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Will Nancy Pelosi Be The Next House Speaker?; One-On-One With Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Actress Granted Restraining Order Against Michael Avenatti; Millions of Americans To Travel This Thanksgiving Weekend. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired November 21, 2018 - 07:30   ET

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


[07:30:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: -- as the next Speaker of the House?

REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: There just can't be an interview where that question doesn't get asked in there.

CAMEROTA: Well, it does seem to be the $64,000 question of the day, particularly since, as you know, 16 of your Democratic colleagues have signed this letter saying that they don't support her.

But the woman, Marcia Fudge, who was one of the -- I guess, who was the main person who was considered -- who might run against her said that she does support Nancy Pelosi.

So where are you?

HIMES: Yes. So, Alisyn, the reason I'm -- the reason I'm not answering the question right now is that I chair The New Democrat Coalition.

The New Democrat Coalition is running a process where we are -- we are interviewing -- talking to all of the members who are -- who are seeking leadership positions, asking them what their vision is, how they would imagine themselves as leaders of the party. Until we're done with that process I'm not going to make a personal commitment.

I will tell you this, Alisyn. Look, I'm aware of the fact that the math is tough on the floor. There's obviously somewhere between 16 and 20 -- maybe slightly more people who are saying they are not going to vote for Nancy Pelosi on the floor.

Here is the problem. They don't have an alternative. So look -- and I get the plan. The plan, of course, is to demonstrate on the floor that she doesn't have the votes to get to 218.

But unless you have somebody who is willing to step in, what do you do? Do you do that for weeks? Do you send a message of division and chaos within the Democratic Party? I don't think so.

So as I said yesterday -- look, they are running their play that they have a right to do, but unless they come up with an alternative, they'd better run that play. And then if it doesn't work, stop, allow us to unify. Allow us to move forward to do what we were elected to do, which is to stand up for and fight for the American people.

CAMEROTA: So it sounds like you're leaning towards yes, you would support her.

HIMES: Hey, you know -- again, if you had a choice you might -- you might think to yourself gosh, is it person A or person B? Today we have -- we have no choice.

I will say this, and again, I'm not going to go public until my coalition's process is done. But the whole thesis of the Republicans was that you can't win with Nancy Pelosi. That she's such a drag on people that you can't win.

Well, guess what? We won in Kansas, we won in Oklahoma, we won in South Carolina -- three locations where we never imagined we would win, where the Republicans spent millions of dollars saying ooh, Nancy Pelosi is scary.

So the underlying thesis that Nancy Pelosi is a huge political liability to Democrats turns out, simply, not to be true.

CAMEROTA: Congressman Jim Himes, Happy Thanksgiving, and come back whenever you want to share your decision with us.

HIMES: OK. Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I kind of think he just did.

CAMEROTA: I kind of do, too.

BERMAN: That wasn't really a non-answer. I'm used to non-answers. There was a lot of answer in that non-answer.

CAMEROTA: Well, you can spot a non-answer, yes.

BERMAN: All right, Facebook under fire. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Mark Zuckerberg faces tough questions -- watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN SENIOR TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Did you and other leaders try to minimize Russia's role in spreading propaganda on the platform?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: His answer, next.

CAMEROTA: Or non-answer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:36:49] BERMAN: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat down exclusively with CNN. He defended his company against claims it was not transparent enough about Russia's interference in the 2016 election and much, much more.

CNN's Laurie Segall joins us now with her exclusive interview.

And I want to point out, Laurie, I spoke to you last night when I was doing Anderson Cooper and when I spoke to you last night, which wasn't that long ago, you were in California.

CAMEROTA: Has Mark Zuckerberg cloned you?

SEGALL: That has not happened yet. I did take a red-eye. I am here and alive to speak.

Yes, look, it is such a critical time for Facebook. I think all eyes are on Facebook, especially if you have this "New York Times" report -- this bombshell "New York Times" report that comes out and says the company hired an opposition research P.R. firm to go after its critics, like George Soros.

It talked about they weren't transparent about Russian influence.

So, you know, a big deal. And I think a lot of folks are looking at Facebook and wondering did they do the right thing.

