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Some Newspapers Refusing to Endorse Presidential Candidate; Interview With Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV); Russian Election Disinformation Campaign?; Keeping Safe From Foodborne Illness. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired October 31, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:03]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Dougan denied to CNN that he's acting on behalf of Russia.

PATRICK WARREN, CO-DIRECTOR, CLEMSON MEDIA FORENSICS HUB: His face is there for a reason.

MARQUARDT (on camera): He's a useful idiot?

DARREN LINVILL, CO-DIRECTOR, CLEMSON MEDIA FORENSICS HUB: He's a useful idiot, without question.

MARQUARDT: How much of a win is it for the Russians to be able to get an American like this to essentially launder their narratives?

LINVILL: I think that it's incredibly important, and you see the importance in how hard they've worked to recruit Americans like him.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): And what they're seeing this year is a much bigger impact on the social media conversation than in the past.

LINVILL: We know they work for the Russian state, but, you know, they're still allowed to spread these messages, these completely false narratives with -- without, you know, any mitigation whatsoever.

MARQUARDT (on camera): How well do you think we're doing in this war against Russian disinformation more broadly?

LINVILL: Extremely poorly.

MARQUARDT: Do you see that changing any time soon?

LINVILL: No.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: And Alex Marquardt joins me now.

Alex, great piece. How effective are these Russian narratives? I mean, do we have any sense of that? MARQUARDT: Yes, they can be very effective.

And those researchers measure that based on how much of the conversation is driven by these narratives. So let's take President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, for example. He's a major Russian target. And on certain days, those Clemson researchers told me, those narratives that they're feeding about Zelenskyy, those fake stories, can take up as much as a third of the social media conversation about Zelenskyy.

A third is a huge number. Jim, in terms of what we could see back here, right after I did that interview at Clemson, the researchers there highlighted another fake video that Storm-1516 pushing of mail- in ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, so a very important part of this election, being destroyed.

And that video was shared tens of thousands of times in just the first three hours. And experts and officials believe we will be seeing a lot more of that kind of thing in the coming days -- Jim.

ACOSTA: And that wasn't happening.

MARQUARDT: No, it was completely fake. And it was one of the narratives from this shadowy arm, we believe, of the Russian government, Storm-1516.

ACOSTA: All right, fascinating. Alex Marquardt, thank you very much.

Coming up: Kamala Harris just responded to Donald Trump's comments that he will protect women -- quote -- "like it or not."

I will speak to one of Harris' top surrogates next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:37:02]

ACOSTA: Today, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to hold back-to- back rallies in the critical battleground state of Nevada, as she just responded to Donald Trump's comments about protecting women whether they like it or not.

Let's discuss now with the Harris campaign national co-chair, Democratic Congressman Steven Horsford of Nevada, a key battleground state.

Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

Your response to what the vice president had to say just a few moments ago. I mean, she was asked whether women are going to be offended by it. She said, well, everybody's going to be offended by what Trump said, but your response.

REP. STEVEN HORSFORD (D-NV): Well, good morning, Jim. Thank you for having me on.

It is Nevada Day here in Nevada. We are known as the Battle Born State. Vice President Kamala Harris understands that Nevada voters matter as a key battleground, and that's why she is putting in a full- court press. She will be in Reno later today and joining me in my district here in Las Vegas tonight in North Las Vegas.

And so we're excited, because this campaign is going to be one based on a margin of effort. She and Tim Walz are traveling across all of the battleground states. And, yes, protecting a woman's freedom to make her own health care decision is going to be decided in this election.

It is on the ballot, and it's going to take winning Democrats in Congress, making Hakeem Jeffries the next speaker of the House, because Mike Johnson and Donald Trump just told us that their secret plan is to actually take away Affordable Care Act and to deny women the right to make their own health care decision.

Those are the issues that are on the ballot, and that's why voters have to turn out like never before to defeat them.

ACOSTA: And, Congressman, I mean, as you know, Nevada is tight according to the latest CNN polling. How is that ground game going for Democrats in Nevada?

I used to cover Harry Reid when he was the Senate majority leader. He had a tight race out there some 14 years ago. There was all this talk that he might go down. He ended up having that turnout machine come out in force and do just fine.

What's your sense of it? Is that machine still as effective as it once was?

HORSFORD: The Reid machine is real. The culinary workers have hundreds, if not thousands of people on the doors. Later today, I'm actually joining the second gentleman to talk directly to voters and to make sure that they understand just how important their vote is.

And it's because of the fact that we have volunteers, thousands of volunteers every single day on the doors, on the phones, connecting the voters reminding them that they can vote early now until Friday, November 1, and that it's going to come down to a very close race.

And that means every single vote and voter will matter. The Harris/Walz team is not taking any voter for granted. And that's why we're excited to have the vice president back in Nevada today in Reno and in North Las Vegas later tonight.

[11:40:10]

She will be joining Mana and other people, including Jennifer Lopez, because we understand that this is about enthusiasm, excitement and getting people to the polls.

ACOSTA: All right, Congressman Horsford, thank you very much for your time. We will be watching those events very closely. Thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

HORSFORD: Happy Nevada Day.

ACOSTA: All right, and to you as well. All right.

