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New Day

Biden Facebook Spar after He Says Platform is Killing People; U.S. Blames China for Hacks, Opening New Front in Cyber Wars; Countdown, Jeff Bezos Launches Space Flight in 24 Hours. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 19, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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


CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: The committee on COVID.

[07:00:01]

And he was talking about getting him out as quickly as possible, getting them away, continue testing, and, obviously, there's contact tracing.

And for me, this has been the story of these Olympics over the last three or four months, contact tracing, the idea of who has been close to these athletes, as you just mentioned, who has been near this person. Can they be contact traced? And horrible horrors in the terms of sports, Brianna, can they be contact traced right out of their event?

Now, we are far ahead in this conversation of where this news story is right now but that's where this is going to go over the next few days. And, obviously, it's something that these are the stories that we expected, and now, unfortunately, they're happening.

JOHN AVLON, CNN NEW DAY: And the U.S. gymnastics team so iconic in many ways, really, the symbol of the U.S.'s participation in these Olympics. And that kind of a contact tracing regime could be devastating to the events and the athletes themselves.

Christine, just clarify something for me, does the U.S. require all athletes to be vaccinated? Is it potential that this person who has come down with it was vaccinated?

BRENNAN: John, the U.S. and the Tokyo organizers do not require vaccinations. And I think that's really the root of the problem here. If everyone had been vaccinated, vaccines were required, you would have a very different story going into the opening ceremonies, but they're not.

So that means unvaccinated athletes can absolutely be here and they are here. Michael Andrew, one of the stars of the U.S. swim team told me a week ago or so that he was not vaccinated, and I've written about that.

So, there are -- certainly there's one. We know one of the alternates, one of the gymnastics alternates said that she was not vaccinated. Again, we do not know if she is in any way involved with this breaking news. But, yes, unvaccinated athletes from the U.S. and unvaccinated athletes from around the world, and, again, that contributes, I think, to this conversation.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: And Coco Gauff, tennis superstar for America, out, Christine. Tell us about this.

BRENNAN: Yes, Brianna. She tested positive, not here, so a very different story than what we're talking about with gymnastics. Coco Gauff obviously was going to be one of the fresh faces of the U.S. team and certainly the U.S. tennis team. She announced that on social media that she tested positive. This is before she got on any plane to Tokyo. She is not going to be here. She is out of the Olympics.

And, you know, this is something that we will see, I think, more and more, athletes who obviously are tested. The good news here, they caught it before she came. That's, again, one of the things the medical people are telling us, is that they would much prefer to find out when athletes are at home or abroad somewhere else before they get to Japan.

Once they get to Japan, they have brought the problem here. And let's face it, as you mentioned in the open to the segment, Brianna, the COVID is in the Olympic village. That is a fact. It is there. And now that it's there, as we know from 16 months of watching sports and watching high school sports, college pro sports, we know once it's there, it's hard to get it out. And I think that's one of the nightmare scenarios that now we're beginning to see at the Olympic Games.

KEILAR: Yes, it's proving to us that it is not a bubble. So we're going to be seeing how this transmits, if it does go beyond these athletes. Oftentimes it does.

Christine Brennan, wonderful to see you, thank you for joining us from Tokyo.

Coming up on New Day, Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be live from Tokyo as well with the look at how the Olympics are preparing to host the games. Lots of questions raised, as you just heard from Christine, how they're keeping athletes safe during the pandemic.

AVLON: Utah's Republican governor saying that anti-vaccine rhetoric is, quote, killing people, following the talking points propaganda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SPENCER COX (R-UT): We have these talking heads who have gotten the vaccine and telling other people not to get the vaccine. That kind of stuff is just -- it's ridiculous, it's dangerous, it's damaging and it's killing people. I mean, it's literally killing their supporters. And that makes no sense to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Utah's governor, Spencer Cox, delivering the strong words during a news conference on Thursday. He urged those in his state to get vaccinated, saying it is desperately needed.

Conservative media outlets and a number of Republican lawmakers continue to dispute the importance of vaccines, sowing doubts among their followers, even as most COVID deaths now occur in those who are unvaccinated.

Still, recent polling saw uptick in the percent of Americans who say they're unlikely to get a shot at 29 percent. Cox says he sees the COVID vaccines as the accomplishment of the Trump administration.

And he's not the only Republican officials fed up with anti-vax messaging. Senator Mitt Romney calling politicization of vaccines moronic.

