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Interview with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D); Interview with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired October 09, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Coronavirus cases are surging in most states across the country, and New York City, sadly, is battling now its own cultures -- clusters, rather, after getting this under control. A hundred and sixty-nine public schools, forced to close down in some neighborhoods. We just learned that Broadway, it's going to stay dark until May of next year.

Joining us now is the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. Governor, thanks for taking the time this morning.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Good to be with you, Jim, thank you.

SCIUTTO: So first question, can there be a targeted fix for this or are you concerned that New York will have to reinstitute a more broader lockdown in response?

CUOMO: You know, Jim, this is actually how it should be done. Statewide, the number is one of the lowest numbers in the United States of America. Today, I'm going to announce an infection rate of about one percent. That is literally one of the lowest rates and it's remarkable because we had one of the highest rates.

[10:35:18]

We do more testing than any state in the United States. We do more testing in one day, Jim, than most states do all week. So when you do that much testing, you can target exactly where the new cases come from, the quote-unquote --

SCIUTTO: Right.

CUOMO: -- "clusters." And we can target them by block. And what we're now doing is, where we see a cluster -- and our infection rate in a cluster is about five percent, which is still lower than most states -- we just target those clusters. And we have a couple of unique --

SCIUTTO: OK.

CUOMO: -- clusters, frankly, which are more religious organizations, and that's what we're targeting. But that's the way it should happen. SCIUTTO: Do you blame those groups for flouting the rules?

CUOMO: Blame? you know, blame will be done by a higher authority at one time. They're not following the rules. We know what happens when you don't follow the rules, the infection rate goes up. And it just proves our point from the get-go. We know how to control the virus, but you have to control the virus. You have to be disciplined. And when you don't follow the rules, it goes up, and that's what's happening in these very small clusters.

Now, these are religious groups, it tends to get more complicated, frankly, because of some cultural aspects. But that's what we're seeing in New York.

SCIUTTO: OK.

CUOMO: Our tactic is, wherever you see an ember, run and stamp out the ember before it becomes a flame.

SCIUTTO: OK. As you know, an Orthodox Jewish advocacy group and a Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, actually, filed two separate federal lawsuits against you over these new restrictions on religious gatherings. What is your response to those lawsuits?

CUOMO: Yes, the cluster is a predominantly ultra-Orthodox cluster. The Catholic schools are closed because they happen to be in that cluster, but the issue is with that ultra-Orthodox community.

This is not a matter of religious freedom, right? I don't care if you're Roman Catholic, you're Jewish, you're Muslim, you're an atheist, you have to follow the rules of the state, the laws of the state. And I understand the beliefs of the ultra-Orthodox, I've been very close to them all my life, I'm a big supporter of theirs. But they have to follow the rules, Jim.

Because we're seeing the truth. And the truth is, if you don't follow the rules, the infection rate spreads, people get sick and then you make others sick. You know, we're talking about Brooklyn, we're not talking about a hermetically sealed community in a rural area, this is in the middle of Brooklyn. They will make other people sick.

SCIUTTO: Yes. The science is clear.

Final question, if I can before we go, a fellow governor -- sitting governor, happens to be Democrat, but a fellow sitting governor -- in this country, the target of a domestic terrorism plot, and a complicated one. I mean, they tested out IEDs. I had the lieutenant governor on this broadcast this morning and you heard the governor, Governor Whitmer, last night, say that the president's rhetoric helps fuel these groups, gives them license. And I wonder if you agree with that criticism.

CUOMO: Oh, I certainly do. First, to Governor Whitmer, who's a colleague of mine, I applaud her, I applaud how she's handled herself, I applaud what she's doing and I applaud how she stood up to these thugs, frankly.

Look, the president fans division, he does, he always has. It started in Charlottesville with the KKK and there are good people on both sides. No, the KKK is not good. Racism is not good. Discrimination is not good. Kidnapping is not good, violence is not good.

I see it here in New York with the political interference with this ultra-Orthodox community that we have on our clusters. I believe -- and I have evidence -- that the Trump campaign is fueling their opposition and their divisiveness. The president has always done this, right? Divide and conquer is his strategy. And it's corrosive, it's detrimental to everything we're about, but it's what he has done from the beginning.

[10:40:01]

So yes, I believe he's behind it, I believe his campaign stokes it. I don't think there's any question.

