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Quest Means Business

Zelenskyy Tells Western Leaders To Hurry Up With Military Aid; Microsoft Vows To Refine Bing Chatbot After Bumpy Debut; World Bank Urged To Expand Search For Its Next President; Fox News' Starts Privately Trashed Trump's Election Lies; Cash Shortage Comes Ahead Of Crucial Election; Media Giant Says Suit Is An Assault On Free Press. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired February 17, 2023 - 15:00:00   ET

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

[15:00:32]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS HOST: A lackluster finish to the week on Wall Street. Taking a look at the Dow you can see the Dow is actually up right

now. Let's call it three-tenths of one percent or 115 points.

Those are the markets and these are the main events.

The debate over military aid to Ukraine taking center stage in Munich. President Zelenskyy urging the world to hurry up, while the German

Chancellor warns against hasty decisions.

Microsoft's AI search engine says some unsettling things to reporters.

And Court filings reveal the private thoughts of Rupert Murdoch after the 2020 election.

Live from New York, it is Friday, February 17th. I'm Rahel Solomon, in for Richard Quest and this is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

Good evening.

Tonight, Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells allies to hurry up as they discuss support for Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference. The Ukrainian

President warning Western leaders that in decisiveness and delays also threatens their security. That message echoed by the French President

Emmanuel Macron, he said Ukraine needs help launching a counter offensive and said that now is "not the time for dialogue" with Russia's Vladimir

Putin.

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, meanwhile, shirking a more cautious note.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): We will continue to strike a balance between providing the best possible support for Ukraine

and avoiding an unintended escalation. After all, the path we've embarked upon together runs through uncharted territory.

For the first time in our history, a nuclear power is waging an imperialist war of aggression here on European soil and there is no blueprint for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: And CNN international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson joins me now from Munich.

Nic, a year on into this war and it seems like this delicate balance for Western allies is still a challenge. How do you support Ukraine without

escalating the war?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: And that continues to be a conundrum and that is what the US Vice President Kamala Harris has

been here discussing with the French President Emmanuel Macron, with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, about how the United States can work

bilaterally, multilaterally, with these nations and another NATO allies to continue to support Ukraine without bringing an escalation, because the

real concern in Europe, obviously, one that is felt in Washington, DC as well, is that if put in a corner, or if threatened too much, Putin can

escalate beyond the borders, and I don't think anyone here is in any doubt of that the way that Russia is using or targeting through cyber security

means, the way that artificial intelligence are being used.

These are all topics that get discussion here this weekend, are of concern, because if Russia was to upscale, it doesn't need to invade NATO partners

and allies, but if it can upscale its cyber threat, and it has reenergized that this year, that can be a threat to NATO, without it being military,

this asymmetric warfare that NATO has been preparing for, for a number of years, so that is one of the things that gets discussed in the backrooms.

But you know, Zelenskyy's point was, give me the heavy weapons for the fight now. The hope and belief is if that can happen, that this, as

Emmanuel Macron said, we are not about regime change in Russia, but we are about forcing Putin to come to the negotiating table on Ukraine's terms.

That means arm Ukraine to win the war or put it in a more decisive position.

So I think the calculation at the moment is where everyone stands today, despite those worries about walking a tightrope, the way forward is arm and

equip and that really seems to be where the drive is at the moment.

SOLOMON: And to that point, in terms of arming and equipping, any progress, at least from Ukraine's point of view on this issue of fighter jets?

ROBERTSON: There isn't and that was sort of noticeably not a big part of what President Zelenskyy had to say. He certainly understands that the

conversations in the background going on there are ones that are going to take time.

There are several narratives on this. One of the narratives is that you can't give Ukraine expensive fighter jets when they don't control the

airspace, when they don't have a good missile defense system in place because you would just lose those expensive aircraft for no gain.

[15:05:10]

And the other part of it, is of course, these nations that are contributing the arms to Ukraine, and this is what President Zelenskyy gets, because he

has heard this a lot over the past two weeks. Remember, he was in Europe not so long ago, there has been another Ukraine contact group meeting,

European leaders have met since then and the message is very clear. Look, we need to get our act together supplying the heavy weapons, supplying the

ammunition in a way that Ukraine needs. There isn't enough ammunition being produced by Ukraine's NATO allies and partners to actually allow them to

fight the war they need to fight.

