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CNN NEWSROOM

YouTube Facebook And Apple Shut Down Alex Jones; Hope Hicks A Key Witness in The Tower Statement Was on Board Air Force One Over the Weekend; Trump Is Been Urged to Stop Tweeting About the Tower Meeting; Jewish LA Woman Helping Migrants Inspires New Anne Frank Play; 31- Year-Old Democrat Running for Long-Held GOP Seat in Ohio. Aired 3:30- 4p ET

Aired August 6, 2018 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: All announcing they're removing his content from their platforms. Here's how YouTube explained its decision. Quote, when users violate policies repeatedly like our policies against hate speech, harassment or our terms preventing circumvention of our enforcement measures, we terminate their accounts.

With me CNN Money's senior media reporter, Oliver Darcy. You were just saying to me you were surprised that they took this kind of action so swiftly?

OLIVER DARCY, CNN MONEY SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: Yes, this happened very quickly, over the past 24 hours. It seems to have been prompted by Apple. Apple last night removed the entire library of Alex Jones's podcasts from their store. Then we have seen throughout the day tech platforms basically remove Alex Jones from their websites after Apple removed that podcast. Then Facebook came out this morning, early in the morning and said they had unpublished Info Wars and other pages associated with Alex Jones. And YouTube which had previously issued some sort of suspension effectively where they couldn't live stream decided to remove their YouTube page all together. Now we are just seeing other tech platforms, small ones even dissociate with Alex Jones.

BALDWIN: Obviously, what he spews is hate and it's abhorrent. How many folks are on the other side saying freedom of speech?

DARCY: A lot of people are, particularly Jones's defenders are saying they are worried this might lead to other pages particularly conservative media pages being removed. I think it's important to note that Alex Jones had really flagrantly violated a lot of the community standards that YouTube, Facebook, that Apple have had in place for quite some time. If you look at it they say they removed them because they violated the standards but Alex Jones had been violating the standards for some time and they only took action after weeks of media pressure, after weeks of the media outlets saying you say this would violate your standards. Why is this still allowed to be posted?

Apple was first at the bat last night with the removal of his content. And now we are seeing it. BALDWIN: Apple and then the domino effect. Oliver Darcy thank you so

much.

Just in, we are now learning the so-called Manhattan Madam will testify before a grand jury this Friday in the Russia investigation. Kristin Davis is her name. She is a close adviser of roger stone. She met with Mueller's team last week in a voluntary interview. This is clearly a sign that investigators have an interest in roger stone and his actions during the campaign.

Coming up next, Rand Paul is in Moscow right now and has just invited Russian lawmakers to Washington. What is going on there? And the Russian government giving a formal diplomatic role to former action star Steven Segal. Details on what exactly he is expected to do.

[15:35:05] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Air Force One had an unexpected visitor over the weekend. And the appearance has a lot of people paying attention, playing the guessing game. On Saturday former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks was spotted boarding Air Force One as the president held a rally in Ohio. Hicks stepped down from her White House role in February, one day after she testified before the house intelligence committee and told those lawmakers that she had told white lies, remember, that was her comment, white lies on the job.

With me now, Evan McMullin, former CIA officer who ran as a third- party candidate against Trump in 2016. Good to see you.

EVAN MCMULLIN, FORMER CIA OFFICER, THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE AGAINST TRUMP IN 2016: Good to see you Brooke.

BALDWIN: I wanted to hone in on Hope Hicks. This is the very week -- the Trump tower meetings are back in the center of the news. Hope Hicks, who Trump dictated that false statement to, is suddenly on Air Force One. We don't know if Trump lied to Hope Hicks about the meeting or if Hope Hicks just lied to the American people. Either way, should she be in his orbit whatsoever?

MCMULLIN: Well it's certainly peculiar. The president has changed his story and his team has changed its story about that meeting time and time again. The more we learn, the more concerning that meeting is. And to have Hope Hicks turn up on Air Force One like this without a clear reason -- she's no longer a part of the administration. She has kept her distance it seems, at least publicly from the administration since. And to have her show up like this does raise concerns. And I would think that the special counsel would want to know if it can find out what kinds of conversations she had. Did she talk with the president during this flight or during the weekend? Did she talk about this meeting? Were any agreements made? It does raise questions.

