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RFK Jr. Heads to Capitol Hill; ABC News Settles Case with Trump; Tech Titans Donating to Trump Inauguration Fund. Aired 10:30- 11a ET

Aired December 16, 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]

PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT AT TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL AND PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: -- problems for the public health of our nation's children.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and let's play some of the controversial things that RFK Jr. Has said about vaccines. Let's listen and talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., TRUMP'S HHS SECRETARY PICK: I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.

There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

I see somebody on a hiking trail with a carrying a little baby and I say to him (INAUDIBLE) vaccinated. And he heard that from me. If he hears it from 10 other people, maybe he won't do it. You know, maybe he will save that child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And Dr. Hotez, I mean, this is not going to be a mystery to Donald Trump who selected RFK Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. And I just wonder what your sense of it is to see somebody like RFK Jr. potentially being at the top of HHS, some of these other controversial picks and important health agencies under the umbrella of HHS, and what does it mean for expertise in the government if you have people leading these health agencies who aren't following the science, who aren't following what the experts have said for years?

DR. HOTEZ: Yes, and I've spoken to RFK Jr. over the years, beginning in 2017, and he doesn't understand the science and he's -- I can tell you from my firsthand conversations with him, that he's not interested in learning about the science. So, the fact that, you know, HHS has a lot of science driven agencies, the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, is a science driven agency, same, of course, with the National Institutes of Health, same with the CDC.

And if he's going to continue to push that false narrative, and it's frustrating to deal with it because he keeps moving the goalposts. At first, he says it's the measles, mumps, rubella vaccines that's causing autism, then he says he wrote in Rolling Stone magazine that it was thimerosal preservative. Then he says spacing vaccines too close together. Then it's alimin (ph) vaccines. So, it becomes this exhausting exercise with a lot of time and effort to not only refute his arguments, but also to invest in large epidemiologic studies showing that there's no link.

And now, we've learned that an attorney, this came from The New York Times last week, an attorney closely aligned with Mr. Kennedy is petitioning the FDA now to withdraw the polio vaccine, the hepatitis B vaccine. I mean, the polio vaccine is what eradicated polio in the United States beginning in 1955. So, you can imagine what the impact is going to be.

ACOSTA: Right. I mean, either you trust the experts or you don't trust the experts. And I do want to show this. I want to show this chart of polio cases in the U.S. The drop is absolutely dramatic after the vaccine was introduced in the 19 fifties. Take a look at that. But yet, there has always been this strain of paranoia and disinformation regarding vaccines. I mean, how do you deal with this, Dr Hotez? I mean, I guess you could show graphs like that, but -- and then people will say, well, I don't trust that graph. You know, I mean, how do you break through that?

DR. HOTEZ: Well, the first thing you do is you put the arrow on the place where the vaccine began. So, if you were to put that arrow, it's right at the top of the last peak, 1955. So, within a year and a half after the polio vaccine was licensed, we had a 90 percent reduction in polio cases because that's what vaccination campaigns do.

And it's not unique to polio. We saw -- I saw this firsthand as a pediatric resident in Boston. We -- I went from admitting a child every couple of weeks with Hib meningitis, Haemophilus influenza type B meningitis to having that illness disappear over the course of three or four years. That's how magical these vaccines are. And we have to treat them with the respect that they deserve.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, I go get my flu shot every year and I don't get the flu. I mean, I just wish people would understand that these vaccines do work. But, Dr. Hotez, always appreciate your time. Thanks so much. We'll have you back soon.

DR. HOTEZ: Always great to talk to you, Jim. Thanks.

ACOSTA: Good to see you. All right. Just ahead, why some of tech's biggest names are writing big checks to Trump's inauguration fund. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:35:00]

ACOSTA: ABC News will pay millions of dollars to settle a defamation suit with Donald Trump. It all stems from George Stephanopoulos using the word rape instead of sexual abuse in an interview with -- about E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against Trump in which that was discussed. Under the terms of the settlement, the network will issue a public apology, pay $1 million for Trump's attorney's fees, and pony up $15 million for a, quote, "presidential foundation and museum."

CNN's Brian Stelter joins me now. Brian, this -- I mean, this is pretty unusual and disturbing. What do you make of all this and this ugly legal fight that is trying to be avoided by ABC and Disney?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Right. Trump has a long history of filing lawsuits, including against news outlets. Most of the time, those cases get thrown out. Judges see right through those frivolous cases and throw them out. Trump right now has a litigation pending against CBS, for example, over a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris. So, these cases oftentimes do not work out for Trump, but this ABC case is a major victory.

I talked to a renowned First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams last night. He said, look, there's no way to say other than this is a big win for Trump. It's going to embolden him to file more of these suits. But as Abrams said, he called it disturbing that this could turn -- $15 million could be paid around the use of the word rape versus sexual abuse in that interview on ABCs this week.

[10:40:00]

Look, Stephanopoulos has been a Trump target for a long time. He was very aggressive in this interview that aired in March. So, Trump decided to file a suit about a week later and a judge did not throw it out. A judge let it go forward through the discovery process.

