Return to Transcripts main page

AT THIS HOUR

Facebook Oversight Board Upholds Trump's Suspension; Trump & McCarthy Working Together to Oust Liz Cheney; Judge: Barr Misled On His Decision Not to Charge Trump; Biden Sets Goal of One Vaccine Shot to 70 Percent of Adults by July 4th. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired May 5, 2021 - 11:00   ET

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


[11:00:20]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us.

AT THIS HOUR, a major announcement from social media giant Facebook, an announcement that's likely to have far-reaching impacts in this country and around the world. The company's oversight board upholding Donald Trump's ban from the site. The board says Facebook was justified in kicking the former president off, but also saying it is now back on Facebook to decide if Trump should remain locked out.

Trump has been banned from Facebook since the day after the Capitol insurrection, banned over his posts as many saw and see as helping to insight the pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol.

This decision is very much about Donald Trump and it's no coincidence then that he launched a new communication platform online to help connect with his supporters just yesterday. But this decision could also have big ripple effects that reach across the globe.

It's also about Facebook's power to decide when and how to regulate speech online. It's about where social media platforms are willing to draw the line, between protecting free speech and public safety.

It also shines a bright light on how Facebook has never suffered any consequences themselves for allowing dangerous lies and disinformation to linger on its platform. Make no mistake, that's still a problem even with today's announcement.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan joining me now with all of these details.

Donie, can you walk us through what this announcement means?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kate.

Yeah, this is -- this is a nightmare for Facebook really. They set up this independent -- supposedly independent board to make the tough decisions that Facebook didn't want to make itself. But now, the board has punted it all back to Facebook.

So, now, the board is saying Trump should remain suspended from Facebook. The decision on January 7 to suspend him was the right decision, they say. But, and this is a very, very big but -- take a look at this statement from the board. They say it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension.

And the board insists that Facebook reviews this matter to determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that applied to other users of its platform. And it says Facebook, not the board, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has to make that decision within the next six months, so by November.

Just to take it all back, Kate, to January 6th, a reminder of what it was, what was the straw that really broke the camel's back here --

BOLDUAN: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: -- for getting Facebook -- Trump kicked off Facebook. This was the text -- this is what he said in a video that was posted on January 6th to his supporters.

He said: I know your pain, I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. We love you. You're very special.

Of course, obviously, that is all false. But that is what got Trump -- part of what got Trump kicked off the platform.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, and that's important to remember what he said. And that was just -- that was just some of it, right, Donie?

So, Donie, stick with me, if you could.

Joining us right now is Elizabeth Linder. She's a former executive at Facebook and chief diplomatic officer at Broach Associates.

And CNN's John Harwood also here.

Elizabeth, I'm curious. What your reaction is to this? How big of a deal is this decision?

ELIZABETH LINDER, FORMER FACEBOOK EXECUTIVE: Yeah, Kate, well, thank you so much.

This is, of course, a seminal moment in history, not only of Facebook but in the future of Internet governance. And I have to say that from a global, geopolitical perspective, the consequences, of course, are huge in America, but as you said, also around the world.

My reaction is this is a nuanced, thoughtful, refreshingly balanced read coming out of an Internet issue that I think we long have been waiting for to see coming from the Silicon Valley World, but in this case made from a global group of experts from around the globe.

BOLDUAN: John, does this mean something for President Biden and the current administration? Does this impact Donald Trump's hold on the Republican Party? JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I don't think so at the

moment, Kate. Look, Joe Biden has been well-served by the approach he's taken so far which is to keep his eye on the ball, on COVID, on economic recovery.

He's had very steadily throughout his presidency approval ratings in the low to mid 50s. Those are numbers Donald Trump didn't reach in a single day of his presidency.

As for Trump -- let's remember, Donald Trump had full access to social media in 2020. He lost the election. He has not had access to social media for the first several months of this year and he's kept his grip on the Republican Party.

I think social media makes it easier for Donald Trump to sit on his sofa with a phone and do things easily.

