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Nicole Weakens To Tropical Storm After Striking Florida Coast; CEO Zuckerberg: Meta Will Lay Off 11,000 Employees; Report: Musk Email To Twitter Staff Alerts "Difficult Times Ahead"; Control Of Congress Undecided As Key States Count Votes; Republicans Point Fingers After "Red Wave" Fails To Materialize; Russia's Withdrawal From Half Of Kherson Both Humiliating, Unsurprising. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 10, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:12]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Tropical Storm Nicole weakening right now after slamming into Florida's East Coast early this morning as a Category 1 hurricane. Still though turning up plenty of storm surge hitting the state with those heavy rains and powerful wind gusts.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Leyla Santiago she is now in New Smyrna Beach, Florida this hour. Leyla, people there still recovering sadly from Ian a few weeks ago. I wonder what you're seeing there now.

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. When we last checked in with you last hour, we were over in Titusville. Now we've moved further north to continue assessing the damage which is what officials are going to be doing all day today. So let's take a walk and show you exactly what it looks like here in New Smyrna Beach as part of Volusia County.

You can see how the water continues to rise which earlier today, emergency officials had said we -- they were really concerned about high tide and what was coming in in terms of the water here. And let's paint over and show you part of the reason why that's such a concern. The flooding that all of the officials warned about are now being -- is now really starting to add up and I can see it more as expected.

Now as you mentioned, Jim, this is an area -- I know we focused a lot on the southwestern part of Florida when Hurricane Ian sort of decimated the state but this is an area that also had quite a bit of flooding. So it was already vulnerable from what happened six weeks ago until Nicole. So, now we have more rain, more water, more winds, wind gusts.

I mean just take a look at this tree right above, you can see but this is far from over the wind gusts still coming in as the back end of Nicole makes this way through where we are right now. So as I mentioned, this is Volusia County.

The other major concern here especially in Volusia County, coastal erosion. I mean, take a look at some of the images that we have from homes and structures that were deemed unsafe directly correlated to coastal erosion, homes that are just teetering right there on the edge and in danger of going in. So they are dealing with power outages as well across this state before the storm hit.

They had 1600 linemen on standby ready to go. But the big portion of the storm right now, what's impacting people where we are right now is the potential power outages, the flooding as well as the coastal erosion.

SCIUTTO: Leyla Santiago, good to have you there. Please keep yourself and your team safe.

HILL: Facebook's parent company Meta says it will now layoff 11,000 employees. That's the most significant job cuts we've seen in the tech giant's history. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news in a blog post, it comes less than a week of course after Twitter drastically reduced its workforce by half.

So how could these troubles in the tech arena, potentially signal other concern? Sara Fischer joins us now, she's a Media Reporter with Axios and a CNN Media Analyst. We should point out its Facebook, its Twitter, but we also have Amazon, Lyft, Apple. I have to say parts of this bring me back to, I was a young reporter in San Francisco during dot-com boom, and then the bust and we remember the ripple effect that that had on the economy. Is there more to come specifically in the tech sector and media companies?

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, well, I think it's going to have that same kind of ripple effect. And for the main reason that the tech sector was lifting up the S&P 500, it was lifting up the markets. And so when you start to see these mass layoffs, mass cost cutting measures, it should be sending a big signal about where we are in the economy.

But, of course, Meta is the latest of a string of tech giants that have announced measures. I don't think we're going to see many other major layoffs announced. However, we don't know where the economy's going.

HILL: Right.

FISCHER: If we hit a recession, it could get worse.

HILL: Then all bets are off at that point. When we look specifically at Twitter, I mean, I would say it's every day something new but it feels like multiple times a day there's something new. But this new Bloomberg report that Elon Musk sent out the very first email he has sent to his employees saying there's no sugarcoating this, the economic outlook isn't good. They should prepare for difficult times ahead.

Says he's ending remote work, prioritizing bot suspension, I have to say what struck me about this is, this is the first email he sent to his employee.

FISCHER: Yes. HILL: His messaging has been terrible. I think if we're being kind, the way that you garner, right, there are concerns about morale, the way you garner trust of your employees and loyalty, especially in a difficult time, just talk to them.

FISCHER: Absolutely, and he's been talking to everyone else.

HILL: Right.

FISCHER: He's been talking to advertisers in the advertising community. He has been talking to different stakeholders publicly on Twitter. So it's not like the employees don't see that he's out there talking to other constituents. He's not talking to them.

Now, that email that you mentioned was really interesting to me because it was a little bit contradictory. On one hand, he says we need to go all in on subscriptions because advertising revenue is not going to be enough to get us over this potential recession hump. But on the other hand he's saying, well, we still need advertising, so I still need to be courting these advertisers and we still need to do more there on product.