SCIUTTO: Well, Governor Cuomo, we wish you and the people of New York luck as you get a handle on this. I'm a New Yorker myself, and we only wish you the best.

CUOMO: Thank you, Jim, same here.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right, a crucial election ahead, and all of us deserve the facts, the truth: what our tech companies do to make sure that misinformation is taken offline? We ask the YouTube CEO, next.

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[10:45:01]

HARLOW: All right, welcome back. So we're just over three weeks away from the election, and there is a crisis of misinformation online. Pressure is growing on tech companies to tackle it, given the significant power that they hold.

Take YouTube for example, 500 hours of new content are uploaded every single minute to the platform, with more than 2 billion people around the world watching it. So how do you police that? We spoke exclusively with YouTube's CEO, Susan Wojcicki, about how she is navigating through this moment of intense scrutiny and immense consequence in an election like no other.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: If the president or Joe Biden prematurely declares victory and they or their campaign or someone posts that video on YouTube, will it stay on YouTube or will you take it down?

SUSAN WOJCICKI, CEO, YOUTUBE: You know, it's really hard to talk about hypotheticals because we would have to actually look at the video. But you know, we certainly are going to have very clear guidelines around that and we're going to focus to make sure that we have authoritative information coming from sources like the A.P., for example, that would be having that trusted information.

And that's what we will continue to refer people to, but we certainly will look at those videos and if we think they're violative, we will take them down.

HARLOW: Who decides on Election Night?

WOJCICKI: We have virtual war rooms to make sure that we have all the right people, we can make those decisions very quickly. We have people who are scouting on the internet, we have intelligence tests (ph) -- when the election closes, we will no longer be taking any election ads, and we think that will actually make -- that will be an important area for us to ensure the integrity of the election.

HARLOW: Ultimately though, is it going to be your call?

WOJCICKI: I mean, we have policies across the board. So we look at our policies, we consult with experts when we formulate those policies, and then we look to see as a group, as a leadership team to understand, like, do those videos meet or not meet those policies.

HARLOW: So if a candidate said they won before the election was called by, you know, reliable news outlets, can that video live on YouTube?

WOJCICKI: I mean, we would have to look at that, but I think you know, I mean, we'd have to look and depending on what it said and what's the current situation.

HARLOW: Facebook announced this week that it will ban QAnon from its platforms. Will YouTube do the same?

WOJCICKI: Well, so we're looking very closely at QAnon, but I would say we already implemented a large number of different policies that have helped to maintain that in a responsible way.

So the first thing is, is that the changes that I talked about with regard to our recommendation system have already had over an 80 percent reduction in terms of any of the viewership of that. So -- because a lot of that content would be classified as what we would may (ph) say borderline content.

We also have already removed a lot of it in terms of hundreds of thousands of videos because of -- it could violate other parts of our policies: hate, harassment, COVID information --

HARLOW: Except this week, I watched two QAnon videos on YouTube. One of them had over 5 million views, the other had over 3 million views and the FBI says that QAnon is a potential domestic terror threat. So I guess I'm wondering, what is the hesitation to ban it on your platform? What would be the reason not to?

WOJCICKI: So we are continuing to evolve our policies here. It's not that we're not looking at it or we don't want to make changes that in terms (ph) are responsible. But I think if you look at QAnon, part of it is that it's a grassroots movement, and so you could see just lots and lots of different people who are uploading content that has different QAnon theories.

HARLOW: I ask because things like you know, the Pizzagate conspiracy theory actually led a man to go to a pizzeria in D.C. with a gun. And recently, there have been examples of mothers in Colorado and Utah who have followed QAnon direction and gone to try to kidnap their own children, so there's just real-life consequences here of that.

Moving on to the election, I'm sure you've heard --

(CROSSTALK)

WOJCICKI: And anything like that, we would remove. I mean, we're very proactive in terms of removing it, and I think you'll see us continue to do so.

HARLOW: It must be odd to have to take down something that the president of the United States have said, but you guys have opted to do that in certain circumstances. You did it with the "Fox News" interview that he did in August, where he claimed that children are, quote, "almost immune" from COVID-19 because it's just not true.

But there are other things the president has said about COVID that aren't true that are still on YouTube. Why, and where do you draw that line?

WOJCICKI: Yes. So that's definitely a good question, and I'll say that you know, basically we hold all politicians -- no matter where they are in the country or what their rank is -- to the same standards that we hold everyone else. And so if there is something that is said that is harmful, that we think can lead to real-world harm, that's a violation of our policy, we will remove it.

