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More Americans In Fear Over Crime Spikes And Grisly Murders; Math And Science Teacher Traveling U.S. To Spread Big Lie; Yao Ming Invites Enes Kanter Freedom To Tour China Amid Criticism. Aired 7:30- 8a ET
Aired January 19, 2022 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00]
MICHAEL FANONE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST, FORMER D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER: And I think in doing so you marginalize the victims and place police officers whose job it is to keep communities safe and who must answer to those community members in an incredibly difficult position.
You know, our criminal justice system relies on the idea of accountability, and without accountability, you get what many areas are experiencing today.
But all of that being said, I really attribute the rise in crime in the U.S. to our inability to engage in an honest discussion about policing and criminal justice reform.
In the last five or so years, I've seen serious failures on the part of the media, elected leaders, judges, state and federal prosecutors, police departments, police officers, community activists, and community members. I never experienced the level of distrust, misrepresentation, and violent rhetoric exchanged by and between members of those groups.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Michael, are there -- that's a big thing, right? That's not something you can fix overnight or flip a switch.
FANONE: Yes.
BERMAN: Are there any small things you could change? And I know this is a big subject but if you could give advice to the civic leaders or the officials and say do this differently, what would you say?
FANONE: Well, first and foremost, I think that in a lot of ways, we're failing our police officers. And the last four or five years have brought about intense scrutiny, which I actually welcome. I want to be held to a high standard as a police officer and I want my
co-workers to be held to that high standard. Those are the type of people that I want to be surrounded with. That being said, I don't believe that we're providing our officers with the training and resources to meet that high standard and we're setting them up for failure.
In addition to that, I understand district and state prosecutors and their ideas surrounding not prosecuting minor crimes, decriminalizing certain offenses, but telegraphing that to criminals is not a good idea. You're emboldening them and you're also marginalizing the victims of those crimes.
You know, when I was a police officer, the last thing I ever wanted to do was arrest somebody for petty theft from a bodega. But think about the owner of that bodega and if people are allowed to continue to steal, that's going to hurt him or her significantly.
So, there -- you know, I think that these prosecutors need to weigh cases on an individual basis and not make blanketed statements allowing for people to commit crimes and not be held to any account.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Michael Fanone. Thank you very much for your perspective on this.
And this is my first chance to be on with you here at CNN, so I just want to say a personal thanks for protecting me when I was at the Capitol that day and, of course, our democracy. It's always great to have you on.
FANONE: Thank you, ma'am. Thanks, John.
FANONE: Thanks, Michael.
HUNT: All right.
Coming up, we've got some disturbing new video of racist slurs being shouted at an American basketball player in China.
BERMAN: Plus, an alarming look at one of Donald Trump's foot soldiers who continues to push the big lie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUGLAS FRANK, MATH TEACHER: Who are these 35,000 people who mailed in ballots? You need to find out, supermom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:37:50]
BERMAN: This morning, a CNN special investigation. An Ohio math teacher with ties to former President Trump and the My Pillow guy is just one of the foot soldiers traveling the country to spread the big lie. See what CNN's Sara Murray has uncovered.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK: Just about every county in the country was hacked.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is how the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen gets even bigger.
FRANK: I'm standing against the whole establishment that's saying oh, that was the cleanest election in history.
MURRAY (voice-over): That's Douglas Frank, an Ohio math and science teacher who has traveled here to Texas and dozens of other states --
FRANK: Hi, everybody.
MURRAY (voice-over): -- with the financial backing of other conspiracy-minded Americans, claiming he uncovered an algorithm proving the election was stolen. He's even absurdly claimed his findings could land Donald Trump back in the Oval Office.
FRANK: I'd like the country to stand up and say wow, this thing was ripped off, let's do a do-over, or let's put Trump back in office.
These data we're bringing in are --
MURRAY (voice-over): Frank's findings have been debunked by mathematicians and election experts. And more than a year later, there is still no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. But Frank is still winning audiences with lawmakers, election officials, and voters across the country.
FRANK: We're going into each state clandestinely, and I meet privately with legislators, and secretaries of states, and attorney generals.
MURRAY (voice-over): He is just one in an army of foot soldiers inspired by Donald Trump's election lies now trying to convince others the 2020 election was stolen.
