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CNN This Morning

Arizona, Nevada Race to Count Votes with Senate in Balance; Where Did the Money Go in Midterm Elections?; Trump Family Split Over Possible 3rd Run for White House; The Fall of American Social Media? Chaos Plagues Tech Giants. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 11, 2022 - 06:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, sleepy heads. Good morning, everybody. What a week. What a week.

[06:00:45]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: I prefer to be woken up with loud shouting.

LEMON: Do you?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: He's trying to be gentle.

LEMON: That is the only way to wake Kaitlan up, right? Loud, "Get out of bed!"

Hey, I don't want to yell at people. Get out of bed. It's Friday, November 11th. And we still don't know who's in control of Congress. It is still up in the air.

So this morning, votes are still being counted in Nevada, in Arizona, where two critical Senate races remain undecided.

Along with the suspense, comes the expense. I'm going to explain. We're following the money to figure out just how much cash was spent on these races and which party spent more.

HARLOW: That's right. We also have new CNN reporting on Donald Trump's expected announcement that he is running again. Some Trump family members are signaling, though, they don't really want to be involved if that's the case.

And also, every single parent, listen up to this. A deadly mix. Half of the United States is experiencing high or very high respiratory illness activity. That includes RSV, flu, COVID. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is live to join us on that this hour.

COLLINS: But first, it is still election day and some. John Berman is here to break down the key races that are still undecided at this hour, who is going to control Congress. I'm starting to deja vu standing at this wall with you.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I know, and I apologize. Kaitlan walks over, and I said don't bother me. I'm doing math. Math is hard for me to do all this, so hang out.

Let me just tell you where we are right now.

COLLINS: Right. Because it's looking better for Democrats in the Senate right now.

BERMAN: It might be. We're watching, of course, Nevada and Arizona. If either party manages to win both of these states, then we don't need to wait until the runoff in Georgia to figure out who wins control of Congress.

Let's see where we are in Nevada. OK. So now, Adam Laxalt, the Republican, leads the incumbent Democrat, Catherine Cortez Masto, but just by 9,000 votes.

Let me see if I can tell you where this was yesterday when we were talking most of the day. Most of the day yesterday, Laxalt was ahead by 15,000, maybe more. Now the lead has shrunk to about 9000.

Why? There were more votes counted in Washoe County yesterday, about 18,000. And Catherine Cortez Masto netted about 60 percent of that. And there were more votes counted in Clark reported yesterday; 12,000 votes counted in Clark last night. Catherine Cortez Masto won 61 percent of that.

I give you these percentages, because the math here is interesting. OK. Let's go to a blank blackboard here. We think that there are roughly -- let me get this out -- we think there are roughly 95,000 votes left to count --

COLLINS: OK. In the whole state?

BERMAN: In the whole state, 95,000 votes. If she can win 60 percent of that, which she was yesterday in Washoe and Clark County, she would net -- net -- 19,000 votes. Nineteen thousand votes. Which, even with my math skills, I know --

COLLINS: Would change that.

BERMAN: -- is more than the 9,000 votes.

Now, I don't know that this will happen. I just want to give you directionally what could happen if the margins stay the same.

We know there's 50,000 votes left to count in Clark County. What we don't know is if she will be able to maintain that type of margin there.

In Arizona, a little bit of a different story. Mark Kelly, the Democrat, has expanded his lead as more vote counting has been recorded, typically in Maricopa County, especially in Maricopa County, and down here in Pima County.

He had been at about 85,000 yesterday. Now he's at 115,000. About 540,000 votes left to count. That's a lot. It's a lot of runway.

COLLINS: Yes.

BERMAN: Now, if -- if that vote skews Republican and Blake Masters were to win 60 percent of that -- I'm not going to write this down for you -- he could get close to overtaking Mark Kelly.