BALDWIN: I want to talk to you about the truth in politics, I know people don't always shoot straight. But this break neck piece of news, and the walk backs and oh, I didn't have all the information at first, and the lies -- I mean, Evan at the end of the day what is this going to do to the American people?

MCMULLIN: Well, I think the first thing I would say is that truth is absolutely critical for holding our government accountable.

[15:40:00] We simply can't hold our leaders accountable to us. We can't -- we can't measure their performance. We can't know about their misdeeds and abuses of power without the truth. We have to know what the truth is. And we only have a few ways of really getting at the truth. We depend on our leaders in Congress for example, exercising their Article I power of the Constitution in order to conduct oversight over the executive branch in particular.

But we also depend on the media. The media is critical in that regard, too, asking tough questions, doing investigative work, and then relaying those details to the American public. We have to have that flow of information. And sometimes, by the way, it may not be correct. Sometimes we may have to check thing. And stories develop and facts are clarified. And that's fine. But we must have a flow of information that approaches in an ever-greater way truth all the time in order for us to -- in order for us to protect our liberty by holding our leaders accountable.

BALDWIN: Speaking of shining a light, I wanted to ask you about Republican Senator Rand Paul. He's in Moscow. And the news is that he has invited Russian lawmakers back to Washington. Keeping in mind, this comes after this comment on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Who do you trust, senator, the American intelligence community, the American law enforcement community, or Vladimir Putin?

SEN. RAND PAUL, (R), KENTUCKY: What I would say is that all power needs to have checks and balances. I think our intelligence community has way too much power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: What, Evan -- what is Rand Paul up to here?

MCMULLIN: You know it is hard to say. But I'll say this. Rand Paul has long been sort of an isolationist or non-interventionist as he would like to say, camp in the Republican party. And by the way, that part of the Republican party grew after our intervention in Iraq. Many Republican members of Congress feel burned by that action. They believe it was, in retrospect, a mistake. So, they sort of drifted into this -- I would call it isolationist camp.

Although I too believe that we shouldn't have intervened in Iraq the way we did. But the situation though with Russia is that Russia also wants us to withdraw from the world. And you see the Republican party now, sadly a portion of its base moving closer and closer to Russia. The rest certainly is leading them into that direction. Earlier on CNN as I was on my morning run I heard an interview with someone, a fellow American, a Trump supporter, talking about how Trump is delivering on his campaign promises, and if he received foreign help from the Russians, then so be it as long as he met his campaign promises.

So, you see that. That's obviously highly alarming. We can't have foreign powers having a say in our elections. Again, then we can't hold our leaders accountable to us. They become accountable to other people. But what I'm concerned about is this move within the Republican party that I think Rand Paul is now a part of drawing closer to a foreign adversary while it attacks us. There is simply no excuse for this.

BALDWIN: Well, speaking of that same foreign adversary, you now have -- we talked a lot about the Putin/Trump meeting and we still don't know. And high intel officials don't even know. Here's what we do know. The guy on the screen, Steven

Segal, who is by all accounts Vladimir Putin's BFF he is now the special envoy to the U.S., Evan, do you think we will see Steven Segal visiting the oval office?

MCMULLIN: I don't know. It would add to the bizarre world in which we now live. Sure. Why not? Why not that?

BALDWIN: Sure, why not?

MCMULLIN: Everything else is happening. It would certainly -- Yes, it certainly wouldn't surprise me at this point. But it would be bizarre.

BALDWIN: Well, when it happens we will play the clip back where you said you wouldn't be surprised. Evan McMullen thank you for weighing in.

Coming up next, a new production of the Diary of Anne Frank is featuring a cast of mostly Hispanic actors. We will talk with the director live about the message he's hoping to send.

[15:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You know the story of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager hidden away while Nazis hunt down Jews during World War II. A director is adding a twist to the production. Hispanic actors and actresses to play the parts as the debate of immigration is escalating in America. Stan Zimmerman is the director of this play with me from Los Angeles. Stan, welcome back.

STAN ZIMMERMAN, DIRECTOR: Thank you for having me back.

BALDWIN: You tell me why you want to tell this story this way?