So, it's possible that ABC decided to settle this, Jim, because there might've been embarrassing e-mails or text messages on ABC's servers that were going to become public. Everybody remembers, that's what happened to Fox News when Dominion sued Fox. So, this might have been a case where ABC is avoiding public embarrassment by paying $15 million. But look, there's a lot of people that say that payment is embarrassing as well. So, this is not the end of the story.

ACOSTA: Well, and there's a lot of different ways to talk about this. But I mean, Donald Trump has said a lot of things about people, places you name it, that have been false and so on. And it just strikes me as a bit rich that, you know, he's going to be the recipient or his presidential foundation is going to be recipient of this kind of large settlement. And I have to ask you whether or not you think there's just going to be a chilling effect on the news industry as -- just as he is coming into office because of this. I mean, I suppose it's almost a rhetorical question because the answer is yes.

STELTER: The answer is yes. Media lawyers are worried about this. They're preparing for it. They are preparing their newsrooms for it with the expectation of more lawsuits, more leak investigations, more subpoenas in the months and years to come.

You know, there's a great AP story about this morning saying there's a balancing act right now for the press between being fearful and just being prepared doing our jobs, but being aware of the climate, and maybe that's partly what ABC was doing here. ABC, as a source there said to me, we needed this problem to go away. They were trying to explain the payment that way. But now, as you said, $15 million for Trump's future museum, I imagine there will be an ABC News hall of fake news. You know, there will be some attempt to troll as a result of this.

And more seriously, we are in a climate where more of this kind of litigation is expected. And of course, it's not just Trump suing news outlets. Trump himself is facing multiple defamation suits -- multiple defamation lawsuits. So, you know, this turns in multiple directions, right? And what some see as accountability for mistakes on live television, others see as currying favor -- a settlement to curry favor with the next president.

ACOSTA: Yes, and I just wonder, Brian, what this is going to mean for news organizations, for tech companies? We're going to talk about the implications for tech companies in a moment, but it seems to me that there's a lot of this bending the knee going on. And I'm sure the folks over at ABC will say that that's just not the case, but I just feel and I wonder how you feel about that aspect of all of this.

I mean, to me, it seems this is a time for our industry to stand firm. And we're going to have a very important job to do, and that's not putting us on a pedestal or anything like that, but we're going to have a very important job to do because Trump is not going to change his ways when he gets back in the Oval Office. He's going to continue to say things that need to be fact checked. And you can't have the news industry worrying about this sort of stuff when they're just simply doing their jobs.

STELTER: Well, if some bend the knee, others have to stand up straighter. You know, the former Time magazine editor Richard Senegal said this morning, Trump has sued dozens of publications and media outlets in the past, trying to quote, "intimidate the press into self- censorship," not to actually win any particular case.

He did win in this case with a big payment, but that broader concern about self-censorship is one that I know many viewers and readers are worried about. And ultimately, Jim, as you know, we work for them. We work for the viewers, not for anybody else.

ACOSTA: That's right. All right. Brian Stelter, thank you very much. We appreciate it. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:45:00]

ACOSTA: From Altman to Zuckerberg, some of tech's biggest names are shelling out big bucks to Donald Trump's inauguration fund. The heads of Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI, each pledging a million dollars. With me now is technology reporter for The New York Times, David Yaffe- Bellany.

David, you know, I was talking to folks over the weekend, you know, just -- you know, out and about doing the holiday party thing, and this has trickled down to the point where folks are talking about this, that you have these big technology companies that we all use, our apps, we go on their websites, we use A.I., and to have these companies make these kinds of donations, it is raising a lot of eyebrows.

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY, TECHNOLOGY REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, it's really striking. I mean, a lot of these are companies and corporate executives that have been criticized by Trump and that in the past have been critical of Trump. And so, it's pretty striking to see them abandon some of those critiques and kind of bend the knee to him.

ACOSTA: And so, it's not a stretch to say bending the knee. I mean, that is how I suppose it's being viewed by the industry, people who cover the industry, who -- people who are in the industry.

YAFFE-BELLANY: Absolutely. I mean, the people that I speak to in the tech industry talk about the fact that this isn't a normal administration, that there's a kind of medieval court element to how currying favor in Trump's America works and that, you know, taking a personal trip to Mar-a-Lago, giving to the inaugural fund, that those sorts of steps are kind of crucial if you want to establish yourself as an important player who is respected by the administration and can get what you want in Washington.

ACOSTA: Yes. And it also -- I mean, it just sounds unseemly to pay a million dollars to an inauguration fund with an incoming administration where your industry is obviously going to be, you know, on the table for discussion when it comes to policies, regulations, you name it. It does raise a lot of questions.

YAFFE-BELLANY: Well, the one thing I will note is that these sorts of donations to the inaugural fund are not unusual. This is something that lots of industries do, you know, every election year, you know, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican coming into the White House.