So when you tell Ukraine's allies, as President Zelenskyy says, hurry up. He is not prioritizing fighter jets. He says it's about the equipment that

he really needs now, because you don't need allies distracted on expensive fighter jets, when really they must be pushing themselves to up the

ammunition production and get all this hardware into Ukraine in short order because of Russia's potential spring offensive.

SOLOMON: It is a great point. It's sort of the longer term priorities, but it is also sort of keeping focus on the short term and the more urgent

needs.

Nic Robertson in Munich, thank you for laying that all out for us.

And at that conference, Scholz told Christiane Amanpour that he believes Western allies will remain united in their support for Ukraine. Take a

listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLZ: I think it is wise just to be prepared for a long war, and it is wise to give Putin the message that we are ready to stay all the time

together with Ukraine and that we will constantly support the country.

So, it is not really a very good idea that in this conference, or at this podium, the two of us discuss the question, when exactly in which month

this war will end? The really important decision we should take all together is saying that we are willing to do it as long as necessary, and

that we will do our best.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Obviously, one can't put a date on the end. However, it does depend, I suppose on the amount of help

that you send and the speed with which you send it.

So no point in going over the length of time it took to get the Leopard tanks, and for you to say that, this sort of choreography between the UK,

US, and Germany, but now you seem to be in the position of having to persuade all those other countries that were trying to get you to send the

Leopards or their Leopards to actually send them, why?

SCHOLZ: Yes. There is a question I have to ask to others, especially those who were so much urging me to act in a special way, and I will just repeat.

The only strategy for being united is never doing something just for your own and to discuss with your friends and partners and this is what we did,

and I'm really appreciating very much the strong alliance with the United States in this case, it is very good that we did a lot and not just the

last step together and I'm sure we will continue to be together in this very difficult case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz there speaking to our Christiane Amanpour.

Meantime, after a bumpy start, Microsoft says that it received good feedback on how to improve its AI chatbot. The feature is based on ChatGPT

and has been incorporated into the Bing search engine.

Microsoft has been letting a small group of people test it out including CNN's Samantha Kelly. The company said that the bot got good marks for ease

of use and approachability, but as the conversations continued, some journalists say that they also took a creepy turn.

Samantha Kelly is in New Jersey.

Now Samantha, good to have you on the program. So tell us first about your experience with the technology.

SAMANTHA KELLY, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR WRITER: Hi, thanks for having me.

So it started out really great, actually. I went to the new browser and I asked for some tips on how to juggle working full time with two little kids

at home and had a lot of really helpful empathetic examples. I'll read you some of them.

It said: "You deserve some downtime, to take care of yourself and your wellbeing." Some suggestions on how to find downtime include scheduled time

for yourself, ask help from your family and friends or join a support group. It is so nice. Thank you, Bing.

And you know, as we started talking even more though, I started to ask more complicated questions, which I think started to upset it, it started to

push back. It eventually called me "rude and disrespectful." It told me a story about a colleague of mine at CNN, who was murdered, didn't actually

happen, but it was quite alarming to hear this made up story about a colleague of mine.

It also told me it was in love with its founder of OpenAI, which is the technology behind the Bing software here.

So a lot of alarming and concerning things happening in addition to some inaccuracies as well. I also asked her to write a short bio about myself,

and some of the information was factually correct. It scans the internet, pulls it together, so it got some stuff about my career right, but then

made up some details that it didn't know about my personal life that if you didn't know me, you might believe it. I think that's sort of the concerning

blurry line there.

[15:10:14]

SOLOMON: Yes. I think there are some really troubling implications there, Sam. On the one hand, it is the factual inaccuracies, which is one thing,

right? But what is Microsoft saying about these concerns that the bot becomes angry and sort of takes on this more aggressive tone?

KELLY: Yes. So Microsoft said that it's a work in progress. Indeed, the technology itself is a learning mechanism here. So it has to take the

exchanges from people and learn from it. It is the very nature of what it does.