But one thing I want to point out that people haven't focused on. There are about three counties that are almost 100 percent in. They're all Republican counties. Gila County right here, just West of Phoenix, you can see 95 percent, and it may actually be a little more. Mark Kelly is outperforming Joe Biden, what Joe Biden did there by 7.5 points.

COLLINS: And obviously, Biden won Arizona?

BERMAN: Barely, but he won it. You go just West to Graham County. Mark Kelly is outperforming Joe Biden by 7 points here.

And one more county West, Greenlee, where most of the vote is in. It's tiny. It's tiny, but he's outperforming what Joe Biden did there right now by 17 points. So yes --

COLLINS: Remarkable.

BERMAN: -- we have to wait for all this to come in. There is enough room for Blake Masters, if he does really well in the rest of this vote, to overtake Mark Kelly.

But in the places where we've seen, almost everything, Mark Kelly is doing more than what he needs to do to win.

COLLINS: So it seems like that is somewhere where Democrats are waking up this morning, that's good news. Five hundred and forty thousand votes left to count in Arizona. How many left in Nevada again?

BERMAN: Ninety-five thousand.

COLLINS: And how long is that going to take? Because my dad called me yesterday after the show, and he was like, why is this taking so long?

I said it's normal. This happened two years ago. It's not anything suspicious. But he wanted to know how long it's going to take.

BERMAN: Different reasons in different states.

In Nevada, the law says that any ballot postmarked by election day can be received until actually tomorrow, and they will be counted.

COLLINS: OK.

BERMAN: So they're just waiting for all those to come in as they continue to process.

Arizona, it just takes some time. They get the votes in. They match the signatures with the things on file. They were slow two years ago; they're slow this time.

But Arizona, no one had a problem with Arizona doing this until about two years ago when people called results into question.

COLLINS: Right.

BERMAN: This is just how Arizona has done it for some time.

COLLINS: Right. So it's normal.

BERMAN: And it's going to take a while. It could take another week in Arizona.

COLLINS: OK. We'll order you some breakfast.

BERMAN: Yes, thank you.

COLLINS: What do you want?

BERMAN: Appreciate it.

COLLINS: John Berman, thank you.

HARLOW: Berman is good at math, and he's Magic Berman at the Magic Wall.

BERMAN: I have to prepare the math. I can't read my handwriting. There's a lot of challenges here.

HARLOW: We are grateful for you.

LEMON: Do you want some cheese to go with that whine, John Berman?

COLLINS: Oh, come on. Math was not part of the job when we signed up to do journalism. OK?

BERMAN: I know.

HARLOW: Be nice to Berman. We definitely need him at that wall.

OK, guys. Thank you. We'll get to you soon.

Well, let's talk about Georgia with the Georgia runoff campaign between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker under way, so much money is pouring into this state.

In the past 24 hours, both parties, outside groups, announced investments in this race that could determine the balance of power in the Senate. Staggering amounts of money were spent in the -- in other battleground states, as well. Some Republicans are now questioning, though, whether it was enough.

Let's go to Rahel Solomon. She's been following the money. She joins us now.

You know, when you have some of these states with these really tight margins, there's a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking, saying, if we just poured a little more into those states. RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. A lot of money to

follow, Poppy. So let's first look at the big picture. So let's start with, across the top five Senate races for this election cycle.

Both parties, campaigns and outside groups included combined to spend over $1 billion. Let that sink in.

At the top of the list there, my home state of Pennsylvania, $264 million. So Democrat John Fetterman here defeating Republican Mehmet Oz.

Republicans outspending Democrats by $22 million in Pennsylvania.

Let's go North to New Hampshire, where Democrat Maggie Hassan defeated Don Bolduc. Dems outspending Republicans by $11 million here.

And then, of course, to the all-important state of Georgia, where as John mentioned, the race between Warnock and Walker is heading now to a run-off. Well, Democrats spent 20 million more dollars than Republicans here -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Can you talk about what the races that are still undecided ta this house and what we know about the money in those?

