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U.S. Launches Evacuation Of Diplomatic Staff And Families From Sudan; More Than 400 Killed And Thousands Injured In Sudan Fighting; Lawsuit Filed After Mississippi Governor Signs Legislation Expanding State Control; 2024 Presidential Race Heats Up; DeSantis Takes Thinly Veiled Swipe At Trump; Blue Checkmarks Back For Some Of Twitter's Most Followed Accounts; Investors Still Focused On Fed's Inflation Battle. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired April 23, 2023 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:42]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are back live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

U.S. diplomatic personnel and their families are now safely out of Sudan as the African nation descends into increasing violence. They were airlifted to neighboring Djibouti in a dramatic overnight evacuation. About 100 U.S. special operations forces carried out the daring mission. Today, the U.S. embassy in Khartoum is closed and the decision to evacuate personnel comes after a week of heavy fighting between Sudan's military and a rival paramilitary group.

More than 400 people have been killed, including one American. The State Department says there are about 16,000, potentially as many as 19,000 Americans in Sudan. Most, though, are dual nationals.

And our correspondents are well-positioned here and overseas to bring you all of the angles of this developing story. Let's go to CNN's Sam Kiley live from Djibouti. He's going to be there in just a moment. Let's begin with CNN's Oren Liebermann. He's over at the Pentagon.

Oren, you know, this really could have gone sideways. So many different variables, obviously happening right in the middle of these two rival factions fighting with one another, the army and the RSF. How complicated was this? Did it get complicated for U.S. special forces going in there and extricating these Americans?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It was complicated from the very beginning, precisely because of the situation we're talking about here. Two warring factions fighting each other on the streets of Sudan in the city of Khartoum, potentially very close to the U.S. embassy there. And of course you're never conducting an evacuation operation in optimal circumstances. So the U.S. and that includes the Department of State, DOD, as well as the White House were monitoring the situation, waiting to see if there was a ceasefire that would hold for long enough.

There was a 72-hour ceasefire over the Eid Al-Fitr holiday this weekend that both sides had committed themselves to, but there were violations of that ceasefire and a broad question about whether it could collapse as this hours long operation took place.

Take a look at that map there. They had to get, and this is three chinook helicopters from Djibouti across Ethiopia in the Sudan safely land in Khartoum on the ground for less than an hour load up the diplomatic staff, the family members, and a few other nationals, less than 100, but a significant number. And then get everybody out. And that includes, of course, the 100 troops, special operations forces who were part of this back the way they came, a refueling stop in Ethiopia and all the way back out.

So at any point along this route, the ceasefire could have fallen apart even more. The fighting could have gotten worse. There could have been all sorts of technical issues, but the operation went off I don't want to say without a hitch, but President Joe Biden made the decision to go ahead with this operation, and it was executed well, and we got news late last night of the safe evacuation of the embassy.

Of course, it is still a complicated situation because, as you pointed out, there are still 16,000, or perhaps even more American citizens there, many of them dual nationals, so Sudanese American. We have learned from the State Department that they informed some of those about evacuation convoys being arranged by the United Arab Emirates and by Turkey. There are other options, although none of those are simple at this point.

DOD is considering trying to set up some sort of aerial surveillance above some of those routes, which would either lead west to Port Sudan to try to get out by the water or try to cross some of the land borders as well as also considering trying to set up some sort of deconfliction mechanism to assist U.S. citizens who are trying to get out of the country. None of this is easy and that includes the operation to evacuate.

But, Jim, as we know that operation carried out and the embassy staff and their family evacuated safely.

ACOSTA: Oren Liebermann, thank you very much.

And joining me now to talk about this is Justin Lynch. He's a researcher and analyst here in Washington. He's co-author of the book "Sudan's Unfinished Democracy: The Promise and Betrayal of a People's Revolution."

Justin, thanks for being here. You were just telling me a few moments ago before we got going here that you've been in contact with people in country, in Sudan right now. What can you tell us about how they're doing, how they're coping with, what is obviously a very chaotic situation to say the least?

JUSTIN LYNCH, AUTHOR AND RESEARCHER: Yes, I was just speaking with folks who I know who were, when I was in the green room, and I think it just breaks your heart. I mean, I have a friend whose sister is nine months pregnant. Somebody who I had hired, you know, she's trapped in her home. She can't figure out how to escape because they don't know how to get fuel, how to get to safety.