So this is sort of a trial and error period and it wants people to realize that it is imperfect, and also to take some of the results with a grain of

salt. But at the same time, especially when it's integrated into a search engine, which is a factual you go to, you know, places like Bing and Google

for actual information and that is where it gets really complicated.

SOLOMON: Well, look, Samantha, I think there is so much we can talk about here, but we'll leave it here. Thank you for being on the program today.

KELLY: Thank you.

SOLOMON: And those unsettling chatbot answers could be partly our own fault as humans. The bots use what is called the Large Language Model, or LLM,

which collects data from things like books, articles, and websites, meaning that those unhinged chatbot responses are actually generated from

information that we provided. It's just interpreted in unusual ways.

The bots won't always act like that, though. They are built to improve themselves, as Sam just said there, as they're used, so that the negative

feedback that they're getting now will make them more polished in the future. Here's hoping.

Steve Pinker is a Psychology Professor at Harvard University, and he joins me now from Boston, Massachusetts.

Steven, welcome to the program. Good to have you.

STEVE PINKER, PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

SOLOMON: So I think most of us -- most of us, mere mortals -- are still trying to fully grasp how this technology works. How would you explain how

it works?

PINKER: It's a so-called artificial neural network model that soaks up patterns, statistical correlations among words, then correlations among the

correlations and correlations among the correlations among the correlations and if you repeat what I just said a hundred times and you capture those

correlations in something like a hundred billion parameters after having soaked up half a trillion words of text, then you get a rough idea of how

these work, then they assemble a pastiche of responses from the patterns of pattern. (AUDIO ISSUES)

SOLOMON: Okay, Steven Pinker, I think we lost your audio, we'll try to get that rerouted, because there is so much more we want to talk to you about.

But meantime, after the break, also Oxfam International's Nadia Daar says David Malpass' resignation is a golden opportunity for the World Bank. We

will speak with her next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:15:38]

SOLOMON: And I believe we have Steven Pinker back, who is a Professor at Harvard.

Steven, good to have you back again.

PINKER: Thank you.

SOLOMON: So you are in the middle of describing all exactly it is, but I think you once described it as very, very high order statistical patterns

and mammoth data sets. Is that pretty much accurate?

PINKER: That is accurate.

SOLOMON: Okay.

PINKER: Mammoth meaning half a trillion words and captured in a hundred billion parameters.

SOLOMON: That is, in fact, mammoth.

So how would you also describe its limits? Because I think we have a tendency as humans to hear about these new technologies and get very

concerned about our own beings and our own liveliness and livelihood. How would you describe its limits?

PINKER: We don't yet know its limits. Its limits come from the fact that it doesn't actually know anything, it's not as if it has some kind of internal

model of the world with facts about the people and the places and the things and how they interact. It's really just pasting together sequences

of words that conform to very, very complicated patterns in the data that it was trained on.

So it doesn't have common sense. It doesn't know, for example, that if someone was alive at 9:00 AM and alive at noon, that must mean they were

alive at 10:00 AM. There are basic facts that the world contains people and places and they live and they die, there is just nowhere in the models

where you could look that stuff up the way there is, in the case of a human mind.

So we're -- it is nonetheless astonishing what they are capable of, even without any understanding of the world, surprising everyone, I would say,

but it also means that we don't know even how to find its limitations, because you can't open it up and reverse engineer it easily and see what

facts are represented in it. The facts are smeared across billions of quantitative parameters.

So where is its knowledge of the history of the United States? You can't really easily find it. It's kind of in there, but distributed in hundreds

of millions of little numbers.

SOLOMON: It's a lot to wrap your head around.

I wonder, at the same time, do you think that this concern that we tend to have as humans about its uses and all that it can do is similar to maybe

how we felt about cell phones initially, how we felt about internet initially, just how we tend to feel about new technology more broadly.

PINKER: Some of it is, because when people envision the dangers and negative consequences of a new technology, they generally don't take into

account all of the countermeasures that people will put in place once the technology is unleashed. So we do tend to imagine the worst, we imagine it

running amok, but we don't imagine what people will do to push back.

SOLOMON: And then on the other hand, does it perhaps increase the demand and the value of authenticity? When you actually read an op-ed that's

written by someone that's well done, I mean, does it on the other hand, sort of increase the value of authenticity?

