Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Elon Musk Lays Off Thousands of Twitter Employee Nationwide; FBI Identifies Source of Threat to New Jersey Synagogues; Power Outages Leave Kyiv Cloaked in Darkness, Residents on Edge; Paul Pelosi Released From Hospital Nearly One Week After Attack. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired November 04, 2022 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Thousands of Twitter employees were laid off today and the news of the termination came in an email. One former worker says they were remotely logged off of their computers at work.
BRIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: CNN's Donie O'Sullivan joins us now. So, Donie, we're one week in to a new CEO, Elon Musk in office. What is going on there?
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, one week and he's let half of the company go. Thousands of Twitter employees overnight learned that they were fired. They learned this to their personal email accounts, because their work email accounts had already been turned off.
Now look, the timing of this right before the midterm elections, if you think back to 2020, on election day, election week, there was all of these tweets, all of these viral videos that kept alleging to show voter fraud, voter fraud, voter fraud. Most of them, once they were fact-checked, once we looked into them, all proved to be bogus. And Twitter, at the time, was trying to fight us. But today we learn that Twitter has crushed most -- many of the people they have at the company fighting misinformation. And just a few minutes ago, I spoke to Jason Goldman who is on the founding -- he's a founding team member at Twitter and a former executive. And here's what he had to say about some of the concerns.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON GOLDMAN, FORMER TWITTER EXECUTIVE: You see tools like Twitter being used by powerful influencers to spread disinformation and to question the integrity of elections and to in general threaten the faith that people have that democracy is working as intended.
[15:35:00]
And so, I think rightly post-2016, Twitter started playing a much more active role. The problem is, is that Elon seems to be fairly contemptuous of that role. And a lot of his free speech protestations are really about protecting free speech, it's really more about trying to put his thumb on the scale for a particular type of political preference that he and some of his cohorts have. And I think that's -- I think that is dangerous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'SULLIVAN: Yes, I think it's going to be a really, really big issue next week. I mean, we already know there's people lining, right, up to claim fraud in all of these different states. Twitter -- I mean they didn't -- haven't always done a great job with fighting any of this stuff in the past. But now they've really just -- just let most of the teams go. I was speaking to some people who are still in there today and they're very worried.
BLACKWELL: Yes, I mean to do it today when a week after this, you know, we'll be on the other side of the election, why today? Why now?
O'SULLIVAN: Elon Musk, he's unpredictable.
BLACKWELL: That's the end of the answer, I guess. Elon Musk.
GOLODRYGA: I do wonder what Jack Dorsey must be thinking about all of this. The former CEO and one of the founders. I mean, he's the one who really supported Elon Musk taking over the company. Is this what he wanted?
O'SULLIVAN: He's been very quiet.
BLACKWELL: Donie, thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Well, the FBI and New Jersey's governor say they've discovered the source of a broad threat to local synagogues and the community is no longer in danger now.
BLACKWELL: Investigators tell CNN The antisemitic comments were posted in an online forum frequented by extremists. CNN national correspondent Brynn Gingras is here with the update. The comments were traced to one person.
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, sources are telling CNN they found this individual. They actually spoke to this person who essentially said, you know, they don't like Jewish people. They weren't going to do anything, but they're angry, and, of course, that's alarming. Now it's unclear if this person is going to face any charges.
But what happened here, is that they posted on this extremist, you know, website -- extremist views on the website which is a form where extremists use are posts and it set off this five-alarm fire. Especially because it made it seem as if this had already happened -- this attack had already happened. Which of course we can bring so many instances, right, in our past where we've known about certain instances on these forums and they haven't happened yet and we always saying, why didn't you listen to the red flags, you know. So, that's why the five-alarm fire went off with the FBI.
But there is no longer a threat. It's good that, of course, the law enforcement were able to track this individual. The governor is saying this in a tweet, I want to read it to you. While the specific threat may be mitigated, we know this remains a
tense time for our Jewish communities who are facing a wave of antisemitic activity. We will not be indifferent. We will remain vigilant. We will take any and every threat with the utmost seriousness, and we will stand up and stand shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish congregations.
So, of course again, it's good that they were able to track this individual of course but also mitigate this for us and respond to it as quickly as they did.
GOLODRYGA: How do you fight every antisemite?
GINGRAS: Exactly.
GOLODRYGA: And just -- it's crazy in this time. It's just the difficult times right now Brynn Gingras, thank you.
BLACKWELL: Thank you, Brynn.
GOLODRYGA: Well, almost half a million households in Ukraine's capital city are living without power as Russia continues to bombard infrastructure. We'll have a live report from the ground up next.
[15:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Today, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, made an unannounced visitor to Kyiv. While there, he met with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and announced an another $400 million security assistance package. His visit comes as millions of Ukrainians are living without power.
BLACKWELL: Zelenskyy accuses the Kremlin of waging an energy terrorism on his country. CNN's Christiane Amanpour is also in Kyiv where residents are coping with rolling blackouts as winter approaches.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR (voice-over): Week four of Ukraine's new struggle against the cold and the dark. Rolling blackouts blanket Kyiv, nighttime is spooky and we are entering this high-rise apartment complex to see how the residents are coping with Russia's constant attacks on key infrastructure.
Up to the 12th floor, no lights in the stairwell but our cameras and no elevator. Julia Mendel meets us hobbling down on crutches and the foot she fractured by tripping over the steps the first night of the blackouts.