[19:05:04]

And so you have so many friends. So many contacts there, people who you've spent years with. And they're in a situation where they don't know how to escape and how to get to safety. What's happened over the past couple of days is there has been an announced ceasefire which has partially held. I think that the evacuation of diplomats and of some international individuals has partially been the reason why there hasn't been a lot of fighting. But we really fear that once a lot of the internationals have left, foreigners in Sudan, then the fighting will really ramp up, particularly in Khartoum.

What's been happening is that there's been an intense bombing campaign by the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces, the opposing side, they've been going house to house, really using homes as military installations, and it's, you know, it's just heartbreaking.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. And so it sounds like from what you're saying, Justin, is that these generals are essentially waiting for all of the foreign nationals to get out of the country before they can start going at each other. Is that essentially what is going on here, and I guess for our viewers at home who are wondering why does this matter to me, why does the fate of Sudan matter to all of us?

LYNCH: Yes, I think a lot of your viewers will probably be familiar with the war in Darfur that started in 2003.

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

LYNCH: So the Rapid Support Forces are really the evolution of the Janjaweed forces that committed most of those crimes. And so, you know, I think that what we're seeing today is really a continuation of that. And I think another reason why is because in 2019 there was a revolution in Sudan. That's what the book was about. And we knew that the path to revolution, it's never straightforward.

There's always ups and downs, and it was so inspiring to be in Khartoum in 2019, but you could tell immediately that this was not going to be a straightforward process. You could tell within the first couple of weeks that the protesters who had overthrown Omar al-Bashir that they were going to really have trouble implementing their government, and you've seen this with so many social movements throughout history, right?

They overthrow a dictator. They have this mass popular support, but they struggled to implement their ideals. And that's what we wrote in the book, and it was an inside story of how that happened.

ACOSTA: If this descends into all-out war, and it just goes on and on, what happens to the people of Sudan?

LYNCH: I mean, I think it's, you know, going to be a situation that, you know, we are facing a situation that is very similar to Yemen, very similar to Libya, particularly if the region gets involved, so the Sudanese armed forces are the traditional military and the Rapid Support Forces are kind of a paramilitary group based in Darfur. So the RSF are supported by the United Arab Emirates and the Sudanese armed forces are supported by Egypt.

And so what really could make this conflict much worse is if these two sides are supported by their external allies. We're starting to get reports that that's the case and we're hoping that those reports are wrong because that would really turn this into a real catastrophe, and it would be good for nobody in the region.

ACOSTA: Well, and sources tell CNN that Russia's Wagner Group has been supplying missiles to RSF to aid in their fight against Sudan's army. I mean, what kind of, I mean, what does that tell us, the implications of that? I mean, that means that the Russians want to get their fingers in this part of the world.

LYNCH: So I remember in 2019 during the revolution, I look like Russian, and so the RSF soldiers would speak to me in Russia and I will speak back in Russian because I know a bit of Russian. And the influence of the Russians are very significant with the RSF. I've spoken with a lot of commanders from the RSF and they say, yes, we have Russians in our bases. We have Russian military advisers. You would see Russians around the city. They're always kind of lost, to be honest. They didn't really know what they were doing and they didn't really seem to know either.

You know, but certainly Russia is a key player in this, but we shouldn't really I think overstate their influence because really Hemetti and the RSF, they're really using Russia to try and get as much money and gold, you know, well, really as much money as they can from the Russians. The Russians want gold. The Russians want minerals.

ACOSTA: That's what they want. Absolutely. All right. Well, something to keep our eyes on. I have a feeling you're going to be very busy lending your expertise on this in the coming days.

Justin Lynch, thanks very much for your time. We appreciate it.

Let's go back to Sam Kiley, who was in Djibouti for us.

Sam, we were trying to go to your earlier. Great to have you back with us. Give us the latest on what is going on with Djibouti's international airport struggling to keep up with the sudden increase. We were just getting some reports here just a few moments ago that Spain has been evacuating some of its folks out of the country. It almost sounds like they're queuing up there, lining up country by country to get their folks out.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, that's exactly the right description. When we landed here earlier on today here at Djibouti International Airport, it looked like a kind of multinational military gathering, almost a pageant, except for of course they were going to be planning then the rescue of their various nationals out of this major military hub, which, of course, has got a major U.S. base here.