We do want to note, we did ask the Trump campaign for someone to join us and answer our questions about the latest out on the campaign trail. The campaign told us they could not make anyone available to us today.

Coming up: As a handful of prominent publications forgo presidential endorsements, Donald Trump is celebrating that move. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:45:24]

ACOSTA: More than 250,000 "Washington Post" readers have canceled their subscriptions in protest of owner Jeff Bezos' decision to block the paper from endorsing a presidential candidate. Former President Donald Trump is seizing on this.

Let's bring in Hadas Gold, our media reporter. She joins us now.

Hadas, what is Trump saying?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, this is exactly what so many within these newspapers feared, that this non-endorsement would be seen by the Trump campaign as a stamp of approval.

And that's exactly what happened. Take a listen to what former President Trump said yesterday at a rally in North Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do you notice "The Washington Post" and "Los Angeles Times" and all these papers, they're not endorsing anybody?

You know what they're really saying? Because they only endorse Democrats. They're saying, this Democrat's no good. They're no good. And they think I'm doing a great job. They just don't want to say it.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: "Washington" -- and "USA Today," congratulations. I just heard "USA Today" has not endorsed. They said, we're not going to endorse. That means that they think she's no good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLD: Now, to be clear, none of these papers have said Trump is doing a good job or that Vice President Harris is -- quote -- "no good."

In fact, both "The Washington Post" and "The Los Angeles Times" had endorsements ready to go for Vice President Kamala Harris when they were both spiked by their billionaire owners. Now, this has led to, as you have noted, a lot of subscribers canceling their subscriptions.

They have led to resignations of staffers because of exactly what they feared would be happening. I asked "The Washington Post" for a comment after Trump's comments at that rally. They pointed me to what the publisher said, where he noted that this might be seen as a tacit endorsement of one candidate or a condemnation of another, but that they don't see it that way.

They see it as consistent with the values of "The Post" that they have always stood for and what they hope for in a leader. But, meanwhile, other outlets, Jim, are trying to capitalize on this vacuum that's been left by these newspapers. I will give you an example.

"The Guardian," in the hours after "The Washington Post" announced its non-endorsement, they sent an e-mail to their readers touting how they are not sitting on the sidelines of democracy, and they raised something like $2 million from their readers as a result of this.

ACOSTA: Yes.

I mean, and we should note other newspapers in the midst of all this have put out editorials, put out endorsements. "The Las Vegas Sun" just did one. I mean...

GOLD: "The Economist" just -- just yesterday as well.

ACOSTA: "The Economist" and many others.

I mean, we should -- this is a normal thing that newspapers have done for decades.

All right, Hadas Gold, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:52:19]

ACOSTA: All right, our CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is back on call with us today to answer your questions on foodborne illnesses.

Sanjay, what do people want to know?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, I got to tell you, we got a lot of questions, and perhaps no surprise, given that nearly 50 million people a year deal with some sort of foodborne illness. It's a huge issue out there, and the numbers do seem to have been going up.

Melissa sent in a question asking one that was a common one: "How do you decrease your chances of getting a foodborne illness?"

Well, the basics really do apply here. And if you look at sort of the list of things that you're going to hear from all people who prepare food, trying to do it as safely as possible, washing your hands, don't cross-contaminate, refrigerating, and making sure food is cooked to the right temperature, as you look at that list, keep in mind that just a small amount of bacteria can actually get someone sick.

If food is left out, that bacteria can multiply exponentially. So that's why these basic rules really do go a long way. Simply washing your hands, washing vegetables and stuff before you eat them, that alone can go a long way.

One thing I will point out, if you look at the data, Jim, is that more than half, so the majority of foodborne infections, seem to be occurring outside the home, so restaurants, delis, places like that. And when you look at the data even more specifically, you find that there is a danger zone, if you will, in terms of temperature.

That is to say that food between 40 and 140 degrees, that is the food that is most likely to be contaminated. So the rule of thumb is, if you're eating cold food, you want to make sure it's cooler than 40 degrees, chilled and cool. And if it's a warm food, you want to make sure it's over 140 degrees, so steaming hot when it comes out.

Jim, we have got another question here. This is from Debby, who asks about -- quote -- "an old wives' tale that says that you should stay away from seafood in any month without an R in it."

This is, first of all, a really interesting question. I think what Debby's referring to is the idea that months that are the summer months, so you're talking about May, June, July, August, those are the ones that don't have an aren't it, are the warm weather months.

And in the past, oysters specifically, people were told not to eat oysters during those months because you would have a higher likelihood of actually developing an infection, specifically something known as a vibrio bacterial infection.

That was really in the days before refrigeration. So now that we have refrigeration, you can more safely eat those types of foods, all seafood, specifically oysters, during those warm weather months, as long as it is kept cold, as long as you follow the basic rules, use refrigeration, use ice, use things like that.

[11:55:07]

Your best bet, of course, would be to cook those oysters. But if you eat them raw, you can eat them in the non-R-related months, as long as you follow the basics and keep them cool -- Jim, back to you.

ACOSTA: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, great stuff, as always. Thanks so much.

And thank you for joining me this morning. I'm Jim Acosta.

Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short break.

Have a great day, everybody.