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CNN This Morning
Truth Behind the Twitter Files; "Avatar 2" and the Struggling Box Office; Meek Mill Uses Experience to help Kids; Ben McKenzie is Interviewed about Cryptocurrency. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired December 15, 2022 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: And that was a big claim that Elon Musk had made earlier when he was hyping these Twitter files. I think that's very important to point out here.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: And part of this, I think, also is not just the story, it's the way it's being covered. That is so much of this conversation. And you wrote it your newsletter the other night saying that the reason most news organizations aren't up in arms, that it's not leading every hour on CNN THIS MORNING, is because the releases have largely not contained any revelatory information. You weren't the only one who said that though. Gerard Baker, who is the conservative former top editor of "The Journal" said, they don't tell us anything new. There's not any kind of shocking revelation about censorship or anything like that.
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look -
COLLINS: But it's still important to talk about it, right?
O'SULLIVAN: Yes, I mean, I think if you're nerds like us and you're really paying attention over the past few years to a lot of this stuff, you know, you remember in 2016, and when we learned about the Russian trolls and the influence campaigns and the hacking and everything like that, people were up in arms. People were blaming Silicon Valley. So, they all tried to get their act together in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Whether they did it that successfully or not is up for debate. But part of that was having these conversations regularly with the FBI, with DHS, with DNI. And, you know, one thing that is a bit frustrating about these files is that it presents this as a huge revelation. We never knew that Twitter was talking to the FBI. They were putting out -- Silicon Valley were putting up press releases about the meetings they were having with them.
That being said, I do think, you know, we shouldn't totally dismiss what's in this already. I mean part of the job we've been doing the past few years is holding these tech companies accountable.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: And I think, you know, the power they wield is huge. And kicking a former - a then president of the United States off the platform is a very, very big deal.
COLLINS: Yes.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I just -- I don't know. I just want to - I kind of don't care. I know it sounds awful. I - listen, I care about Twitter when it comes to people who live in countries where there's suppressed speech and writes and that kind of thing. It's a good news aggregate. It can be used especially for people in this industry.
But this whole idea about, you know, people being suppressed and whatever, I mean, you have such the loudest, crazies voices on Twitter that are not suppressed. When you see, you know, Donald Trump Jr. tweeting a hammer and underwear about someone who is - could have been killed, I just go, stop. And, like, figure out what's important.
HARLOW: Doesn't it matter? I hear you.
LEMON: Yes, it does matter. I mean if we're not - but we're not --
HARLOW: Doesn't it matter that a big, powerful company, if they use there -
LEMON: Listen, no one has a right to be on Twitter, OK? You can be on Twitter or not be on Twitter. It's a private company. And if - you know, they can set the rules that they want to set.
I just feel like, especially - especially this whole Hunter Biden thing, it's like a Rorschach test for pollical - like, what side - what you believe politically. So, for me, it doesn't interest me in that way. But that's me being - I'm selfish, I know.
O'SULLIVAN: It is a private company. And, look, the First Amendment does not - you know, private companies are allowed to do what they want. This is part of the whole debate.
HARLOW: Well, I hate that they -- the free speech debate over this.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes, but I think -
LEMON: But free speech is about government. That's a - it's not about -
O'SULLIVAN: I - exactly. No, 100 percent. So it doesn't apply to Twitter.
HARLOW: Yes. Right. Right. That's what I'm saying.
O'SULLIVAN: But I think, you know, I think people in Silicon Valley, many of them are libertarians. I think many of us in the media would like to think that the spirit of the First Amendment would apply to this platform because it has such a pivotal role as a town square and it has such a pivotal role in political discourse, what are we like as - or not. So, I do think that it is quite important there.
And, remember, by the way, when Trump got kicked off the platform in those days after January 6th and lots of people were calling for that to happen. People were saying, Twitter, what are you doing here? But, at the time, people like Angela Markell, a spokesperson for her, who was no great fan of Elon - of Trump said, look, this is actually a bit concerning to see that a platform this powerful can kick off a president of the United States, even if he has outlets elsewhere.
DARCY: And I think a lot of the Twitter files, I mean more transparency is great. I think Donie and I would have loved to receive a cache of files exposing or revealing -
O'SULLIVAN: Our email address is out there.