[19:10:16]

So they were in the vanguard of the operations to rescue their people. The British, the French, the Germans have gone in. The Spanish as you say are going in. We saw the Spanish, well, some of the Spanish aircraft on the ground, or Canadian aircraft on the ground, Japanese and French, indeed, and of course American ospreys parked up that may be used in future operations because, of course, this is by no means over what we have seen and have been seeing in the last 24 hours or less than 24 hours, Jim, is the evacuation of embassy personnel particularly ambassadors but critical embassy personnel and their dependents.

But there are many thousands of other people. There are 16,000 or more Americans, many of them dual nationals still in Sudan. There are many hundreds of people from all over Europe and, of course across the Middle East, and your guest was mentioning there the role of the Emiratis and the Egyptians. Well, the Egyptians and the Emiratis have been trying to get and with some success in the case of the Egyptians, ground movements of effectively refugees of people wanting to be evacuated back to their home country.

So nearly 500 people have been evacuated over land by the Egyptians. The Emiratis have been trying to get road moves to Port Sudan going and Americans have been told they can join those convoys so long as they are prepared to take the risk and provide their own vehicles. And of course, vehicles are one thing, but then you've got to fuel them. You've got to get water. You've got to get food and that those essential items are in very, very short supply as Khartoum continues to be the scene, a very heavy fighting.

And one of the aspects of the fighting in Khartoum, which I think is very important to get across, is that it's in a series of different pockets. There isn't a clear frontline between one side and the other. They're all controlling various elements and bits of neighborhoods, so it's a deeply chaotic landscape. British forces had to travel 18 kilometers over land between a mustering point and where they evacuated from, for example. Very lucky that they didn't end up in some kind of firefight so far as we understand -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Lucky indeed. All right. Sam Kiley, thank you very much. Please stay safe in that region. Appreciate the reporting so much.

Coming up, the NAACP is suing Mississippi's governor alleging a state takeover of Jackson with new legislation that expands state control over the city's judicial system and policing. Why the civil rights organization felt this step was necessary. That's next. And later the terrifying scene over Ohio. Flames coming out of the engine of an American Airlines plane midair. That story is next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:16:58]

ACOSTA: New legislation signed by Mississippi's governor expands the state's law enforcement and judicial reach in the capital city of Jackson. The NAACP calls the action a state takeover of the city and has filed a lawsuit.

CNN's Isabel Rosales explains.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the heart of this controversial questions about racial justice and representation, the legislators who introduced these laws, these bills represent areas outside of Jackson. The state legislature is primarily Republican and white. But the city of Jackson is primarily Democratic and over 80 percent black.

Now supporters of this new bill -- of these new laws, they point to the crime rate in Jackson, which has seen a homicide rate per year that has doubled over the past 10 years, peaking in 2021. The murder rate 12 times the national average, making Jackson one of the deadliest cities in the U.S.

Let's dig a little deeper now into these new laws. Here's what you should know. They will allow the state of Mississippi to expand reach of state-controlled law enforcement to the entire city of Jackson. This is a force that has primarily protected the capital and the surrounding area and has not been engaged in city law enforcement. This force does not answer to local officials, but rather state appointed leadership.

There's also major changes coming to the judicial system, which will establish a new court within the boundaries of the new capital complex improvement district. The judge there will be appointed by the Republican state chief justice and the prosecuting attorneys will be appointed by the Republican state attorney general.

The NAACP filed an electronic lawsuit on Friday shortly after these bills were signed into law, and here's what they said. Lawmakers and Jackson residents have opposed both bills throughout the legislative session, citing outside attempts to increase policing without adequate training, silence dissent from Jackson residents and strip residents of their voting power to elect judges and district attorneys who serve their interests.

We also heard from Governor Tate Reeves before he signed those bills into law on Friday. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TATE REEVES (R), MISSISSIPPI: I want what's best for Jackson, but for us to continue to see young kids getting killed in the streets, for us to continue to see property crimes that are happening here, that are causing businesses to leave, we've got to make sure that we have law and order, and I don't think there's any doubt that if you talk to businesses, if you talk to the residents of Jackson capital police shows up when there's a crime being committed and they're called.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: CNN has reached out to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety and also to the governor's office to get an understanding of how they're going to implement these new laws. We have not heard back. Those laws go into effect July 1st -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Isabel Rosales, thanks for that.