I spoke to Mark Zuckerberg. He defended the company. He said they did, in fact, do the right thing.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: I want to start with some of the revelations that came from "The New York Times" piece.

MARK ZUCKERBERG, CO-FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, FACEBOOK: Sure.

SEGALL: Let's look at Russia. Did you and other leaders try to minimize Russia's role in spreading propaganda on the platform?

ZUCKERBERG: No. Look, here's what happened.

In 2016, there is no doubt that we missed something really important, right? The Russian effort to try to have these coordinated information operations on Facebook and also the Internet, more broadly, was not something that we were expecting.

Elections are always a very high-security event and we were expecting certain kinds of cyberattacks and we found that, right? The Russians were trying to hack into specific accounts and we told the people and we told the FBI and all that. But we weren't on top of these coordinated information operations.

So we've spent a lot of the last couple of years now basically building up our systems and strengthening them to be able to address this. But we've been very focused on this have invested a lot in it. And anyone who wants to say that upon learning about this we haven't been very focused on trying to both address it and also that we have -- I think anyone who says that we haven't made a lot of progress, I just think that that's not right.

SEGALL: I think that folks talk about transparency, though. You know, this idea that the former chief security officer wanted to publish a transparency paper and every mention of Russia was taken out. It was encouraged not to put Russia in that transparency paper.

Do you regret not being more transparent at the time or not getting -- not being more vocal about it at the time?

ZUCKERBERG: You know, I wish that we understood the issues sooner, right? I wish we understood it before 2016 before the Russians tried to do these information operations in the first place.

I do think sometimes people say well, how did you not know this? And I think in some of these cases it's a really big deal to come out and say that a nation-state is behind something. And before our company puts a stamp on something saying that, I want to be really sure that that's the case.

SEGALL: Quite a few revelations in this piece. One referenced a decision to keep up the Trump post that many considered fell under the hate speech category. And part of the revelation said that one of the reasons your team decided to keep it up was because they're worried about a conservative backlash.

[07:40:04] I know Facebook is under a lot of pressure from the Democrats and Republicans -- the government in general.

Are leaders making content decisions based on appeasing political leaders?

ZUCKERBERG: No. Look, in a lot of these cases --

SEGALL: But did they in that situation?

ZUCKERBERG: No, they didn't, and I was involved in those conversations. And I think it's very important that people have the opportunity to hear from what political leaders are saying. So in those cases, I don't think that a lot of the content violated our policies.

We also have a specific point in our policies where newsworthy content, we give a special deference to, which certainly someone who is a prominent politician going out and making a point fits into that.

So, no, I think we did the right thing there.

SEGALL: But truly to say this idea that someone would say that well, if you take it down, it's poking the bear would be controversial, especially when you guys were trusting Facebook to make some of these difficult content decisions -- that is clearly politically motivated.

ZUCKERBERG: Yes. I read the report that you are referring to. It is not clear to me at all that the report is right. You know, a lot of the things that were in that report, we talked to the reporters ahead of time and told them that from everything that we had seen that wasn't true, and they chose to print them anyway. So -- I mean, all the stuff around elections and preventing interference, and all the content issues and finding the balance between giving people a voice and keeping people safe, these are really big things.

And I think a lot of the critique that folks have had about our company, I read and I think a lot of it is fair. And in a lot of it there are things that I think we need to do better and learn from. At the same time, I don't think all of it is fair and I think not everything is accurate.

So I think that that's just an important perspective to keep in mind on this.

SEGALL: So it wasn't accurate, though, that part of the reason they didn't take down that post was because there was concern over a conservative backlash?

ZUCKERBERG: No, that was certainly not any part of the conversation that I had.

SEGALL: I was on the reporter call where you repeatedly denied that you knew anything about hiring this opposition group P.R. firm. I've spoken to so many people within Facebook and former employees who say this is Mark's company.

Can you state if for the record? Did you know anything about this?

ZUCKERBERG: Well, I -- like I said on the call, I learned about this when I read the report as well, but I'm not so sure that's the most important point.

And I think your question is right that this is -- I do run the company. I am responsible for everything that happens here.

I don't think that this point was about a specific P.R. firm. It was about how we act, right? And that's why it's -- I think it's important not just what we're doing in relation to this one firm but that we go through and look at all of the different P.R. firms and folks who we work with and make sure that we're operating in the way that we want to.