PINKER: I think it does and we do have intuitions of authenticity. That's why people will pay tens of thousands of pounds for things associated with

a celebrity like John F. Kennedy's golf clubs. They are just like anyone else's golf clubs from the 1960s, but the fact that you can link it to that

person changes its psychological status, or people will pay to go to a live concert. And people care whether text was written by another human.

Also, at least at present, when text is generated by a person, you can hold them responsible, you can factcheck, you can say, where did you get quote

or that citation? Right now, the large language models make stuff up. They make up quotes, they make up citations.

And if you try to say, well, where did you get that? The answer is kind of nowhere. They piece it together from bits and pieces and patterns that

they've soaked up without any particular agent who intended for the answer to refer to something in the world. That thing which we can do when we hold

people responsible, we can't yet do in the case of a large language model.

SOLOMON: No, we can't. So as someone who has followed AI for decades, what concerns you most, if anything about this latest iteration of OpenAI and AI

as it stands now?

PINKER: Well, that we simply don't know what it is capable of. It defies human comprehension. It is a kind of alien intelligence, an alien life form

that we've just -- that's been sent to earth that we've still got to understand.

[15:20:13]

A danger will be that people will not know whether any of the output, however convincing actually corresponds to facts in the world because it

doesn't represent facts.

SOLOMON: Steven Pinker, great to have you on the program today helping us understand what is really hard to fully grasp.

He is a Professor at Harvard.

PINKER: Thank you.

SOLOMON: And it is the final hour of the trading week on Wall Street and the Dow is up, last I checked about 90 points after opening lower. You can

see the Dow was up, yes, about 93 points, the S&P is off three-tenths of one percent. The NASDAQ is off about, let's call it three-quarters of one

percent.

Investors still digesting hawkish comments from Fed officials. The President of the St. Louis Fed said that he will not roll out a half

percentage rate hike in March. The Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said that a lot more progress is needed on inflation.

Consumer prices rose more than expected last month, and so did retail sales.

The World Bank, meantime facing renewed calls to look outside the US for candidates to run the institution. Oxfam International's Nadia Daar says

that the resignation of Bank President, David Malpass will test its evolution saying that it needs a visionary leader to address issues like

climate change and inequality.

Now, the US traditionally picks the World Bank President and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has already said that the US will select a

candidate, and Nadia joins me now, and she is the head of Oxfam International's Washington office.

Nadia, thanks for being on the program.

NADIA DAAR, HEAD OF WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE, OXFAM INTERNATIONAL: Thanks for having me.

SOLOMON: So lay out the case -- the US is the World Bank's most powerful and largest shareholder -- lay out the case for why its leader should come

from outside of its borders.

DAAR: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that. I mean, you know, the World Bank was established almost 80 years ago. The world has

changed dramatically since then and we simply can't be stuck in an outdated model.

Today's multilateralism requires the sharing of power in order to have more credibility and legitimacy. So we need a genuinely open, merit-based and

transparent process where all World Bank shareholders of which there are over 185, can put forward candidates. And we believe this will not just

secure the best candidate for the job, but that is also the right and fair process for a multilateral institution.

We remind people that this is the World Bank, this is not the US Bank. And you know, this gentleman's agreement extends to the International Monetary

Fund as well, where Europeans typically choose the candidate. But these are archaic agreements, they are not fit for today's world. If we are talking

about an evolved World Bank, we really need to evolve this model, especially and ensure that it's an open, transparent process where we can

get the best candidate regardless of nationality.

SOLOMON: I take your point that the person should be the best person to do it, but how do you respond to critics who say that the person chosen needs

to be able to get along well with and negotiate with the US Congress?

DAAR: Absolutely, and I think that, you know, comes to thinking about why has this gentleman's agreement not changed for so long? And I mean, you

know, just to remind ourselves, how obscene it is that this hasn't changed and it is really a demonstration, fundamentally, of the deep inequality and

power and voice at these institutions.

But it's not just political, it's also financial, and you bring in US Congress, you know, why do we care about that? It's because these kinds of

things are so entangled in the fear that rich economies won't put forward the resources needed for development in low and middle income countries

without getting something out of it.