Coming up, the race for 2024 is heating up. Biden to announce his bid for a second term this week.

[19:20:04]

DeSantis is heading overseas to test his presidential ambitions as other GOP hopefuls tackle abortion, and I will discuss it all, next. Alice and Maria are here live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Will it be deja vu all over again in the 2024 presidential election? President Joe Biden expected to announce he will run for a second term soon. We expect perhaps this Tuesday. Donald Trump has already announced on the Republican side of course. He's casting a large shadow over other GOP hopefuls.

Joining us now to talk about this, CNN political commentators Maria Cardona and Alice Stewart, co-hosts of the podcast "Hot Mics from Left to Right."

[19:25:07]

Maria, let's start with President Biden's big announcement expected on Wednesday. And by the way, we've just learned he's planning to make Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior White House adviser, the person who's overseeing his reelection campaign. She's the granddaughter of labor organizer Cesar Chavez. So that's very big news. But let me just throw this out there for you, Maria.

What about some of this latest polling that shows a majority of Democrats, we're talking about in the Democratic Party, want to see some fresh faces? They don't want to see Joe Biden -- caveat always being Joe Biden is used to this. He's used to this kind of stuff.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So let me start with my dear friend, Julie Chavez Rodriguez.

ACOSTA: I know you were going to do that. Yes.

CARDONA: It is historic.

ACOSTA: Yes.

CARDONA: The first time a Latina or Latino, Latinx has this historic title, campaign manager for a sitting president's reelection, and I am just -- I couldn't be more thrilled, more proud. This shows the hard work that she has proven for so many decades. There is no one better than her that knows the intersection of politics and grassroots outreach, campaigning, what it really means to have the pulse of the nation, and the communities at her fingertips. And being able to advise and guide and essentially manage the reelection campaign for the next president of the United States, so I am so thrilled and so proud and such a great, great day, and great news for the campaign.

On the numbers, look, you know this and you've alluded to it. Low poll numbers. People second guessing him, people having low expectations.

ACOSTA: He's been there before.

CARDONA: Exactly. People underestimating him. This is where this man eats dinner.

ACOSTA: Yes.

CARDONA: This is not new for him. He doesn't care about this. He's going to focus on his massive historic accomplishments in the first four years, the first term, the first two years as well. It's why Democrats did so well in the midterm elections, and this is going to be his focus moving forward.

ACOSTA: Alice, Donald Trump does not -- he has lots of problems, but this is not one of them. Let's get this. He's well ahead of his closest potential competitor Ron DeSantis and polling from the "Wall Street Journal" and NBC, we saw this poll coming out earlier today. He's way ahead of DeSantis. Another AP-NORC poll shows that 44 percent of Republicans don't want to see him run again. What do you think? What about these numbers?

I know you have made the case time and again there's going to be an anti-Trump candidate out there who's going to emerge in all of this, but these numbers make it pretty much tough sledding for these other candidates.

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. Looking right now at the stats you just put about the GOP primary, it's really clearly a two-man race at this point with Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, and while Donald Trump right now is in double digits ahead of DeSantis, DeSantis has not gotten into the race yet. He has not put out his strategy and the reason we know that this is a concern for Donald Trump, Donald Trump continues to go after DeSantis time and time again. And he only does that if he sees someone as a threat.

And look, DeSantis, the Florida governor, is smart. He is pushing back against Donald Trump and saying that we need to have more of a positive, optimistic vision for the future and pushing back on Donald Trump and all of the things that Donald Trump stands for in terms of election lies and conspiracy theorists. We're going to see a whole new ballgame once he gets into the race.

But, look, there's tremendous ambivalence across the board with Trump as well as Biden. We see the poll numbers show that nearly 70 percent of Americans, Republicans and Democrats, do not want Biden to run. Similar numbers they don't want Donald Trump to run, so what we're seeing is that most Americans do not want to see a sequel of Biden- Trump matchup in 2024. Sequels might be popular in the box office, but not so much at the ballot box. And so it will be interesting to see.