SOLOMON: OK. So let's start with Arizona, where as John pointed out, Democrat Senate Mark Kelly, senator, still maintaining his edge over Blake Masters there, the Republican candidate.

Democrats here outspent Republicans by $46 million.

In Nevada, where Republican Adam Laxalt is leading Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, well, Democrats outspent Republicans here by $17 million.

And let's look at the spending advantage. The same information but on the map, sort of a different perspective.

You can see the breakdown of those states I mentioned plus Ohio. So the Democrats outspending Republicans in states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire. Republicans outspending Democrats in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

But Poppy, for folks at home who perhaps have ad campaign fatigue, this is why. It was a lot of money, a lot of ads. And of course, for our friends in Georgia, they have a few more weeks of it.

HARLOW: Yes. A few more weeks and a whole lot of ads to come.

Thank you for following the money, Rahel.

LEMON: So there is some new reporting out this morning that not everyone in the Trump family is on board with a potential 2024 run. It comes as the family will be gathering this weekend at Mar-a-Lago for Tiffany Trump's wedding.

CNN's White House correspondent Kate Bennett joins us now with her new reporting.

Kate, what's up? What family members?

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, the two that we saw the most during Donald Trump's first run in the White House, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, her husband, have no intention of returning, should there be a second campaign of Donald Trump for the White House.

[06:10:02]

I spoke to a number of people who said they have very little interest in anything to do with Washington or the White House at this stage in their lives.

You know, and this was a couple who was involved in everything in the White House from, you know, Middle East policy to COVID-19 response. Jared was the gate keeper for Donald Trump. Ivanka was his most

trusted adviser.

So this is going to be a shift for Donald Trump, if he does run again, to have his own family members not be on board here.

Now, the family member that is on board, of course, is Donald Trump Jr., who has, if anything, expanded his political footprint in the years since Donald Trump has left the White House. His girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, also is involved. The brother, Eric Trump, will be more like Don Jr.

I'm told that Don Jr. will campaign for his dad, will be out there.

But certainly, you know, we didn't see Ivanka Trump even in the midterms. This is not something that she wants to do any more.

And you know, I think at this point the family is divided in that sense over Donald Trump's future. While he remains obsessed with getting back in the White House and, you know, thinking this was not a fair election the last time, his children feel opposite.

LEMON: All right. Kate Bennett, thank you very much. Appreciate that.

BENNETT: Thanks.

LEMON: New numbers this morning show an alarming rise in respiratory illnesses all across the nation.

COLLINS: Plus, it is pure chaos inside Twitter right now. But Elon Musk's new company is not the only tech giant that is suffering. What is going on with social media? We'll talk about that next.

LEMON: A lot of people losing their jobs.

HARLOW: So scary.

LEMON: A lot of people losing --

(CROSSTALK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, ABC'S "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!": Over on Twitter, Elon Musk is laying people off. His key employees are quitting. And in his first mail to his remaining employees today, he announced a ban on working remotely. He told them to prepare for difficult times ahead and plan to be at the office hours at least 40 hours a week, effective immediately.

All of a sudden, Mr. Driverless Car needs humans in the seats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: One of the Twitter executives who quit is the chief information security office -- officer, Lea Kissner. Kissner said it was a, quote, "hard decision" to leave the company, but Kissner did not say why.

Kissner's departure comes as chaos has been erupting inside the company since Elon Musk took over.

It's hard to really summarize what has consumed Twitter in just the last several days alone. I'm going to try, of course.

Musk fired half of Twitter's employees, some of them by mistake. Many of them sued. Some were asked to come back.

He cracked down on users who were impersonating him, talking about suspending those who do impersonate people. He said people need to pay for that blue checkmark.

And now, in his first mass call with employees, he declared an end to remote work. The real kicker: he also said that he could not rule out bankruptcy.

One of the recently laid off Twitter employees told CNN's Oliver Darcy it feels like the beginning of the end.

LEMON: You've got all of this, along with mass -- massive layoffs that we're hearing about at Meta. That's raising a bunch of questions.