[11:05:02]

But there's a very large conservative media ecosystem that he has access to that pushes the same stories that he does, and the core of Donald Trump's appeal is not about the mechanism of Facebook or Twitter. It's about -- he is the person who embodies and speaks to the fear of a certain segment of the American population that demographic, social, cultural, economic changes in the country are leaving them behind.

And Donald Trump says, I'm going to try to turn back the clock, make America great again. It wasn't enough in 2020, but that's the core appeal that he has. He has that -- he embodies that sentiment whether or not he's on Facebook.

BOLDUAN: That's a great point.

And, Donie, it's not like Donald Trump being banned was a cure-all for disinformation on Facebook, a conversation we've been having for a really long time, right? I mean -- and the structure of this independent review board, if you will, what should we think of the use of this board? Funded by Facebook, and it's kind of like a test experiment in self-regulation.

I'm wondering if we should take this structure seriously.

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah. Look, I mean, there's two ways to look at the oversight board, one is the cynical look saying this is Facebook just trying to punt it over to a group of experts, claiming it's independent and Zuckerberg can wash his hands, even though this is a social media platform that he controls. But on the other hand, I think some people would say it's better to have a group of experts rather than Zuckerberg just himself making these decisions.

Zuckerberg and Facebook have been very clear with Congress and with the government. They want some guidance. They don't want to take full responsibility for everything that's going on on their platform. They want some legislation, obviously very, very tricky to do anything around speech and rightly so, particularly in this country with the First Amendment. But they want some guidance.

So, I think what -- by putting together this board, they are -- they have this experiment and they're trying to show I guess the world how something like this could work.

Just finally, Kate, to John's point, Trump obviously looms large over the Republican Party right now. We can see that sort of everything. But Facebook does make it much, much easier and very, very importantly -- and we saw how effectively the Trump machine used this in 2016 and 2020, for fund-raising, for taking in cash, for his PAC, to support pro-Trump candidates in 20 -- next year in the midterms, very, very important.

So, it is -- it's a significant decision particularly in terms of bringing money into campaigns.

BOLDUAN: Just real quick. I want to make sure I'm clear on this. Facebook has a decision to make in six months. Is there -- is there a chance that Facebook makes a decision like, okay, now Donald Trump can be back on? Is that what we're talking about here?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes. That's what the board has said. You guys have to come up with what is the decision here, is he allowed back, does he --

BOLDUAN: OK.

O'SULLIVAN: I mean, other thing that can complicate matters further, right now Trump is technically a private citizen. What happens if he decides to run again and he becomes a candidate? Will Facebook continue to block a candidate?

BOLDUAN: And this gets to, Elizabeth, something you're touching on and an area of your expertise. Like what message does this send to politicians here but other world leaders? Your job at Facebook was -- I'm going to simplify it dramatically -- was to connect world leaders to Facebook, facilitate their access on Facebook.

What is the real impact that you see here on that?

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah. Well, you know, what made Facebook always from the beginning so special was the fact that this was a democratizing platform. You could be anyone from anywhere and you could have a voice.

The biggest mistake that Facebook made in this whole space was to create the special category around newsworthiness, putting special protections around the powerful. That was never the point. That was never the promise of the Internet and these tech platforms.

So, I was most encouraged by the board really calling out the newsworthiness question to say, look, Facebook needs to take a step back and clarify what those protections look like and what the proportionality looks like when it comes to inciting violence and do a much better job of figuring out where they fit into that space.

It's also important to note of the 2.8 billion people that use Facebook, most of those individuals live outside the United States. And sitting here in London, I can certainly say people around the world are really watching this, because this is about their world leaders, too, and this is about issues that really matter to them.

BOLDUAN: Two-point-eight billion people. That's all you really need to know and why this is an important decision that happened today, how many people this can impact.

Guys, thank you very much. Much more to come here, but thanks. Appreciate it.

Coming up for us -- it's a leadership fight, yes, but it is actually a bigger battle between truth and lies.

[11:10:00]

New details on how Donald Trump is now getting involved in the Republican effort to push out Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

And a scathing rebuke of the Justice Department. A federal judge says former Attorney General Bill Barr misled the court and the public about his decision not to charge Donald Trump. Now that judge is ordering that secret memo be released.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Congresswoman Liz Cheney is not backing down, but it seems she is becoming resigned to the fact that she could soon be pushed out of House leadership.

