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First Flight of Americans Fleeing the Chaos in Haiti Landed in Miami; Police Stations in Haiti Vulnerable to Gang Violence; Militants in Port-au-Prince Fight Gangs with Machetes; Social Media Posts Heated Lemon and Musk Interview; March Madness Featuring 68 Men's Basketball Teams. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired March 18, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: New this morning, the State Department confirming the first flight of Americans fleeing the chaos in Haiti has landed in Miami.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABSON LOUIS, EVACUATION FLIGHT PASSENGER: It's devastating over there. I think that a lot of people are waiting to have the same opportunity to be here to get out of the chaos. And we're glad the current administration is doing something about people fleeing the chaos. American citizens, Haitian citizens, that are left behind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: More than 30 U.S. citizens arrived safely after escaping the violence that exploded in Haiti as gangs have effectively taken control of the country. They've been attacking hospitals and the airport. As CNN's David Culver reports, even police stations are not safe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, police stations like this one here in Port-au-Prince are main targets for gangs. They feel like as soon as they can get hold of a station like this, they can then take siege and take control of much of the community. So -- and they've tried coming after this one. Many of times, reinforcements have been built up, not only because of the police, but because of the community. They've built barricades all around here.

For the police station to function properly, they need to rely on the community and to have these almost vigilantes building a lot of the barricades to keep out any gang members.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And that's our David Culver on the ground in Haiti with that report. Our thanks to him.

And Former Ambassador Stuart Holliday joins me now. He served as United States Ambassador for Special Political Affairs at the United Nations. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much for being with us this morning. And I know you've worked on the Haiti issue yourself. When you see those Americans being evacuated and landing in Miami, I mean, that's obviously very good news. What options does the Biden administration have right now for getting Americans out of there and trying to calm the situation down in Haiti?

[10:35:00]

AMB. STUART HOLLIDAY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR FOR SPECIAL POLITICAL AFFAIRS, UNITED NATIONS: Well, on your first question -- first of all, good to be with you, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes.

HOLLIDAY: Obviously, the United States has contingency plans in place to evacuate American citizens. This current stage is a voluntary process in which people have to make their way north to Cap-Haitien, in the north, to fly to Miami. This is tough getting to the north because of the lack of control and security on the roads out of Port- au-Prince. But it appears to be working, but we may have to do more.

To the larger question, the opportunity here is, first of all, it's a terrible tragedy. A long running cycle of dysfunction and violence, of course, which the United States has been drawn into many times before. The difference is now we have an opportunity through this transitional council and somebody called the Montana Accords of Haitians themselves coming together. Women, church leaders, civil society leaders to try to shape and imagine a government, a consensus leader that could emerge. They could provide this kind of stability and unifying force that has been lacking.

As you know, one of the biggest frustrations from the Haitian people, and that led to this gang violence, was the fact that the Prime Minister who came into office after the assassination of President Moise, was not elected. He was going to call for elections, but he never did. A lot of frustration about that. So, they need to move forward.

ACOSTA: Right.

HOLLIDAY: But this needs to be a Haitian led process with support from CARICOM and the U.S.

ACOSTA: Yes, and Mr. Ambassador, I mean, the -- Haiti has struggled for years with this kind of instability and violence. But this feels different. It feels like things could really unravel in a significant way.

HOLLIDAY: It does. And the main issue is the lack of governance of any kind of security and stability in the country. The gangs, as you -- has been well chronicled. Attacked a police chief's home, have killed thousands in the streets. It is absolutely essential -- you know, there are 4,000 prisoners have been released from maximum security prisons.

That's why the security situation is really the number one priority, and hopefully act with speed to get this multinational force in, particularly to the airport and the port. And give people a sense of, you know, normalcy, because this is probably the closest, we've seen to a complete collapse in decades.

ACOSTA: And, Ambassador, I mean, you know this, Haitians have been complaining for some time now about the heavy handedness that sometimes comes from the International Community and the United States. I mean, there are lots of opinions on that front. But at the same time, I mean, without the International Community's help, how does Haiti get out of this? I mean, it sounds like just a real problem.