Are we witnessing the fall of American social media? You know who can answer that? CNN's media analyst and Axios media reporter, Sara Fischer.

Sara, good morning to you. When you were here the other day and I talked all these changes, as you were walking off the set, I said, Wait, is this -- what is happening to social media? Are people not interested anymore? I can't remember the last time I was on Facebook, and I don't go on Twitter that much, blah, blah, blah.

And you said it's possibly the downfall of social media. What? SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: I think so, Don. I think part of it

is that Gen Z is demanding a new experience from the ones that you and I grew up with.

You know, in the early days of social media, about 20 years ago, which grew on the backbone of the rise of the smart phone, it was all about connecting you to your closest friends but in sort of a public way. You know, publicly posting to people's Facebook walls, publicly messaging people's Myspace boards.

What's different now is that Gen Z is so much more conscious of privacy and authenticity. And so what they're looking for as an experience doesn't necessarily spill out their personal relationships publicly. But that brings them in privately.

That's why you're seeing a huge rise in encrypted messaging apps. And you're also seeing a huge rise in apps like TikTok that unite people not based on their close friends but actually unites people based off of shared interests.

LEMON: It's not like -- it's sort of show off apps. I find, like, you know, a lot of these are just here's what I'm doing. And I've got to get the picture really perfectly so that everybody can think my life is perfect, and great vacations, and what have you?

So we're moving away from being pretty and cute and showing off and flexing on social media?

FISCHER: I mean, I think Gen Z wants people to be much more authentic. And now there are apps like TikTok that prioritize talent. You'll see some of the stuff that goes really viral on TikTok are beauty experts. People who are showing you how to do makeup. Are dancers, are comedians. There is a market for people who want to show off, but it's a genuine talent.

What's no longer as cool for Gen Z is just showing off your cool vacation or showing off the cool things you did with your friends to the public. What they want to do is showcase that only to their really close friends.

And that's why apps like BeReal, where you know, users can take one photo a day that's meant to showcase what they're actually doing, are skyrocketing in popularity.

HARLOW: My -- my very much cooler 26-year-old producer came in my office the other day, and she's like, Quick, let's take a picture for BeReal. And I'm like, this isn't real, I have way too much TV makeup on.

But she was introducing me to the new platform.

But I -- what I wonder what your take is on what I think has changed, also, is insiders coming out and speaking out. Like, it happened with big tobacco, and now it's happening with social media.

So Twitter, remember the whistle-blower recently. And then let's play this sound to remind people of Frances Haugen, who was a product manager at Facebook, and was a whistle-blower and testified before Congress. And here's what she said about the platform. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:20:02]

FRANCES HAUGEN, FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER: I saw Facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profits and our safety. Facebook consistently resolved these conflicts in favor of its own profits.

The result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more threats, and more combat. In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: "Harms and even kills people." Mark Zuckerberg said in response -- just want to put it out there -- "That misrepresents our work and our motives."

But is it an inflection point when the people on the inside, doing the work, come out and say, Here's what's been happening?

FISCHER: Yes, absolutely. And I think the reason that they're coming out and saying that is because these social media apps grew based on targeted advertising, which meant that you, the user of these free apps, was actually the product. Your data was being used to target ads so that they could make more money.

And I think what people are coming out and saying is that that model is not good for privacy, and it's also not good for things like misinformation and democracy.

And so right now, there's a push to get more user data to be anonymized. Meaning they're not tracking you individually, Poppy, or me individually. They're tracking us as cohorts based on some of our interests.

And I think that's sort of what the future of social media is going to look like. And any social network that's not going to be thinking about privacy first is going to continue to have more whistleblowers and more people speak out.

COLLINS: Sara, two things. One -- one of the things that Elon Musk has suggested when it comes to Twitter that I personally think is a great idea is encrypted DMs. He has talked about getting rid of the use that you're talking about, of going to those third-party apps like Signal and whatnot.