Obviously, Biden is the top of the ticket for the Democrats. It's not a foregone conclusion that Donald Trump is the GOP. ACOSTA: Sequels usually not as good as the original, too, is what a

lot of folks --

CARDONA: Exactly.

ACOSTA: Sometimes it happens. She brought up Ron DeSantis.

CARDONA: Yes.

ACOSTA: Let's watch, he still hasn't announced but he's sure acting like he's running. He took this thinly veiled swipe at Trump at an event in Utah yesterday. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: Republicans need to shake the culture of losing that has developed in recent years. The time for excuses is over. We must get it done. If we as Republicans provide a fresh vision for American revival then Republicans will win all across the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: He's heading overseas this week. He's facing issues at home with donors, activists, Florida lawmakers in D.C.

[19:30:00]

We've seen Florida Republicans already announce that they're going to go for Donald Trump, which is kind of not good for Ron DeSantis at this point.

CARDONA: Yes.

ACOSTA: But Maria, you know, there's a lot of time.

CARDONA: There is a lot of time.

ACOSTA: For him to make up ground.

CARDONA: That's right. That's right. There's no question.

Alice is right. We haven't really seen what the primary campaign --

ACOSTA: And I don't mean that he probably stacks up better against Joe Biden, according to the polling.

CARDONA: And again, polling right now really means nothing on either side, but what you see on the other side with Ron DeSantis should be concerning because it's a trend, right? He is fizzling in the polls. The trend is that, he is not going up, he is going down. That's not what you want to see right at the point where you're going to launch.

He just talked about losing. What about losing the endorsements of your own congressional delegation? I mean, that to me speaks volumes and what we've heard from these people is that they have known him for years. It's not an issue of, well, they don't know him, which is the argument you can make about the American people.

These are people that know him, have known him for years, and have said he is not a likable guy. And so that is not a good place to be right before you launch your election campaign.

STEWART: I know my dear friend, Maria and her fellow Democrats would love nothing more than to just take DeSantis down at this point and not have them be a viable contender. Because to your point, Jim, the polls show in the General Election, not the primaries, the General Election, head-to-head with Biden and Trump, Biden is ahead three points.

In the General Election, head-to-head with Biden and DeSantis. DeSantis is ahead three points. So I'm sure they would much rather take on Donald Trump than DeSantis, but that's not --

ACOSTA: Here is my question now, you know -- and you know, these numbers so well. Why doesn't the rest of the Republican Party see that? Because wouldn't you think that having Ron DeSantis at the top of the ticket is going to be much better for all of these down ballot candidates? I mean, theoretically, speaking at this point, we don't know what's going to happen between now and Election Day 2024 than Donald Trump.

But yet, if you look at the poll numbers, Trump is so out in front of DeSantis right now, and as Maria is saying, he is showing some signs of fizzling.

STEWART: Right. And you know how this works. When we're talking about GOP voters, the Republican base, Donald Trump does have the support right now at this stage of the game. But again, they have not -- DeSantis and these other top names out there have not hit the campaign trail with a full message to show the contrast and put them head to head.

But you know, we hear from the evangelical leaders in Iowa and rational Republicans across the country, they are ready to turn the page, they are ready for character over chaos. They are ready for someone that supports the policies of Trump, but is not the dumpster fire that he is.

CARDONA: But very quickly, Jim, let me be very clear. I actually don't -- I don't want to see a rematch of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and I think that's where all of those numbers are. Why? Because it was so toxic because of all of the trash and disgusting issues and rhetoric --

ACOSTA: To be a cleaner campaign.

CARDONA: -- that was coming out of Donald Trump. I would love for it to be DeSantis and Joe Biden because I believe that absolutely, Joe Biden will win against DeSantis who wants to go for book banning, banning rights for women, banning rights for the LGBTQ community, being authoritarian in Florida. His own people don't like him. I don't think the American people will like him.

So bring it on if it is DeSantis. I hope that it is for the sake of the country, and Joe Biden will beat him hands down.

ACOSTA: All right, thanks, ladies. Very much appreciate it. We will have to leave it there. We're going to hang on to that tape.

STEWART: All right, she said it.

CARDONA: Yes, only here.

