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Mega Millions Jackpot Hits $1 Billion+ Ahead Of Drawing Tonight; Twitter Sues Hate Speech Watchdog Group; New Episode of "Chasing Life" Podcast Explores Biohacking And Aging. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired August 01, 2023 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00]
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And they shared pictures with us of what their home looks like now. And they quite literally say that they are trying to piece together their life at this point, trying to take an inventory of what police took from their home, what they left, and sort of get their life back together.
As far as her communications with Rex Heuermann, her divorce attorney telling us that they have spoken, but I know from talking to the sheriff's office that she has not visited him behind bars. But her divorce attorney not really giving much insight into what those conversations are.
But again, it does seem like she's just trying to get her life back together at this point and receiving support, actually, from people who live in that community, and also -- we're hearing from her divorce attorney -- from the family of other serial killers who have reached out who have been in a similar position as she has, interestingly enough, guys.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Brynn Gingras, thank you.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: "Barbenheimer' at it again helping set another record for theaters. The big giant movie theater chain AMC had its best week ever, they say.
MATTINGLY: And I ask Poppy every morning --
HARLOW: What?
MATTINGLY: -- is she feeling lucky because the Mega Millions jackpot is more than a billion -- with a "b" -- dollars right now.
HARLOW: Whoo.
MATTINGLY: The next drawing -- it's set for tonight. I'm excited.
HARLOW: I never buy those tickets but I need to.
MATTINGLY: Hater.
HARLOW: I saw both of them in the same day, "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer."
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[07:35:26]
HARLOW: People are going to the movies -- so many. Look, I saw "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" Saturday.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
HARLOW: There was a line.
MATTINGLY: I know. They haven't stopped talking about it. We're all aware.
HARLOW: I know, but there was a line down the block to get into "Oppenheimer."
MATTINGLY: I know. I'm very jealous.
HARLOW: When has that happened?
MATTINGLY: No, it's great. These movies are awesome.
HARLOW: Movies are back. AMC Theaters -- Movie Theaters, to be specific -- they had their best week ever, according to the company. That's thanks to Bobbinheimer -- Barbenheimer --
MATTINGLY: Just keep going.
HARLOW: Speed me up.
MATTINGLY: No, try it again.
HARLOW: Box office --
MATTINGLY: Try it again.
HARLOW: -- blowout.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Clip from Warner Bros. Pictures "Barbie."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: AMC said it had its best week of ticket sales --
MATTINGLY: Wait, why? Because of what? Barbenheimer?
HARLOW: Can you just let me read the prompter?
MATTINGLY: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
HARLOW: Because of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" success.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Clip from Warner Bros. Pictures "Barbie."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: The company said last weekend was its busiest since the pandemic hit, but the success continued into this weekend, making it the third-busiest since 2020 -- the pandemic, of course. Analysts at Comscore say the two movies have brought in more than $1 billion worldwide since opening about a week and a half ago.
And this just in. The owner of Regal Crown Cinemas, where I spent my money seeing "Barbie," emerged from bankruptcy after slashing billions of dollars in debt.
U.K.-based Cineworld, the world's second-largest movie theater chain behind AMC, struggled to stay afloat during the pandemic, lost $3 billion, and shuttered 51 of its theaters. Now it says it is ready and fully able to succeed in this dynamic and constantly changing movie industry.
MATTINGLY: You did that.
HARLOW: How about that?
MATTINGLY: It was on you.
HARLOW: They made more money from these movies than the next thing you're going to read.
MATTINGLY: Is it the -- it's the lottery --
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: -- right?
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: It's the lottery. I prefer movies to lottery tickets, although one is more expensive than the other. The Mega Millions lottery jackpot, though, has soared to more than a billion dollars. The next drawing is set for tonight. The enormous prize ties --
HARLOW: Wow.
MATTINGLY: -- the fourth-largest Mega Millions jackpot ever and it comes less than two weeks after somebody in California won the billion-dollar Powerball.
CNN's Dianne Gallagher is live in Charlotte, North Carolina this morning. Dianne, these jackpots are huge.
HARLOW: Huge.
DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and it's not your imagination that we're having more and more of these huge jackpots. Both Powerball and Mega Millions added new white balls to that pool so it's harder to match them all, meaning that we go weeks and weeks and months and months without anybody hitting the jackpot, and they just do nothing but rise.
We're at $1.05 billion -- yes, with a "b" -- again here. Tonight, a drawing. The question is will it be you, me -- who is going to get this (audio gap)?
I've got Paige Pauroso with me here. We're at a Harris Teeter and we've got a lottery machine behind us.
PAIGE PAUROSO, HARRIS TEETER EMPLOYEE: Right here.