JULIA MENDEL, JOURNALIST: Hi.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): She's a journalist and a former press secretary to President Zelenskyy. Together we visit her neighbor Natalia with her 18-month-old daughter Leana, just one of a whole generation of war-traumatized Kyiv kids. Specially with the constant air raid sirens.
AMANPOUR: Is she stressed?
NATALIA HORBAN, KYIV RESIDENT: She's, like, oh, oh. She's pointing to the window so that she knows that something goes wrong.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): The two of them are recovering from a two-hour ordeal, trapped in their tiny elevator when the power went out. Now, all over Kyiv, residents are putting small care boxes inside with water, snacks and antianxiety medicines. By the time we sat down to talk, the power popped back on again after nine hours on this day.
AMANPOUR: Do you feel demoralized? Do you feel like, OK, all right, enough already, it's time to surrender and negotiate.
MENDEL: No way. Look, we have passed through the hardships of the '90s and we didn't have light, water, heating and everything for hours and hours every day.
[15:45:00]
And that then was desperate because we didn't -- we knew it was about poverty. Now it's about war and we know that we must win.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Winning this phase of the war comes with weapons like these to charge phones and any other emergency equipment.
HORBAN: It's the most important thing here to have in Ukraine. It's a power bank. Without it, you don't have any connection and it's the most important now to know that your relatives are OK.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): They tell us generators are almost all sold out and super expensive now as well as candles, torches and head lamps. Natalia has improvised light from a water bottle and her iPhone. Downtown it's dire for businesses too. Every beauty salon operates on hair dryers for that blowout and of course, water to wash out the shampoo and the dye. Olanna is taking her chances today.
OLANNA (through translator): After they finished dyeing it, I might have to go home to dry it. But it's fine.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Just one floor here has power and the others are dark. Before the war, Hairhouse had 150 clients a day. Now it's more like 50. And the salon has lost 60 percent of its revenue. But as Dmitry, the commercial manager, tells me, they keep calm and carry on.
DMITRY MEDVEDEV, COMMERCIAL MANAGER HAIRHOUSE: I believe that we should work even without light. Even without electricity. We should help our army, we should help our people and we will do our job until the end. And we believe that sooner or later, the lights will come.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Like so many civilians they say enduring these hardships on the home front is part of their war effort, supporting their troops on the front lines who are fighting to keep Ukraine independent, fighting for their homeland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR (on camera): And, of course, you can see there that their spirits have not been dented despite this attack on the civilians and the U.S. announcement of those hundreds of millions of dollars of new aid include sophisticated air defense systems, refurbished tanks and those air defense systems, of course, needed to top the cruise missiles, the kamikaze drones that are attacking the energy infrastructure. Back to you, Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: Christiane, thank you. And I just -- I can't get over the resilience of these people. You know, I don't know what Putin is more frustrated with, how poorly his army is performing or the fact that they can't crack --
BLACKWELL: The Ukrainian resolved.
GOLODRYGA: Right, right. Their resolve. Our thanks to Christiane.
BLACKWELL: Moments ago, President Biden spoke about today's better than expected jobs report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We also know folks are still struggling with inflation. It's our number one priority. That's why with Mike's help and Scott's help I signed the Inflation Reduction Act, to bring down the cost of everyday things and we talk about around the kitchen table.
My dad used to say, everybody needs a little -- just a little breathing room. I come from a family like many of you do, good family, middle class family. We weren't poor. My dad, we lived in a three- bedroom split level home in a development, four kids and a grandpa. Thin walls from my grandparents and parents. All kidding aside --
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: All right, so that was the wrong sound bite. But the president did comment on the 261,000 jobs in -- created in October. He said that there is, though, more work to do.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, it's a delicate dance the administration has to be touting what they see as positive reports like these but understand how people are feeling at home.
BLACKWELL: Certainly.
All right, the leader of the Oath Keepers took the stand today in the seditious conspiracy trial tied to the insurrection. What we learned about the extremist group's efforts to keep Trump in power. That's ahead.
[15:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Key hearing dates are now set for the man charged with attacking Paul Pelosi.
BLACKWELL: David DePape waived his appearance in San Francisco Superior Court today. A status hearing is that for later this month and a preliminary hearing is set for December 14. DePape is charged with six counts and is being held without bail. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says her husband was released from the hospital yesterday. She says her husband remains under doctor's care as he continues to progress.
Well, the top ten CNN heroes of 2022 have been announced, one of whom will be named the CNN hero of the year by you, our viewers. You have five weeks to cast your vote.
BLACKWELL: One of the heroes, Theresa Gray. She's tackling the growing refugee caused by Russia's war on Ukraine. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THERESA GRAY, MOBILE MEDICS INTERNATIONAL (voice-over): What we were expecting to see was large groups of people housed in tent cities and actually they are housing these refugees in individual dorm rooms. They've got food, they've got shelter. But the trauma is the same. They've lost almost everything. This is filled with women, children and elderly.
There is a flu outbreak currently that obviously affects the children. We also have pre-existing conditions. It isn't just about fixing the broken arm or giving you medicine, it's making that human connection. Sometimes you need to hold their hand and walk them down a hallway and listen to them. We try to meet the needs of whatever presents to us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smile, everybody.
GRAY (voice-over): Human suffering has no borders. People are people and love is love.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[15:55:00]
GOLODRYGA: So hard to just pick one. It's incredible work they're doing. For more information about Theresa's work, go to CNNheros.com right now. And while you are there, make sure to vote for CNN hero of the year and you can vote up to ten times a day every day.
BLACKWELL: Always good work. Always an inspiring show.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, it is.
BLACKWELL: All right, "THE LEAD" starts after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
