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: So extremely relieved after six days. This young man is 20- something years old. He said he could not reach his cell phone. It slid off into another part of the car. He just couldn't reach it. He was pinned in place and was almost about to give up hope.
There he is. Matthew Reum (ph) has now been admitted to the hospital in critical condition. There is a GoFundMe page set up to help with his recovery.
DEAN: Oh, my gosh. How is he now, Athena, the driver?
JONES: According to his union -- he is a welder. So his union and this GoFundMe page say he had several broken bones throughout his body. He had injuries to his legs that could require surgery. So will have to wait and see what happens there.
[13:45:06]
Right now, he's listed as in critical condition. But he is very, very fortunate to be alive. The police said, look, one of the lucky breaks was the relatively mild
weather. It was not as cold as it usually is at this part of Indiana this time of the year. That is one thing that helped him to be able to survive.
In addition to the luck of those two fishermen happening upon this vehicle.
SANCHEZ: Yes. A really incredible story. Glad it ends happily, that he is on the mend. He's lucky those fishermen were there.
Athena Jones, thanks so much for bringing it to us.
Coming up, lives destroyed and billions of dollars stolen in a sophisticated scam known as "pig butchering." Ahead, how unsuspecting Americans lost their entire life savings to fake promises of love.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got -- (INAUDIBLE). So I communicated with him. (INAUDIBLE)
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SANCHEZ: We have a new CNN investigation to bring you that you have to a see. It goes inside a cryptocurrency scam that's cheated Americans out of billions of dollars.
[13:50:05]
The schemes are run out of forced labor camps overseas and they've earned the nickname "pig butchering."
DEAN: This is a wild story. The reason behind the monicker, the scammers fatten up their target with promises of a romantic relationship and then lead them to slaughter by robbing them blind.
CNN's Ivan Watson explains.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please help me, Jessica. Please help me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been a living hell.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Northern California, C.Y. is piecing together his life after losing more than a million dollars in a crypto scam.
C.Y.: I can never forget or forgive myself losing that kind of money.
WATSON: C.Y. is one of tens of thousands of victims of a fast-growing new form of financial fraud called "pig butchering."
He asks to remain anonymous to protect his family.
It started in October 2021 with a text message from a stranger.
(on camera): What was the name of the person you were communicating with?
C.Y.: She claims her name is Jessica.
WATSON (voice-over): The two quickly became friends. She shared photos and C.Y. talked about the pain of caring for his dying father.
After nearly a month, the conversation turned to money.
C.Y.: She started to introduce me into cryptocurrency, trading gold using cryptocurrency.
WATSON: Jessica showed C.Y. how to invest by installing a trading app on his phone that he says looked legit. Little did he know, he was a victim, pumping money into a sophisticated con. For the scammers, a pig fattened up for the slaughter.
C.Y.: I logged back in. The account is gone. What did I do? That's 30 years of my life and my life building up this wealth.
WATSON: Wealth that had suddenly disappeared. Panicking, C.Y. begged Jessica for help.
C.Y.: Please help me. I don't know what else I can do. I don't have any more money. I cannot buy anything else. I lost everything.
WATSON: But Jessica disappeared and probably never even existed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the professionalization of fraud services.
WATSON: The FBI says it's seen exponential growth in losses due to pig butchering scams.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bad guys are getting good and they're getting better.
WATSON: An organization representing scam victims tracked their crypto transfers halfway around the world to this border region in Myanmar.
(on camera): U.S. scam victims say they've been able to trace their money to places like this. This walled compound across the river is just inside the territory of Myanmar.
And that is where we're learning about the conditions inside that some people who work there, they say that they were forced against their will to try to scam Americans out of their hard-earned money in conditions that they describe as amounting to modern-day slavery.
(voice-over): This compound is where an Indian man named Rakesh says he was forced to work for more than 11 months without pay for a Chinese criminal gang.
(on camera): The guards have spotted us.
(voice-over): Until they recently released him back to Thailand.
(on camera): Where was the job supposed to be?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They told me it was for Bangkok.
WATSON (voice-over): He, too, was the victim of a scam. Rakesh, who doesn't want to be identified, says he first flew to Thailand for what he thought was an I.T. job.
Instead, he says he was tricked into crossing the border to Myanmar where a Chinese gangster told him to work or else.
(on camera): He threatened to kill you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. He warned me like that.
WATSON (voice-over): And the job? Spend 16 hours a day on social media targeting Americans with a fake profile.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like they provided us. I got a Russian girl. With using a Russian girl fake profile, I need to scam people.
WATSON: Posing as a Salt Lake City-based investor named Klara Simonov, Rakesh flirted online with potential targets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seventy to 80 percent fall for fake love.
WATSON: Rakesh shows secretly filmed images of what at first glance seems to be an ordinary office. But he says the bosses routinely punished workers, forcing them to do hundreds of squats and beating them if they didn't produce.
(on camera): And you've helped rescue people who were trapped inside behind the barbed wire of that very compound.
MECHELLE MOORE, GLOBAL AIMS: Yes.
WATSON (voice-over): Mechelle Moore is one of a group of aid workers based in Thailand who have helped rescue hundreds of victims of trafficking like Rakesh over the last 18 months.
She drives me along the border.
MOORE: There, there's a guard tower just there. Green roof.
WATSON: Showing compounds only a stone's throw away where she says trafficked victims are forced to work as online scammers.
MOORE: That's why this is modern slavery and it's right under everybody's nose.
[13:55:02]
WATSON: Satellite images show rapid construction of these compounds on the border territory of Myanmar over just three years.
Thailand's minister of justice labels these facilities as hubs for criminal scamming activity.
TAWEE SODSONG, THAI JUSTICE MINISTER (through translator): These scammers have to use telephone signals to communicate. That's why they base themselves near the Thai border, so they can use Thailand's telephone network.
WATSON: But he says Thailand has no jurisdiction to crack down on suspected criminals operating across the border in Myanmar.
CNN asked the military government in Myanmar why it hasn't taken action against alleged criminal gangs operating on its territory and did not receive an answer.
So, for now, it looks like no one is going to stop this poisonous cycle of exploitation.
Ivan Watson, CNN, on the Thai border with Myanmar.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DEAN: That's just horrifying all the way around.
SANCHEZ: Be careful of who you meet on the Internet.
DEAN: Oh, yes. Say that over and over again.
(LAUGHTER)
DEAN: All right, Ivan Watson, our thanks to you for that piece.
In just a few minutes, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with Mexico's president. They are hoping to find a solution in the surge in the border crossings. This, as President Biden faces increasing pressure over immigration. We'll be live from the border and the White House. That's next.
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