GALLAGHER: You do notice, you said, sort of an uptick in people as these jackpots climb.
Absolutely. As the number goes up we see more and more people checking out our machines here where you can kind of purchase your tickets. And then, in the morning, we see people stop by. But by tonight -- this afternoon and heading into hours ticking down before the numbers are drawn, we see lines start to form at this machine. Everyone trying to get their ticket here at Harris Teeter.
GALLAGHER: And, of course, the question for everybody is do you take the once-a-year 29 payments or do you do the -- are you going to do the cash payment?
PAUROSO: You know, if I'm the lucky winner, I'm not sure. That might be overwhelming at first. But I hope I -- and I'm going to get my ticket here and fingers crossed for it.
GALLAGHER: So the odds are not necessarily in any of our favor. We're talking one in about 303 million chances of winning this. But, of course, if you do take that cash payment you're looking at about $528 million.
Phil, Poppy, if you want to give me some numbers I can put some in for you here. The Carolinas have been lucky before. South Carolina had the biggest Mega Millions jackpot at about $1.5 billion back in 2018. So you never know. Someone has to win, right?
MATTINGLY: Someone has to win. I feel like Paige seems like she's good luck for you, so I look forward to you sharing your winnings with us.
GALLAGHER: She (INAUDIBLE).
MATTINGLY: Dianne Gallagher -- Dianne Gallagher, thank you so much.
GALLAGHER: I didn't say that.
HARLOW: Dianne, thank you.
Well, X no longer marks the spot at Twitter headquarters, at least for now. We'll tell you why that big, bright, blinking sign was dismantled after dozens of complaints. MATTINGLY: Meanwhile, Twitter is suing a nonprofit group for criticizing its handling of hate speech and misinformation. The CEO of that nonprofit joins us next.
[07:40:00]
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MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, the new X sign on the top of the building formerly known as Twitter's headquarters is no longer. It was removed just three days after it went up. The city of San Francisco reprimanded the company for installing the giant sign without a permit and says it received 24 complaints about the sign's structural safety that shined -- and that it shined on nearby buildings.
It comes after owner Elon Musk replaced Twitter's iconic bird logo with an X last week as he continues to rebrand the social media platform.
HARLOW: Elon Musk also picking a new legal fight with a nonprofit known for criticizing X, formerly known as Twitter, for its handling of hate speech and misinformation. On Monday, X filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate claiming the organization has, quote, "Embarked on a scare campaign to drive away advertisers from the platform." That's what Musk is claiming.
X's legal action follows a report from that nonprofit that found that the platform failed to act on 99 percent, they allege, of Twitter's Blue accounts that have posted hate.
A lawyer for X first threatened legal action in July in a letter to the CCDH alleging that the group has made, quote, "...inflammatory, outrageous, and false or misleading assertions about Twitter and its operations" through its reports, which he argued lack scientific rigor.
Well, ahead of the lawsuit being filed, the group called the legal threat baseless and said they stand by their research.
I should note that Musk has recently called their CEO, who is our next guest, a rat and called the nonprofit he runs truly evil.
Joining us now is the CEO for the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed. I appreciate your time this morning.
And I should note since this, overnight -- in just the last few hours, this lawsuit has been filed. We'll get to the specifics of it in a moment.
But what is your response to Musk's attorney who just says you're wrong to say that about 99 percent of their Blue accounts? He says that your group provides no methodology for its selection or testing of tweets.
IMRAN AHMED, CEO, CENTER FOR COUNTERING DIGITAL HATE: Well, we've been incredibly transparent with our methodology. In fact, we have it on the website where we -- where we detail exactly what we did. And that's why they're able to criticize the methodology. We stand by it, of course.
HARLOW: Yes.
[07:45:00]
AHMED: But that's -- you know, that's just one claim he's made. In fact, he's kind of dropped that claim in the last week. And what he's now saying is that another study that we did that quantified -- that put some numbers around the increase in hate -- in hate speech on that platform when Mr. Musk took over --
HARLOW: Yes.
AHMED: -- he's saying that that's the problem now.
The truth is that he's been casting around for a reason to blame us --
HARLOW: Yes.
AHMED: -- for his own failings as a CEO. Because we all know that when he took over he put up the bat signal to racists, to misogynists, to homophobes, to antisemites, saying Twitter is now a free speech platform. He welcomed them back on. He actually reinstated accounts that were suspended for spreading that kind of stuff.
And now he's surprised when people are able to quantify that there has been a resulting increase in hate and disinformation on his platform.
HARLOW: The methodology aspect that he's criticizing here, in part -- Musk's attorneys -- they say that you chose 100 tweets and that is not representative, for example, of nearly 500 million tweets per day.