HOLLIDAY: It doesn't. It doesn't get out of it without the International Community's support. The United States can play a different role. Of course, in '94 when President Aristide was ousted, we sent a, you know, contingent of marines, major U.N. peacekeeping force.

I don't anticipate that. I see the United States in supporting with logistics intelligence. Perhaps air cover, if necessary, around the airport. But the Caribbean community, the CARICOM, and the United Nations recognize the failures of the past. Whether it's the issues with the peacekeepers and cholera, you know, several years ago. That there's a lot here to complain about.

But there's no alternative than to look for a better way forward and to continue to engage. But really try to forge this political consensus among this transitional council. That will be key, a consensus candidate. The other thing that will be key is we have Guy Philippe, the gang members -- this is the former coup plotter against Aristide. He's now been released from U.S. prison last fall.

ACOSTA: Right.

HOLLIDAY: There are a lot of forces who don't want to -- stability brought to Haiti, and we need to make sure that security comes to the streets.

ACOSTA: Yes, it could be -- have huge implications for the region and for the U.S. if this keeps unraveling. All right. Ambassador Stuart Holliday, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

HOLLIDAY: Thank you very much.

ACOSTA: All right. We'll be right back.

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[10:40:00]

ACOSTA: All right. New this morning, Former CNN Anchor Don Lemon just released his full interview with Elon Musk. And now we are getting some insight into why the X, formerly Twitter owner, abruptly scraped -- scrapped Don Lemon's deal with the social media platform right after the interview wrapped.

CNN Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy joins us now. Oliver, tell us more about this interview. I mean, we saw some clips late last week that seemed pretty fiery. How was the rest of it?

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Yes, Jim, it's a window into who Elon Musk is and how he thinks. And I think what the big takeaway is, is you're seeing really how radicalized by the right wing, Elon Musk, one of the most consequential people living on Earth has become.

In -- I mean, during this interview, he attacks the news media. He misleads on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. He equates moderating hate speech, really vicious hate speech on the X platform to censorship. He lashes out against advertisers who left the platform following his antisemitic endorsement, which he only walked back after he had lost effectively a lot of money when those advertisers left.

And most disturbingly of all, perhaps, is he continues to advance some conspiratorial notions, particularly one on the Great Replacement Theory.

[10:45:00]

This is a racist great -- theory that has been cited by people who have committed mass shootings across the country. Elon Musk says, he doesn't believe in the theory, but then he gives a significant amount of credence to it. Let's take a look.

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ELON MUSK, OWNER, X: Keep inflating two things. One is Great Replacement Theory. The other is which I don't subscribe to that. I'm simply saying that there is an incentive here. If legal immigrants, which I think have a the very strong bias to -- at least, everything I've read, it's a very strong bias to vote Democrat. The more that come into the country, the more they're likely to vote in that direction. But it is, in my view, an -- the -- a simple incentive to increase voters to Democrat voters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DARCY: So, you can see there, Jim, he rejects the name of the theory that he effectively then describes and gives a lot of credence to. Of course, that's worrisome to experts who point out that this theory can and has led to violence in the past.

ACOSTA: No, it's absolutely an important subject. And I guess, Oliver, you know, folks might be wondering why are we giving so much time to this interview that Don did with Elon Musk. But we don't hear from Elon Musk all that much in these kinds of interviews. So, I mean, the information that Don got out of Musk is actually very important. He runs a very influential platform.

DARCY: A very influential platform, and he does rant quite a bit, I'd say, on the X platform. But it's rare to see him confronted in an interview like this, and that's exactly what Don Lemon did. Repeatedly asking him a number of top -- a number of questions that he obviously did not appreciate. And I think that's obviously what led to him cancelling that partnership with X.

Toward the end of the interview, Jim, you can really see that Elon is no fan of Don. And it becomes clear that he's not pleased with how this interview has gone. Why don't we take a look at the end of the interview when he's asking about advertisers and you can really see that in Elon Musk's reaction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MUSK: I have to say I -- choose your question carefully, there's five minutes left.