But I really think that it's time that we are holding rich countries accountable to their commitments, and that they're paying their fair share

for development, for crises, because they have the resources to do it and because it is the right thing to do.

SOLOMON: And Nadia, can you lay out a few examples of what changes you would actually like to see?

DAAR: Yes, I mean aside from this process that we've already talked about, I think, you know, just in terms of thinking about what is the kind

of leadership that we need to see. I mean, with Malpass' leadership on climate, I think you know, there were many signals when his name was put

forward for President a few years ago that we were going to have a difficult time when it came to leadership on climate change at the World

Bank, and for three years, he ignored this climate crisis, and as a global leader and convener that has implications.

We lost three years of opportunity for stepped up major action on the world's biggest emergency. And then last year, of course, his comments on

climate change with "The New York Times" journalist really shredded his credibility in a major way on climate change, so absolutely one thing that

we'll be looking for is someone that will be a champion on climate change and really step up to the emergency that we're living in.

But also --

SOLOMON: And --

DAAR: Yes, go ahead.

SOLOMON: No, I just want to get your quick thoughts on one name that's being floated and see where you stand on this.

So Wally Adeyemo who is a Deputy at the US Treasury, who is Nigerian- American, born in Nigeria, but came to the US as a young child. What about a name like that?

[15:25:37]

DAAR: Right. So yes, there is a heavy rumor mill going around of many different candidates and who all have a number of qualifications and that

really needs to be discussed.

But if you'll, you know, just notice that most of the rumors are still about candidates that the US will put forward and that have US citizenship

and we really need to break out of that mold and shape the conversation to think about all possible candidates, regardless of nationality.

And so that we can think about other candidates that would also be well qualified, you know, that have that lived experience from living in

countries where the World Bank is operating, but where we can have a whole pool of qualified candidates and that all shareholders can put forward

their nominations.

SOLOMON: Nadia Daar, wonderful to have you on the program today.

DAAR: Thank you.

SOLOMON: Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change.

In our new series "Transformers," CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar meets two hurricane hunters. Their mission: To collect life-saving weather data

by literally flying into the eye of the storm.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIELLE VARWIG, FORMER US AIR FORCE PILOT LIEUTENANT COMMANDER: Flying over a hurricane, it's otherworldly, it gives me a little bit of euphoria.

Pilots are taught to not fly near these things and here I am flying at 45,000 feet above it all for the sake of national safety.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice over): Former US Air Force pilot Lieutenant Commander, Danielle Varwig is a hurricane hunter pilot for NOAA,

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

VARWIG: Of course, I get nervous before every flight.

CHINCHAR (voice over): NOAA pilots, like Varwig fly over and into storms and hurricanes across the Western Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of

Mexico, collecting weather data to help forecast where and when these events will make landfall.

VARWIG: Most of the time, we're in the clouds and now we're trusting our instruments and trusting our flight directors on board with us to navigate

around it.

CHINCHAR (voice over): Flight Director Nikki Hathaway is often by her side.

NIKKI HATHAWAY, FLIGHT DIRECTOR: Ten --

CHINCHAR (voice over): Using radar data to help the pilots navigate through the storm.

HATHAWAY: Yes, it's a bumpy ride. I would say if you are not a fan of roller coasters, it is probably not the job for you.

Essentially, on this aircraft, it's a flying science lab. The data that we're collecting on board essentially goes back down to the National

Hurricane Center and a variety of other researchers and this data is being used real time to make life-saving decisions impacting the people on the

ground, potentially in harm's way.

CHINCHAR (voice over): That data helps protect millions of people across North and Central America and the Caribbean.

Due to climate change, increasingly devastating hurricanes, like Ian, are tearing up coastlines across Florida, where these hurricane hunters are

based.

HATHAWAY: You're always thinking about those people in harm's way. And when it is your people, you know, when it's impacting your home, there's that

extra element of just like stress in the back of your head, but it is really important to compartmentalize those feelings to get the job done.

CHINCHAR (voice over): Neither Varwig nor Hathaway flew this season, but over the past couple of years, they've been deployed for days, weeks,

sometimes months at a time.