Facebook is defending itself after President Biden accused the social media giant and other platforms of spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, saying they're killing people as a result.

CNN Correspondent Donie O'Sullivan is joining us now. Donie, it's good to see you as always. Facebook (INAUDIBLE) integrity releasing a statement taking direct aim at the Biden administration, saying, quote, at a time when COVID-19 cases are rising in America, the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies.

[07:05:08]

While social media plays important role in society, it is clear that we need a whole of society approach to end this pandemic. President's goal -- Biden's goal was for 70 percent of Americans to be vaccinated by July 4th. FACEBOOK is not the reason this goal was missed.

Now, this is all from a current senior executive at Facebook, publicly pushing against the president. But what do you make of the situation in their statement.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. Facebook really, really pushing back very hard here against the Biden administration over the weekend. They're essentially saying, one Facebook official telling me the reporters this weekend that they believe that the Biden administration is trying to turn Facebook into a scapegoat for the administration not reaching its own goals on vaccines.

I want to show you this other statement from a Facebook spokesperson over the weekend who said, we'll not be distracted by accusations which aren't supported by the facts. The facts is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet.

But therein lies sort of the tension, John, is that the White House is essentially saying that Facebook is cherry-picking its facts here because Facebook has access to all the data. The White House wants to know a lot more information about not people who are seeing correct information about the vaccine but people who are seeing misinformation.

AVLON: And that's the real question because, to some extent, the underlying data is a black box. Former Facebook exec said on CNN that President Biden may not have the right data to make his claims against Facebook. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN BOLAND, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT IN CHARGE OF PARTNERSHIPS STRATEGY, FACEBOOK: There's this saying at Facebook which is data wins arguments. And you could understand whether this is a massive problem or a smaller problem if everyone was looking at the same data. And that's part of the problem, is that I feel like the president is left without the data that he needs to really understand what role Facebook is playing in the issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: So, cut through the noise here for us, is the issue that President Biden may not have incomplete data? And is Facebook sharing all the data they actually have? Because people are dying as a result of this disinformation, there's no question about it.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, John. And this is a very fine line for the White House here because, you know, there's a First Amendment in this country, you know, the executive branch certainly shouldn't be seen to be telling platforms what -- how they should be policing their platforms and getting involved in speech in this way. But what we have seen the White House ask Facebook to say, look, just implement your own rules, your own policies. You have all these COVID-19 vaccine misinformation rules. Content should be coming down. And White House officials and people in that orbit are seeing these posts everyday and asking Facebook, why is this not coming down?

What we did hear over the past few days and from speaking to officials on all sides of this story about Facebook and people close to the White House is that, essentially, while the administration really wants here is more information, more information about the people who are seeing COVID misinformation, vaccine misinformation and the people who are seeing that regularly so that they can then redouble their efforts on trying to convince those people to get the vaccine. The White House essentially saying Facebook is not releasing enough of this data.

AVLON: All right. This story will continue to unfold. Thank you very much, Donie. Be well.

KEILAR: And just in, the U.S. and its foreign allies are planning to accuse China for overseeing widespread attempts to extort money in cyberspace, this includes the ransomware attacks. And this is noteworthy. It is a dramatic escalation in the Biden administration effort to prevent further breachges.

Alex Marquardt reporting to tell us a little more about this. This is a significant move. There's been so much focus on Russia. Now this is a focus on China. ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: We have been talking a lot about Russia, both hackers who are criminals and from the government space. And now, what we are hearing from the Biden administration is that they are banding together with key allies, European Union, NATO, Japan and others who essentially call out China for all kinds of malicious cyber activity.

The first thing they're doing is saying that China was responsible for a major hack. It was revealed back in March Microsoft Exchange Servers that have impacted tens of thousands computers around the world. They are now saying with high confidence that this was China-backed groups that carried out this hack that resulted in all sorts of economic implications for governments, for companies around the world.

The second perhaps more explosive part of this is that they're saying that China has been carrying out a campaign of essentially what are financial cyber crimes that they hired criminal cyber hackers to work for the civilian intelligence arm known as the MSS, the Ministry of State Security. And that they have been going out and doing all kinds of things, extortion, something called crypto jacking and ransomware attacks, which is something that we have talked about lot that in which they demanded ransom payments of millions of dollars including one attack against a major U.S. company.

[07:10:02]

The Biden administration would not actually say which company this was.

But in a call with reporters last night, a senior administration official called this campaign by these cyber criminals, again, hired by the Chinese government really eye-opening and surprising for us. There's a direct connection between the Chinese government and these criminals that they have hired.