DON LEMON, HOST, "THE DON LEMON SHOW": OK. But so -- the same --

MUSK: What's the question you want to ask?

LEMON: Same question is, you said that they are killing the company, but you're the head of the company. The buck doesn't stop with you.

MUSK: I acquired X in order to preserve freedom of speech in America, the First Amendment. And I'm going to stick to that. And if that means making less money, so be it.

LEMON: Why would that question upset you? You seem upset by it, are you?

MUSK: I think you --

LEMON: And I'm not trying to upset you.

MUSK: Well, you are upsetting me because the way you're phrasing the questions, I think, is not cogent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DARCY: You can see there, he is obviously very upset. Probably not liking being confronted by some of these difficult questions, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes, I love the way Elon Musk was responding to all of that. I'm a big supporter of free speech of the First Amendment. And Don Lemon, you're fired. I mean, give me a break. You know, what a hypocrite.

All right. Oliver Darcy, thank you very much.

Coming up, let the March Madness begin. We're breaking down the brackets next.

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[10:50:00]

ACOSTA: All right. Get your brackets ready after a weekend of conference title games. 68 men's basketball teams will soon battle it out as the first March Madness games tip off this week. CNN Sports Anchor Andy Scholes joins us now to break down which teams may actually win it all.

Andy, look at that board there. I'm going to be copying off of your brackets. I'm going to start writing this stuff down. What you got?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: All right. Jim, take some notes because I got a lot for you here, OK. Because you know, it's always fun filling this bracket out and trying to pick some upsets in the first couple of rounds.

But if you really want to win your bracket pool, it's all about picking that winner because more than likely the person who wins is going to end up picking the champion correctly. And there's a stat that can help you do so. It's called KenPom. It measures the team's offensive and defensive efficiency. And every team that has won since 2002 has been in the top 40 in offense and top 22 in defense.

So, who qualifies right now? You got Houston, UConn, Purdue, Auburn, Arizona, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Marquette. Some good teams did not qualify. You got Creighton there, just missed out. Iowa State, you see they won the Big 12, but they are not good enough offensively according to KenPom to win. Kentucky, defensively not good enough. Duke, just missing out too.

But according to the last 22 years of data, Duke is not going to win this year's national championship. Another trend to look at, so the last 19 champions have been in the top 12 of the week six AP Poll. What team is not here that I just mentioned? Auburn is not there.

Now, UConn is the defending champs and the favorite to win it all. But since 1974, only Duke in the '90s and Florida in the mid-2000s were able to pull off back-to-back titles. It's very hard to do in men's college basketball. Can Dan Hurley and the Huskies do it? They could, but you know, you might not want to pick them for this very reason.

Now, if you lost your first conference tournament game like Tennessee did in the SEC tournament, you're not going to win the national championship. No one's ever done that. So, you can cross them off. Now, I like to show this map every year. See this red line right down the middle of the country. Every champion since 1997, Jim, has been east of that line. So, you see Arizona, they're on the wrong side.

So, let's pull up the graphic I had up before. We got Arizona crossed off because they're on the wrong side of the line. Tennessee lost their first conference tournament game, they're crossed off. Auburn was not in that week six poll, we crossed them off. I'm crossing off UConn just because it is so hard to win back-to-back titles.

ACOSTA: Right.

SCHOLES: So, who should you pick, Jim? Houston's a one seed, so is Purdue and North Carolina. And if you look at history since 1979, number one seeds win the overwhelmingly amount of the time, 26 times there. And hey, if you went to one of those number one seeds, Jim, like me, University of Houston, that's who you're obligated to pick. [10:55:00]

I'm going with the Cougars. But of course, it's just trying to have some fun with it. The brackets due Thursday before the game start.

ACOSTA: Yes, I went -- threw a bracket last night and I had Houston winning the whole thing, too. So, I hope I didn't jinx it there but --

SCHOLES: Music to my ears, Jim.

ACOSTA: There you go. And I'm rooting for my James Madison Dukes to at least win the first round, that would be great. They've had a great season.

SCHOLES: Yes.

ACOSTA: All right. Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

We'll be right back.

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