Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Trump To Nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court; Trump Won't Commit To Peaceful Transfer, Ramps Up Baseless Claims Of Widespread Voter Fraud; U.S. Passes Seven Million COVID-19 Cases; U.K. Records Highest Ever Number Of New COVID-19 Cases; Experts Build Coalition Group To Monitor Facebook Content. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired September 26, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): President Trump will unveil his Supreme Court pick in the coming hours and multiple sources say he'll choose conservative appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Also ahead, a stark warning for Americans after a summer battling coronavirus. Health experts expect an even more difficult autumn and winter.
And Breonna Taylor's family speaks out against Louisville police as the city faced another night of protests.
Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to you, our viewers here in the United States and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber, this is CNN NEWSROOM.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: U.S. president Donald Trump is expected to nominate federal appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the U.S. Supreme Court. That's according to multiple sources. The president said he'll announce his choice on Saturday.
Barrett is a favorite among conservatives and Senate Republicans are gearing up for a quick confirmation. The process normally takes several months but President Trump's allies in Congress hope to have Ginsburg's vacancy filled before the November election. We get more from CNN's Jessica Schneider on the woman expected to be nominated later today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): People who know 48-year-old Amy Coney Barrett say her family is her number one priority and she made sure they were front and center at her 2017 confirmation hearing for the 7th Circuit.
AMY CONEY BARRETT, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE CANDIDATE: We have our oldest three daughters with us today -- SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Barrett proudly showcased all seven of her
children, including Vivian and John, whom she and her husband adopted from Haiti.
BARRETT: Vivian is our miracle. She was born in Haiti and came home, she was 14 months old, weighed 11 pounds. She was so weak, we were told she might never walk normally or speak. Today Vivian is a track star and has no trouble talking.
Benjamin has special needs. That presents unique challenges for all of us. I think all you need to know about Benjamin's place in the family is summed up by the fact that the other children unreservedly identify him as their favorite sibling.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Barrett's large family is just two children shy of matching the latest justice Antonin Scalia's. Barrett clerked for the staunchly conservative justice right out of law school and has marveled at his intensity.
BARRETT: It was intimidating working for him. When he called you to the office, you had to be prepared to talk about whatever it was. He was always five steps ahead of you.
CARTER SNEAD, NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY: One of my friends said Judge Barrett is the kind of person and judge that you would want to be the judge in a case if you didn't know which side you were going to be on.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Carter Snead is part of Barrett's close-knit group of friends in South Bend, Indiana. He also has an adopted child and bonded with the Barrett family when it came to kids and cooking.
SNEAD: She and her family host extraordinary parties for Mardi Gras. She's from New Orleans. She cooks Creole cuisine and makes jambalaya and red beans and rice and crawfish etouffee.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): One issue that has come up before for Judge Barrett, how she balances her faith and the law.
BARRETT: If you're asking whether I take my faith seriously and I'm a faithful Catholic, I am although I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear on the discharge of my duties as a judge.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Senator Dianne Feinstein drew criticism from conservatives with her sharp questions about Barrett's religion in 2017.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA): You have a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail. The dogma lives loudly within you.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): As Barrett emerged as the front-runner this week, her association with a multidenominational Christian group called People of Praise, began drawing attention.
The group's board of governors is all male and has referred to women as "handmaids" in the past, a term that has since been dropped by the group. A spokesman for People of Praise tells CNN, Christian leadership in no way involves superiority or domination among spouses.
[05:05:00]
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): But "We have chosen to rely on male leadership at the highest level of our community, based on our desire to be a family of families. We follow the New Testament teaching that the husband is the head of the family and we have patterned our community on this New Testament approach to family life."
Putting aside Barrett's potential past or present membership, Judge Barrett has made clear she leaves her religion out of her judicial opinions.
BARRETT: It's never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge's personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else on the law.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: With us from London to talk about all of this is Kate Andrews, journalist and political commentator for "The Spectator."
Thank you so much for joining us. We're hearing more and more details about the presumptive pick.
So will it be the enormous shift in the Supreme Court's center of gravity that everyone's presuming it will be?
KATE ANDREWS, ECONOMICS CORRESPONDENT, "THE SPECTATOR": Yes, in terms of how you interpret the Constitution. There will be a stricter constitutional interpretation, a more conservative leaning one, now weighed 6-3.