FRANK: Who are these 35,000 people who mailed in ballots? You need to find out, supermom.
MURRAY (voice-over): Frank is connected with women he calls supermoms who have embraced voter fraud claims and are clamoring for post- election audits, running their own door-knocking campaigns to try to uncover fraud and advocating for hand-count-only elections.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In Colorado, we are a red state.
TONI SHUPPE, ELECTION DENIER IN PENNSYLVANIA: There's absolutely no way that Joe Biden legitimately won the state of Pennsylvania.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to stand our ground here in New Hampshire and we need to have a real audit.
MURRAY (voice-over): Perhaps most critically --
FRANK: So if you don't know who I am, I'm the guy that Mr. Lindell discovered.
MURRAY (voice-over): Frank has the backing of My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell --
[07:40:02]
FRANK: He paid for me to be here talking to you, so buy his pillows.
MURRAY (voice-over): -- a deep-pocketed purveyor of election disinformation.
MIKE LINDELL, CEO, MY PILLOW: We have poured so many resources into this. Now you can help out and get a good night's sleep. I am now offering the lowest price ever on queen My Pillows.
MURRAY (voice-over): With Lindell's support --
FRANK: Mr. Lindell flew his private jet to pick me up to take me to meet with the secretary of state.
MURRAY (voice-over): -- Frank has crisscrossed the country sharing his fraud claims wrapped in a fancy-sounding mathematical equation.
FRANK: I was the perfect person in this world to discover this. I have exactly the right skills.
I have found a sixth little (ph) (INAUDIBLE), you know, in every state in the country. They're inflating our registration rolls, stuffing phantom ballots, and then cleaning it up afterwards. It's that simple.
MURRAY (voice-over): Experts say Frank's conclusions are nonsense.
JUSTIN GRIMMER, POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: He's much better at presenting himself as a professor than even myself. He gets up, he has a bow tie. He talks about all this data. He talks about a sixth order polynomial.
MURRAY (voice-over): Justin Grimmer is a Stanford University professor who looked at the data for 42 states and found Frank's algorithm to be essentially worthless.
GRIMMER: I think this took my research group an afternoon you uncover that there's no basis for this. But if you're not someone who, like me, spends all day working on statistics and data, sixth order polynomials in nearly perfect correlations, it sounds like he's uncovered something really impressive.
FRANK: The red --
MURRAY (voice-over): Frank uses the number of registered voters by age group and prior voter trends to predict voter turnout, then claims it is evidence of fraud when it aligns with actual voter turnout.
GRIMMER: Effectively, what he's doing is he's discovered that anything that you measure in the world is closely related to itself.
MURRAY (voice-over): Debunking Frank's wild claims also wasn't difficult for Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, who met with Lindell and Frank on two occasions.
JOHN MERRILL, (R) ALABAMA SECRETARY OF STATE: Every time they gave us an example we were able to refute what they showed us without even knowing what they were going to do.
MURRAY (voice-over): Frank blamed the, quote, "complete botch" in Alabama on his newly-hired staffer.
To others, Frank's presentation confirms their baseless suspicions that Joe Biden wasn't fairly elected.
ADRIENNE SOUTHWORTH, (R) KENTUCKY STATE Senate: People say we know that other states are wrong but we think Kentucky must be right. And I say well, how do you know if they have no idea -- they just assume? And so I said well, that's kind of the problem.
MURRAY (voice-over): Kentucky State Sen. Adrienne Southworth says she came away more convinced 2020 was problem-plagued after hosting an event with Frank.
SOUTHWORTH: And I think the whole world's on the edge right now of are we going to continue trusting the system.
FRANK: So, I'm a scientist.
MURRAY (voice-over): It was just one of Frank's stops on his nationwide tour.
In Missouri, a "Voter Fraud is Real" bootcamp featured Frank and a state representative, with a flyer calling on county clerks to attend.
In Colorado, Frank met with Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk now under investigation by the FBI for her alleged involvement in a security breach of the county's election system.
In Montana, the "Montana Free Press" reported Frank met with staffers for the state attorney general.
Here in Texas --
ISABEL LONGORIA, ELECTIONS ADMINISTRATOR, HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS: I'm going to walk through these checks and balances again.