[10:50:00]

And so, the act of giving this money alone isn't super surprising, but it's sort of part of a package of gestures, you know, from the industry that just does seem very calculated at a time when, you know, the president-elect has said things about changes he wants to make in regulation that would be favorable to tech. It does sort of give the sense of an industry that's trying to kind of cash in on, you know, an election outcome that could be good for tech companies and for their bottom line.

ACOSTA: And Trump's history with big tech executives hasn't always been the best. You had Zuckerberg once banned Trump from Facebook. Trump repeatedly attacked Amazon and Bezos' Washington Post. Now, there are reports that Amazon Prime will be streaming the inauguration ceremony. I was at the White House on the day that he was banned from Twitter, and the worry at the time for people who don't remember was that he might incite more political violence in this country. That was why he was banned on Twitter. And so, I'm just curious what you see in terms of how these relationships might be shaking out in the new administration.

YAFFE-BELLANY: Look, the truth is that these companies, as much as they may have spoken out in the past about immigration policies or other things Trump has done that they disagree with, what these companies really care about is getting the kind of, you know, regulatory sort of pathway to do what they want to do.

So, for instance, the crypto industry has been, you know, attacked over and over again by the Biden administration, by the Securities and Exchange Commission, they've operated under this kind of regulatory cloud. And now, they have a president who, you know, gets onto the stage at crypto conferences and says, I love this technology. I'm going to get rid of the SEC chair, and I'm going to put people in place who will allow the industry to do what it wants to do. And these tech leaders hear that and they respond accordingly. And so, for a lot of them, it's kind of a moment of optimism.

ACOSTA: David, I also wonder how much of this is being driven by Elon Musk, because Elon Musk bet big on Donald Trump. He was doing all sorts of things up in Pennsylvania to help him get elected. And I wonder if some of these other tech CEOs are saying, oh, goodness Elon Musk sort of beat us to the punch here and now we need to catch up? Might that be a motivating factor in some of these companies coughing up this money?

YAFFE-BELLANY: Yes, I think that's definitely part of it. I mean, they see the amount of time that Elon Musk is spending, you know, at the president-elect side at Mar-a-Lago. And, you know, it's probably comforting for some of them. I mean, he's one of their own, you know, he's a controversial figure in the tech world, certainly, but it is encouraging to these people to see somebody like Elon, to see another person like Marc Andreessen, who recently said he's spending half of his time working on the transition.

Just the amount of power and influence that figures and people are having is pretty much unprecedented. And, you know, these other tech leaders want to be part of that.

ACOSTA: And it's a huge sea change from that standpoint in terms of what we have seen in recent years out in Silicon Valley, in that many of those CEOs, many of those tech executives were viewed as left leaning. And I suppose that includes Elon Musk, who, you know, started, you know, this revolution in electric cars, my goodness, because of his concerns -- partly because of his concerns over climate change. But politically, the winds have shifted out there.

YAFFE-BELLANY: Absolutely. And I mean, this is a -- you know, a decade -- the culmination of a decade-long trend that we're seeing. You know, tech industry leaders were used to being celebrated, you know, lauded for their entrepreneurial achievements, and then that started to change around the time Trump was elected the first time. Suddenly, they were getting all sorts of criticism from the left over things like Cambridge Analytica over the spread of disinformation online. And, you know, that led to a lot of frustration, and you're seeing some of that emerge now in this kind of, you know, more right- wing, pro-Trump sentiment blowing from an industry that historically maybe didn't believe in those things.

ACOSTA: Yes. Yes, it's raised a lot of talk of a so-called broligarchy that we might have taking shape here as Trump is going into office. David Yaffe-Bellany, great reporting as always. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:55:00]

ACOSTA: All right. Thank you very much for joining me this morning. I want to bring in my good friend Pamela Brown. And, Pam, I know you're following the drones. We were following the drones and I -- we were talking to Congressman Garcia earlier this morning and he was saying there's going to be a classified briefing for the House Homeland Security Committee. We're also reporting there's going to be one for the Intelligence Committee.

It sounds as though the Biden administration has gotten the message over the last several days, which is that people are just not getting enough information about these things.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Right. I mean, there's bipartisan criticism, right? You're hearing it from Democrats and Republicans. And this has really captured the public's imagination, right? I don't know about you, but all weekend, this was really the talker, right, among friends and family. Conspiracy theories are flying, you know, and that's what happens when --

ACOSTA: Not just the drones flying.

BROWN: Yes, not just the drones playing. Good one. No pun intended there.

ACOSTA: Yes.

BROWN: Yes. You know, so I think it's important. It's just a reminder of how important it is to inform the public and be up front as early as possible because when there is a vacuum like this, people fill it, right? And that's what you're seeing happen.

ACOSTA: Yes, that's true. Well, and Garcia was making a good point, and that is that we're going to be seeing more of these drones flying around, not fewer of them. And so, obviously, the federal government has to get on board with some kinds of new regulations or monitoring mechanisms. So, people can get this information and not just speculate as to whether these air drones or UFOs or stars or just, you know, planes coming in for a landing at DCA.

BROWN: I think it's actually really shocking that we don't have --

[11:00:00]