No doubt this will have an impact on the court for a generation. Understandably so, as politics has creeped more and more into the institutions of America. People who wouldn't interpret the Constitution in that way are feeling increasingly nervous about this appointment.
One of the biggest tasks of the president of the United States is to pick -- to nominate the Supreme Court judges. Oftentimes they're overlooked, just what an immense power that is, I would argue, one of the biggest the president has.
BRUNHUBER: The fight over the Supreme Court nominee, we know it will be fast.
How furious will it be?
What strategy do you expect the Democrats to use in the confirmation hearings?
Will it be less sort of personal, more focused on her record?
ANDREWS: I think it will be less personal. I think that the way that the nomination of Kavanaugh backfired on the Democrats significantly, I think that very much played in the president's favor at the time.
As well the Democrats have to be careful, Judge Barrett's religious affiliations are nothing to attack. She is a proud Catholic and has made very clear that she will not allow that to impact on her rulings as a judge at any level.
So I suspect that the take that the Democrats will go with is the future rulings, what this could mean for ObamaCare, what this could mean for Roe v. Wade, trying to keep a bit of an arm's length, making it less personal about Barrett and more about the outcomes of legislation.
BRUNHUBER: One of the most important ones might be the very presidency. President Trump has basically said he needs the Supreme Court pick in case the election results end up before the court.
Is that a real possibility?
I mean, obviously the Democrats think so, they've already said the nominee should recuse themselves from those types of cases.
ANDREWS: I'm increasingly worried that it is. I think, the way that the election is going, the rhetoric being ramped up on both sides about how both sides are going to try to rig it, is increasingly worrying.
With all of the mail-in ballots, we may not have an official result on Election Night, something that hasn't happened in America for quite a long time. I think seeds of doubt could be planted among half the voting population, depending on which way you want this result to go.
So I actually do think that it's a strong case to say that we need a court that is acting and fully up and running in case they have to come into this decision. I don't know necessarily why a new appointee would recuse themselves if we believe that they are interpreting the Constitution and not bringing in their own bias over preference and shouldn't need to recuse themselves.
It goes to the point that all of America's institutions have become increasingly political. I think it's a tragedy that we don't believe that something like the Supreme Court can be absent of politics, especially in a case like this.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much, Kate Andrews in London. Appreciate it.
ANDREWS: Thanks.
BRUNHUBER: Well, meanwhile, President Trump continues to mislead his supporters with false claims about the upcoming election. He told a rally in Virginia he'll only lose if there's cheating and mischief. At a campaign stop in Atlanta he treated the uproar over his recent transition comments as a joke. Here's Jim Acosta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As supporters chanted "12 more years" at a campaign event in Atlanta, president mocked the firestorm he created this week over his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's a dictator. We've been -- he will not give up power.
[05:10:00]
TRUMP: Under no circumstances will he give up power. He intends to serve at least two more terms.
ACOSTA: Earlier in the day, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows amped up the campaign season uncertainty, blasting FBI Director Christopher Wray for simply stating the facts, that there is no widespread evidence of voter fraud.
MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: With all due respect to Director Wray, he has a hard time finding e-mails in his own FBI, let alone of figuring out whether there's any kind of voter fraud.
ACOSTA: That was in response to Wray, who pushed back on the president's false conspiracy theory that mail-in ballots will lead to a rigged election.
CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it's by mail or otherwise.
TRUMP: Get rid of the ballots and you will have a very -- we'll have a very peaceful -- there won't be a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation.
ACOSTA: The president's threats don't seem to worry Democrat Joe Biden, who is laughing off the controversy.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every vote in this country is going to be heard and will not be stopped. And I'm confident. All the irresponsible, outrageous attacks on voting, we will have an election in this country, as we always have had. And he will leave.
ACOSTA: CNN has confirmed Attorney General William Barr briefed the president on an investigation into a handful of discarded mail-in ballots for Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania.
The president then referenced the situation on FOX Radio.
TRUMP: They had Trump written on it and they were thrown running in a garbage can. And this is what's going to happen.
ACOSTA: Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany also pointed to the discarded ballots even before the U.S. attorney handling the matter issued a press release on the case.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I can confirm for you that Trump ballots, ballots for the president were found in Pennsylvania.
ACOSTA: The controversy over the president's transfer of power remarks have raised alarm bells at the Pentagon, where officials are worried Mr. Trump will try to use the military to quell any unrest over the election results.
