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Documents Show Facebook Struggling to Manage Vaccine Misinformation; Judge Says, Men Killed in Kenosha Protests Can't Be Called Victims. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired October 27, 2021 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): Am I going to be pay more or am I going to be cut back on services I'm getting? But yet we're adding more to it. That's the problem. And that's basically a good dialogue that we're having. So, it's honest, open --

(CROSSTALKS)

REPORTER: So, Senator, are you meeting this morning with President Biden? Is he coming here?

MANCHIN: No, I'm not meeting with President Biden this morning or today that I know of. I didn't know I was meeting last night either. But things can happen. If he asks to meet, I'll be there. No, I'm, not. I'm having meetings this morning, but not with the president.

REPORTER: -- the climate provisions of $500 billion in the social spending plan.

MANCHIN: We're looking on that because there's an awful lot of things that we want to do as far incentives to accelerate clean energy. And clean energy means use what you're using cleaner, making sure that the rest of the world is not doing anything that we're doing.

People keep talking about the energy and the only thing I want to say is, look at the facts. We are the only nation that's reduced our dependency on coal. We've gone from 52 percent to 19 percent. We get no credit. We've done all these things. We have the technology to capture the methane. Let us build pipeline that take the methane off. Don't use this as an oxymoron.

So, all these things we're talking about, but also we can accelerate transmission, ceramics for transmission. We can accelerate storage for renewables. We can accelerate all of those things. That's what we're trying to do, get a good piece of legislation. Throwing money right now at something that basically does not have a pathway to be completed it's --

REPORTER: He's stealing my question.

MANCHIN: See, (INAUDIBLE).

REPORTER: Paid leave, are you still talking to Senator Gillibrand?

MANCHIN: I've been talking to everybody. But I've been very clear. To expand social programs when you have trust funds that aren't solvent or going insolvent, I can't explain that. It doesn't make sense to me. I want to work with everyone as long as we can start pay for things. I can't put this burden on my grandchildren. I've gotten ten grandchildren. And I just can't do it.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Has the president indicated that he's willing to move towards you to not go for Medicare expansion?

MANCHIN: There're no guarantees. The only thing the president of the United States -- and I'll say said this again, we've got the right person at the right place at the right time. Let's work with him. But the bottom line is he understands, and I think what he's asking for is to continue to deal in good faith and we'll get to where we get to and we'll vote it up or down.

RAJU: What if the House delays the infrastructure vote?

MANCHIN: Pray to god they don't.

ERICA HILL, CNN NEWSROOM: So, we've been listening there to Senator Joe Manchin. Asked specifically is this going to happen today, he said there's going to be a bill overall, wants to vote on infrastructure. But the short answer there is it doesn't sound like it's going today, still a lot to hash out when it comes to this plan.

Joining me now to discuss, Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee of Michigan, he's the deputy whip for the House Democratic Caucus. Great to have you with us.

I know you were able to listen to a bit of what Senator Manchin was saying there. I just want to get your take too on where we stand today. I mean, there have been deadlines thrown out here and there. Speaker Pelosi, I understand it earlier this morning, talked about we're going to have a timeline. These dates seem to be so arbitrary at this point.

Senator Manchin said, we're not going to do everything today. That seems to be a given. So, give us a sense of what do you think will happen today? What could come out of today's negotiations?

REP. DAN KILDEE (D-MI): Well, the hope is that we arrive at common ground on the spending side of this legislation and on the revenue pieces of it. And if we can frame that out, I think that gives us a lot more confidence that we can move forward on the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

But this is going to take an act of faith. Many of us who have been skeptical about whether or not Senator Manchin and others would actually agree to legislation will be comforted if he's very outspoken, he and both Senator Sinema, in supporting a framework that speaks to the revenue and to the spending priorities. It's not ideal but this is the Democratic process. This is how it looks when we're actually doing it in public. And I think we have to kind of step back and not see everything as a crisis. When it's a debate and a negotiation, there's a lot of disagreement but we're moving, maybe too slowly for some, but we're moving in the right direction. We're so much closer to yes than we were a while back.

HILL: I hear you saying you're so much closer. I heard Speaker Pelosi tell my colleague, Jake Tapper, on Sunday that 90 percent had been agreed on and written at this point. But I have to say, even as we are stepping back and looking at it, it is messy. And it doesn't look like you're down to just 10 percent. To your point, it may take a while. But why then put these deadlines out there if everyone is going to be passed and make it look like it isn't happening?

KILDEE: Well, we have to have sort of a calendar or a schedule to work from. I mean, this is just the way this place operates.

[10:35:00]

We create a framework, a timetable, and we try to hit that timetable. But I think we have to keep in mind, if we have to pause to get it right, it's more important that we do that given the magnitude of what we're doing than to stick to like a certain hour of a certain day. This is really big stuff and we have to get it right.