AVLON: So, Jim, you know, we know the PLA has been involved in hacking efforts in the past. But this move of having these contract organizations is really we've seen more with Russia, now China directly implicated the U.S. and its allies. So here is the question, what is the punishment that can be put in place?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, to your point, China has been doing this for decades with enormous success. There's a reason why Chinese fighter jets and bombers look like American fighter jets and bombers, because they have successfully stolen U.S. national security secrets, private sector secrets and so on. There are even suspicions that the Chinese COVID vaccine is built a lot on stolen data. So they've been doing it for decades and they do it really well.

What's different about this is that we're saying they are now associating themselves with hacker groups that kind of do this in the criminal space because their official government and military hackers are damn good at their job. We've known about it for ages. So the idea that they're contracting out the way we know Russia does, that means they're expanding. They're not going backwards. What's not new in this, right, is what is the U.S. going to do about it? It is new to come together with the allies and say, China, we know what you're doing, and we are banding together, we're not going to tolerate it. And that's the difference of the Biden approach, right, because Trump's approach had been America first, we'll do this alone. We don't need you guys.

What they have not delineated here is what is the stick, right? Are we going to sanction Chinese officials? Are we going to block transactions, you know, and financial markets so that you can't profit from this or we need to go after your Bitcoin, whatever. They haven't said that yet. Now, this may be part of an escalation chain. We identify you, if you don't stop it, then comes the next step but we haven't seen that.

And that's -- the issue with both Russia and China is the U.S. has not figured out how to disincentivize this, because both countries have determined it's in their national interest to do this and it works. So, if it works, why stop?

KEILAR: It's just so alarming how they are now enlisting these kind of hackers militias, right, as they go into this. I wonder, though, look, you got to control what you can control at home, right? In the case of the Microsoft hack, when it came to that exchange email system, they realized they had vulnerabilities, four vulnerabilities, I think, on their email system.

So what is the lesson for other companies here when it comes to figuring out what your vulnerabilities are before you're actually getting hacked?

MARQUARDT: Well, that is the critical part of this, essentially when it comes to ransomware attacks, is that a lot of these could be thwarted by some very basic cyber security measures. And the Biden administration since coming has been very forceful and saying there are a number of steps, very key steps, that you can take in order to fortify your defenses. Dual factor authentication is one of them. Storing things in the cloud is another one.

And so now the Biden administration is working very closely with the private sector to make sure that all these vulnerabilities are essentially being patched and are being secured, especially when it comes to making sure that our critical infrastructure is secured. We have seen recently two major ransomware attacks, this was by Russian criminals, against the Colonial Pipeline, against JBS Foods.

So this -- what you're seeing together is the private sector and the administration coming together to try to make sure that these kinds of vulnerabilities often called zero day vulnerabilities are no longer being able to be exploited.

SCIUTTO: But the trouble is they do a lousy job, right? I mean, U.S. does lousy defense, clearly, because it's happening all the time. I mean, one natural vulnerability they would have is that so much of our critical infrastructure is in private hands, right? China, Russia, that's under the kind of government umbrella. Colonial Pipeline, you can call a critical infrastructure, right? I mean, the northeast ran out of gas, but it's in private hands. So, that's a difference. So, a lot is on private companies.

By the way, a lot is on you and me because you're only as strong as your weakest link. And a lot of these breaches it's someone dumb whose password is password123, right, and they get in, even administrators. I've covered this a lot, countries like Estonia that have been hacked by Russia, they put more responsibility on individuals. They have cyber hygiene. It's a national effort, individuals and companies to say, you guys got to protect yourselves better, right? It's on everybody.

There's no big wall we can put up at the Atlantic Ocean to stop this kind of stuff unless you and I and companies -- and, by the way, government is smarter. We're dumb. We're easy targets.

AVLON: There needs to be better defense. The public/private problem needs to be a public/private solution. But, as you say, there needs to be also clearer offense. There's no sign that China or anybody else is going to respond to diplomatic statements.

SCIUTTO: It works for them.

AVLON: They need leverage.

KEILAR: Cyber hygiene. I like that. Cyber hygiene, excellent. Thank you, guys, so much. Great to see you, Jim and Alex with us here.

[07:15:00]

And coronavirus cases are rising in every state in the country. They're driven almost entirely by unvaccinated Americans. So, how are some hospitals coping with the surge?