The use of federal forces during protests in June led the defense secretary to warn he won't be cowed into deploying U.S. service members onto American streets.
MARK ESPER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.
ACOSTA: On the coronavirus, CNN has learned there are growing concerns inside the Centers for Disease Control over the president's handling of the pandemic, with one official saying: "The morale is as low as I have ever seen it and we have no confidence in our leadership."
The president continues to claim that government scientists are delaying the approval of a vaccine to damage Mr. Trump's election chances.
TRUMP: They're trying to do a little bit of a political hit. Let's delay it just a little bit. You notice that? Let's delay the vaccine just a little bit.
ACOSTA: The president is losing patience with CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, who has slammed the notion of some deep state conspiracy.
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: I want to add how disappointed I have been personally when people at HHS made comments that they felt that there was a deep state down at CDC.
ACOSTA: As for the matter of those discarded ballots in Pennsylvania raised by the White House, county officials in that state say the issue was caused by a temporary seasonal independent contractor. That contractor, the official said, threw the ballots into the office trash in error.
And officials there said that error was quickly noticed and investigated. The officials went on to say the contractor was told not to return -- Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: A winter warning from U.S. health officials. Cold weather could bring a surge in new coronavirus infections.
And the U.K. has set a new and tragic coronavirus record for the second day in a row. We'll have that story and more after the break. Stay with us. (MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:15:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: Health officials in the U.S. are warning that as temperatures drop in the fall, coronavirus cases' numbers will rise. Fall and winter will be challenging, according to the top U.S. infectious disease expert, and the nation should get ready.
The doctor who runs an influential coronavirus model also is warning about a coming surge in new infections. Fall brings flu season, as well and cold weather forces activities indoors where it's easier for the virus to spread.
Now all of this as a study of dialysis patients finds fewer than 10 percent have antibodies for COVID-19, meaning that 90 percent had no immunity to the virus at all.
New case numbers are rising in 23 states. That's obviously almost half of the U.S. But mostly increases are centered in the Midwest and U.S. heartland. Nick Watt has more on that along with the staggering number of infections reported by the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Something looks off here --
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seven million COVID cases now confirmed in the United States, more than double Europe's case count and many more people live there.
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Unlike Europe, unlike Asian countries, we are starting off this fall and winter with a very high level of infection.
WATT: And here's where we are. New York state is now creating its own task force to review any vaccine approved by the feds.
"Frankly, I'm not going to trust the federal government's opinion," said Governor Andrew Cuomo, despite this pledge:
DR. STEPHEN HAHN, COMMISSIONER, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION: Our experts who know about vaccines will make this determination and it'll be only based upon the science and the data, not politics. That's my pledge.
WATT: One influential model now predicts 3,000 Americans will be dying every day by the end of the year, more than triple our current toll.
If 95 percent of Americans would wear masks, those researchers say we'd save nearly 100,000 lives by January 1, but, apparently, only 48 percent of us are willing to mask up. Meanwhile, the mask-averse governor of Missouri and the state's first lady have both now tested positive for COVID-19. So have the pro-mask first lady and governor of Virginia.
"As I have been reminding Virginians throughout this crisis," wrote Governor Ralph Northam, "COVID-19 is very real and very contagious."
[05:20:00]
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: Given the fact that we have never got down to a good baseline, we are still in the first wave.
WATT: All that red, those are states where average case counts are right now rising, in Colorado, around 1,000 confirmed cases now at C.U. Boulder.
MILES LEVIN, COLLEGE STUDENT: I'm honestly frustrated and disappointed that these officials couldn't have seen the writing on the wall.
WATT: Still, out West, a limited Pac-12 football season will now kick off early November. The league had said there would be no play until next year.
Different folks, different strokes, New York and Florida both holding steady for now. Today, Florida moves into phase three opening.
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): And what that will mean for the restaurants is that there will not be limitations from the state of Florida.
WATT: Meanwhile, New York City just made the outdoor dining option permanent and year-round.
Here in California, now more than 800,000 confirmed cases. That is more cases than all but three countries on Earth. And meanwhile, New York's Governor Cuomo calls the federal response to this virus the worst of any country on Earth -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Dr. Fauci's seeking to calm fears that politics will influence the vaccine approval process. During a conversation with the editor-in-chief of the "Journal of the American Medical Association," Dr. Fauci explained why he believes it's unlikely political interference will play a role.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: The big elephant in the room is there's somebody going to make a political end run to interfere are the process. Let's call it what it is because everybody talks about that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right, thank you.