Can you just explain to our viewers how you come to these findings?
AHMED: So what we did is we took 100 random tweets, which we found to contain hate, from Twitter Blue accounts. We reported it to the platform using their own reporting tools, crucially. And then we went back and we checked what action was taken.
Now, of course, we know that Twitter has terms of service. It has community standards. It has rules of its own that we're all meant to abide by. It's our responsibility as users. But we have a reciprocal right, therefore, to expect others to have to abide by them, too, and for the platform to enforce those rules.
What we found was 99 times out of 100 they failed to enforce those rules on Twitter Blue users. Now, that is an extraordinary figure of failure. And Mr. Musk, rather than doing the right thing, which is to go crumbs, what's gone wrong with my platform? What's gone wrong with the way that we administer it? He's, instead --
HARLOW: OK.
AHMED: -- blaming the messenger. HARLOW: What is -- what is your goal? I mean, you put this information out there. Let me put on the screen some other things that your organization alleges. You have noted that since Musk took over Twitter, tweets containing slurs have risen by 202 percent. Also, tweets linking LGBTQ+ people to, quote, "grooming have more than doubled." Climate denial content and accounts are -- climate denial content and accounts are surging.
What is your hope by putting this data out there? Is it that you hope Musk will change how X is run and what it allows on the platform? We just saw he allowed Kanye West back on this week.
AHMED: Well, yes. I mean, you know, leaving Kanye West aside -- I mean, all we do is hold up a mirror to the platform and ask them to consider whether or not they like the reflection they see in it. Never before has one of these social media companies -- and we, of course, analyze all social media companies without fear or favor -- but when others don't like the reflection they seek to change it. What Mr. Musk has done is said I'm going to sue the mirror because I don't like what I see inside it.
HARLOW: You are --
AHMED: And that, I think, is what is quite -- what is so extraordinary about what's going on right now.
HARLOW: You're a nonprofit. Can you afford this lawsuit against your company? Because I wonder if other watchdogs out there watching -- if this might have a chilling effect being sued like this.
AHMED: Look, it will almost certainly have a chilling effect across the civil rights sector. Don't forget it's not just CCDH that have done this sort of research -- the Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change at the NAACP, and so many organizations.
But we are, right now, the tip of the spear when it comes to creating the research that drives change. That brings information into the public sphere. That allows people to draw their own conclusions. And Mr. Musk is targeting us as a reason.
Of course, it's going to be incredibly expensive. Of course, we are a nonprofit. We're small. We rely on public donations. We don't take money from social media companies. We don't take money from governments. So what we rely on is the generosity of philanthropic trusts and the public.
And in the last 24 hours, on our website counterhate.com, thousands of people have visited there. So many have left -- have given donations. And that's what we're going to need --
HARLOW: I --
AHMED: -- if we're going to survive this.
HARLOW: Imran, before I let you go, we did read through the lawsuit again. It came in the middle of the night, filed in the Northern District of California. I just want to allow you an opportunity to respond to one of the key allegations here they make.
They say that your group scraped data from X's platform in violation of the express terms of the agreement and that your organization convinced an unknown third party to improperly share login credentials and security -- to a secure database that CCDH then accessed to retrieve information without authorization.
Your response?
AHMED: I mean, there's a lot of unknowns that they -- that they are claiming to get to where they want to get. It sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me.
[07:50:05]
I think what's really important to note here is that the reason that organizations like CCDH have to rely on methodologies like we do is because there is no transparency on these platforms. Mr. Musk talks a big game about free speech but when it comes to transparency -- one of the vital elements in any democratic society -- he is failing. He's got an F grade.
Now, the truth is that we need federal legislation to ensure transparency and accountability for these companies. And until then, the best hope that the public have when it comes to protecting our kids, protecting ourselves, protecting our democracy is organizations like mine, the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
HARLOW: Imran Ahmed, thank you. You're welcome back as, of course, Elon Musk and any representative from Twitter is also welcome on the program. Thank you.
AHMED: My pleasure.
MATTINGLY: Is it actually possible to stop aging or even reverse it? Dr. Sanjay Gupta is breaking down new and popular bio hacks.
HARLOW: Also, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin practiced in his pads for the first time since his cardiac arrest. Great to see him doing well. What he said about it.
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MATTINGLY: Well, many of us hope to live long, healthy lives. There are some, though, who go to extraordinary lengths to achieve that goal.
Our CNN chief medical correspondent is out with a new episode of his podcast "Chasing Life" today, talking all about what is known as biohacking. And we are very lucky in the fact that he is joining us live on set.