ACOSTA: All right, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

All right, up next, Twitter's verify blue checkmarks went away and chaos ensued. Imagine that. The very real world complications as impostors are now pretending to be government accounts and it doesn't end there.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:37:47]

ACOSTA: Twitter's blue checkmark saga seemingly won't end after Elon Musk removed legacy verifications. Not many people seem too keen on buying Twitter Blue, but in the past few days, those checkmarks started popping up again and with them a note saying that those users bought Twitter Blue, but here's the problem, many insist they did not buy Twitter Blue even the accounts of late celebrities like Pele or Kobe Bryant say that they purchased Twitter Blue even though they passed away, of course, long before its inception.

And Kara Swisher joins us now to help us sort this out. She is a contributing opinion writer for "The New York Times."

Kara let's get this out of the way. Your Twitter account is on screen right now, and there is the blue check. Is that current or did you get rid of it? And you didn't pay for it, right? What's going on?

KARA SWISHER, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES" OPINION: No, no, no, no, no, no. They took it. It was on for years. Many years ago Twitter came to a lot of well-known reporters and other people to try to get them to use the service and then I said it had to be verified, they verified it back then and they got my permission at the time.

And then Elon took it off on 4/20. Ha-ha. And then it was back on this weekend. I don't know why. I never bought anything. I never had anything.

And then then all these dead people started to get blue checks, and I guess he sees dead people, I guess. I don't know what to say. I don't -- it is really the weirdest business development I've seen. Yes.

ACOSTA: And it's not just that the blue checkmark is back, it also says that the user is subscribed to Twitter Blue, even if they didn't.

SWISHER: Yes. ACOSTA: I mean, what kind of implications does this have? I mean,

there are folks out there, I suppose who might have impostors go out there, buy blue checks, make it look like they're the real McCoy when they're not. I mean, and that's just the beginning of it.

SWISHER: Well, that was the initial problem of taking off all the verification which has been in place for years and years and years, and you know, a lot of people didn't want them taken off because they were verified and it's really helpful to other users to you know that's the person you're talking to.

It shouldn't be paid for it, it's a feature that keeps it safe and usable for people. But then he took them off and then he put them back on, which is even more confusing.

And you know, it wasn't just reporters. It was like actors like Ian McKellen was like, I don't know what this is, like that kind of stuff or Stephen King or many others are just confused about what happened.

[19:40:09]

SWISHER: And so, you know, what it does is it creates chaos in the system, and what is really irritating is this is a guy who said he was going to -- he was going to get rid of Lords and Ladies, and he wasn't going to have this random picking of elites, and that's just what he just did after taking them off.

And at the bottom line of this, he can't sell these things. Nobody wants to buy his pancakes or whatever, his blue checks. I don't know what to say. No one just wants to buy what he is selling and that's the problem.

ACOSTA: And Kara, it's almost become fashionable to not have the blue check now, and I get the sense that there are people pressuring their friends who have blue checkmarks, hey, why do you have a blue checkmark. You have to get rid of this thing.

SWISHER: You can't get it off. I was like -- I was fine with it on or off. I don't care. But it's -- you can't get it off if you want to. Now, I suddenly have Twitter Blue editing privileges, which I don't want because I had bought Twitter Blue before Elon bought the company to try it out and the previous administration had rolled out a bunch of features. I didn't find it useful enough to pay the money.

And what's interesting is that anyone who doesn't want to pay the money, Elon's fanboys, it's mostly boys go after them and says you should say thank you for the blue check. And I was like, why should I say thank you for the blue check? I didn't want it and I didn't really want it the first place, but I see why they had it and the whole thing is just a disastrous business situation.

I mean, really, at the bottom of it, and also potentially legally problematic, because they are already under scrutiny for how they deal with privacy and data. And this is something, you know, celebrity endorsements, a lot of startups have gotten trouble saying they've been endorsed by someone when it wasn't the case. So, you know, I don't think Ian McKellen is endorsing Twitter. I feel

like he is getting paid to do so.

ACOSTA: Right. Does this go to a larger issue with Elon Musk? I know you recently wrote about him. What do you think?

SWISHER: I did. I don't know what's happening here. You know, I happen to think SpaceX Elon is fascinating and really inspirational. I think Tesla Elon is groundbreaking, although, the company faces a lot of challenge. Twitter Elon is the very worst of Elon, I think and I don't know what he is doing from a bit -- including from a business point of view.