FAUCI: It's the elephant in the room. So if you look at the standard process of how these things work, I think you could feel comfortable that it is really unlikely that that's going to happen. And here's the reason why. So each of these vaccines has a data and
safety monitoring board that's independent, is not beholden to the company, not beholden to the administration, not beholden to FDA, not beholden to me, to nobody.
What they do is that they are the ones that get the data -- they have scientists, clinicians, vaccinologists, ethicists and statisticians. And they, at predetermined times, look at the data. Nobody else has access to that data.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: He also warned that it will take months to return to normal, even after a vaccine is discovered.
In the coming hours, British prime minister Boris Johnson is set to deliver a call for unity to the United Nations General Assembly. Johnson will urge the world to unite against coronavirus, which he calls a common foe.
He'll also lay out a five-point plan to prevent future pandemics. It comes as the U.K. reports its highest daily increase in coronavirus cases since the pandemic began for a second consecutive day. Our Scott McLean is live in London.
What's the latest?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kim. At least on paper, the U.K. has surpassed the first peak of the infections. But in reality, the health minister says that the 6,000-plus cases a day that are being reported actually pale in comparison to the first wave, where he thinks that the vast majority of cases simply weren't being caught by the limited testing that they had.
Hospitalizations, for instance, were 12 times higher back in the spring compared to what they are today. The overall trend is not good. In response, government has brought in new rules to strengthen existing rules and brought in a contact tracing app which should be able to detect whether someone in close proximity to you has tested positive for the virus.
Almost two weeks ago, the prime minister announced the rule of six: limiting social gatherings to no more than six people across England regardless, of how many households were involved. That, though, has proven not to be the silver bullet that perhaps the government hoped that it would be because the R rate, the reproduction rate, has risen between 1.2 and 1.5.
For every 10 people that get infected, they'll pass it on to 12 to 15 other people. The prime minister continues to plead with people to actually follow the rules. He's promising higher fines for rulebreakers, promising the president will get more strict with enforcement, even offering the option to call in the military if needed.
The London Met Police, though, they say that they're still going to just encourage people to follow the rules and use only fines and arrests as a last resort, which may end up being a problem because a new study out this week shows that, when it comes to quarantine, at least, or self-isolation, most people are not following the rules.
[05:25:00]
MCLEAN: In fact, only one in five people, less than one in five, in fact, people who had COVID-19 symptoms, were actually self-isolating. Even fewer than that actually got a test. Here's the worst part: only one out of every nine people contacted by government contact tracers and told to self-isolate actually did for two weeks -- Kim.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Thanks for that. Scott McLean in London.
A federal judge in Montana has removed the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, who's a climate change skeptic after finding he served unlawfully for 424 days. Montana's governor had challenged William Perry Pendley's role, arguing he'd never been nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate, so he was ineligible for the job.
The Interior Secretary nominated Pendley to be the bureau's permanent director in July but the Trump administration pulled the nomination after Pendley made controversial statements, including that climate change isn't real. The bureau manages roughly 0.1 of the land mass of the U.S. along with one-third of the nation's minerals.
Violent protests across the U.S. over the police shooting death of a Black woman. Ahead, we'll find out what her family thinks about the way her case has been handled by authorities.
Plus, we'll take a look at a group trying to stop the misinformation on Facebook as the U.S. presidential election gets closer.
Stay with us.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to you, our viewers in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Ken Brunhuber.
[05:30:00]
BRUNHUBER: We're going turn to civil unrest in the U.S. In Louisville, Kentucky, police say they arrested 23 people during protests on Friday. It was the third straight day of marches there after a grand jury didn't directly charge any of the officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor.
During a news conference, her aunt read a statement from Taylor's mother reacting to the decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BREONNA TAYLOR'S AUNT: I was reassured Wednesday of why I have no faith in the legal system, in the police, in the law that are not made to protect us Black and Brown people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: CNN crime and justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz was in Louisville for the protests on Friday and filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: Another night of protests here in Louisville and protesters have gathered here behind me now at this church, where they come after the curfew hours because it is here where they can avoid being arrested.
Police allowing them to remain on the property. Now earlier in the day, there was a brief confrontation between protesters and police at an intersection as protesters approached an intersection.