HILL: It is, admittedly. And I understand that the dates tend to spur action but I think you can also understand how frustrating it is for the American people as they're watching this. And it feels like yet again the can is being kicked down the road.

Let's talk some specifics, if we could, this morning. So, when we're talking about funding, how this is going to be paid for, you called the Senate billionaire's a, quote, stunt and back-of-the-napkin legislating. Now that that plan is out there, how do you feel about it? Is this something that is a viable alternative?

KILDEE: Well, I want to see legislative language. And when I referred to it the way I did, my thinking was we can't just have an idea. We're at the point where we actually have to see legislative language and have it fully vetted.

But here is my concern about it. It may have value. But because it has potential volatility, meaning in growth years, we would see significant revenue, but in periods where we may have some decline, we could see zero revenue coming or very little revenue coming from that.

It's not a replacement for the more, I think, substantial and important increase in the rates that we in the Ways and Means Committee, of which I'm a member, wrote into our legislation. We're open to this. But I will say this, it is difficult to have ideas come up and think that we can somehow completely vet them in the space of 24 or 48 hours. That's difficult to do.

HILL: Yes. And I think -- I will say a lot of folks understand that. Really quickly, two things, Senator Manchin said everyone should pay a patriot tax. Basically, he's saying, don't penalize billionaires because they did well but everyone should pay this 15 percent patriot's tax. Chances of that?

KILDEE: Well, I'm more open to that, some sort of a minimum tax that corporations and high wealth individuals have to pay regardless of any of the loopholes they use. I mean, that's a step in the right direction. And I think that might be something that could get a lot of attention as we discuss this going forward.

HILL: And I do want to get -- really quickly, I'm going to get in trouble for this. But this $30 billion that was initially in to replace lead pipes, I know that's near and dear to you. What's left right now in terms of that in the current package?

KILDEE: Well, in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, we do have significant investment in lead pipes, but not enough. So, we're still working on the details as to what's in and what's out in the build back better act. The president and I have talked about making sure we get every lead pipe out of the ground in America. My hope is that that priority remains high as we get to the final numbers on this.

HILL: All right. So, we'll keep asking on that one as well. Congressman Dan Kildee, good to have you here this morning. Thank you.

KILDEE: Thank you.

HILL: Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: Still ahead this hour, a Wisconsin judge says the three men who were shot -- two of them shot dead during protests in Wisconsin last year can be called only rioters but not victims. How that could impact a jury's opinion on Kyle Rittenhouse's fate, next.

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[10:40:00]

SCIUTTO: New this morning, Facebook's internal documents suggest the company is having a hard time managing the spread of COVID disinformation after a March report raised concerns about what people were saying in comments. Quote, our ability to detect vaccine hesitancy comments is bad, in English, basically non-existent elsewhere. That's Facebook's own analysis. It is just the latest reporting about vast issues with the platform globally.

We now know that Facebook still has not fully fixed the human trafficking problem, which they've known about for years, that is people using the site to traffic in people. In 2019, it got so bad that Apple threatened to full Facebook and Instagram's access to its app store.

Here to discuss, Project Editor for The Atlantic Ellen Cushing. Ellen, it's good to have you on. I want to begin with COVID, if I can, because we see yet another disconnect here, do we not, between what the company has said publicly about its overall response to COVID-19 and what it was finding itself.

ELLEN CUSHING, PROJECT EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: This is a running theme among all of these documents. There's a really big disconnect between what Facebook knows and what Facebook says it knows. We have now seen reports and memos and slide decks and like internal message boards devoted to talking about all of Facebook's problems. But these never really make it to the public. Mark Zuckerberg has spoken to Congress many times, and he always downplays these problems. But the people who actually work at Facebook are intimately aware how bad things are.

SCIUTTO: So, let's talk for a moment about human trafficking. The site used to traffic in people, including women, the site knows about it, the site has attempted to do something about it for years now, but it continues. How is that possible with a site that is all about its algorithm and how brilliant it is, how can they not police this?

CUSHING: That's the million dollar question right now. We've seen -- like the overwhelming thing that these documents show, and I've now read thousands and thousands of pages of them, is that there's attention to engagement and integrity, and time and again, Facebook chooses engagement.

[10:45:03]

In the case of human trafficking, it is -- they will say, and it's true, that this is a really big problem and it's a complicated problem and criminals are very good at abusing systems and sort of flying under the radar. But we have also seen that Facebook knew this was a problem as early as like 2017-2018 and chose not to do anything about it.