SEGALL: You know, the P.R. firm was founded by a Republican political strategist and it launched a campaign linking Facebook critics to George Soros.

This is a common tactic used by anti-Semitic and alt-right groups. That's why I think people were so shocked when they found out about this. I think that was one of the parts of the report that a lot of folks had real questions about.

Does that strike you as stooping low?

ZUCKERBERG: Yes. I wasn't particularly happy about that piece of it and that's certainly a big part of what I -- when I read about this what made me want to look into this more deeply.

The intention here was never to attack an individual but, I mean, there are these lobbying groups and folks who are out there whose primary purpose is to -- is to attack the company, and I do think it's fine to push back on them.

SEGALL: I mean, but in this particular scenario launching -- you know, it's not common for tech companies to necessarily hire these types of firms and many would argue it's a way of spreading the same type of conspiracy theories that Facebook has worked so hard in the last couple of years to get on top of.

ZUCKERBERG: Yes. Look, from the review that I've done so far, it doesn't appear that anything that the -- that the group said was untrue as far as we can tell.

But again, this really isn't about one P.R. firm. This is about the standard that we want to hold all of the different folks who we work with. And we work with a lot of different P.R. firms and a lot of different contractors and vendors at the company and we need to make sure that they're -- that we're comfortable and that all the folks that we work with uphold our values.

SEGALL: I mean, do you approve of the way they went after George Soros? Do you approve of that methodology?

ZUCKERBERG: I don't think that this is the type of thing that our company should be engaging with.

SEGALL: What would be your message to George Soros?

ZUCKERBERG: Well, I know that George Soros has been the target of a lot of really horrendous attacks and I think that that is terrible. And I certainly wouldn't want anyone who is associated with our company to be a part of that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: You know, I think the next big question is is Mark Zuckerberg too powerful. With everything that's happened over the last couple of years there are a lot of questions of should he step down, should there be leadership changes? We'll have that coming up in the next hour.

[07:45:08] BERMAN: Excellent -- looking forward to that.

And one more plug here. Laurie has a new series, "THE HUMAN CODE," which just launched. She sits down with the most influential leaders in Silicon Valley who share their thoughts on where technology is headed and how it will change our lives.

CAMEROTA: Great job, Laurie. We'll see you next hour.

All right, a restraining order against high-profile and our frequent guest, Michael Avenatti. The allegations of verbal and physical abuse leveled by an aspiring actress, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: An aspiring actress has been granted a restraining order against Stormy Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti. She accuses him of violence, a claim that Avenatti vehemently denies.

MJ Lee joins us now with more. MJ, what have you learned?

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you know, last week, Michael Avenatti was arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of domestic violence but we didn't really know the full details of what had happened.

Well, now we know that the woman who was involved in the alleged altercation -- her name is Mareli Minuitti. She is an aspiring actress who says she dated Avenatti for about a year but they've been living together for the better part of this year.

And we are now learning that she was actually granted a restraining order against Michael Avenatti. Now, in her request for this restraining order she makes a number of allegations against Michael Avenatti. Let me just walk through a couple of them.

[07:50:02] She says that Michael Avenatti, in the course of their altercation last week, called her an ungrateful, f-ing b-word. That he got, quote, "very close to me in a threatening manner that made me afraid, forcefully hit her in the face with pillows, and dragged her on the apartment floor."

Now, she says that it was after this altercation when she went back the next day to retrieve some of her belongings from the apartment that Michael Avenatti was arrested.

Now, Avenatti obviously is very vehemently denying all of this. He says that he has never struck a woman.

And I just want to read a statement that we got from Avenatti's lawyers yesterday.

The statement says, "Ms. Minuitti and Mr. Avenatti had an argument while Mr. Avenatti's apartment -- in Mr. Avenatti's apartment, rather -- during which Ms. Minuitti behaved in a volatile, agitated and irrational manner. However, Mr. Avenatti did not inflict any corporal injury or cause any traumatic condition upon Ms. Miniutti."

Now, the lawyers also say that there are witnesses and surveillance videos from the building that would show that Avenatti is telling the truth.