LEMON: I bet you would.
DARCY: We would. We would -
O'SULLIVAN: Slide it into our DMs, Elon with the files, please.
DARCY: I think the problem here though is that Elon Musk is effectively serving as a gatekeeper for this information. He is not giving it to news.
LEMON: That's true.
DARCY: He is giving it to hand-picked journalists who are then agreeing to the condition, at least one condition of tweeting out the files instead of posting them in news stories. So I think that's --
LEMON: That's not the spirit of free speech.
O'SULLIVAN: No, it's not.
DARCY: No, and - and that's - that's sort of an issue here.
LEMON: It's OK (ph).
COLLINS: But even more so it's the jet.
O'SULLIVAN: Exactly.
DARCY: Yes.
COLLINS: It all comes back to the private jet, as the old saying go.
O'SULLIVAN: Really.
COLLINS: But with this - the transparency matters and how he makes decisions matters and now he's changed the rules basically to justify removing an account that was tracking his private jet.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
DARCY: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: And so this is the guy, right -
DARCY: Maybe that's the next Twitter files. I would - right. O'SULLIVAN: He's - he's - he is a free speech -
COLLINS: (INAUDIBLE).
O'SULLIVAN: He's a free speech - absolutely (ph). He's torn up the rules saying about Covid misinformation. He doesn't really seem to buy the idea that speech can lead to, you know, speech can lead to possibly dangerous acts in the real world.
[08:35:03]
And, yet, he turns that all up on its head last night when it comes to his private jet and he says, well, this is dangerous. And so this - we're going to shut this down. And he actually rewrote Twitter's rules this week to just -
HARLOW: So is allowing lies and conspiracies to spread.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes, but he rewrote Twitters rules to get that jet account kicked off the platform.
DARCY: Right.
O'SULLIVAN: Look, I do think that if I had a private jet -
HARLOW: You don't?
O'SULLIVAN: I mean I know you have a private jet, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Many. Donie rides on my private jet.
O'SULLIVAN: I think that's in your rider for CNN THIS MORNING.
COLLINS: Yes, right.
O'SULLIVAN: You know, I wouldn't like it to be tracked. But, I mean, if you're the guy who's - you're all about free speech, then you turn around and do it is hypocritical.
LEMON: Is it - is it a Bombardier Global Express or is it a -
COLLINS: Can I be clear that I'm going to be in a middle -
HARLOW: The fact that you even know -
DARCY: You even know those names.
HARLOW: He knows the private jet names.
COLLINS: Let's be clear that I'm going to be -
LEMON: I do.
COLLINS: I'm going to be in a middle seat flying home to Alabama next week. I will not be on a private jet.
HARLOW: Kaitlan and I are commercial and here's Mr. PJ over here.
LEMON: Look, I would - I would love -- aspirational. I - yes, I would love to be able to be on a plane, my own plane, and go see my mom after the show every day, but I can't.
COLLINS: Would you let people track it?
HARLOW: Do you - I so prefer commercial. I'm -
COLLINS: What?
DARCY: Me too. I prefer commercial.
HARLOW: Safety. I hate turbulence. Safety.
LEMON: Oh.
HARLOW: I'm like Delta, take me home.
O'SULLIVAN: Oh, yes.
LEMON: Thank - thank you - thank you, or American or United. I'll keep going.
HARLOW: They're playing us off. They're playing us off. We've got to go.
LEMON: Oliver Darcy, Donie O'Sullivan, thank you very much.
HARLOW: Thank you.
COLLINS: OK.
O'SULLIVAN: OK.
LEMON: This morning's number is 2 billion! We're going to tell you why. That's next.
HARLOW: That's so true, by the way.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:40:17]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time you will help them accomplish wonders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Look, he's still super but Henry Cavill won't be wearing the cape again, confirming on Instagram that he won't return for the iconic role of Superman, writing this, this news isn't the easiest, but that's life. The changing of the guard is something that happens. I respect that. My turn to wear the cape has passed, but what Superman stands for never will. It's been a fun ride with you all. Onwards and upward.
Co-head of DC Studios, James Gunn, says that the new movie will focus on an early part of the character's life when he was working at "The Daily Planet."