SCIUTTO: I mean, an engagement as a priority that's basically money, right, I mean, because that's how they make their money. Another finding here that you write about is that the documents show, I'm quoting you here, that the Facebook we have in the U.S. is actually the platform at its best. That's remarkable to hear, because the Facebook in the U.S. is not policing disinformation particularly well, again, despite years of pressure here. I mean, what does that say if what we're seeing here is actually the best that Facebook has to offer?

CUSHING: It's pretty grim, right? Like if the Facebook we experience, which we all know is facilitating the spread of misinformation, disinformation, abuse, bullying, human trafficking, hate speech and extremism in the United States, everywhere else, and these are some of the most vulnerable democracies on Earth, places where people do not have stable leadership, where people do not have a free internet, it's so much worse.

Facebook devotes a lot fewer resources, moderation resources to these places. And we've seen over and over again that it's causing problems. We've seen hate speech in India, cartel violence in Mexico. It really -- the list goes on and on and on.

SCIUTTO: Targeting minorities in Myanmar, lives at stake. Ellen Cushing, thanks so much for digging deep on this. CUSHING: Thank you.

HILL: Well, in just under an hour, we could hear some answers in the fatal shooting on the set of Alec Baldwin's latest movie. The Santa Fe's sheriff's department set to hold a news conference, the district attorney meantime saying criminal charges not being ruled out here. Stay with us.

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[10:50:00]

SCIUTTO: In a Wisconsin courtroom, a remarkable development ahead of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. During a pretrial hearing, judge, Judge Bruce Schroeder, said the men shot by Kyle Rittenhouse in August of last year can be referred to only as looters or rioters, but not as victims. Apparently, it's a longstanding rule in his courtroom. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE BRUCE SCHROEDER, KENOSHA COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT: The word, victim, is a loaded, loaded word. And I think alleged victim is a cousin to it.

Let the evidence show what the evidence shows. And if the evidence shows that any or more than one of these people were engaged in arson, rioting or looting, then I'm not going to tell the defense they can't call them that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: The prosecutor argued the judge was setting up a double standard. The debate highlights also the crux of the defense's argument that Rittenhouse opened fire in self-defense. He's pleaded not guilty to felony homicide and felony attempted homicide.

Jury selection begins Monday. If this has left you scratching your head, well, you're not alone.

CNN Legal Analyst Areva Martin joining us now. So, Areva, I literally cannot wrap my head around this, right? So, if the evidence shows that maybe there could be a looter or rioter, it's totally okay to show that. But if the evidence that someone was shot, we can't call them a victim or even alleged victim, I can't make sense of this.

AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Erica. It's incomprehensible. And here is the problem too. Rittenhouse, even if these individuals who were shot were involved in rioting and looting, the evidence, what we hear to date, is that he didn't know that, he didn't have that information when he pulled the trigger and shot these three individuals, killing two. So, his state of mind is what's on trial. And the fact that he didn't know that they were involved in this activity makes that -- in my opinion, makes that evidence irrelevant.

And talk about loaded terms. To call someone a rioter or a looter is a pejorative term that suggests that they deserve what they got, they deserve to be shot and even deserved to die. So, really incomprehensible decision by this judge.

SCIUTTO: A judge's words in a courtroom, his guidance, his or her guidance, is influential, can be influential on juries. I wonder, by your read, is the judge, in effect, assigning criminal culpability to the victims here?

MARTIN: Jim, he's definitely signaling something to these jurors. And in addition to not allowing them to be called victims, he also has allowed in this videotape showing the police giving water to people like Rittenhouse, suggesting, again, that they were there with the approval of the police. And the prosecutors fought really hard to keep that evidence out, because, again, that doesn't have anything to do with Rittenhouse's conduct on that day but definitely suggests that this judge is leaning towards supporting the defense that's being put forward for Rittenhouse. And that's very sad, given that this all erupted because Jacob Blake was shot by police. And those police haven't been held accountable but yet Rittenhouse seems to be getting some pretty favorable treatment so far.

HILL: Again, it's hard to wrap your head around. Is there recourse, or this is the judge you're stuck with, this is what you got?

MARTIN: Yes, Erica. That recourse would come on appeal if there is not conviction in this case.

[10:55:03]

Prosecutors don't usually appeal, but, obviously, that's their only recourse at this point.

HILL: Areva Martin, I always good to have you with us. Also good to know that we're not totally off-base when we're wondering how the heck something like this could happen. Good to see you. Thank you.

MARTIN: Thank you, Erica. Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Thanks so much to all of you for joining us today. I'm Jim Sciutto.

HILL: And I'm Erica hill.

At This Hour with Kate Bolduan starts right here after a quick break.

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[11:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN AT THIS HOUR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Here is what we're watching At This Hour.

Authorities in New Mexico will brief for the first time since the movie set shooting.