Police had lined up. Within a moment after they say the crowd would not get out of the street and onto the sidewalk, they fired flashbangs. Then there was a brief confrontation between the protesters and police. Eventually everyone left. Police say they made a few arrests and then the crowd left -- Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Louisville, Kentucky.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Racial justice protests also turned violent in Oakland, California. Authorities say demonstrators, marching in solidarity with Louisville protesters, on Friday night threw bottles, cans and other objects at Oakland police officers. More than 250 took part and police say they made multiple arrests.
And in the early hours Friday, hundreds gathered in Hollywood to protest the police shooting death of Breonna Taylor. And at one point it turned violent as a pickup truck rammed into one person. As CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro shows, with some disturbing images, collisions, deliberate or not, are becoming more common during protests.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA, FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER: Everyone gathered around 7:00 pm; they start marching around 8:00 pm.
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An hour later came a terrifying moment.
MONTERROSA: They surrounded the vehicle to try and get it to stop. And the truck then accelerated and the woman who was directly in front of it was swept off of her feet.
MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Christian Monterrosa, a freelance photographer, captured it all. MONTERROSA: You go into this fight or flight reaction. You see this
very gruesome thing happening, where a large vehicle is basically driving through a crowd of people. It feels very surreal.
MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Scenes like this are common now. Ari Weil (ph) is a PhD student at the University of Chicago. He's been studying vehicle- involved incidents at Black Lives Matter protests.
ARI WEIL, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: So far I've tracked 104 incidents since late May through early September. And the vast majority of those occurred at the end of May and early June.
MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Charges are not often filed, Weil (ph) says. And it's not always clear what motivated the driver.
WEIL: There are a few different types of people behind the wheel. At one end are the true, clear extremists, the card-carrying members of extremist organizations. A step down are those yelling slurs and are clearly racially motivated.
We also have some non-racially motivated ones with just angry drivers. Then there are true accidents like someone's GPS brings them into a protest.
MCMORRIS-SANTORO: But Weil says there are people who like to see cars running protesters down.
WEIL: There's an online environment encouraging these -- these incidents.
MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Memes about using cars as weapons have spread on the Right. Remarkably, some even celebrate the killing of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
Some conservative lawmakers have tried to pass laws that protect drivers who claim they're afraid for their lives. Those efforts have failed for the most part. But Florida governor Ron DeSantis introduced new legislation this week. The proposal's running into stiff opposition, include from some in law enforcement.
If laws like that are not written carefully, do you think that we could see more of these cars being weaponized in these protests?
CEDRIC ALEXANDER, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Absolutely, you could. What it will do, it will allow those with nefarious intent, it will give them an escape to be able to use as to why they plow through a crowd.
[05:35:00]
MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): Despite the danger, Monterrosa says he's seen no indication that protesters will be pushed off the streets by fear.
MONTERROSA: I think this only adds fuel to the fire. I don't think this stops anybody. MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Evan McMorris-Santoro, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: Facebook has come under hefty criticism for allowing manipulated videos and other misleading news stories to flood its platform during the election campaign. Critics frequently site the negative influence those posts have on the U.S. political process.
Now Facebook says it's putting together an oversight board to deal with content and appeals. It will act as a sort of social media Supreme Court for its own site. If a user feels content has been removed unfairly, they can appeal the decision. But the effort has been going slowly.
As CNN's Donie O'Sullivan reports, misleading content is still slipping through on many social media sites.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN TECH CORRESPONDENT: The Trump campaign and Trump supporters will often say these videos are clearly jokes, they're memes, people know they're memes. People know they're fake.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they say this is fact checked, it's wrong because it's taken out of context, like when Joe Biden fell asleep during a live interview on TV.
O'SULLIVAN: He claimed that he fell asleep. I was that was an edited one, right, that was --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't think it was. It looked pretty live to me. There was no cuts in it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Live this morning from New York.
Hey, good morning --
Wake up. Yes, wake up, wake up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Facebook irons out the details of its board. Industry experts are forming their own. About 2 dozen officials from the NAACP, the U.S. Anti-Defamation League and former Facebook employees are joining the effort. [05:40:00]
BRUNHUBER: The group calls itself The Real Facebook Oversight Board. It plans to analyze and critique Facebook's content moderation decisions. The group also intends to launch a weekly livestream discussion starting next week.
