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Former Twitter Executive Turns Whistleblower On Security Vulnerabilities; FL Democrats Decide Today Who Will Face DeSantis In November; NASA's Artemis I Moon Mission Is A Go For Aug 29; Webb Telescope Captures Stunning Images Of Jupiter; New Home Sales Fell In July As Rising Prices Take A Toll; Biden To Make Student Loan Relief Announcement Tomorrow. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 23, 2022 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, that, again, another very concerning point. And we don't have additional details beyond what Zatko claims when it comes to that individual or individuals, but it may come to light.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: David, obviously, Twitter is painting Mudge, AKA Zatko, as a disgruntled fired employee. What is his reputation?

DAVID KENNEDY, CEO, TRUSTEDSEC & FORMER HACKER, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY: So, Mudge is probably one of the most highly decorated cybersecurity professionals in the industry. He's one of the folks that paved the way for what we identify as cybersecurity.

His entire career has always been dedicated to making the world a safer place, helping organizations. I mean, he's run security programs for Google, Department of Defense, DARPA.

He's one of the most-decorated people in our industry and probably one of our biggest celebrities. He's kind of like the Keanu Reeves of the cybersecurity industry.

His ethics have been unquestioned for over 30, 40 years. He's one of the first to testify in front of Congress around cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

He's extremely decorated. There's never been a character question within him.

And you look at this disclosure, it's right in line with this personality around always trying to do the right thing and exposing things that aren't right. And it looks like he's doing that in this case as well.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: David, you mentioned his testimony. We saw some video from a testimony couple decades ago.

After the Frances Haugen testimony last fall, there were all these commitments to get to the bottom of it and regulate, and then nothing happened. We have Senator Blumenthal asking the FTC to investigate as well.

What can Congress do? And what's your degree of optimism that they will do anything?

KENNEDY: Well, I think this definitely puts a fire under social media in general, not just Twitter. It's been a heated, contested debate around free speech and open debate and communication and whether these fall under telecommunication-type organizations.

This is just another laundry list of issues. Twitter talked about they've increased their security. They had a major data breach as early as July with over 5.4 million accounts that were potentially compromised with users' personal data stolen.

And then we see the negligence here around removing vulnerabilities and security issues so it makes a company appear more secure.

I think there needs to be more oversight in companies, especially around how critical of a role they play in our society today.

Communication isn't happening just with one person in front of each other. We're communicating over TV. We're communicating over digital formats.

It's one of the most important things that we have today in our society. And I think it's only going to get more complex. I think there needs to be a look at what we're actually doing here.

BLACKWELL: All right, David Kennedy, Donie O'Sullivan, thank you both.

CAMEROTA: OK, so, who will Democrats nominate to run against Ron DeSantis? That's what voters in Florida decide today. We'll look at the candidates and the biggest issues for voters next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:23]

BLACKWELL: All right, there's some crucial midterm elections today. Key races are in New York and Florida, also in Oklahoma.

CAMEROTA: So, in Florida, voters will decide which Democratic candidate will challenge Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in November.

CNN's Leyla Santiago joins us live from St. Petersburg, Florida.

Leyla, who are the candidates who want to challenge DeSantis?

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right, so, two big names here, Victor and Alisyn. You've got Charlie Crist, a former governor, once a Republican governor.

And then you have Nikki Freed, the Florida agricultural commissioner, who will be quick to point out that she's the only statewide elected Democrat in office right now. Both of those individuals are trying to make the case, trying to

convince voters that they can take on the other big name that's not even on the ballot, but you mentioned him, Governor Ron DeSantis, come the general election in November.

So, what are they doing to make that case? Well, they're actually pointing to a lot of culture wars here, things that we've seen in the last few years in Florida.

Things like abortion. That's a quick topic to come up. Things like education, things like climate. I actually spoke to several voters that just voted here, and they were talking about that being another issue.

So, a lot of things that have really divided Florida voters over the last several years.

But I've also got to point out, you know, among the voters that I spoke to here at this polling place, one of the things that came up repeatedly was that they voted for Crist because of the name recognition. Not surprising. He grew up in this area.

But when you ask folks, what sort of chance do you think that they have to beat Governor DeSantis in Florida, in November, a state where there are more active registered Republicans than Democrats, I spoke to Democrats and Republicans here who say that is going to be a hard fight.

Because Governor DeSantis is waiting for that general election with about $135 million ready to spend on it -- Alisyn and Victor?

CAMEROTA: OK, Leyla Santiago, thank you for all the background.

BLACKWELL: All systems go. I was going to go with, to infinity and beyond but --

CAMEROTA: You went with, all systems go.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

Almost 50 years after the last mission to the moon, NASA is taking its first giant leap back.

CAMEROTA: And ever wonder what a black hole sounds like?

BLACKWELL: Oh, so many answers to that.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: I have the right one.

(LAUGHTER)

[14:39:50]

CAMEROTA: And you're about to hear for yourself next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: NASA's next trip to the moon just got the official thumbs up. The Artemis I mission will attempt its first launch next Monday.

BLACKWELL: It's an unmanned rocket. It will carry a new protective vest to determine whether people could spend more time in space.

And NASA hopes to send the first woman and first person of color to the moon by 2025.

Adam Frank is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester and the author of "Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth."

[14:45:03]

There's a lot in that book.

Professor Frank, always good to see you.

Your notes to our producers about this mission had three exclamation points. How excited are you?

ADAM FRANK, PROFESSOR OF ASTROPHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER & AUTHOR: As I said in those notes, finally, right? It's been almost 50 years since we had anybody get beyond low-earth orbit, which is basically like, you know, our porch, right? We haven't even been able to get anybody across the street, space-wise.