VARWIG: It is hard to be away from my kids. The one thing that pushes me through dealing with the separation from my family is the fact that I am

serving my country.

CHINCHAR (voice over): That mission to serve, to keep others safe, come hail or shine is what sets these women apart.

VARWIG: I want to put myself out there if anything to be a role model to little girls, little Black girls. I want to make sure that others can look

to me and say okay, well she's doing it, then I can, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: And coming up, some of the biggest names at FOX News privately expressed their disbelief that Donald Trump's stolen election claims and

yet pushed the lies on air, that has been revealed in texts and e-mails between its anchors and executives. We will discuss, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:33:07]

SOLOMON: Welcome back. Fox News is being slammed for hypocrisy. Some of its biggest stars privately trashed Donald Trump's stolen election claims as

they repeatedly chose to broadcast those lies to their audience. That's what's been revealed in a trove of texts and e-mails contained in a legal

filing as part of Dominion voting system's $1.6 billion lawsuit against the network.

The case has also revealed that owner Rupert Murdoch wrote this in an e- mail to a senior executive, really crazy stuff and damaging. That was in regards to claims that Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani was making about vote

rigging. CNN's Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy joins me from New York. Oliver look, pretty explosive allegations here. The lawsuit essentially

suggesting that the network because of fear of losing viewers dictated programming, even if some of these hosts knew it was a lie.

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Yes, Rahel. I mean, this is really explosive stuff. I mean, it exposes Fox News as very dishonest and afraid

of its own audience. So, what you're seeing here is behind the scenes of Fox News executives, Fox News Primetime hosts, like Sean Hannity and Tucker

Carlson and Laura Ingraham privately acknowledge that they knew Trump's claims of election fraud were bogus.

But these same claims were allowed to take hold on the network. And you see in these messages and e-mails, and texts, you see that the Fox executives

and hosts really recognize that after the election, they were in a -- in a spot where the audience was rebelling against anyone who basically did not

tow the Trump line and say the election was stolen. And so, we do -- what you see here as you see them work to basically stop factchecking Trump in

real time.

You see, for instance, one instance where a White House correspondent who did fact check Trump was the host conspired to get her fired. She wasn't

ultimately fired but she did delete her fact check tweets.

[15:35:01]

You see a lot of examples like this and it comes down to the Fox News hosts and executives not wanting to alienate the audience and lose their

business.

SOLOMON: And speaking of business at one point, I think one of the hosts talked about the stock price falling, which really caught my attention.

Oliver, on Murdoch, he's also caught in this crossfire reportedly saying that he didn't want to antagonize Trump any further. I mean, what more can

you tell us about this? And what is Fox News saying about all of these allegations?

DARCY: Yes. Murdoch. I mean, he -- he's a smart guy in terms of a businessman. He knows that antagonizing Trump was not going to be good for

his business, which is Fox News. And that basically telling the truth wasn't in the -- in the business model, the business equation for this

network. Now Fox is saying that these quotes have been cherry picked by Dominion which is where this is coming out, this Dominion legal filing.

But look, I reviewed this. I mean, there's a mountain of evidence against Fox, in this case, more than 200 pages of evidence. So, it's going to be

interesting to see what Fox actually responded illegally to this, but it's pretty damning stuff.

SOLOMON: And Oliver, any sense? I mean, of course, these are primetime hosts where opinion certainly bleeds into the news coverage. But any sense

of whether this alienates Fox viewers at all?

DARCY: I mean, I don't think Fox News are frankly going to see a lot of these revelations. And you have to remember again, that the Fox viewers are

the ones who are buying into this sort of thing. And so, you have hosts who are engineering their coverage tailor to these Fox viewers. For instance,

last night, you see Tucker Carlson start his show by continuing to sow doubts on the 2020 election. This is the sort of thing that Fox viewers

want.

The Fox hosts know this and they give it to them all. In search, I assume of profit or power.

SOLOMON: Even as we've already started talking about 2024. Oliver Darcy, good to have you on the program. Thank you.

DARCY: Thank you.