MURRAY (voice-over): -- Harris County elections administrator Isabel Longoria says a scam like Frank describes with widespread hacking and phantom votes would never succeed.
LONGORIA: If you even change a period -- a period in the election programming, it sends up a red flag that immediately stops the entire process until we can identify what would have triggered that red flag.
MURRAY (voice-over): In Harris County alone, election officials inspect thousands of voting machines.
LONGORIA: Six months out we start checking all 13,000 pieces of voting equipment in Harris County, opening them up -- do they turn on? Have they been tampered with? Can we take them to a voting location? Are all the buttons working?
MURRAY (voice-over): They run accuracy tests under the watchful eyes of bipartisan observers. And on Election Day, they track the number of people showing up to vote and the number of ballots cast, one of many safeguards that would catch an election inflated by phantom voters.
MURRAY (on camera): So, somebody would have to find a way to break into the voter rolls for every single county?
LONGORIA: In tandem. Again, breaking into multiple buildings, multiple systems in tandem with not a single red flag going off in this incredibly sensitive system, all in unison, right, as you have all eyes on elections from every election staff.
MURRAY (voice-over): After Frank's pitch in the Lone Star State this week --
FRANK: What does the media say? Oh, Texas might be turning purple. Don't believe it. You're red.
MURRAY (voice-over): -- he sat down for an interview with CNN and defended his efforts to undermine confidence in America's elections.
FRANK: It'll be a constitutional crisis. It will be a crisis. It's going to happen. It's inevitable it's going to happen and I'm helping that happen, yes.
MURRAY (voice-over): He stands by his flawed conclusions convinced the elections are rigged, regardless of the many experts who have debunked his claims.
FRANK: I said I know the elections are not real. I know the elections are being manipulated. Regardless of who wins, I just want them to be fair.
MURRAY (on camera): Now, demand for Douglas Frank's bogus presentation isn't dying down. Across the country, groups are still footing his travel bill to hear him speak.
Back to you, John and Kasie.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[07:45:00]
BERMAN: Wow. I have to say, the certitude -- if he's -- if he's telling the truth about what he believes -- if he's just not making it up, it's cultlike. It's cultlike.
HUNT: I'm just going to let my facial expression speak for me, John. I'm not going to lie. BERMAN: They speak --
HUNT: What did we just see?
BERMAN: All right, swift backlash after a part-owner of the Golden State Warriors said this about human rights abuses in China.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHAMATH PALIHAPITIYA, VENTURE CAPITALIST, MINORITY OWNER, GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS: Yes, nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs, OK? You bring it up because you really care and I think that's nice that you care.
DAVID SACKS, CO-HOST, ALL-IN PODCAST: What? What do you mean, nobody cares?
PALIHAPITIYA: The rest of us don't care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom is here to weigh in.
HUNT: And happening right now, Boris Johnson getting grilled by lawmakers over those boozy parties.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID DAVIS, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: Doesn't the country deserve so much better than this out of touch, out of control, of out ideas, and soon to be out of office prime minister.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: We're going to bring you the latest coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:50:13]
BERMAN: For the first time, basketball legend Yao Ming, one of China's most recognizable athletes, is speaking out about his encounter with tennis star Peng Shuai, saying she is in pretty good condition. This, as Peng's well-being has become a global concern since making allegations of sexual assault against a former national leader.
There have been a lot of outspoken people in the United States about what's going on in China. One of them is Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom who has been extraordinarily critical of the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs -- the genocide against the Uyghurs. In response to Kanter's outspoken criticism, Yao Ming -- in addition to that stuff about Peng Shuai he was asked about what Freedom says, and this is Yao's response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) YAO MING, CHINESE BASKETBALL LEGEND: I hope to have the opportunity to invite him to China for a visit. I or other basketball fans can be his guide here, and such a visit may help him see a fuller picture of China.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: And joining us now is Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom. Enes, thanks so much for being with us.
Yao Ming has invited to show you around China. What's your response?
ENES KANTER FREEDOM, BOSTON CELTICS CENTER (via Skype): Thanks for having me, John.
Well, first of all, I want to say thank you to Mr. Yao Ming. Thank you for your kind offer and yes, I do accept it, actually, because I actually do want to go to China and see everything with my own eyes.