This will be a Harvard Business School study someday of what happened inside that company and doing -- rolling this stuff out. I just -- it is inexplicable. It doesn't even make sense.

And now he's on Twitter yelling at people who don't want the blue check, or who said I didn't have this blue check and he is getting angry at them, and it's just weird. Weird is the only thing I can think of.

ACOSTA: Right, and it makes people washery nervous because they say, okay, this is Elon Musk. There are billions and billions of dollars at stake here. And he is messing around on Twitter. That isn't something that's going to make a lot of people feel comfortable over on Wall Street. There's that issue too?

SWISHER: Well, I guess if -- yes, if Twitter was making a lot of money, but it's, it's not. It is not making a lot of money, and he is losing more every day and losing -- the value of it has gone down rather considerably. All of his equity is wiped out and he paid far too much for it and the impact, you know, SpaceX had had a rocket launch -- rocket explode after launch. And that's -- you know, that happens and it's happened before, but he should be focused on that and those problems.

And of course, Tesla had to cut prices again, because there's a lot of competitors now. So, there's those issues and the stock has dropped considerably over the past a week or so.

And he's got to really focus hard on that because you know, Mercedes is coming after him. Toyota, Volvo, Ford, GM, all of them and so that's the issue is that his businesses that are very interesting, and they make pretty good business decisions, not every minute of the day, but in general, he's run them pretty well are really, really going to suffer because of this strange obsession he has with tweaking Stephen King on Twitter.

I don't even understand it. Stephen King is excellent on Twitter, by the way.

ACOSTA: It is baffling, just like a Stephen King novel, but Kara Swisher, thanks so much, as always, appreciate it.

SWISHER: I guess so. ACOSTA: I'll be looking for that blue check to see what happens to it.

SWISHER: I know, the Stephen King novel aren't baffling, they are fantastic.

ACOSTA: They're brilliant. They are brilliant.

SWISHER: Okay. Thanks.

ACOSTA: Thanks, Kara.

SWISHER: Thanks.

ACOSTA: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:48:35]

ACOSTA: It is the last full week before the Fed's next policy meeting and as recession fears grow, investors are counting on the Central Bank to beat back inflation once and for all.

Here is CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jim.

It is the final few days of April as investors remain focused on the Fed's fight to battle inflation. The labor market is showing some signs of slowing and that's good news for the Federal Reserve. The number of people on long-term unemployment hit its highest level since late 2021, but the view ahead remains murky as we enter the final full week before the Fed's policy meeting.

The threat of a recession and tighter credit conditions caused by several bank failures remains, add the debt ceiling drama in Washington making the Fed's fight that much harder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEEMA SHAH, CHIEF GLOBAL STRATEGIST, PRINCIPAL ASSET MANAGEMENT: This probably does play out over a couple of months with banks pulling back some activity, weighing on consumer spending and unfortunately, ultimately weighing on the labor market.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YURKEVICH: Higher mortgage rates have forced some Americans to think twice about buying a home. Existing home sales fell in March for the 13th time in the past 14 months, and while mortgage rates have fallen in five of the past six weeks, they remained significantly higher than just one year ago. This all means every clue is even more significant.

And this week, we get new home sales data. The first reading of first quarter GDP, jobless claims and the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, PCE -- Jim. [19:50:08]

ACOSTA: All right, thanks so much for that.

Now, to incredible newly released video from a skier's helmet camera. Take a look at this. Incredible stuff.

This expert French skier was heading down the mountains in the Alps when his helmet cam captured his sudden unstoppable descent into a deep crevasse. The skier was unhurt, but is posting the video to remind other skiers to take precautions and I will definitely take that advice. That is scary stuff.

In the meantime, tonight on a brand new episode of "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper, Bill Weir is exploring solutions to tackle the looming effects of the climate crisis. And Bill joins us for a preview next, stay with us. There he is.

All right, we'll be there with him in just a few moments.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:55:00]

ACOSTA: Coming up next here on CNN, a new episode of "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper.

Tonight, CNN's Bill Weir meets with climate experts racing against time to build innovative solutions to protect the planet from the looming effects of the climate crisis. One of those possible solutions, whale poop. Yes, whale poop.