So now you know, Poppy.
HARLOW: Now we know.
The long-awaited sequel to James Cameron's smash sci-fi hit "Avatar" opens tomorrow. It's got a lot of hype to live up to.
Here with this morning's number is CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten.
Good morning.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Good morning.
HARLOW: I heard he can't go to the premiere or something because he - he had Covid. But he needs to make like 25 bazillion dollars, right, to even break a profit on this film?
ENTEN: Yes. So let's look at this morning's number. This morning's number is $2 billion because for "Avatar" to make a profit, it has to make $2 billion. I feel like Dr. Evil putting a pinky up to my lips.
OK, can it make the $2 billion? Well, let's talk about the fact that films are currently struggling at the box office in 2022. The total domestic box office in 2022 versus 2009, when "Avatar" 1 was released, it's down 28 percent. The biggest 2022 hit so far, "Top Gun: Maverick," only had a worldwide gross of $1.5 billion. So can we, in fact, get above $2 billion.
Let's do a little bit of math together, shall we? OK, so "Avatar" 1 made $2.9 billion worldwide gross. If "Avatar's" gross - if "Avatar" 2's gross is down 28 percent from "Avatar" 1, guess what -
HARLOW: They are going to do it.
ENTEN: They're going to do it.
HARLOW: They're going to do it.
ENTEN: I think that they're probably going to do it if the math kind of holds.
One last thing for you, Poppy. I just want to talk about the fact that movie struggles at large kind of speak to the larger post-Covid era in changes. People want cheaper options and they want more convenient options. And so, to me, the movies are just kind of part of something, our changing lives in America at this point.
HARLOW: Love going to the movies. I dream of going to the movies. One day.
ENTEN: Maybe you and I can go together one time.
HARLOW: That would be great. I -
ENTEN: We can bring Don and Kaitlan along.
HARLOW: Well, they're going to babysit and we're going to go together.
ENTEN: Oh, OK. That works too.
HARLOW: OK. OK. OK. All right, guys.
COLLINS: We'll have to check our schedules. We might be busy.
LEMON: Well, I'll go, but not with Harry.
COLLINS: Don's going to sit two rows back from Harry.
All right, this morning, rapper Meek Mill went to his hometown of Philadelphia to meet with more than 30 children whose lives have essentially been turned upside down by the criminal justice system. These kids whose parents are in prison for what are known as technical violations spent the day with Meek and other members of the Philadelphia 76ers and the Eagles as they held a mock draft day to compete - complete with its own (INAUDIBLE).
Chloe Melas sat down with Meek Mill and Michael Rubin, who is the co- chairs of the REFORM alliance, who put on the event. And Chloe joins us now.
LEMON: Yes.
COLLINS: It's about these children.
CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Ah, and they are the ones being left behind of what Meek Mill and Michael Rubin say is a broken system when it comes to criminal justice. And I will tell you that, you know, Meek Mill rose to fame with the Free Meek Mill movement in 2018 when he got sent to prison and many people felt it was unjust.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEEK MILL, REFORM CO-CHAIR AND AWARD-WINNING MUSICIAN: From 21 to 32 years old, I've been in prison three or four times, on house arrest four or five times. Could have lost my businesses.
Fortunately, I am a celebrity, and I was making money from my cell. But for the average working person, to lose your job, to lose your household over a technical violation, that would drive you back to poverty and put you in a mental state where it would be hard for you to move forward in America.
So, probation and parole, I wouldn't say that's the only thing you should focus on in the system, because it's very -- there's many layers to the system and I don't want to just try to direct the president or the administration to what to do with reform because I couldn't give you the answers.
But what we are working on, probation and parole, because I was affected by it. And I'm from a community where I see mothers and fathers leave their kid all the time in the house because they may have smoked marijuana or got addicted to a Percocet or went to cross the Philadelphia/New Jersey state line to take their children to football practice. So, I would say probation and parole, taking a look at that is a real thing.
MICHAEL RUBIN, REFORM CO-CHAIR AND FANATICS CEO: The biggest technical violations, people smoked weed.
[08:45:03]
People, you know, missed a probation appointment.