[10:50:10]

But a lot of times, I think it's important to also look that, you know, you may have seen those quotes from President Trump in a news broadcast, meaning that it was covered for example in CNN, and there could have been commentary afterwards, maybe questioning what he said or clarifying it.

And so, you know, we look at that context too. So you know, under an educational or documentary standpoint, some of that content we would still allow provided that the news provider actually provided context in terms of that information.

HARLOW: I mean, just in August, "The New York Times" reported on a patient in New York who actually drank bleach to try to fight off COVID, went to the E.R., luckily survived. But those are the real-life consequences, and this was after watching a video suggesting that they do that on YouTube. How do you handle something like that? I mean, why could he even see that?

WOJCICKI: Yes, well first of all, that video shouldn't have been there. And we have taken a really tough line on all our policies with regard to COVID. So we've implemented more than 10 different policies on COVID, so anything that would have -- promote any kind of harmful cure or anything that would even not be a cure, but just misrepresenting information with regard to COVID, that would be a violation of our policy.

We have taken down hundreds of thousands of videos. We look at the authoritativeness of the source and with any kind of COVID type of information, we make sure that's coming from authoritative sources. And then we put things like information cards underneath it, where we link to the CDC or the local health authority in that country.

HARLOW: You guys have hired 10,000 people to help machines do this work, right? To help take down misleading and false information, and it's a really big step. But as we've talked about, some of the stuff still gets through, right? And there are real-life consequences to it getting through, life and death consequences sometimes. What about reviewing them first before they get up there so no one ever sees them?

WOJCICKI: Yes, I mean, I think that, you know, part of -- I mean, you can think about that from a news perspective too. Like you know, let's say you had really important breaking news that was happening, and we told you that there was going to be a two-or three-hour delay to be able to make that available. I'm not sure how you would --

HARLOW: That's different because that's actually happening. I guess I should have been more clear in my question, but I'm talking about false stuff, lies, dangerous lies.

WOJCICKI: Well I mean, we would have to remove -- we would have to review everything, right?

HARLOW: Right, you'd be smaller for sure. I mean, it'd be different, you'd be smaller, you'd make less money but it might be safer?

WOJCICKI: I mean, look, we look across many different solutions and you know, what we have seen is, is that by using the combination of the machines and the people, that we really have been able to make a huge impact.

And there definitely would be -- you know, if you significantly reduce the amount of content that's on the platform, you would actually limit a lot of things. You would limit (ph) a lot of commentary, a lot of the diverse voices that I think are really valuable on the platform.

HARLOW: I'm just wondering as a journalist and as a mom -- whose, like, kids will be watching this stuff soon -- you know, is the genie out of the bottle? Like, have you guys gotten so big that there's never a moment in time when you're going to be able to get it all down, to get it all off the platform?

WOJCICKI: I mean, I -- just looking at the changes that we've made and the progress that we've made as a whole, I think there's no doubt that, you know, we have done a huge amount of work with regard to responsibility. It's our top priority. I've been really clear that responsibility is our number one priority, and there's really nothing else that will become more important for us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: That was -- we'll see, right? It'll be a big test, whether they follow through on those promises. We're close to an election, I mean, the election's already happening right now.

HARLOW: Yes. And it's not just YouTube, right? It's what will YouTube do, what will Facebook do, what will Twitter do, what will Instagram do --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: -- because you know, it's not like a news network, Jim, like here, where there is constant fact-checking, right? But I will say that YouTube has been putting labels on a lot of stuff, and you heard her say, responsibility is number one here. I think this election --

SCIUTTO: Well --

HARLOW: -- is a huge test for that, for all these tech companies that have --

SCIUTTO: -- there's also a financial --

HARLOW: -- so much power.

SCIUTTO: There's a financial incentive in there when they say that accuracy --

HARLOW: Sure.

SCIUTTO: -- is number one. They make money off these (INAUDIBLE), right?

HARLOW: So it was like almost an hour long interview, we're going to post the whole conversation on the podcast, "Boss Files," Monday morning, so people can listen to that there and I'm very thankful to her for the time and for taking the questions because they've got a lot of power right now for sure.

[10:55:12]

All right, thanks for joining us. Have a good weekend, get some rest. We'll see you back here Monday, I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto. NEWSROOM with John King will start after a short break.

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[11:00:00]