[15:50:00] ZIMMERMAN: Well, actually, it started when I read a report of two of your CNN reporters about a Jewish woman in Los Angeles who got connected with a Latina mom and two daughters when her husband was suddenly deported and a priest in LA helped her and she created a safe house for the family because they were afraid of being deported by ICE and I immediately went to the play of Anne Frank and I got very excited to start the dialogue of what that would mean for them. BALDWIN: I want to come back on the second point. We have a clip of

that CNN report you did read. Here's the story of the Jewish woman in LA.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reporter: Off the grid since last year, say these two girls, both citizens born in the U.S., both in high school. ICE deported their father for illegally crossing the border. Their mother overstayed a tourist visa and is also undocumented. The girls feared their mother was next.

What's happened since then? When you had to pack up and leave.

UNIDENTIFIED DAUGHTER: We became homeless for five months. We moved schools. We went somewhere else. We had to leave the city. We were sleeping from house to house anywhere we could find.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then they heard about interfaith network of religious groups pledging to resist Trump's immigration policies hiding them in safe houses. Even in spare rooms of congregant's homes. The network estimates dozens are being hidden at any one time and connected the family to this Jewish woman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I grew up in a time when the holocaust was not so far behind me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She signed for the apartment, a cover for the family she's protecting.

Do you hear the echoes of history here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 100 percent. I think there's a strong feeling in the Jewish community we cannot let this happen. It is our responsibility. What was done to us cannot happen to other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, it's a hiding place of a different sort.

ZIMMERMAN: Yes. But I want to make it very clear that we are not changing the Nazis into ICE we are doing a word for word presentation of the 1997 Broadway production that Natalie Portman starred in. It really is just my director's choice to cast these Latin actors in the play.

BALDWIN: Because you're casting them, what is the message to send?

ZIMMERMAN: I'm hoping that the tragedy of Anne and the Holocaust can reach a whole new audience and use to educate. We are doing this out of hall of fame -- love and honor of her story. I would never demean her story and tonight because two of the actors that play Anne and Peter are 15 and 16 years old and came in to audition they said they didn't know the story of Anne Frank.

BALDWIN: Oh wow. ZIMMERMAN: I had to read it in school. It was part of our

curriculum.

BALDWIN: Of course.

ZIMMERMAN: Today it is not part of the curriculum which I think is a sad fact.

BALDWIN: It is a sad fact but you will be educating people at the theater. Before you tell people where to see it, I think you hit on it, 6 million Jews were killed during the holocaust. How do you responded to critics saying, Stan, this is not the same?

ZIMMERMAN: It's not the same. The only parallel I'm making is that there is a safe house in LA today for people and that there were safe houses in Amsterdam and other places. That's the only parallel. The rest is art and people interpret it the way they do. I hope they come with an open mind and expecting to come to see the production in LA looking for ICE members, you will be disappointed and also see a really heart-warming wonderful story to be told today.

BALDWIN: All right, Stan. Next month in wills los?

ZIMMERMAN: I'll see you there.

BALDWIN: Stan Zimmerman, thank you.

ZIMMERMAN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Coming up next, a growing and noticeable trend, members of President Trump's inner circle including family and top officials disagreeing with the president on a number of issues. Melania Trump praising Lebron James and Trump insults him. We'll dig in to what's behind this.

[15:55:00] [14:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Wanted to take a moment for a segment of "Mighty Millennials" highlighting younger people running for office around the country. So, let's go to Ohio, 31-year-old Democrat Danny O'Connor Is trying to win a congressional seat. It's a toss-up of him and his opponent Troy Balderson.

[16:00:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I voted for John Kasich the last three times and I voted for Trump because I didn't like the way things were going in Washington and now I'm supporting Danny O'Connor because I met Danny and I felt like he was very genuine, energetic, young, brings a new perspective.

BALDWIN:

BALDWIN: So, this race is the final special election before the November midterms. Getting a lot of national attention. President Trump traveled to Ohio over the weekend to endorse Balderson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must elect Troy Balderson. We have to elect Troy.

TROY BALDERSON, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE IN OHIO: I need your vote August 7th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Governor John Kasich who endorsed Balderson and said the candidate every asked Trump to come to Ohio. He said he was honored to have Trump there. Polls open there in Ohio tomorrow morning. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me here on this Monday. "THE LEAD" starts right now.