Joining me from London is one of the founding members of the project, "The Guardian" journalist Carole Cadwalladr, known for her work exposing the Cambridge Analytica story.
Thank you so much for joining us on this important subject. You billed this as a deliberate troll of the company's real oversight board. Explain to us what you're hoping to do and how.
CAROLE CADWALLADR, JOURNALIST: Thank you so much for having me. The point of this is that this Facebook is impacting the U.S. election right now. Voting has already started. And we know that there's misinformation and lies that are still absolutely flooding the platform.
And I think the report you just had, so clearly illustrates that. And in such a sort of terrifying way that really, when the lies are out, the damage is already done.
Part of the main sort of reason for why we've convened this very much as an emergency response to this particular situation is to try and call this out, try and put pressure on Facebook to act responsibly and to make people realize just quite how much is at risk in the coming weeks.
BRUNHUBER: Well, speaking of that risk, we saw the deleterious role Facebook played in the last presidential election here. Now Facebook says it's learned from 2016; it's trying to plan for every scenario.
They're talking about the number of networks it shut down, the number of posts it's removed. The company says it has contact with election authorities on the ground in all the states across the country.
In your view, has it learned, has it improved at all?
CADWALLADR: I think the thing about it is that we've learned what happened in 2016. We have learned how Facebook was used to facilitate these attacks on the U.S. election.
But Facebook was never held to account. There was never any consequences for it. There was no business consequences. And there was no legislative consequences. And so we're now in the situation four years on, where the country is still as exposed as it was.
And I say this -- I'm very much coming into this from the stance of being in Britain, where I spent all this time investigating what happened in the E.U. referendum and Facebook's role in that. And we never even got answers here.
So I think -- and the constitution of our country's changing forever on the basis of that. And to see America walking into this sort of firestorm once again without these protections in place, I think it is extremely, extremely worrying.
And it -- more importantly, the real experts who are on this board, that is why they have come together, to raise the alarm about that, too.
BRUNHUBER: We saw -- in the U.K., the U.S., we talk all the time about how people on the Left and the Right, they can no longer even have any real debates because there's no agreed set of facts. They live in totally different worlds. Facebook has helped create those disparate realities.
But is Facebook really to blame here?
Is it just reflecting the more polarized, partisan reality we're seeing all over the world?
I mean it seems like Facebook, you know, it's an easy scapegoat for everything wrong with the system. But some would say Facebook is being blamed too much for bad judgments that people, who want to believe this information is -- is right, even though, you know, just like we saw in the report just now, the facts don't matter.
CADWALLADR: I mean, that's why I think that piece was so important because it so vividly illustrates this, as you put it. The thing is about it, I love this idea that poor Facebook is sort of an innocent scapegoat. The Facebook group of companies, remember, it's WhatsApp, Instagram, too.
There are more than 3 billion people using these platforms across the world. And it has this one single private company controlled by one man, which has no oversight of a tool, is it paid to have this absolutely pivotal role in every single election across the world.
And there is nothing -- there is nothing in place to protect users, to protect voters, I mean, I think that's the thing, from the really, really damaging, real-world consequences of these lies.
[05:45:00]
CADWALLADR: I mean, that's what they are. They are lies and Facebook is helping spreading them.
BRUNHUBER: But can it mitigate some of the damage with its, you know, huge voter registration campaign?
It's already registered some 2.5 million people, hoping for 4 million people before the election here.
CADWALLADR: Just the idea, the idea that it can mitigate one enormous harm with a benefit.
I mean, why is a private company playing this massive, massive role in what is a critical function of any society, how we elect our government? The idea that that is all being mediated by this one company that makes decisions on the fly and as we see reactively, that's the biggest problem, it reacts after the fact.
We all know that the famous on slogan, move fast and break things, I mean, that has always been the methodology of Silicon Valley and particularly of Facebook.
And you know, we're in this position, where the thing that has got broken is democracy. And I don't think we have really -- we've really faced up to the huge consequences of that, that it really isn't possible to have a sort of properly free and fair election when it's mediated by Facebook.
BRUNHUBER: All right. So you've eloquently outlined all of the problems.
Is there a solution?
You know, what would you suggest to help try and fix some of these problems?
CADWALLADR: Well, the thing is that this is the whole point of bringing these experts together, is because some of these people have been studying Facebook for years. Others are activists, who have been trying to raise the alarm about harms of Facebook for years.