Also this morning, CNN has learned that Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has been in touch with former President Donald Trump about the effort to oust her.

[11:15:00]

And Trump seems, probably not surprising at all, more than happy to get involved.

There are a lot of new developments in this really important fight in the Republican Party right now.

Joining me now on that is CNN's Lauren Fox on the Hill.

Lauren, you've got a lot of interesting elements just developing this morning. What are you learning about Trump getting involved here?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's not really surprising that the former president would be putting his thumb on the scale when it came to this leadership race in part because he and Cheney have been in disagreement in the past, Kate.

But one of the things that we're seeing this morning is that McCarthy and Trump have been in communication about this very issue. We also know that Trump put out a new statement this morning. I want to read you part of it. He says, quote: Warmonger Liz Cheney who has virtually no support left

in the great state of Wyoming continues to unknowingly and foolishly say that there was no election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, when, in fact, the evidence, including no legislative approvals as demanded by the U.S. Constitution shows the exact opposite.

Of course, that statement incorrect. We have no evidence that there was any widespread election fraud in the United States. And that is something that Cheney has repeatedly said. She's been very comfortable standing by her position that the 2020 election was not rigged, that Joe Biden won in a fair election, but that fact, the fact that she continues to talk about this, has put her on her back foot with the rest of the Republican conference.

And that's why you're seeing all the action taking place quite swiftly I might add, with Scalise saying this morning that he supported Elise Stefanik to replace Liz Cheney. All of this, of course, happening as Republican leaders are hoping to put this behind them quickly in an effort to their focus to the 2022 midterm election -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. And also in that Trump statement, no surprise he's trying to move the goalpost and move the standard. No election fraud? No. He was claiming widespread, vast election fraud. The election fraud that we've seen in the 2020 election as have been documented in cases has been among Republicans as we've seen.

So, you also have new reporting on Liz Cheney's thinking this morning. Tell me about that.

FOX: Well, exactly. I mean, she is known on Capitol Hill as someone who is a fighter. She is someone who believes in her statements. She feels very comfortable with where she's been.

But today, given how quickly this has moved, given the fact that Elise Stefanik is clearly becoming the heir apparent for that seat that she is likely to be ousted from as soon as next week, what we are hearing from two sources now this morning is that Cheney is telling her allies that she feels comfortable with where she's been, and she is not looking to try to fight against her Republican conference as they try to oust her.

Her view is if she has to lie about what happened in the 2020 election, what happened on January 6th, this is not a leadership post she hopes to remain in at this point.

And I think that is something that's very significant here.

Cheney again, someone who we know sticks to her guns when it comes to her positions. And she's arguing here that if she has to trade in honesty for this leadership post, that's not a negotiation she wants to be making -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. I mean, she should feel comfortable in her position. When you're on the right side of history, you can comfortably sit there for quite a long time. It's good to see you, Lauren. Thank you so much.

Turning now to this, a federal judge that delivered -- a federal judge just delivered a scathing rebuke of former Attorney General Bill Barr. Judge Amy Berman Jackson accusing Barr in a 35-page opinion of being, her quote, disingenuous about misleading the public and Congress when he described the findings of the Mueller report back in 2019, and decided not to charge President Trump.

Barr allegedly used a Justice Department memo to advise him on its conclusions. But Judge Jackson believes that the outcome was predetermined and this memo was more strategic planning rather than any legal reasoning. She wrote in part this, let me read this for you, the agency's redactions and incomplete explanations obfuscate the true purpose of the memorandum. She later says the fact that Trump would not be prosecuted was a given.

And now, Jackson has ruled that the memo must be made public despite the department's attempt to keep it a secret.

Joining me right now on this is CNN legal analyst, Carrie Cordero.

Carrie, I'm really been curious as to what you think of this. Tell me.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Kate, I think this memo being ordered released by the judge, it demonstrates the severe lack of confidence that she developed not only in Attorney General Barr, but in the Justice Department. And that's really the longer term consequence from Attorney General Barr's leadership of the department, is the language that you just read in her opinion and more of it that's throughout the opinion, demonstrates in this FOIA case, which is the context of this litigation, of freedom of information act litigation.