HARLOW: Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. MATTINGLY: All right. So I read most of the transcript to the episode. I didn't quite have time to listen to it because I was watching the World Cup this morning. But I'm fascinated by this, including your skepticism at the top of it.
[07:55:08]
What is biohacking?
GUPTA: So, biohacking can best be described as sort of trying to enhance your natural biology. And the belief is that, look, if you did everything right how long could you live? And some would say it's around 115 years, so we're probably leaving 35 to 40 years on the table based on average life expectancy.
So what are all the things that we can do to improve that? And you've heard a lot of these things. Intermittent fasting, cold plunges, things like that.
But there's different ways that people are looking at aging overall and they sort of break it down in these categories. The "Dorian Gray" approach, which is basically to say that we're going to slow down aging. The "Wolverine" approach, where you're going to reverse aging. And the "Peter Pan" approach, where aging really never occurs in the first place.
So how does biohacking -- how do any of those sorts of things influence those types of approaches to aging? That's what it is. It's a huge burgeoning field. It's part of -- you know, people quantify their selves and measure everything about their selves, and then try to figure out how to enhance their natural biology. That's basically what it is.
HARLOW: I assume a big money-making field as well.
GUPTA: Huge, huge.
HARLOW: So to help our viewers not get ripped off, what caught your attention and what do they need to know?
GUPTA: Well, first of all, these are the hardest studies to do, as you might imagine. Because fundamentally, your outcome is did you live longer or not, and that can take decades.
HARLOW: Yes.
GUPTA: And then, what do you compare it to? How long do you know you would have lived otherwise, right? So it's really challenging.
I will say that there's these various what are called hallmarks of aging. Like, what is aging, right? How much your immunity declines. How much inflammation you build up. How many cells you have in your body that aren't working as well. There are ways of measuring aging other than revolutions of planets.
And some of these, guys, are like starting to focus in on really specific things.
I talked to this one aging researcher. He's the head of aging research at Einstein. And he specifically talked about a diabetes drug used to target aging. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA: Can we say that, at his point, that if you take Metformin that you will delay what are often referred to as age-related diseases?
DR. NIR BARZILA, INSTITUTE FOR AGING RESEARCH, ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes. Metformin targets the hallmarks of aging. One of the hallmark of aging is the immune decline, OK? You take care of the immune decline and the inflammation and you actually do much, much better. So, yes, Metformin is this pill that has a remarkable effect on the hallmarks of aging and protects us from age-related diseases.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA: And what he's basically saying is that this diabetes drug, Metformin, which was FDA-approved in 1994 for diabetes, could help target all those hallmarks of aging. It's not FDA-approved for that -- for aging -- but it is interesting. You get a lot of people in this biohacking community who are starting to take Metformin --
HARLOW: Wow.
GUPTA: -- specifically in the hopes that they're going live longer and healthier.
MATTINGLY: A separate topic but I do want your take on it. We saw a remarkable scene -- Damar Hamlin running out on the practice field yesterday in full pads. He always said he was going to come back. He's back in full pads.
Are you surprised?
GUPTA: You know, in the first couple of days I think there was a remarkable sort of resuscitation. I mean, that was -- what we saw on that field was incredible.
I will say that the first couple of minutes after someone has a cardiac arrest are probably the most critical. If they survive that then they actually have a much better chance of overall recovery. I mean, survival drops seven to 10 percent every minute someone has not been resuscitated.
We talked to people from the NFL at that point and they basically said look, "If no underlying cardiac abnormality is identified, then individuals can safely resume training and competition after resuscitation from commotio cordis."
They found no other underlying abnormalities so it wasn't that surprising. And the diagnosis was confirmed. I mean, this is -- this is what Damar said.
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DAMAR HAMLIN, BUFFALO BILLS SAFETY: So, the diagnosis of pretty much what happened to me was basically commotio cordis. It's a direct blow at a specific point in your heartbeat that causes cardiac arrest, and five to seven seconds later you fall out. And that's pretty much what everyone seen January second of this year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA: It's pretty incredible that he's come back, no question, but not a huge surprise. And he should be fine. I mean, the likelihood of it happening again very, very, very low.
HARLOW: How wonderful is that?
GUPTA: I know. It's a great story.
HARLOW: How wonderful is that?
Thank you, Sanjay.
GUPTA: It's nice to tell a good story.
HARLOW: Good to see you.
President Trump's legal troubles having a real effect on his campaign war chest. His PAC nearly broke after having more than $100 million at the beginning of last year.
MATTINGLY: And the U.S. Women narrowly moving on to the next round of the World Cup. We have the highlights of just how close the U.S. came to elimination.
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[08:00:00]