I met somebody else yesterday who lives an hour from where their probation officer is and they have to go twice a week every week to see their probation officer. That's four hours to see a probation officer. How do you then go out and have a job, take care of your family. It's tough enough to get a job after you come back into the - the system. After you've come out of the system it's tough enough to get a job. Now you've got all these other things that are working against you.
And so the point of probation and parole is, how do we help people to rehabilitate themselves. That's what it's here for. And, by the way, it's actually not the probation officers and the parole officers, it's the underlying system is broken.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELAS: So, what the REFORM alliance is trying to do is that they are trying to shorten probation and parole terms. And these technical violations can be something as simple as missing a court or probation meeting, failing to pay a fine. And it can land you back in prison. And then these children are home with no mom, no dad, no caregiver. And it really just creates this system where you can never get out of prison. And it's about -
HARLOW: Because it hurts the poor over and over and over and over again. I love them. I love this work. And I love that you did this.
LEMON: I talked to him in -- I went to visit him in prison.
HARLOW: Meek Mill?
MELAS: You did.
LEMON: Meek Mill. And then I interviewed him while he was in prison and then reported after he got out. And he promised to do this. And he is putting his money -
MELAS: Sixteen -
LEMON: And Michael Rubin. MELAS: I know.
HARLOW: Yes.
LEMON: I mean, I've got to commend Michael and -
MELAS: They have passed 16 bills in ten states -
LEMON: I mean -
MELAS: And now they're focused on Meek's hometown of Philadelphia.
LEMON: That is great to both of them. Congratulations. Keep it up.
COLLINS: Great reporting, Chloe. Thank you.
MELAS: Thank you.
COLLINS: Up next, the actor, Ben McKenzie, is going to join us live on what he says is the, quote, largest Ponzi scheme in history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MCKENZIE, TESTIFIED AGAINST CRYPTO AT SENATE HEARING: He estimated 40 million other Americans who have invested in crypto currency have been sold a bill of goods. They have been lied to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:50:40]
COLLINS: You might remember him as Ryan Atwood, the rough and tough kid who found himself living among the wealthiest families in Orange County in the 2000s classic "The OC."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No way. Look who's back. And you're a little far from Eight Mile.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Luke, don't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you, Like, spokesperson for geeks of America or something?
BEN MCKENZIE, ACTOR, "THE OC": You know what I like about rich kids? Nothing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: These days actor Ben McKenzie is taking on a different role as an outspoken critic of cryptocurrency and the volatile market he says is driven completely by speculation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MCKENZIE, TESTIFIED AGAINST CRYPTO AT SENATE HEARING: The supposedly multitrillion dollar industry was nothing more than a massive speculative bubble bound to pop.
In my opinion, the cryptocurrency industry represents the largest Ponzi scheme in history. In fact, by the time the dust settles, crypto may well represent a fraud at least ten times bigger than Madoff.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: He testified before the Senate Banking Committee yesterday in its investigation into the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange.
Senator Jon Tester, who actually sits on that committee, was asked afterward by a reporter if Congress could have helped prevent the sudden collapse of FTX.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON TESTER (D-MT): I don't know, because I don't know that anybody fully understands what the hell crypto even is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Joining us now to discuss is the actor and co-author of "Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism and the Golden Age of Fraud," Ben McKenzie.
Ben, you have been warning about the dangers of this for some time now. You even took a 24-part online course with the SEC chair, Gary Gensler, about this. I wonder if you feel like you've been proven right.
BEN MCKENZIE, ACTOR, CRYPTOCURRENCY SKEPTIC: Yes. I do feel like I've been proven right. I started warning people in October of last year. The market peaked in November, so just a month after Jacob Silverman, my colleague and I, wrote our first piece warning celebrities about the dangers of endorsing these cryptocurrencies and NFTs and whatnot.
And since then, the market has lost approximately 70 to 75 percent of its value. And that's just the value that's on paper. Cryptocurrency is this opaque, largely unregulated market. So, you can't even trust that the numbers that you see are real, unfortunately.
So, yes, I feel a bit validated, to be honest with you.
COLLINS: I wonder how you think you saw this when so many other celebrity have been pushing it, have been hawking it, have been, you know, encouraging their fans to get involved in this. How did you - how were you so skeptical of it in the first place?