Just a final twist to all of this, I did speak with Mareli Minuitti's husband yesterday because she is still married, and he says that she is a very calm, well-mannered, and respectful individual, and a classy woman -- and a man just never raise a hand against a woman.

Back to you guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, MJ, thank you very much for the update there.

BERMAN: And we'll keep reporting that story -- what the facts are. The interesting -- the statement was very carefully worded there and interesting.

All right. President Trump is slamming comedian Michelle Wolf for her performance while hosting the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

The president wrote, "So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian. Good first step in comeback of dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?"

Now, Michelle Wolf, she responded to this. This is what she wrote. "I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist. #BeBest"

That's quite a response from Michelle Wolf there, not pulling her punches.

CAMEROTA: No, she is unabashed.

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: I mean, Michelle Wolf is a brave comedian --

BERMAN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: -- obviously, since as we saw her performance last year going after journalists as well.

Well, this will be -- I think a historian will be interesting. I think that it's interesting to shake it up. I don't believe that the president will go but we shall see.

BERMAN: I think he will. I mean, I think he very well might. Why not go if you're not going to be lampooned or criticized in any way? He'll go.

He has an opportunity. He can either a) use it as a platform to make a speech about the journalists in the room and go after them, if he wants -- which he has in the past. Or he could use the opportunity to make a speech about the values of journalism, which would really be interesting to hear.

CAMEROTA: It would be, but there's no guarantee that the historian wouldn't be critical of what's happening right now with the president and the press.

BERMAN: Maybe. I mean, I don't know that Ron Chernow is going to go after Donald Trump, but -- nor necessarily should he. I'm just saying that I think it's a safe space for the president. I would not be surprised if he goes.

CAMEROTA: OK, you heard it here first. Meanwhile, millions of people are hitting the road today and the skies ahead of Thanksgiving. What you should know before you head out -- that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:57:15] BERMAN: The Thanksgiving travel rush is on. You're looking at live pictures. Those are cars trying to get into Los Angeles International Airport just before 5:00 a.m. AAA says today could be the busiest travel day in more than a decade.

CNN's Rene Marsh is live at Reagan National Airport. And those are people behind you, not cars, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT: That is right. Some 48 million people -- more than that -- are going to travel by car, but we're also talking about records here when we're talking about flying and going by air -- more than 30 million people.

Take a look live here at Reagan National Airport. We do expect that U.S. airports will be among the busiest for this holiday travel. And airlines, TSA -- they're all preparing. We know TSA has increased their staff.

And I'm actually joined with American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein. Tell me, briefly, how are you all preparing for this record-breaking travel?

ROSS FEINSTEIN, DIRECTOR OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS, AMERICAN AIRLINES: Our 130,000 team members are fully mobilized across our entire system. We're expecting about seven million of those more than 30 million passengers.

We also have increased domestic flying. We've reduced our international flying and more people are traveling within the United States.

MARSH: So the airlines say that they are prepared. Again, they're adding more flights.

TSA, they've been using canines here as well to expedite the screening process.

So the bottom is this, Alisyn and John. If you are traveling you should expect packed roads and airports. But as far as cancellations and delays, not an issue, so far, here.

Back to you guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, very good to know, Rene. Thank you.

OK, so CNN has learned that the president wanted the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals. We have all the details, now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are watching a president undermine the principles of our democracy.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I win, I am going to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.

JOHN DEAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL FOR PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: I think Richard Nixon would tell this president he's going too far.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president essentially put a price tag on a man's life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's one of the most amoral statements any president has ever uttered.

TRUMP: It's 'America First' to me. It's all about 'America First'.

ZUCKERBERG: Anyone who says that we haven't made a lot of progress, I just think that that's not right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They simply just can't run this like the Wild West. We have to put some rules in place.

SEGALL: A lot of folks are wondering is Mark Zuckerberg too powerful?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

BERMAN: Good morning and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, November 21st, 8:00 in the east.

I want you to listen to this statement. "Richard Nixon would tell the president he is going too far." That's what Nixon White House counsel John Dean told me overnight about the stunning revelation that President Trump wanted to order the Justice Department to go after his political rivals.

He also said, "This is the sort of stuff of a banana republic. This is what an autocrat does."