But on this trip, I want to ask Mr. Yao Ming will I be able to visit (INAUDIBLE) labor camps? While we are in China, can we go to see Tibet and see what the CCP are doing to these beautiful people? While we are in China, can we go to Hong Kong together and see what people are going through there? Can we go to Taiwan?
And also, while I'm in China, I want to get to actually be able to talk to Peng Shuai and see if she's OK. If she's free to speak freely and travel freely.
And, you know, I don't need a lecture through China. I don't want to see no propaganda. I want to actually get to see the real China and show the whole world that what's going on. And so, yes, I actually do accept his offer.
BERMAN: Conditionally accept his offer it sounds like, Enes.
FREEDOM: Exactly.
BERMAN: Listen, you've called on athletes around the world not to go to China for the Olympics, which begin in just weeks. You've criticized sponsors --
FREEDOM: Right.
BERMAN: -- and companies for associating with the Olympics in China.
I'm curious what you would like to see on NBC, which broadcasts the Olympics in the United States, in terms of their coverage of the games. What do you see as their responsibility in coverage?
FREEDOM: First of all, I want everyone to know that in China, the Chinese Communist Party actually does not represent the Olympic core of excellence, of friendship, of respect. And they are a brutal dictatorship and, you know, they threaten freedoms and they do not respect human rights. So, first of all, to all the athletes out there, all the gold medals
in the world that you can win is not as important as your morals, your values, and your principles.
And why NBC could cover it is a shame because I feel like it is important for us, for especially America, example democracy to put some kind of statement out there and say we don't accept any kind of act around here. So, I hope that not just Olympic -- not just diplomatic boycotts but I hope the athletes and also companies can go out there and say this is enough.
BERMAN: So, some kind of disclaimer from NBC as they broadcast that these games are being -- you know, while you might see pretty pictures here, this is a country which has been accused of genocide? Some kind of disclaimer like that?
FREEDOM: Exactly. I mean -- I mean, the whole world knows that there's a genocide happening while we're talking (ph). And, you know, shame on the International Olympic Committee to organize the games in a country like China. But I get to see this every time that the IOC sleeps in the same bed with China.
BERMAN: You know, I just want to play one more time, because we played it on the tease coming into you, this part-owner -- minority owner as a small part of the Golden State Warriors. He claimed this about how Americans and he feels about the plight of the Uyghurs in China -- listen.
[07:55:02]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALIHAPITIYA: And nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs, OK? You bring it up because you really care and I think that's nice that you care.
SACKS: What? What do you mean, nobody cares?
PALIHAPITIYA: The rest of us don't care. I'm telling you a very hard, ugly truth, OK? Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: What do you say to that, Enes?
FREEDOM: I mean, unbelievable. I remember that day when the video came out my manager texted me actually 30 minutes before the game. And when I watched the video right before the game, I was very angry, disappointed, and disgusted.
First of all, what is happening to Uyghurs is one of the worst human abuses in the world today. And his -- he actually has a company called -- actually, I have the records here and it's called Social -- I'm trying -- Social Capital. And, you know, he claimed -- he claims that he's standing up for the things that -- sports. It's unbelievable. And actually, after that video, the Warriors and himself put a statement out there which was pathetic because they couldn't even mention Uyghurs in their statement because they are scared of that -- they are going to lose a lot of money and business in China. It was pathetic, it was disgusting, and I was very ashamed for him, for sure.
BERMAN: Enes Freedom, stay strong, my friend, and thank you so much for being with us this morning.
FREEDOM: Thank you so much.
BERMAN: So, in a dramatic escalation, New York's attorney general is demanding testimony from Donald Trump, Don Jr., Ivanka Trump, saying she has significant evidence that their company committed fraud. The Trump Organization responded just moments ago.
HUNT: Plus, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the ground in Ukraine. What needs to be done to prevent a Russian invasion.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: All right, good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Wednesday, January 19th. I'm John Berman. Kasie Hunt here with me, in for Brianna this week.
This is CNN's special live coverage of a big day for President Biden and his administration. Just hours from now he will hold a news conference. This is not exactly a frequent occasion for President Biden.
HUNT: Very infrequent, in fact.
BERMAN: Right. He's going to face reporters on a series of questions, a series of domestic challenges and crises around the world. Russia has nearly completed its military buildup along the border with Ukraine.