So, this mission is the beginning of really what will be the real leap, the giant leap for humanity, which is basically to get a base, a moon base eventually, which, you know, your kids or grandkids can visit in a few decades.

CAMEROTA: But what does that mean, professor? If we have a moon base where our grandkids are going, then what? Where are they going to from there?

FRANK: Well, the whole solar system. I mean, what's remarkable is, 50 years ago, we finally managed to make this step that people had dreamed about for, like, thousands of years.

We got to the moon. And then we're, like, oh, we don't want to do that anymore. When instead, we should have put down some kind of permanent -- built a base that could be like a gas station, if you think about it, or a weigh station to get to Mars, to get to Venus, to get to the -- to get to Jupiter.

So, really, both the exploration of space and the commercial utilization of space really requires us having a permanent settlement that's outside of the deep gravity well of the earth.

So, this is really the first step in getting that to go.

BLACKWELL: Speaking of Jupiter, the James Webb Telescope is really showing off. These new pictures of Jupiter -- and this is, I mean, beautiful. Oranges, yellows and blues and purples. What do you see here?

FRANK: Yes, I see -- one of the first things I recognized is about 400 years ago, the first time anybody had seen Jupiter through a telescope, was Galileo. And his telescope was about the size of a cucumber slice, the width. And now we have a telescope in space that's the size of large truck.

We're getting views of a nearby gas giant planet that are just stunning. What I particularly like are the aurora. You can see at the top, at the North and South Poles.

You can see this glow, which is the same kind of thing you can see if you ever see the northern lights. But in this case, it's Jupiter's magnetic field. And Jupiter's magnetic field is 20,000 times more powerful and reaches deep, deep into space.

So you're seeing, like, really powerful, really violent processes happening with a kind of detail as if you had like a super high- resolution camera.

CAMEROTA: That's very cool. That's something cool to look at.

Now, help us understand this cool thing to listen to. This is the sound of a black hole.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(ROARING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I mean, what do you hear there, Professor?

FRANK: I hear the video that the space horror video game I played, like, a few years ago. It's pretty ominous, isn't it? It's a pretty amazing sound.

What you're really hearing there's sound waves that are being driven into the gas surrounding the black hole due to extraordinary violent processes happening around the black hole.

And what's really cool here is this is science allowing you to hear something that would be inaudible to you.

So, what these are -- you've got very hot gas around this galaxy. And then that hot gas emits x-rays, and those x-rays can get to us and we can see with another great telescope.

And then you can decode that and hear the sound of this violent ringing of the gas as energy gets pumped into it from the black hole.

So it's like with the microphone. When you talk into a microphone, it turns your voice into electromagnetic waves. And then your radio turns it back into sound. But here, you're seeing -- you're hearing the voice of a super massive black hole that's billions of times larger than the sun or more massive than the sun.

CAMEROTA: It's all so mind blowing.

Professor Adam Frank, thank you very much for explaining it to us.

BLACKWELL: Thank you, Professor.

FRANK: You're welcome.

[14:49:32]

BLACKWELL: New home sales fell sharply last month in a sign rising prices are taking a toll on the market. What this signals for the broader economy. We'll get into it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: New home sales fell sharply in July for the second month in a row. And sales of newly constructed houses were down nearly 30 percent compared to one year ago.

CAMEROTA: CNN business reporter, Matt Egan, joins us now.

Matt, what's going on with home prices?

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Well, the housing market was on fire for 2020 and 2021. It is ice-cold right now. New home sales slowing down to the weakest pace than we have seen in six years. Down in July by 30 percent from the same place a year ago. And the inventory of new homes has gone up.

What's interesting, though, is that prices continue to rise. The median new home sold for just under $440,000 in July. That's up 8 percent from a year ago. But the pace of gains has actually slowed down. And that's significant.

So why is this happening? Right? It's this one-two punch of higher borrowing costs, right, mortgage rates have gone up, and unsustainably high home prices.

People still need homes. They just can't afford them at these prices and with these mortgage rates.

[14:55:00]

BLACKWELL: We are expecting the president to make an announcement on student borrowing and some forgiveness tomorrow. What do you know? And we know there are some economists who think this whole thing is a bad idea.

EGAN: This is a controversial topic. Because we know so many people are struggling with a lot of student debt right now. It has a real impact. I mean, some people haven't been able to move out from their parents'

house because they have these high student loan payments or to buy their own home or start a family. The president is under a lot of pressure to do something here.

Now, our colleagues, M.J. Lee and Phil Mattingly, they're reporting that the White House is leaning towards cancelling up to $10,000 in student debt per borrower. That is for borrowers who make less than $125,000 a year.

There has been push back here. One, because it would be expensive, right? There's some estimates that such a plan could cost $250 billion.

And that would eat into much of the deficit reduction from the just past passed Inflation Reduction Act. Their concern is this could potentially be inflationary. There's some debate over how much it would add to inflation.

But Larry Summers came out strongly on this. He said yesterday that, quote, "Student debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation. It consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have a chance to attend college."

He points out that it could be inflationary by raising tuition.

So I think that brings up a good point. Because none of this actually gets to the underlying problem, which is that college is just really expensive.

If you have a kid now, you pretty much have to start saving for college as soon as they're born, if you're fortunate enough to be able to put that money aside. That is something that doesn't get at this plan.

CAMEROTA: Yes. It's hard to imagine tuition going any higher if that would be the outcome of something.

Matt, thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: Thanks, Matt.

We're following some breaking news. The prosecutors have decided not to pursue charges in the police killing of a black man outside a Wendy's in Atlanta. We'll have more on the announcement. That's coming up next.

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