[10:35:06]

The question becomes, is Elon Musk going to get in his own way? You might try to innovate as much product as you want. But if you're tweeting misinformation about Paul Pelosi's attack, advertisers don't want to be around that.

HILL: Well, and we saw that, right? He has been reaching out to advertisers. We've learned this new blue check verification is not going so well, as you can see, just by looking at the platform. There are plenty of theories out there. Number one being, he has no idea what he's doing and doesn't understand how the company runs. Number two being maybe he wants to run it into the ground. I think if we just pull back that 30,000-foot view, is it also just sadly that we're watching the demise of this company?

FISCHER: No, I don't think it's the demise of the company. I think that Elon Musk is a product guy, not a policy guy. And so when he comes in, he wants to move fast and break things like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He wants to lay off people, bring his own people in and experiment with products in real time.

And by the way, that's how you innovate fast. So to give him credit. The challenge though, is that Twitter is not hardware company. Twitter is a software company. And if you're going to move fast and break things, the ripple effect, the repercussion is felt instantly and in real time.

HILL: Right.

FISCHER: And so oftentimes, we're seeing these weird verification updates have backlashes. You know, people are signing up to be verified, who are spoof accounts. And it's happening so fast and their policies, their enforcement is not moving quick enough to catch up to it.

HILL: Right.

FISCHER: That's Elon Musk's greatest flaw, but I'm trying to remain hopeful and bullish for Twitter because it's such an important, you know, Townsquare -- public Townsquare not just for us in the U.S. but around the world.

HILL: Yes. Great to see you. Thank you, Sara.

FISCHER: Good to see you.

SCIUTTO: All right, control of the U.S. Senate still up for grabs in a critical race in Arizona still close to call. An update on the latest numbers in that state coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:41:26]

SCIUTTO: Right now in the state of Arizona, CNN estimates some 600,000 votes remain to be counted as the state's Senate and gubernatorial races remained still too close to call. Incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly does have the edge over his GOP challenger Blake Masters by, at this point, roughly 95,000 votes.

HILL: Democrat Katie Hobbs locked in a neck-and-neck battle for governor with Trump ally Kari Lake. Hobbs is currently leading by around 13,000 votes.

Joining me now to talk all things election and what's next, CNN National Political Reporter Maeve Reston and CNN Political Analyst Rachael Bade, co-author of Politico's Playbook. Nice to see you both. Rachel, welcome back from maternity leave.

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

HILL: So as we look at where we're at this morning, I think it's fascinating. I'm here in New York State. When you look at the fact that four seats, Rachael, were flipped in New York, the Times -- New York Times headline, if Democrats lose the House, they may have New York to blame. Rachael it's not just about redistricting. What is the takeaway from these New York House seats?

BADE: Yes, I mean, look, Democrats are furious right now at leaders in New York right now, specifically, this judge who sort of overruled this map they had originally carved out in New York. Originally, Democrats were looking to use the redistricting process there to pick up multiple Republican seats, thinking we could actually use it as a place to help them stave off a huge Republican wave.

Well, the seats that they carved up, were struck down by a court, as you know, who said it was too overly partisan and put in place a map that was, frankly, terrible for Democrats. And so, there's a lot of sort of finger pointing out there in New York right now, because had things gone differently. Even Republicans are saying that Democrats could have likely kept the House.

You saw Elise Stefanik saying that New York is the reason Republicans are going to flip the House and, you know, Democrats agree right now and it's causing a lot of internal turmoil.

HILL: That will be part of their internal soul searching, I guess, as they move forward. I was also fascinated, Maeve, you spent a lot of time in Arizona, a lot of time in Nevada, speaking to voters, but specifically talking to women, talking to independents. What was most important to them?

MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, it was, far and away, inflation, Erica. But it's interesting that the gubernatorial race that we're watching so closely, the Kari Lake, Katie Hobbs race is still looking so close. Because what it suggests is that those pushes in the end to get Democratic voters to turn out on the issue of abortion, for example, and on the democracy argument after, you know, Kari Lake had made so many statements echoing President Trump's lies about the 2020 election, that that may really be playing a role here in the end, in helping to keep this race really close.

And of course, there are all of those independents in Arizona who constantly swing elections. Kyrsten Sinema, John McCain, are all great examples of folks who really went after those voters. And so, so right now, we're just trying to see what's going to happen. I mean, obviously, there are still so many ballots outstanding in Maricopa County and it's hard to know exactly what the party breakdown is on those.

If you remember from 2020, things actually tightened up for Biden in the end as the counting went on. And so, we may end up seeing a lot of tickets splitters there, but it's just fascinating to watch.

[10:45:04]

HILL: Yes, it really is. You know, as we look at to where things are moving, as we wait for these final House races, I know that there is already -- the jockeying has already happening by Kevin McCarthy, right? He's trying to make sure that he's ready to go, that he has the votes for speaker.