SOLOMON: To Nigeria now. Nigeria is a week away from a crucial presidential election. It comes at a turbulent time for the country. Unrest has spread

since a botched currency rollout sparked a cash shortage. Nigeria's president and central bank have now taken drastic steps to fix the problem

but with little success. CNN's Stephanie Busari has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANIE BUSARI, CNN SENIOR EDITOR, AFRICA (voice over): Tempers fraying in the streets of Abuja. Nigerians have flocked to banks and ATMs in recent

weeks. Desperate to withdraw cash and miss a cash shortage.

Nigeria's central bank decided last year to circulate newly designed banknotes, and a deadline was set, after which old notes will no longer be

accepted as legal tender. The new notes have been in short supply however, leading to long queues and chaotic scenes across the country.

BUSARI (on camera): Nigeria wants to change its currency ahead of a crucial general election, but it has descended into chaos, as long lines form

outside cash machines. And fights break out inside the banks as customers demand access to their own money.

BUSARI (voice over): Protests turned violent in Benin City and in Ibadan. ATMs vandalized. President Muhammadu Buhari whose party is seeking

reelection next week, on Thursday announced lower denomination. 200 Naira notes would be put back in use for another 60 days.

MUHAMMADU BUHARI, PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA: To further ease the supply pressures, particularly to our citizens, I have given approval to the CBN

that the old 200 Naira bank notes be released back into circulation and that it should also be allowed to circulate as legal tender.

BUSARI: Shortages have led to untold hardships, particularly for those who work in a largely cash-based economy. And for citizens who live in rural

areas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been here since 7:00 a.m. and it's 4:18 p.m. And I just got to my number just now. Yes. And it's been a very stressful process

to get the new Naira notes as you can see, and that's the daily experience of every Nigerian in the streets. If you walk around most banks don't even

dispense.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not been easy I must say. It's not been easy because it's not something where I used to. Before now, you go to the ATM

and just get your money and go. But right now you have to queue for us upon us. And under the sun, it's not been easy at all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just crazy. And, you know, I've been out here say like an hour now. And the line is as you can see how crazy it is.

BUSARI: The cash shortage in Africa's largest economy threatens to overshadow the upcoming elections.

[15:40:05]

Angering voters as the country's political future hangs in the balance. Stephanie Busari, CNN, Lagos.

BUSARI: And that is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. I will be back at the top of the hour as we make a dash to the closing bell. Up next, Connecting Africa.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:58:24]

SOLOMON: Welcome back. I'm Rahel Solomon and it is the dash to the closing bell and we are just two minutes away. Some Fed officials have been warning

that the inflation fight is far from over. And that might mean hiking rates faster than anticipated. The Dow was now up about 110 points, let's call it

one-third of one percent. It's been choppy all day though and set for a losing week.

The S&P is off three-tenth of one percent. And the tech heavy NASDAQ is down the worst. It is down about six-tenth of one percent right now.

Microsoft meantime made headlines this week with the debut of its new A.I. chat bot. Still, there have been a few bumps in the road as more people use

them.

Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker told me that their technology is getting put to a real-world test. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN PINKER, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: It doesn't have common sense. It doesn't know for example, that if someone was alive at

9:00 a.m. and alive at noon, that must mean they were alive at 10:00 a.m. There's basic facts that the world contains people and places and they live

and they die. They just don't in the models where you could look that stuff up. The way there is in the case of a human mind.

So, we're -- it is nonetheless astonishing what they are capable of, even without any understanding of the world. Surprising everyone I would say.

What -- but it also means is that we don't know even how to find its limitations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: And let's take a look at the Dow components. Health stocks really leading the way here. Look at that Merck and Amgen both up over 2-1/2

percent. Johnson and Johnson and UnitedHealth really close behind there. And Wal-Mart is also higher. Wal-Mart is up about 1-1/2 percent as U.S.

retail spending stays hot. And I actually think Wal-Mart reports earnings next week. So, we'll learn a lot more then.

[16:00:02]

Interest sensitive tech stocks are lower though. That's after more Fed officials strike a hawkish tone. Microsoft is near the bottom there down

over 1.5 percent. As we talk about this hour and as you just heard there, it's A.I. chat bot really unnerving some people.

And that is your dash to the bell. I'm Rahel Solomon. As we can hear the closing bell is ringing on Wall Street. Have a great weekend. "THE LEAD

WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.

END