AVLON: And just in, CNN is speaking with billionaire Jeff Bezos ahead of his launch from Earth. Don't want to miss this interview.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Countdown to launch. Tomorrow, Jeff Bezos is set to blast off through the atmosphere on his company's rocket from his remote ranch in West Texas. So nice, right? This is happening just days after Richard Branson flew to space onvirgin Galactic's rocket plane.

And with us now is CNN's Rachel Crane, who got an exclusive interview with Bezos 24 hours before his space launch.

I mean, I can get an Uber at my house, Rachel, but he's going to get a rocket launch.

[07:20:00]

How is he feeling?

RACHEL CRANE, CNN INNOVATION AND SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, that's right. You know, we're approaching that 24-hour mark here before Bezos and his crew make this historic flight. They've been on the ground here in West Texas, going through their training. The last few days, they're wearing their space suits. And as you can imagine, Brianna, they are pretty excited. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRANE: This journey to space is a dream come true for all of you. So, tell me, and, Jeff, kick it off with you, how are you all feeling right now?

JEFF BEZOS, FOUNDER, BLUE ORIGIN: Excited. I'm so excited and curious. You know, everybody who has been to space, every astronaut comes back and they say that it changed them somehow. They see the thin limb of the Earth's atmosphere and realize how fragile the earth is. They see it's just one planet. So I don't know how it's going to change me, but I know it's going to. And I'm excited to find out how.

CRANE: And, Wally, did you ever think that this day would actually come? And did you ever imagine that you would be traveling to space with someone that can't even buy a beer?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually, some day I thought it would happen. I've waited a long time because I went to see Eileen three times on her launches. I kept thinking, okay, NASA is going to help me go up. It hasn't happened but we're going to do it now. I'm very excited. I want to feel how it's going to be in space and doing everything in that capsule what I can do.

BEZOS: Rachel, when Wally was in the Mercury 13, they tested her, all the same tests they gave to the men. She outperformed all the men. And because we have been training here for tomorrow's flight, I can assure you that she's still outperforming all the men at 82 years old. She can outrun all of us and she is also just a whirlwind of energy, a role model for determination and resilience and positivity and, you know, she's amazing.

CRANE: She's putting you all to shame, huh?

BEZOS: For sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. Honey, you're too nice.

CRANE: Now, you guys, humans have never flown in this capsule before. So you guys are essentially guinea pigs here. Does that make any of you guys nervous at all?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not nervous. I'm incredibly excited. I've had the opportunity to be down here for a number of the launches that have happened with this vehicle. And it's performed -- the capsule performed flawlessly 15 times in a row. Just, you know, can't wait to get in there and go for a ride in number 16. It's going to be incredibly exciting.

CRANE: Now, Jeff, there have been a chorus of critics saying that these flights to space are just joyrides for the wealthy and that you should be spending your time and your money and energy trying to solve problems here on Earth. So what do you say to those critics?

BEZOS: Well, I say they're largely right. We have to do both. You know, we have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those. And we always need to look to the future. We've always done that as a species, as a civilization. We have to do both.

And what our job at Blue Origin is to do and what this space tourism mission is about is having a mission where we can practice so much that we get really good at operational space travel, more like a commercial airliner and less like what you think of a traditional space travel.

If we can do that, then we'll be building a road to space for the next generations to do amazing things there. And those amazing things will solve problems here on earth. And, by the way, maybe it will be Oliver. He's 18 years old. Maybe he'll found a space company that uses the infrastructure that this generation is building right now.

So, the real answer is, yes, we have to do both.

CRANE: And, Jeff, last question, the timing of this flight, about two weeks after you stepped down as CEO of Amazon, is that because of the inherent risks of this flight?

BEZOS: No. I could have done this flight as CEO of Amazon and it would have been fine. So, first of all, we really believe this flight is safe. We wouldn't -- people say -- I had friends say to me, how about the second flight or the third flight? Why do you have to go on the first flight? And the point is we know the vehicle is safe. If the vehicle is not safe for me, then it's not safe for anyone.

We have never raced. We have never been -- our motto is (INAUDIBLE) step by step ferociously. Our mascot is the tortoise. We have taken this one step at a time. We're ready.

CRANE: Well, we are all ready to watch you take this historic journey. Good luck to you, guys. The world will be watching. Thank you so much for your time.

[07:25:00]

BEZOS: Thank you, Rachel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, Rachel.