The idea of this is it's a sort of brains trust, where it's really bringing these experts into a single space and it's getting them to bash their heads together and then to call Facebook to do certain things.
It's not for me to say what they decide to do. That's what we're going to see over the coming weeks. But it's really critical that there's a framework for these experts to be able to have their voices heard about, you know, the really clear and evident dangers that we can see coming ahead.
BRUNHUBER: All right. It will be fascinating to follow in the coming weeks. Thank you so much for talking to us. Carole Cadwalladr from "The Guardian," in London. We appreciate it.
U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being honored at home and abroad. So after the break, we'll meet a friend who loved the justice, not because of politics but because of music.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:50:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn't just possess a brilliant legal mind, she also had a deep love of classical music and opera. And that led to an unlikely friendship that went past politics. Suzanne Malveaux has that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a love of music that brought them together.
ERIC MOTLEY, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, ASPEN INSTITUTE: This is the two of us coming from an opera dinner.
MALVEAUX: An unlikely friendship between seemingly polar opposites, Eric Motley and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
MOTLEY: I was a black young man, just turned 30, I was working with President Bush. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this Jewish intellectual, urbanite, this woman whom had been appointed to the Supreme Court --
MALVEAUX: Brought together by surprise at a dinner party and seated next to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's husband Martin, who quickly learned of their shared passion.
MOTLEY: I love music. He got so excited and said, my wife and I love music. He said I'm listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations. He said, oh my god, you have to meet my wife. You have to talk -- Ruth! And he called her name across the table. I will never forget.
MALVEAUX: Eric and the justice became fast friends, sharing the love of opera, history and music.
MOTLEY: Little did I know that would inspire a 17-year relationship around music and ideas.
MALVEAUX: Ideas that sometimes clashed but led to a better understanding between them over issues around race, opportunity and public policy.
MOTLEY: The Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
MALVEAUX: As in years past, the two also shared a personal joke when Eric the eligible bachelor, tied the knot.
MOTLEY: In her demanding voice, it's about time.
MALVEAUX: When Eric found his love, Hannah, Ginsburg offered to officiate the wedding.
MOTLEY: She said, what do you mean go to the courthouse? I have the legal right to marry you. So, let's find a date and come here to my patio.
MALVEAUX: As the preparations were made and the excitement was building, Ginsburg kept Eric in touch of her ongoing cancer treatments, writing her letters. MOTLEY: Three weeks daily radiation kill off the cancer, with
appreciation and love, RBG.
MALVEAUX: But Eric got a surprising call two days before the scheduled ceremony, Ginsburg would need to postpone.
MOTLEY: I was a bit numbed because she never cancels.
MALVEAUX: On the scheduled day of their wedding, Eric got a call from a friend.
MOTLEY: And she said, we lost Ruth. And I pulled over on the side of the road and composed myself.
MALVEAUX: It was Friday, September 18th, the evening Ginsburg was to marry Eric and Hannah when she died.
MOTLEY: All the emotions of losing a friend and feeling that at that very hour we would have probably been in the house.
MALVEAUX: Struggling with grief, Eric and Hannah joined hundreds of others at the Supreme Court.
MOTLEY: At the bronze door, we left a single white rose.
MALVEAUX: Eric now left struggling to figure out what Ginsburg would want him to do next.
MOTLEY: I'm really struggling with where we are right now as a society. The issues of equity in this country, the challenges around race.
[05:55:00]
MALVEAUX: Eric is determined to take Ginsburg's advice, to never give up, always move forward. And that too means marries the love of his life.
MOTLEY: The wedding license with officiate, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's name on it, waiting for her signature now stand as markers of a moment.
But they also stand as a reminder of a beautiful friendship and a remarkable woman who would only want us to get married, to find a date as soon as we can and to just get on with it.
MALVEAUX: With family, friends and, of course, music -- Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: What a touching testament to a beautiful friendship.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg also seemed to be an unlikely role model for physical fitness but not to her personal trainer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): You see there, Bryant Johnson dropped to the floor and did three pushups inside the U.S. Capitol while her body lay in state. For two decades, he trained Ginsburg, who was undeterred by multiple health battles.
Johnson says Ginsburg worked out at the Supreme Court gym even as the pandemic forced other gyms to shut down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. For our viewers in the U.S. and Canada, "NEW DAY" is just ahead. For everyone else, "Feast on Egypt" is next.