Normally, a judge would give the government a lot of deference regarding not releasing internal legal deliberations.

[11:20:07]

And in this case the judge is saying, no, I don't believe the Justice Department. I don't believe the arguments that the Justice Department made for me. And so, therefore, I'm going to order release of this memo.

BOLDUAN: And I think what you're hitting on is kind of the bigger import of all this. I mean, you've got a federal judge saying the last Justice Department and the former attorney general, they aren't credible and essentially lied. I mean, even in this crazy world that we often find ourselves living in, this seems like a really big deal, Carrie.

CORDERO: Yeah, I mean, look, as a former Justice Department lawyer, your credibility is basically the most important quality that a lawyer in the justice department has. And so, the fact that this was -- the judge's memo is not just directed at Attorney General Barr as an individual. What she was saying is he was disingenuous, but also the Department of Justice was disingenuous to her.

And that has consequences for every judge -- excuse me, every attorney, Justice Department attorney that walks into, not only her courtroom, but other courtrooms all around the country.

BOLDUAN: What can we all learn from this memo at this point?

CORDERO: Well, so, the memo itself will -- as the context of what she's saying now, it has to be released. What it's going to reveal is information that was provided to Attorney General Barr regarding what his strategy was, what his thinking was in making the decision not to prosecute former President Trump for obstruction.

Remember, all this came out of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation into whether the president obstructed the investigation into interference in the 2016 election. At the time, the attorney general had decided not to prosecute the president, and what the judge is saying is that the memo that went up to him really was a political document, a strategy document and he had already made up his mind. When the government made arguments to her, they were not accurate and they really -- she's accusing them basically of lying to her regarding how he used that memo to make his decision.

BOLDUAN: Carrie, thank you very much.

CORDERO: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, President Biden lays down a new goal. He wants 70 percent of American adults to have at least one shot of the vaccine by July 4th. What it would -- what -- what it would take to get that done and what it could mean for getting the country back to normal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:27:34]

BOLDUAN: At this hour, we are wondering what would it mean if 70 percent of the population had a shot in the arm. President Biden will be speaking later today about the administration's COVID rescue efforts, just as he has set that new vaccine goal, 70 percent of adults at least partially vaccinated by the Fourth of July, two months from now.

Biden saying the light at the end of the tunnel is actually growing brighter now, and this, this goals plays a big part in that.

Joining me now is Jennifer Nuzzo, epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

It's good to see you. Thank you for being here.

What do you think of this new goal set by the administration, 70 percent of adults with at least one shot by July Fourth?

JENNIFER NUZZO, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: I think it's great. It's great because I think it's important for us to underscore how important vaccines are in terms of returning to normal, to getting back to that life that we remember from 2019. I think tying that freedom and that normalcy to vaccination is really key, in part because we know that demand for vaccine is starting to fall, and there's going to be pockets of hesitancy throughout the country that are needing to understand what's in it for them.

And, clearly, you know, returning to a life where we're no longer fronting about this disease and we're able to do all the things we remember once doing is quite important. So, I was glad to see that.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, absolutely. Let me play for you how the CDC director spoke about this goal more specifically this morning. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDDC DIRECTOR: This is not 70 percent nationally. This is 70 percent in every single community. So if we have 70 percent nationally, but we have a community that only has 40 percent vaccination rate, this virus is an opportunist, it's going to go to that community has 40 percent. So, really, we need to blanket the entire country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What shape will the country be in if we hit that mark?

NUZZO: Yeah. I mean, first of all, we are already feeling the effects of vaccination. The cases are coming way down. They're coming down in all age groups, not just adults who have been vaccinated but even in kids. So, it's really important for us to continue to make progress. But we also know that progress has been uneven and there are some states that have been further ahead in terms of reaching their populations, but also encouraging them to get vaccinated.

So, I think it is important that we don't accept the fact that it's okay if some states are doing well and other states aren't. We need a national solution here. I do worry that achieving those goals will be harder in some parts of the country than others. We have seen demand falling faster in some states than in other states. So I think it does put emphasis back onto the states to come up with creative.