BEZOS: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CRANE: Now, Brianna, one of the reasons that Bezos feels so confident in the safety of the system is because what the vehicle has what's called a full envelope escape, meaning from the moment they close that hatch to separation, they have the ability to escape and abort if necessary.

Now, this morning, Bezos and his crew, they're busy doing the media rounds, speaking about this exciting mission. They have a full day of training ahead of them. We have the opportunity to get on base yesterday at launch site 1 to get an inside look at what that training is like, get out to the launch pad and hear about the 20-year journey to this moment. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRANE (voice over): Preparing for a rocket-powered 2,300 miles per hour excursion to the edge of space. Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos will take his astral journey on the New Shepherd, a reusable rocket developed by his company, Blue Origin.

BEZOS: I want to go on this flight because it's a thing I've wanted to do all my life. It's an adventure. It's a big deal for me.

CRANE: But more than just an adventure, New Shepherd was designed to shuttle up to six paying customers, more than 62 miles above the Earth's surface, for a few moments of weightlessness and panoramic views, earning the fliers their astronaut wings.

While the rocket, which is fully autonomous, has flown 15 test flights, none of them have had humans on board until now. Bezos' brother, Mark Bezos will accompany him, an 82-year-old Wally Funk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wally, good to see you. I know, and I brought you one.

CRANE: Funk, a pilot who trained for NASA's Mercury program but was denied the opportunity to go to space because of her gender.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right for you right here, 28 million looking for 29 million.

CRANE: An additional seat was auctioned off with a winning bid wringing in at $28 million. The winner had scheduling conflicts, according to Blue Origin. So 18-year-old Oliver Daemen is now filling that seat, kicking off the company's commercial operations. So, if all goes to plan, both the oldest and youngest person ever to travel to space will be on this flight.

The astronauts have been going through their training at launch site 1, which includes a flight simulator that we got to experience. The company says they have two additional crewed flights scheduled for 2021.

Oh, wow. That's a thud.

7,500 people participated in the auction. What does that tell you guys about the market for these flights?

ARIANE CORNELL, DIRECTOR OF ASTRONAUT AND ORBITAL SALES, BLUE ORIGIN: People have global interest in coming to fly to space. I think it's part of the human experience of wanting to explore, wanting to see new perspectives. And so we think that our flight on Tuesday is really the next step.

CRANE: Bezos' flight comes nine days after Virgin Galactic Founder Richard Branson took his flight to space. And with the future at the forefront, Bezos' ideas go much deeper than space tourism.

BEZOS: This is the blue planet and this is the planet that we have to save. This is the good planet. We will move all heavy industry off earth, all polluting industry will be moved off Earth and Earth will end up zoned residential.

CRANE: But for now, Bezos will experience his ultimate adventure while helping propel us into the future of space travel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CRANE (on camera): And, Brianna, yesterday, during the mission briefing, Blue Origin saying that all systems are a go. Weather is looking good, so this mission is on track to take flight tomorrow at 9:00 A.M. Eastern. Back to you.

KEILAR: All right. Are you in front of a giant picture of Jeff Bezos? Is that what I see behind you?

CRANE: That is right, Brianna. I'm standing in front of a giant mural of Bezos and his brother, Mark Bezos, here in West Texas. And Van Horn is a tiny, tiny little town so this is very predominantly displayed here in Van Horn, Texas.

KEILAR: Certainly had to ask. It was just staring right at me. Rachel, thank you so much. That was such a wonderful interview and such a wonderful report. We really appreciate it.

AVLON: You know who deserves a mural? Wally Funk.

KEILAR: That's right.

AVLON: Greatest name of all time.

KEILAR: For sure.

AVLON: All right. Here with more on Jeff Bezos's trip to the edge of space, Hakeem Oluseyi, it is great to have you here. He's an astrophysicist and professor at George Mason University.

All right, so much to discuss because this is pretty fascinating, it is a trip to the edge of space. So tell us about where he is flying exactly, the trajectory.

HAKEEM OLUSEY, ASTROPHYSICIST: Right. So what we're looking at here is what's called a suborbital flight. And so when you think about space, we basically divided it into two regions, if not, three, right? There's orbital, there's suborbital and then there's just leaving Earth all together.

And so the whole game is about energy, and that means velocity. So, you need a bigger, faster rocket to go further. So what they're doing is suborbital.

Now, here is the rub. How do you define the beginning of space?

[07:30:00]

So, in America's military and aerospace industries, it's 50 miles. Now, here is the thing, I think it's based on having a round number.