I found it interesting this morning. Georgia's Lieutenant Governor Duncan said this morning on CNN this morning, that the Republicans have a window of opportunity here. But so the first 100 days really can't be about Trump's agenda, or basically his list of grievances, Rachael. But that could actually impact McCarthy's run for speaker.

BADE: Yes, look, because election night was such a disappointment for Republicans who are expecting a bigger margin, a bigger red wave, McCarthy is going to have a real hard time as speaker. I think, you know, a lot of insiders believe -- and I report this in Playbook this morning -- that he will eventually get the speaker's gavel.

But because of the thin margin, and the fact that they could only have, say, you know, half a dozen seats more than Democrats, he's going to be really held captive to the far-right wing of his party, to the sort of Trump acolytes who are going to try to lord their votes over his head.

There's currently discussion about running a candidate against him for speaker to try to get him to promise to put certain priorities on the floor and put people like these MAGA Republicans on powerful committee posts, to allow them to reinstate certain rules that basically would make sure that McCarthy listens to their every whim.

And so even if McCarthy has like a certain agenda that he wants to start with, I mean, he's talked about the border, he's talked about getting rid of this influx of IRS agents that Democrats had put in place to try to crack down on the tax gap. If he wants to focus on that, the problem is, he's going to really be choked around by these members who, because of the slim number of Republicans in this majority, are really going to have an outsized sway over what they do.

HILL: It'll be interesting to see what that jockeying looks like if, in fact, Republicans do take the House with a tight majority. We saw how publicly it played out between progressives and more moderate Democrats, Maeve. They could be watching the same thing between conservatives and more moderate Republicans there. Is the audit already starting from those who spoken to in the Democratic Party about lessons learned here that they're taking to 24?

RESTON: I mean, absolutely. You know, you're -- you look around the country, at some of these races, where Republicans made gains again, or took areas back in the suburbs that were so difficult for them during the Trump years. And of course, that was because of the economic climate, but also because of the arguments that Republicans made on crime. A lot of people as, as we've talked about many times, really don't feel safe right now.

And Democrats never really had a good response to that. I think that's definitely a huge issue, and what we saw in Democrats losing a lot of those New York House seats. So there's going to have to be a conversation about how to repair their image around those issues, and that's already starting right now.

HILL: Maeve Reston, Rachael Bade, nice to see both this morning. Thank you.

RESTON: Thank you.

BADE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Overseas now, the Russians in retreat from a key city, a major one in Ukraine. But one Ukrainian official is warning that Russia plans to turn that city, Kherson, into a quote, city of death. We're going to be live in Ukraine next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:53:21]

HILL: This morning, caution from Ukraine about Russia's announcement its withdrawing troops from Kherson. The Ukrainian military just liberated the town that lies on the main road to the Russian occupied Kherson. But as Russian forces pulled back to the Dnipro River, a senior Ukrainian official warns Russia wants to, quote, turned Kherson into a city of death.

SCIUTTO: In an exclusive interview with CNN, the Ukrainian President says he is now preparing for all possibilities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): So they're ready to defend this region. And they're not ready to leave the city. And the fact that they are in these homes means that they are seriously preparing. But we are also seriously prepared for these developments. But we're not considering this as just one single operation. We have a strategy and different directions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson is in Ukraine. Nic, big question, amid Russia's retrieved from Kherson, is this a big victory for Ukraine? It was, by the way, the biggest provincial city taken by Russia in the whole invasion.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's huge, it's significant, it's symbolic, it's a big blow to President Putin's prestige back home. It's a political liability for him. The Russian military are trying to spin this as a strategic withdrawal to save troops, men, and materiel but we know the sort of callous and calamitous way they've treated troops so far. So that's hard to buy.

Russian troops retreating have said it's because they couldn't resupply, get enough ammunition, get enough food and to keep them on that side of the river. But for Putin, this was a city, a capital city of a region that less than six weeks ago he declared part of Russia, illegally declared it part of Russia.

[10:55:12]

What we understand from Ukrainian officials today is they expect to have to fight to take Kherson. But in the space of just today, they've taken over 100 square miles, taking control of 12 villages at the moment. They're about 10 miles away from Kherson. And the evidence is that the Russians are withdrawing according to their military to a plan.

But it's not clear what happens when the Ukrainians get to Kherson city itself. Is it going to be mined (ph)? Is it going to be booby trapped? We know that the Russians are very heavily looted it, taken money from banks, taken equipment from hospitals, taken fire trucks from fire stations. So what will they find is unclear, but it does seem they are very much on the way to getting there, Jim.

SCIUTTO: No question. Nic Robertson, good to have you there. Please do stay safe.

HILL: Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm Erica Hill.

SCIUTTO: Always good to be with Erica. I'm Jim Sciutto. At This Hour with Kate Bolduan starts right after a quick break.

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