MCKENZIE: So, I have a degree in economics. And I like to say the book I'm writing is about money and lying. Now, I know about money from my economics degree and from making a little bit of it in the 20 years in showbiz, but I know about lying because I do it for a living. As an actor, you're aware of what people are doing and how they're
using language. And language is an incredibly important tool that we discount to our peril.
When cryptocurrencies call themselves currencies, they are not currencies by any reasonable economic definition. They are instead securities, meaning investments. But they're unregistered, unlicensed securities.
We've actually tried this. In the 1920s, the roaring '20s, before the great crash of 1929 and the depression, we didn't have securities laws, federal securities laws. And so it's pretty ironic about 100 years later we're actually revisiting that era. And, unfortunately, what happens is that a lot of people get sucked in and then a lot of people lose money.
COLLINS: A lot of people. A lot of regular people. And I think that is at the heart of this. And something you said when you were testifying that stood out to me was basically that you believe the millions of Americans, and people who have been drawn into this, have basically just been sold a bill of goods.
MCKENZIE: They have. The lies are both big and small. The first lies start with language, but they do get bigger. Robert Shiller, the Nobel Prize winning economist, has talked about how economic narratives form. They are stories that are in response to real things. So, the creation of crypto is a response, supposedly, to the subprime crisis, right?
[08:55:03]
The huge debacle that created a lot of understandable mistrust of our financial institutions has given cryptocurrency the story a lot of its power. Everyone knows we have big problems in this country, a lot of problems with our regulated financial system. And so crypto says, oh, we can fix all that. We can bank the unbanked. We can build generational wealth. We can do this. It's the future of money. It's this, it's this, it's this.
Unfortunately, the problem is, that all of those stories are not true. None of them are true. And you see now, unfortunately, almost when it's too late, the power of those lies. And people wanted to believe in it so much, and I understand why, that they got sucked in. And now, unfortunately, 40 million Americans, the vast majority of 40 million Americans, have lost money.
COLLINS: And what do you think when you hear someone like Senator Tester say, you know, I don't think a lot of people even know what crypto is when it's lawmakers and their role that they could have been playing here. What do you think they need to do differently?
MCKENZIE: Well, it's really interesting. When you talk to the 80-plus percent of the country that has not bought cryptocurrency, they almost always say the same thing. You know, I've been traveling around the country and the world talking about this with lots of different people, from Sam Bankman-Fried himself, all the way down to, you know, regular investors. But when I talk to people who haven't bought crypto, they always say the same thing, or almost always. They say, I don't really understand it but it seems kind of scammy. And I say, no, no, no, you got it.
It's not really that complicated. Blockchain, this, you know, supposedly innovative technology, it's a ledger. It's a way of storing information. It's really not revolutionary. It's been around for 30 years. It goes back to at least 1991 when Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta, working at Bell Labs, created the first blockchain. But a Blockchain is just a - it's just a way of - it's a ledger, right.
What they're doing is they're using it to sell you on a story that it's the future of money and amidst (ph) other lie. Ironically enough, it's actually the past of money. It's the attempt at private money, which is something we tried in the 19th century, and it failed. And in part it failed because of fraud. So, all of these things are stories, but, as I know as a storyteller, just because it's a story doesn't mean it's a true story.
COLLINS: That's a really good point.
Your testimony was really impactful. Everyone should watch it.
Ben, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
MCKENZIE: It was my pleasure. Thank you.
HARLOW: That was such a great conversation.
LEMON: Smart. Great. I was going to say, smart guy, great actor. I mean --
HARLOW: Great.
COLLINS: Who saw all of this before it happened with FTX.
LEMON: Yes. He said -- yes.
What he said about what happened that we tried this before is a very important point, because we did, and there were no regulations (INAUDIBLE).
HARLOW: Student of history.
LEMON: Student of history.
COLLINS: Also, he said he was an actor, so he understands how people lie.
HARLOW: Lie.
LEMON: How people lie. He said, I lie for a living.
HARLOW: Great interview, Kaitlan.
LEMON: Thanks for joining us, everyone. Hope you enjoyed. CNN "NEWSROOM" starts right after a quick break. Have a great day.
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