I'll let Bill explain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The plan is called Marine Biomass Regeneration, and it starts by spraying the deep oceans with gigatons of artificial whale poop.

DAVID KING, FOUNDER, CENTRE FOR CLIMATE REPAIR AT CAMBRIDGE: Now, the question is, where does the feces, the artificial feces come from?

WEIR (on camera): Right. I have -- that's one of many questions I have. But let's start with that one.

WEIR (voice over): He explains that when people drove baleen whales to near extinction, we lost the oceans biggest fertilizer pods. One pod can gobble up nutrients from the deep, and poop them across hundreds of square miles of ocean surface supercharging the bottom of the food chain.

KING: Within three to four days in that area, you might have the whole area covered with phytoplankton, and then within five days of that, that whole area becomes full of fish.

WEIR (voice over): And since the biggest can weigh 28 tons, when they die, they take massive amounts of carbon Godzilla to the ocean depths, and could be doing millions of dollars' worth of carbon removal for free.

KING: We would say whaling has to stop completely, but you can catch as much fish as you like, because we're going to return the oceans to billions of fish in this process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And Bill Weir joins me now.

Bill, great stuff as always, after spending time with climate experts and putting together this hour, you know, you bring us into the realm of whale poop. I guess saving the climate is a crappy job, but somebody has got to do it. Is that it?

WEIR: Exactly. That is Sir David King, he runs the Cambridge Center for Climate Repair. I went there expecting to get ideas about you know, nuclear fusion breakthroughs or some new energy source, all of this and their best biggest idea is using volcanic ash to mimic the poop of whales because of the way he described the breakdown in the cycle, and a lot of these ideas.

I mean, Jim, I tried for my own mental health over the last year between the natural disasters, unnatural disasters is go looking for hope, and meet innovators and see what the biggest ideas out there were, and I was blown away by how many there are and how many are just based on supercharging natural cycles, because Mother Nature is the best engineer.

She has been balancing out carbon and over millions of years, for a lot longer than we've been around, but what I tapped into is sort of the beginning of a whole trillion dollar industry that nobody is talking about.

ACOSTA: And what do climate experts say if we don't meet this challenge?

WEIR: It just -- it means that we've overshot our carbon budget, so not only do we have to rapidly get off of fuels that burn as equitably as we possibly can do that, we have to pull these over a trillion tons of this legacy carbon out of the sea and sky, and we have to do that in order to hold the temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius that we want or two degrees or however you want to slide it.

But it comes down to, how much do we want to save? How many coral reefs do we want to save? How many remnants of glaciers do we want to save? And how fast can we chop down the carbon Godzilla in the sky and not make it bigger, not feed it, bury it? And you know, that's what tonight is all about.

ACOSTA: And Bill, you have a young son, River and you've written open letters to him about the climate we will be leaving him. This is so touching. You've just published a third such letter.

Your son is a toddler. He can't yet read these letters unless he's a genius, in which case, congratulations. But why are you writing these letters? I mean, I can imagine why, but please explain it.

WEIR: Well, he was born at the height of the pandemic, April 7th, and I did this as a wonder list with my daughter who is now 19 and using a human lifetime as a yardstick for how rapid the changes are in our lives.

And just in his three little years on this earth we've seen January 6th, we've seen the end of the pandemic, all of that, and so I wrote about focusing on the good stuff.

Every week, I get to pitch the world with airships hauling clean fuel instead of diesel tractor trailers, and Stingray shaped robots that will sink seaweed to bury carbon instead of factoring fishing trawlers that clear cut the sea.

Your buses could bring you to school on sunlight and then help power your classrooms. The world's most abundant fuel source might be hydrogen made from sun and sea water, or little nuclear fusion stars and boxes filling batteries made of salt or minerals mined on the asteroid Psyche.

While all of this utopian stuff is possible it has to be affordable and scalable and profitable and so our future might be determined by influencers and marketers as much as engineers and policymakers.

It's a letter of hope. I found a lot of signs that it's just a matter of getting our stories in line towards hopefulness.

ACOSTA: We've got to have hope and thanks for writing that touching letter.

Bill Weir, thanks so much.

Don't change your channel. The all new episode of "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper starts right now.

Have a great week, everybody. Goodnight.

[20:00:24]