A lot of reporters, obviously, use that to communicate with sources.

The other thing that you said during the break that really interested me is this idea of these megawatt personalities coming out of Silicon Valley, and how the appetite, I guess, is changing for them.

Because we were obsessed with them recently, the royal "we." But it seems to be changing to a degree.

FISCHER: Totally. So on encrypted apps, that's the future. And I think that more people are nervous about their communications. And so if you're not encrypted end to end, you're going to see users leave your world.

And I think you're right. That's why Elon Musk wants to go this way.

He's also thinking about payments, and introducing payments to the app, you have to be encrypted for privacy reasons.

But to your point, I think we. as a society, have held up these Silicon Valley entrepreneurs almost like gods. They've created these massive companies, some of which have been the fastest growing companies in the world for the past decade.

But what we're starting to see now is that they're just humans. They're just regular, everyday people. And we need to hold them to the same exact levers that we're holding other types of business leaders and world leaders.

Which means a lot of world scrutiny. A lot of lawmakers are going to look into them.

We noted yesterday that President Biden says that we shouldn't not be looking at Elon Musk's foreign relationships.

I think the tide has turned, where we no longer look at these entrepreneurs, these Silicon Valley leaders, as gods, and we see them as people, normal people that need to be reckoned with.

LEMON: I think that -- we've got to go, Sara. But I just think, like, to the point that you were making just before with Poppy. I think young people are sick of all of the trolling and the vitriol, and, like, going on, you know, you're fat, you're ugly, I can't stand what you think politically. It's -- I hope that they are over it, because it's so toxic and so disgusting.

So if a couple of social media sites fall because young people are not interested in that, or at least have to change their business model, I say amen.

HARLOW: I hear it. I hear it. But because I'm worried about what it would mean for our children -- my kids if it doesn't change. But I worry about those people employed at those companies. Thousands and thousands of people.

LEMON: Yes, but if they have to rethink it.

COLLINS: It's an important communication tool.

LEMON: Yes.

COLLINS: Twitter is huge that people use globally.

LEMON: If you do it directly, if you -- if you, you know, attract the people, more people by being more positive or doing what young people want you to do, I don't think they'll lose their jobs. They may, you know, gain some jobs. I think people are tired of the --

FISCHER: Trust has been completely lost here. You're completely right. And I think the only way that these apps are going to survive is if they rebrand themselves.

That's why Snapchat calls itself a camera company. That's right. TikTok says it's an entertainment platform. That's why Facebook is now the Metaverse. It's now Meta, because they know that they've lost trust, and unless they don't rebrand themselves, they're not going to get it back.

LEMON: Sara, right on. Love it.

HARLOW: You're a treasure. Thank you, Sara.

LEMON: Thank you. Thanks.

COLLINS: She's so good.

HARLOW: A handful of undecided races, still razor-think margins this morning. John Avlon is here with a breakdown of the history of tight match-ups.

LEMON: You know who else is here? There's Harry Enten, our data. What's next in Georgia's runoff election.

COLLINS: I think he lives over there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: He thinking he's going to win. We need to prove him wrong and let him get out of that office.

WARNOCK: I'm going to need you to stick with me for four more weeks. Can we do that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:29:11]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: He was dying to go into overtime, because if you watch what he was saying, we got to go in a runoff. And I was saying, No, I want to beat you outright. And if he want to go in a runoff with me, I'm saying you bring it, homes. You bring it, because I was built for this. WARNOCK: You have to admit that I did warn y'all that we might be

spending Thanksgiving together. And here we are. So I'm going to need you to stick with me for four more weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: I think it's fair to say that is a hotly-contested Senate race in Georgia. Well, it's headed for a runoff election right now.

Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and is Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, both failed to win the outright majority needed to take home a victory on Tuesday.

Now there's a chance Georgia voters could end up deciding which party wins a majority in the U.S. Senate, again.

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten is at the battleground desk.